Creating examples of "Loudness Wars" effect

[gregorio]

[1] What can I say Greg?
[2] I'm a man of the people! [2a] A musical '99-percenter' if you are familiar with that term in the news.
[3] My view of remastering is one of an archival, restorative nature. [3a] Slight level increases are acceptable, [3b] but the main focus should be on ensuring the maximum fidelity and faithfulness to the way something originally sounded.
[4] For example: I do not want to hear Springsteen's 'BITUSA' with modern Drake- or One Direction-era mastering done to it.
[4a] To do that would destroy the context of that album and its era.
[4b] Modern mastering, and current artist demands, are different than they were when BITUSA came out.
[4c] So I want to hear it as close as possible to how it would have sounded when someone put the CD in their player back in the mid-1980s, when that album released.

1. I'm not bigshot.

2. No, you're not, that's part of the problem here!
2a. Head-fi is a location where audiophiles congregate, so the ratio of audiophiles is relatively high, giving the impression there's many of them but there isn't! All audiophiles combined probably represents less than 1% of consumers and you cannot claim to represent ALL audiophiles. In reality then, you're statement is COMPLETELY BACKWARDS: You're not a man of the people and you're not a 99%'er, you're at best about a 1%'er and probably more like a 0.1%'er!!

3. You can dream about any view you wish but the reality is that the music industry is not some sort of charity organisation or museum, it is by definition an industry!
3a. The industry has zero interest in what you personally feel is acceptable, particularly as you clearly don't really understand how levels, loudness and compression work anyway.
3b. Which one, maximum fidelity or faithfulness to the way something was originally intended/perceived?

4. Unless you're going to single handedly support the music industry yourself, no one cares what you "do not want to hear". If you don't want to hear something, then don't buy or listen to it.
4a. The context of that album and era is already destroyed, it no longer exists, it's history! Apart from a few crazy people who might actually believe it's still the 1980's, the ACTUAL CONTEXT is listening to a remastered album from a previous era in THIS era!
4b. And so are modern consumers, which is why modern mastering and artists demands are different!!!
4c. You can't do that without going back to the mid-1980's. What it sounded like in the 1980's was relative to the music of the 1980's but we're not in the 1980's any more we're in 2018! So there has to be some consideration of what it sounds like in 2018 if we're to remain faithful to it's original intentions and how it would be perceived today! If you want to hear the original album that was released in the 1980's then go buy a copy of the original album. A remaster is not a re-release and is not designed to be. What would be the point of remastering something to be the same as the original version, why waste time and money on remastering costs instead of just re-releasing the original master, which has already been paid for? It just doesn't make any economic or logical sense!

G

 

[bigshot]

What can I say bigshot? I'm a man of the people! A musical '99-percenter' if you are familiar with that term in the news. Not that I have no obscurities in that old dresser: I have a few GRP(Dave Grusin) releases, and after having personally met fellow anti-LW addvocate Bob Katz, I learned of his association with the Chesky label, and sourced a few of those CDs.

I'm not talking about audiophile recordings. I'm just talking about engineering that meets the needs of the project. If sound quality is adequate to do the job, then you should turn to addressing the music and focus on that. Analyzing music will get you a lot further in your appreciation of recorded music than analyzing recording techniques. Too often audiophiles focus on the wrong things. It's like comparing books of Shakespeare's sonnets and analyzing whether the serifs are all perfectly reproduced, or buying a landscape painting and counting all the leaves on the trees to see if you got your money's worth.

But it really doesn't make sense to complain about things that are part and parcel of the musical genre. Modern pop music is designed to cater to people with limited experience in music and massively modest means of reproducing it. You can't complain that it doesn't have complex harmonic structure or musical form because it isn't supposed to operate on that level- it's hooks and riffs and earworms. It isn't Mahler or Bach. Likewise since ephemeral pop music is designed to be played on earbuds and cell phones playing streaming over a low bandwidth connection, you can't complain that it isn't engineered to sound the best it can on a $20k home stereo.

I think what I'm trying to say is that you have to look at the purpose the music serves. If you understand its place and what it's trying to accomplish, you can appreciate why it is the way it is. Understanding music is the key to appreciating current pop music as well as Bach's cantatas or folk songs by the Carter Family. Music is all about time and place performers and purpose.

