

The Death Of Dynamic Range - thamer
http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicdeath.htm

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bryanwoods
It always puts me a bit off when I see people trying to apply science to an
aesthetic issue like this one (this article is way less guilty than many
others on the subject).

There is no doubt that engineers are mastering pop music "louder" now than in
decades past, but it's too easy to jump to the usual conclusions of there
being some kind of Volume Arms Race, with each successive album attempting to
be louder than the others surrounding it.

There's a hard limit of 0dB that digital recordings can reach before digital
distortion, and it's not like professional audio engineers are trying to push
the envelope there, curious to see what happens.

The real reason pop music (and we're only talking about pop music) is mastered
so loud these days has much more to do with the general trendinesses of pop
music than some kind of unscientific and unjustified commercialism.

In other words...

In 2009 Kanye West is a popular musician. When asked why they like Kanye
West's music, people often say things like "it's got a good beat to it," or "I
like dancing to it." People think Kanye West's music has a good beat because
of the overall mid-scooped equalization of the track, and the effect of
compressed and "loud" mixes coming out of large speakers. It makes people want
to dance, and the dancing makes them happy.

But, when they get home from the club, exhausted and tired of being on their
feet all day, they put on a relaxing Sufjan Stevens (or whatever the kids are
listening to these days) album. The mastering is far lower in perceived
volume, and the same person who was dancing to Kanye West because it "had a
good beat" is now saying how much Sufjan Stevens lets him "mellow out."

Think of the difference between top-selling pop music today versus 20 years
ago. I think that alone does a better job justifying common engineering
practices than conspiracy theories of being the loudest song on the jukebox,
or on a radio segment or whatever. Especially considering that there's a
volume ceiling that is already being reached.

~~~
antiform
No way. It's not just a matter of people liking to listen to both Kanye West
and Sufjan Stevens. I do like people listening to different types of music,
but I don't think this is something that you can just attribute to
"trendinesses" of pop music.

Reducing dynamic range is a problem. Try and listen one of the albums
notorious for overcompression, like Red Hot Chili Pepper's Californication.
You get "tired" listening to the music at such a high level of compression and
volume, and the dynamics prevent the songs from having the impact that they
could have. For example, on that album, the track "Parallel Universe" has
essentially no change in volume between the verse and chorus and so the whole
song sounds hollow and empty through a good pair of headphones or speakers,
yet it sounds great live (even on tape). The songs sound fine if listened
through cheap iPod earbuds or the radio, but if the album sounds exactly the
same on the radio and in a home CD player, I think there's something wrong
there.

The problem is that if it takes overcompression and loudness to get people to
notice your music, music will continue to become louder and more compressed.
If only those songs get peoples' attention and get radio play, pretty soon
every song you hear will essentially have the same volume. That's not only
terribly limiting to the artist, but a disservice to the fans who listen to
the music.

Now, most music producers are aware of this and take pains to make a good mix,
but raising awareness about this certainly would help stop this process in
much of commercial music, especially as recorded music gets more popular.

~~~
swivelmaster
I agree, and the newer Red Hot Chili Peppers albums are a perfect example of
this.

Ever look analyze a Muse CD? The audio looks like a solid block zoomed out.
Not that Muse isn't awesome.

The article seems to simplify the clipping issue a bit much, and it looks like
some users here are confusing compression with maximization.

Compression is the relatively simple process of reducing dynamic range above a
certain threshold by a certain ratio. If the ratio is 2:1 and the threshold is
-10db, then 0 db would end up at -5, -8 would end up at -9, etc. Then you'd
just make up the loss in volume by boosting it an equivalent amount. There's
also the attack and release, where attack allows the volume to rise above the
threshold for a given amount of time (measured in milliseconds) before it is
compressed, and release will raise the volume up over a period of time after
the source has returned below the threshold.

What's going on here, it's important to note, isn't quite compression. It's a
much more complicated process involving potentially lots of different plugins
and rack-mounted magic boxes that all sell for thousands of dollars. They
focus specifically on the qualities of sound that make us perceive loudness,
not just simple dynamic range.

(Though, to be fair, one of the most interesting mastering tools is the
multiband compressor, which splits the audio based on frequency, compresses
each band separately, then mixes them back together.)

Anyway, the focus of a 'loudness maximizer', as opposed to a compressor, is
pure... loudness. That's where the clipping comes from, and that's actually
how you get clipping without the sound actually sounding distorted and
clipped. It's pushing the edge of distortion a little bit, and you can kind of
hear that on poorly mastered loud recordings.

It's a lot harder to get the same effect with a compressor and a hard limiter
(which prevents the audio from going above a certain level no matter what -
basically a compressor with an infinite ratio).

edit: By the way, because of imperfections in the original compression
hardware (and modern software simulations of said imperfections), the
compression process isn't actually as straightforward as I said. In theory,
that's how it works, but compressors are generally known to 'color' the sound
a bit while they compress. In other words, the compressor that the Beatles ran
vocals through is not capable of also giving you that pulsing, compressed
sound you get from One More Time by Daft Punk. For example.

