
They Don’t Make Music Like They Used To - djmobley
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/opinion/what-these-grammy-songs-tell-us-about-the-loudness-wars.html
======
puranjay
I'm an amateur musician. One of the more common pieces of advice you'll see
floating around in the community is to make your music "louder", especially if
you're creating electronic music of any form.

Two reasons for this:

1\. More and more people are listening to music through equipment that is
significantly inferior. Mobile phones, cheap Bluetooth speakers, cheap
earphones - they're all subpar in their ability to render sound faithfully.

2\. There is a constant "war for loudness". Once you've listened to a David
Guetta song that can be ferociously loud, anything not as loud will be
perceived as "soft" that "kills the vibe".

~~~
dagw
_More and more people are listening to music through equipment that is
significantly inferior._

I cannot imagine that this is true. Even listening to Spotify on a cheap phone
using the headphones that came with the phone offers far better sound quality
than listening to the nth generation tape copies on the cheap tape players or
the bad reception of the tinny radios that we used to have.

~~~
puranjay
You're forgetting that the vast majority of consumers use cheap Android phones
and the earphones packaged with them.

This gear usually has very poor mid-range response. Hence, producers crowd
tracks in the bottom-end (bass) and treble ranges. Try listening to a track
with a cheap $15 earphones and then with a set of studio headphones like
ATH-M50x and you'll hear what I mean.

~~~
doctorpangloss
Ha! If even the packaged earphones.

Forget Spotify. People are listening to music on throttled YouTube.

Compression wasn't the antagonist of music. Not even the consumer's general
cheapness is the antagonist. The website that pirated it all, and then got
bought by a parent company larger than the market value of the entire music
industry combined, is the antagonist of music.

~~~
puranjay
It makes my life miserable. I love writing music but mixing is just a boring,
unsexy grind. And it's a skill that takes way too much time to develop - you
can't "hack it".

I've produced tracks that sound incredible to me on my 6" Yamaha monitors.
Then I send them over to friends who listen to them on their tinny laptop
speakers and wonder what the big deal is.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Your 6" Yamahas are not a neutral reference.

Studios deliberately use bad speakers (NS10s, Auratones) to check for this.

In the business it's called "translation" \- a good mix sounds good on
everything from earbuds to a car stereo to $$$$$$ hifi.

It's almost impossible to make a mix that translates without spending a lot of
money on neutral monitors and acoustic treatment.

But there are tricks you can use to make a mix translate better. E.g. You can
_cut_ the lowest octave or two in the bass, because no one (outside of a club)
can hear it anyway, and use bass sounds with plenty of mids, so you can hear
the line even when the low bass isn't there.

~~~
justtopost
Every mixer I ever met did 2 things. 1. Played the mix on a cheap cellphone
(this used to be a boombox or 80s wire loop headphones), and a bad car stereo
or 2. Listened on Car stereos, as they have whack eqs and soundstage, and will
bring out any hint of ugly. Tiny speakers will distort readily, and pop music
must sitll sound decent when abused, because omg ppl abuse it. For a club
track, you optimise differently, but err on the side of sounding good on
crappy radio speakers always otherwise.

------
cmurphycode
I think that an underrated factor in the dynamic range compression is the way
we listen to music. I'm not sure if it's accurate to say that the average
quality of listening devices (that is, speakers/headphones) has decreased, but
certainly it has become more common to hear music through bad earbuds, tinny
smartphone speakers, or laptops simply because those devices are so prevalent.

In these settings, music with lots of dynamic range may legitimately not sound
as good. Due to the quality of reproduction, the low-loudness parts are hard
to perceive.

For me, there are certainly songs that I enjoy listening to on good headphones
in a quiet room that don't have anywhere near the impact when played on laptop
speakers.

~~~
dsr_
Meanwhile, it's possible for someone to spend less money than ever before to
get really good sound.

Sell the Beats earmuffs and pick up Superlux HD668B headphones for under $50.

Drop the Apple earbuds in the garbage and get TRN V80 in-ear-monitors for
under $50. Add a pack of random eartips to figure out which ones are most
comfortable for you.

Your MBP's built-in speakers have no bass below 160Hz or so, and bluetooth
party speakers have all the sonic charm of a box of Kleenex. Spend $300 on a
pair of JBL 305P powered speakers and plug anything into them -- they're a
distinct upgrade from basically everything costing less and an awful lot of
speakers costing twice as much.

Buy your music on CDs and spend the ten minutes per disc copying them. Do you
know you can fit 1300 full CDs in a one terabyte disk without any compression
at all? Or buy FLAC or any other non-lossy compression version. Buy directly
from artists whenever possible: give them the best margins.

Use wires. Use headphone jacks. Use cheap ground loop isolators when you get
hum from power lines -- they used to be really expensive, now they cost $10.

