limpidglitch
Headphoneus Supremus
When you guys talk about music being more or less 'dynamic', what are you really talking about?
Is there a clear definition? Can it be quantified?
Is there a clear definition? Can it be quantified?
When you guys talk about music being more or less 'dynamic', what are you really talking about?
Is there a clear definition? Can it be quantified?
I dunno...retro is in!
I dunno...retro is in!
I can't wait to hear retro-hip-hop. I might have to get a retro headphone cable to listen to it.
Yeah, well, retro is a nice word for "old". You know, when Hip-hop become a hip replacement. Etc.
In my experience, edm tends to be annoyingly bright.
Not so contemporary with almost same DR as Stockhausen you may try Jean Michel Jarre 80's production ( Oygen/Magnetic Fields/China's concert).
I am afraid it is old fashioned EDM
When you guys talk about music being more or less 'dynamic', what are you really talking about?
Is there a clear definition? Can it be quantified?
Even if we just take the audio engineering (rather than the musical) use of the term, dynamic range is still not precisely defined or more accurately, it is quite precisely defined but there's more than one such definition. Pinnahertz's quoted definition is perfectly accurate and acceptable but arguably, a more commonly used definition would be the range from peak value to the noise floor.
To simplify; the difference between the audio engineering definition/s and the musical definition is that the engineering definition/s are an actual (amplitude) numerical value whereas the musical definition is perception based. This is an important difference because particularly over the last 30 years, popular music genres have evolved to take advantage of it, EDM arguably more than any other. In other words, EDM (and other popular genres) can often appear reasonably dynamic but is in reality much less so than it appears. This is because song construction (the musical structure, arrangement/orchestration and processing) has evolved to take advantage of those factors which affect our perception of loudness.
G
Yes, Pinnahertz' definition sounds reasonable when applied to something like the transmission of signals over radio, or recording of light intensities on a CCD, but how does it relate to recorded music?
To define a range you'd need to define the extremes, so how do you determine what's the highest and lowest levels?
I've also tried to figure out what the TT meter actually measures, but documentation seems hard to find. I believe RRod has mentioned that it's more or less a variation on crest factor, but crest factor doesn't describe a range, as far as I can understand, but the ratio between the peak sample value and the total RMS of the track.
[1] Yes, Pinnahertz' definition sounds reasonable when applied to something like the transmission of signals over radio, or recording of light intensities on a CCD, but how does it relate to recorded music?
[2] To define a range you'd need to define the extremes, so how do you determine what's the highest and lowest levels?
[3] I've also tried to figure out what the TT meter actually measures, but documentation seems hard to find. I believe RRod has mentioned that it's more or less a variation on crest factor, but crest factor doesn't describe a range, as far as I can understand, but the ratio between the peak sample value and the total RMS of the track.
What do you mean with "time weighting"? Do you know of anywhere I can read about the algorithm in detail?
I've also used Audition a lot.
Their 'Dynamic Range' is the difference between the maximum and minimum RMS values, which introduces another complication: what window length should you use? If you set it short enough it wouldn't be difficult to make Skrillex and Beethoven appear similarly dynamic.
No Skrillex at hand, so it's Kiasmos vs. some classy Ludvig van.
I'd say Ludvig sounds more dynamic, but at the same time you could argue Kiasmos has more actual dynamic range.
The tracks were 65 by Kiasmos and 9th Symphony, 4th movt. by LvB/Fricsay/Berliner Phil.
The tracks were summed to mono and trimmed 10 seconds on either end before processing.
#compare dynamic range* of two files
#requires SoX and Gnuplot
#*(here defined as difference between minimum and maximum dB RMS)
#sum to mono, trim first and last 10 seconds and normalize the audio files
sox DR_Kiasmos-65.wav audio1.wav channels 1 trim 10 -10 norm -0.001
sox DR_LvB.Fricsay-s9.4.wav audio2.wav channels 1 trim 10 -10 norm -0.001
#initiate data file with comment and headers
printf "#max-min RMS range\nSec Kiasmos LvB\n" > DR.txt
#repeat calculations with increasing window lengths
for i in {1..100}
do
width=$(echo "scale=3; $i / 100" | bc -l | sed 's/^\./0./g')
echo "$width"
rmsmax1=$(sox audio1.wav -n stats -w $width 2>&1 |\
grep "RMS Pk dB" |\
sed 's/[^0-9.-]*//g')
rmsmin1=$(sox audio1.wav -n stats -w $width 2>&1 |\
grep "RMS Tr dB" |\
sed 's/[^0-9.-]*//g')
rmsdif1=$(echo "($rmsmax1)-($rmsmin1)" | bc -l | sed 's/^\./0./g')
rmsmax2=$(sox audio2.wav -n stats -w $width 2>&1 |\
grep "RMS Pk dB" |\
sed 's/[^0-9.-]*//g')
rmsmin2=$(sox audio2.wav -n stats -w $width 2>&1 |\
grep "RMS Tr dB" |\
sed "s/[^0-9.-]*//g")
rmsdif2=$(echo "($rmsmax2)-($rmsmin2)" | bc -l | sed "s/^\./0./g")
echo "$width $rmsdif1 $rmsdif2" >> DR.txt
done
cat DR.txt
gnuplot
set term png size 2000,1000 font ",20"
set output "DR.png"
set xlabel "Window length (s)"
set ylabel "Range (dB RMS)"
set key height 1
plot for[col=2:3] "DR.txt" using 1:col lw 3 title columnheader(col) with lines
exit
open DR.png