Is Music Getting Louder?

[Frozen IceCube]

Hey, new to the forums, so I'm not entirely sure if it has been noted yet or not. I noticed a few comments (a few years old though, don't know if it still applies) that suggest that compression isn't used enough.

There was an article published recently on compression put on music in general. It seems to be an arguement against the use of compression (at some points suggesting that it makes people sick)

I'm kind of curious to see what a creative community such as this would have to say on the issue. I know it's more geared towards general pop music, but I figured compression is also relevent in ReMixing just the same.

If this was already covered, please link me to the other thread. Thanks.

[OverCoat]

Compyfox can type a novel for you to read about this.

SHORT VERSION: the mainstream objective for audio production is now for listeners to not need to control the volume at all, and via compression/limiting, make the song as loud as possible and as dynamically "even" as possible, for uhh... some ridiculous reason. The inherent problem in using so much compression and limiting is that the dynamics are GONE. There is no room for frequencies, and it is basically a "wall of sound." You'll notice that if you look at two waveforms, one with no processing and one with maxed out compression, the unprocessed one will have lots of curves and the louder instruments, like drums, will be easily spotted. The compressed version will look like ProTools shit out a brick. The average listener doesn't mind that, though. They like their music loud and dynamics-free. I try to use compression as little as possible, because I fucking hate average listeners [YEAH I SAID IT!!!]. I'll put a compressor on the master track sometimes just so it won't clip, but it won't be anything ridiculous.

I wrote too much about it too but it really is a big issue in the audio production industry. Dynamics vs. Loudness WHO WILL WEEEEN

[jmr]

You'll notice that if you look at two waveforms, one with no processing and one with maxed out compression, the unprocessed one will have lots of curves and the louder instruments, like drums, will be easily spotted. The compressed version will look like ProTools shit out a brick.

Just to aid in your understanding, here are two images from wikipedia:

ABBA's "One Of Us": uncompressed (1981 release) vs compressed (2005 re-master).

What really bothers me is the fact that this compression other dynamics-limiting mastering techniques are being applied to old recordings when they are "re-mastered". I'd rather see them mastered at the levels they were originally released, not compressed to a "brick", like in the above example.

Thankfully, though, most of the higher-definition formats (SACD, DVDA), are leaving the compression at a more tolerable level (at least in my experience). As well, some artists are choosing to release their albums on vinyl as well as CD, and since the same mastering techniques won't work to the same extent on vinyl due to physical restrictions, the vinyl version sounds better (again, that's only in my experience).

[Frozen IceCube]

Ah, I've been wondering about this for some time. When I actually produce a track myself, if an instrument is too loud (clipping), then I just turn that particular instrument down and play with the other dials so that the rest of them are at appropriate levels so that the music sounds much more normalized. Sometimes, when there are several filters applied, I'll use the mixing track volume control to do that operation.

Thanks for the visuals jmr, didn't know that in particular was posted on Wikipedia.

[Fishy]

Hrm... Good mixing/seperation shouldn't be replacable by over compression. Reading about this has made me realise why I find popular music so dull and unexciting (as well as a lot of dnb). I'd rather have punch and snap with minimal compression then a wall of sound, I need to rethink how I approach a mixdown.

EDIT: http://www.cutestudio.net/doku.php?id=hi-fi:cd:shame

The 5th worst is a re-mastered album, lol.

[analoq]

yo:

the worst is when amateurs (ReMixers) try to make their music as loud as the professionals do. unbearable ear fatigue ensues.

just remember, folks: volume knobs can turn in more than one direction.

[Mia]

Pisses me off how music CDs these days are uber compressed, and movie DVDs are the opposite- EXTREME dynamics. They make you turn up your volume so you can understand the actors' quiet whispers, then blast your ears out with gunshots and explosions.

One of these days I intend to get a hardware compressor to route my DVD audio through, so I can actually watch movies late at night when I don't want to wake people up.

[Malcos]

Yeah I find it very strange that DVD's have such extreme dynamics compared to cds. You don't see movie studios getting into this type of compression loudness war. Hopefully things will be changing soon. It's all about consumer power.

[Frozen IceCube]

yo:

the worst is when amateurs (ReMixers) try to make their music as loud as the professionals do. unbearable ear fatigue ensues.

just remember, folks: volume knobs can turn in more than one direction.