We live in a time of high-quality low-cost devices that play music much better
than anything your parents could have bought without spending a month's
grocery money.

~~~
cowpig
Is there somewhere reliable I can go to do this kind of research before I buy
speakers and/or headphones in the future?

~~~
isolli
Try Reddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/BudgetAudiophile/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BudgetAudiophile/)

------
theshrike79
For the unbelievers, listen to Metallica's Death Magnetic first from the
official version. After that, try the Guitar Hero version and it'll quite
literally blow your mind.

A video comparing both:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nfqpr3ygSg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nfqpr3ygSg)

I tend to get physically and mentally exhausted when I have to listen to music
that's maximised for loudness, took me a while to figure that out. A
comparison between these two versions was the eye opener for me.

~~~
adrianN
I can't hear a difference in that video. Maybe Youtube broke it?

~~~
MindTwister
You wont notice any difference until about a minute in where all the
instruments come into play.

~~~
darkpuma
I put on my headphones to be sure. The audio quality seems uniform throughout
to me. Which isn't to say it sounds good (it doesn't.)

~~~
emsy
The drums especially are distorted. Bass is non-existent.

~~~
magduf
Why do they even bother hiring a bassist if they don't anyone to hear him?
They even paid the guy $1M to join the band!

------
aiyodev
This is interesting. I know that audio compression is also used by talk radio
hosts. I know that Rush Limbaugh designed a special compression system that he
uses on his show. He mentions it in this quote:

> The incorrect way to use a microphone is to put it right in front of you
> like this (leaning in close) and speak into it because you pop your P’s real
> bad, and that could be dangerous on certain words. We broadcast
> professionals turn it aside and speak across it so that our P’s do not pop.
> We don’t have to worry about anything like that, and with the compression
> that is built into our system here, I can move this microphone even further
> — well, you’re probably hearing me not quite as loud, but the presence is
> still there. As I move it in closer, it gets a little bit more present, but
> not really louder. Now, sometimes I do what we professional broadcasters
> refer to as eat the microphone. That is when I really want to make a point.
> I am eating this microphone. My lips are touching this microphone right now.
> There are any number of highly trained specialist techniques that we who are
> professionals in this business use.

Audio compression is why talk radio sounds like garbage even when streamed
compared to something with a wider dynamic range like NPR. It helps give talk
radio hosts that loud, booming voice which helps them sound convincing to
their audiences.

~~~
grawprog
>The incorrect way to use a microphone is to put it right in front of you like
this (leaning in close) and speak into it because you pop your P’s real bad,
and that could be dangerous on certain words.

Wouldn't a pop filter stop this?

That's what most vocalists use. They're like $20. I've got one for use with my
compressor mic. It works great.

Also, i've been listening to a lot of tunes mastered for vinyl lately that
doesn't use high compression(modern music). The same tracks on youtube sound
noticeably worse not because of the file format but because of the automatic
compression and gain youtube adds.

You have to take this into account when you upload a music track there.

~~~
shermanyo
I found this site for comparing my mixes to the requirements of different
streaming sites before uploading:
[https://www.loudnesspenalty.com/](https://www.loudnesspenalty.com/)

------
ukyrgf
The home recording revolution is something that just never gets its due,
because people want to find a problem with it. Auto-tune is a style now.
Smushed dynamics is an intentional choice. You can make a Superbowl halftime
show song with a shoestring budget.

------
verisimilitude
I read about the loudness wars, got super upset about the injustice of lost
dynamic range, posted something about it on my dorm room door... 15 years ago.
NOTHING has changed.

The article notes that Spotify, but originally it was terrestrial radio, that
hyper compresses their music -- it makes listening in the car far less
annoying. But to see the dynamic range destroyed on the album itself, that is
tough.

This quote from the article "It is a super-discouraging situation." summarizes
it quite well.

~~~
skybrian
It's a problem when it's baked into the recording.

In Spotify or in audio equipment, compression often makes sense. It's user-
adjustable, and there are times where compression is useful, such as listening
to music in a car, where the quiet moments would get washed out by road noise.

~~~
baddox
And how about movies. I am as much a fan as anyone of having the highest
quality home theater experience possible, but some movies (generally the ones
with the highest quality audio mixes) are impossible to listen to in my
apartment (while being a decent neighbor) without using dynamic range
compression.

~~~
tremon
But as the parent says, these can be applied after-the-fact (in most modern
movie players it's called "night mode"). This doesn't mean the original
recording has to be shipped with deteriorated sound.