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Edinburger
I think the increasing importance of the car as a place where we listen to
music may be a contributing factor. I have some old, well-mastered CD's which
I love to listen to at home but they're hard to listen to in my car. The quiet
sections are too quiet to hear above the engine/road noise and if I turn the
volume up, the loud sections are too loud.

I'd much rather have a well-mastered CD and a 'Loud' button (as many car
stereos have nowadays) to reduce the dynamic range for in-car listening.
However, the record companies know not everyone has a 'Loud' button or knows
how to use it so perhaps this is just one more reason they're killing dynamic
range in their products.

~~~
marksutherland
Hmm. A more cynical explanation is that they all want to have the loudest CDs
in the jukebox. In noisy public environments (pubs, parties, etc.) the volume
of whatevers playing music is likely to be set according to the loudest tracks
that are played. As a result anything quiet become hard to hear over the
background noise of folk chatting. So you end up with a sort of prisoners
dilemma scenario where it seems like you have no option but to master your CDs
loud.

Similarly, adverts on TV are usually much louder than the shows they're
interrupting to try and grab your attention and they all compete with each
other for that attention. Very annoying.

~~~
Edinburger
Absolutely, I agree with all of your points. I'm suggesting the car as one
more factor, not the only factor :-)

~~~
marksutherland
Ah. Fair enough :)

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marksutherland
Just so happens I was digging up another old article on this subject yesterday
by a guy called Rip Rowan. In his article he looks exclusively at how Rush's
albums have been mastered:

[http://www.prorec.com/Articles/tabid/109/EntryId/247/Over-
th...](http://www.prorec.com/Articles/tabid/109/EntryId/247/Over-the-
Limit.aspx)

I suspect this is the same process that resulted in making Death Magnetic
almost unlistenable with good headphones.

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ssharp
I make hip-hop beats as a hobby. I've had industry people listen to the same
track, one with a wide range, and the other "hot" and its always the "hot"
track that grabs the attention. Loud is definitely the desired outcome in the
music industry. I found the chart on this link very interesting.

Another possibility is that a lot of production and composition has shifted to
virtual instruments and computer mixing, often times done by folks who didn't
have the engineering training that producers had 10-20 years ago. The computer
has allowed a lot more people to create music. Mixing a song with a wide range
that sounds professional or even "commercial" takes a lot of time and skill.
Making a mix hot takes some level of care but not nearly as much as the other
side. If you're trying to make it as a producer, are you going to spend your
time mixing amazing tracks or making more tracks?

~~~
antiform
I think there's a difference between hip-hop music and rock music, though.
It's less important for hip-hop to have the dynamic range because the majority
of its emotional expressiveness comes from the words, rhythm, the way they
interact and the changes thereof. This is why having a great beats is so
important and so good producers attract a lot of attention (e.g. Neptunes,
Dre). Volume is not as important a factor. You really only need two levels of
dynamics: one for the verses, one for the chorus/hook.

On the other hand, I think changes in volume are more important for
expressiveness in rock music, for instance, in an unexpected bridge just when
you feel the song is about to end. Now, most bands these days seem to
compensate by having simpler dynamics, but I think it would be nice for them
to have more options.

Also, wouldn't it be easier to have a good mix now that we can do most of
these things on the computer instead of having to manually twiddle knobs and
overdub live?

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Cunard2
Thanks so much for posting this. This is what I come here for.

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rivo
I find it interesting that the author refers to record companies. It's almost
always the producers who make these kind of decisions. Most producers go with
the current trend in terms of sound. If a producer wants to give me an 80s
sound à la Bryan Adams, I'll go somewhere else. So it's the musicians as well.
Everyone wants to sound "modern". Currently, this means loudness (and
clipping, apparently).

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dunk010
Really old, but it's a good one.

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DanielBMarkham
Great article! Expect more "loudness wars" both in music, film, and other
technology. My favorite example of this is all of the program icons that
appear in your system tray, each with its own popup. It's just a visual
example of the audio problem.

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artificer
Yes, this latest trend is pure craziness. Here is a relevant wikipedia
article:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war>

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doki_pen
I would guess that clipping is being used to "even" out the volume, similar to
compression. Maybe the pop crowd perfers the clipping sound.

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ahoyhere
There is always stuff like this going on in the music industry.

Think of the old days when radio stations would play records at a higher speed
to be able to play more songs per hour.

It's not the "death" of anything. It's a cycle.

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chiffonade
If you really care that much about dynamic range in music, learn to play a few
instruments yourself. Quit whining about shrink wrapped commercial products,
because they're never going to be up to the standards of a connoisseur.