Cool, I wasn't aware of that clip until today. Also, thanks for the link fishy. Definitely found this thread very informative.

I know that there is the occasion I find a track I finally finished mixing down clipping all of once or twice. I always have a dillema on my hands when that happens, do I rebalance all the volume levels just to remove one or two clips or leave it as-is? I'm just happy FL Studio will actually tell me when I've clipped in a nice obvious way at least.

But yeah, I have to agree on the whole movie thing. I hate that too. I wonder if the director shouts out every so often, "Cut! You're talking too loudly! Talk quieter!"

In my opinion, the whispering harms the realism of the movie to begin with. While I have no bone to pick with some fantasy, maybe even something that breaks the laws of physics, but when it comes to two people whispering in a diner-type setting about something hardly important... who does that? Honestly!

[big giant circles]

ya rly.

10char

[Geoffrey Taucer]

ya rly.

10char

Asshole.

I was wearing headphones.

[zircon]

I know that there is the occasion I find a track I finally finished mixing down clipping all of once or twice. I always have a dillema on my hands when that happens, do I rebalance all the volume levels just to remove one or two clips or leave it as-is? I'm just happy FL Studio will actually tell me when I've clipped in a nice obvious way at least.

The best thing to do is put a volume meter plugin on your master track to see what your loudest points are. Reduce your overall levels until you don't visually see any problems. But since your eyes aren't perfect, slap a limiter at the end to make sure you have no problems. With a properly configured limiter, you won't clip... period.

[Frozen IceCube]

Ahh, I havn't tried fiddling around with that yet myself. I'll have to try using that. Thanks for the tip!

[Mia]

When you just said "overall levels," it sorta jerked my brain into being reminded of a question/misunderstanding I've had about FL Studio for a while but hadn't bothered testing. So now I realize something awesome I didn't before fully realize, after doing a quick test. And I bet most know, but this might be helpful to Frozen IceCube.

I used to think that, for instance, if I had say (just making up a random example) a kick on fx 8 peaking at let's say -4db, another simultaneous sound on like fx 9 peaking around -2db, etc. etc. that if these individual fx slot's (or channel's) added together in the master track to total up to clipping, that I would have to turn down the levels on each individual fx track and/or channel.

But I just did a quick test by making a drumkick on fx 4 way too loud to the point of audibly differentiable distortion, and backing off the master level volume... What I essentially found out was what this excerpt from the FL Studio help documentation says:

--

Traditionally, when peak meters flash red it usually means the track is clipping. However, since FL Studio uses ’32-bit floating point’ numbers to represent volume internally, almost any amplitude may be carried by the mixer without clipping occuring. In other words, the volume carried in tracks 1 to 64 (3) can be added together to make any arbitrarily large sum - there is nothing to 'clip' because there is no upper limit. However, when the mix is sent to the outputs of your soundcard, or is represented in a fixed bit-depth (e.g. 16), then clipping can become an issue. Since the Master mixer track (1) is the output to the 'physical world', this peak meter is the only one to worry about, the rest are merely guides to the relative volume in each track. Of course, if you have routed the output of a particular track (7) direct to your soundcard, then it too becomes a 'real world' meter and red peaks also indicate clipping.

--

[Vurez]

I think another issue is that there are a lot of people playing music on poor speakers/sound systems that have low wattage. A few people have told me some of my older mixes were too quiet even when they cranked the volume to the max. Perhaps due to the loudness war, many manufactures feel they don't need to allow one to raise the volume much? My car stereo has another issue which is somewhat similar. It sounds fine when playing loud-mixed tracks, but if you play back quieter tracks and crank up the volume, you get some hissing which can be pretty annoying.

[Malcos]

I think another issue is that there are a lot of people playing music on poor speakers/sound systems that have low wattage.

I've never thought about it that way, but yeah I suppose that is what makes some music sell well, because it will even sound powerful on shitty speakers!

It makes me laugh when someone has a weak system, cranks up the volume to stupidity and then says to me ''Oh wow, the bass!'' Er no, it's just distortion. Can you not hear the speaker flapping about like a noisy fart?!

[B33J]

Looky what i found..

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/33549

They're on to us..

>.>

<.<