In a way, loudness compression is like a hash function: the operation itself
is largely mechanical, but destroys information in the process. Shipping with
good-quality audio should be the default, and let compression be applied _on
playback_. In fact, most home theatre systems already do sound post-processing
in the form of room correction anyway (Audyssey, Dirac), so why not the let
player do the compression?

~~~
baddox
I don’t disagree, although I wish movies would ship with a professional audio
mix with lower dynamic range, since that would be a lot better than the often
noticeable compression built into receivers and playback devices.

------
trophycase
You can't really compare volume dynamics across different genres in any
meaningful way. There's still plenty of great music out there, don't worry.

------
WalterBright
When I buy a CD of older music, I avoid the "remastered" ones and look for the
original CDs among the used ones for sale.

I suppose it helps that my stereo and speakers are circa 1980 :-)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
But everything sounds better with no dynamic range and the volume turned up to
11.

I also seek the original masters to avoid this, and often prefer the vinyl
release as they seem to have mostly escaped this game. The technical limits of
vinyl are a big help here.

~~~
WalterBright
As a counterpoint, I've never liked classical music on vinyl. There just isn't
enough dynamic range there. CDs greatly improved the matter.

Disco music on vinyl also had problems, as the base beat was too much for the
groove. Hence my preference for the 45 rpm 12" disco singles, where the wider
spaces between the grooves and the faster speed made for much more dynamic
range.

The K-TEL compilations would reduce the dynamic range so the LP would play
much longer, as the grooves were smaller and closer together. That wasn't
really what one wanted if one really wanted to get into the music. But I liked
the K-TEL compilations if one regarded them as a "sampler".

Other problems with vinyl are the crosstalk between successive grooves,
bubbles in the plastic due to poor quality control, and the usual rumble, wow,
flutter, hiss, snap, crackle and pop. Though one could enjoy that like one
enjoys the primitiveness of an older car :-)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
80s and 90s Decca, DG etc CDs greatly improved things. Current classical,
outside the smallest labels, often seems to be blessed with the same
compression game. It's disappointing, but at least it's easy to work around.
Understanding why they do is more of a challenge.

Cheap pressings and compilations are always going to be an issue. Just like
those old compilation tapes you used to get in motorway services that would
stretch on first play. I suspect KTel would find a way to make CDs self-
destruct after 5 plays.

Most of those other problems went away with a decent deck. Mainly leaves the
scratches to "enjoy". :p

------
rjf72
The article was a play on words (in that it's quite literal) but interestingly
enough there was a very recent study [1] indicating that millennials are more
capable of recognizing songs from the 1960s-1990s, music created in many cases
before they were born, than of recognizing contemporary hits.

Makes one wonder about the notion of nostalgia. Especially in today's world
where marketing is playing an ever larger role in society, there's no real
reason to assume that the directionality of things is always going to be
positive.

[1] - [https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-02/nyu-
wag02041...](https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-02/nyu-
wag020419.php)

~~~
magduf
I definitely think the idea of nostalgia with music is complete BS. I've met
way too many younger people who prefer music from well before they were born
(60s-90s); the music after the 90s really is different from what came before,
due to various factors that affected the popular music industry in America
(and the west) starting with the rise of the internet. The "loudness wars" are
one obvious thing setting newer music apart from older music.

------
jumelles
This has been going on for two decades now. Teenagers have grown up used to
the sound and aesthetic of compression. Whether you like it or not compression
is here to stay.

------
golergka
The "loudness war" articles pop up on HN every three months or so, and they
haven't changed for the last 10 years, always with Death Magnetic references.
However, what have been changing is actual mastering.

The primary target now is streaming, and streaming services have started to
balance the tracks by their "true" loudness (not getting into technical
details here), which pretty mush defeats the purpose of making your track
louder than competition. Now, if your track has more dynamic range, it will
actually sound better, because the streaming service itself bring other tracks
down, and push yours up gently. So, this trend is starting to get reversed -
also most mastering engineers and musicians are used to "getting it loud",
there are many who're taking advantage of the new reality.

------
kevin_thibedeau
Brandi Carlile got 6 nominations and now has a show at MSG. The corporate
music machine isn't 100% efficient at limiting exposure to only cookie cutter
acts.

~~~
perfmode
The music machine is weaker than ever. The machine is forced to compete on
equal terms with independent acts.

------
agumonkey
Beside the technological aspects, there's a cultural one. And the ratio of the
two.

------
WalterBright
> A blaring television commercial may make us turn down the volume of our
> sets, but its sonic peaks are no higher than the regular programming
> preceding it.

I've heard that before. The VU meters on my stereo say otherwise.

~~~
baddox
VU meters that do some sort of temporal averaging (i.e. all of them), of
course. The fact that the peaks are the same is meaningless unless you mention
how often the signal hits the peaks.

~~~
WalterBright
The VU levels during the commercials were consistently about 20-25% higher
than the maximum I ever saw during the show.

------
mynameishere
Shrug. They used to compress music so it would sound okay coming out of the
speakers in a 57 Plymouth. "What's Going On?" changed all that, much to Berry
Gordy's chagrin.

But dynamic range has _nothing_ to do with the decline in quality of music.
Shit is shit no matter how you mix it.