One other point... we live in a time with specific technology and ways we address music. In 1910 music was distributed to people in the form of sheet music to be played on musical instruments in the home. In 1920 records and Victrolas were the format. In 1930 it was radio. Flash forward through LPs and cassette tapes and boom boxes on shoulders in the street and 8 track decks in cars and you reach today... which is nothing like the past.

When you go out and buy a CD of Caruso singing La Donne e Mobile, it sounds nothing like the way it sounded to someone with a Victrola playing the record in 1914. An attempt has been made to "modernize" the music and bring it up to current standards and to suit current equipment. A person who is familiar with the sound of music coming through a horn will tell you that CDs aren't anything like the experience of hearing Caruso on an acoustic phonograph. But you have a CD player and electronic gear in your living room, so you appreciate that it's been updated for you.

The same is true of records from the 70s and 80s. They were engineered to be etched into a plastic disk and played back by means of a diamond electronic pickup. Engineering choices were made to suit that format. Today is different. Music is played on shuffle, not a whole LP side at a time. We listen mostly through earphones, not speakers. We stream music without a physical product. That's just the way it is, whether we like it or not. All of those things require different engineering choices. Music that doesn't make that transition isn't relevant any more. There's an ocean of music from the past that is completely forgotten today because it didn't find relevance in the changing world of music.

If you like Rush and Journey and prefer the way it sounded on first LP release, that's great. Set up a great turntable and go to town. I've done that for Caruso with my Brunswick Cortez, the Rolls Royce of acoustic phonographs. But you should understand that Rush and Journey aren't going to survive the next 50 years if the music doesn't serve the people with earbuds and Spotify. I don't complain about the way Caruso sounds on digitally scrubbed CD, or the way back in the early HiFi era they dubbed orchestras over the top of his old records to make them sound "new and improved". Caruso is still Caruso and his old records are still there and sound the same. Other people can address the music in the way they are comfortable addressing it. Fine with me.

I have not experienced any LW issues with classical CDs, yet. I need to acquire some post-2000 classical releases and see.

I think you'll be surprised with the high level of fidelity in current classical recordings. Classical music and opera sounds MUCH better today than in the past. In fact, Classical music and opera is one genre that has really embraced multichannel recording, which is the biggest advancement in sound quality since the introduction of stereo in the early 50s. I'm not so convinced about the depth of interpretive imagination today, but there are enough new artists with new ideas to keep me engaged.

By the way, have you heard Steven Wilson's recent multichannel remixes of 70s "art rock" albums, SonicTruth? I think you would be very interested in them, and they might point you in a different direction for how legacy rock titles should be handled.

 

[TheSonicTruth]

1. I'm not bigshot.

2. No, you're not, that's part of the problem here!
2a. Head-fi is a location where audiophiles congregate, so the ratio of audiophiles is relatively high, giving the impression there's many of them but there isn't! All audiophiles combined probably represents less than 1% of consumers and you cannot claim to represent ALL audiophiles. In reality then, you're statement is COMPLETELY BACKWARDS: You're not a man of the people and you're not a 99%'er, you're at best about a 1%'er and probably more like a 0.1%'er!!

3. You can dream about any view you wish but the reality is that the music industry is not some sort of charity organisation or museum, it is by definition an industry!
3a. The industry has zero interest in what you personally feel is acceptable, particularly as you clearly don't really understand how levels, loudness and compression work anyway.
3b. Which one, maximum fidelity or faithfulness to the way something was originally intended/perceived?

4. Unless you're going to single handedly support the music industry yourself, no one cares what you "do not want to hear". If you don't want to hear something, then don't buy or listen to it.
4a. The context of that album and era is already destroyed, it no longer exists, it's history! Apart from a few crazy people who might actually believe it's still the 1980's, the ACTUAL CONTEXT is listening to a remastered album from a previous era in THIS era!
4b. And so are modern consumers, which is why modern mastering and artists demands are different!!!
4c. You can't do that without going back to the mid-1980's. What it sounded like in the 1980's was relative to the music of the 1980's but we're not in the 1980's any more we're in 2018! So there has to be some consideration of what it sounds like in 2018 if we're to remain faithful to it's original intentions and how it would be perceived today! If you want to hear the original album that was released in the 1980's then go buy a copy of the original album. A remaster is not a re-release and is not designed to be. What would be the point of remastering something to be the same as the original version, why waste time and money on remastering costs instead of just re-releasing the original master, which has already been paid for? It just doesn't make any economic or logical sense!

G

1. The quoting system here must be screwed up, because it looked like I was quoting bigshot.

2a. By "musical 99%er" I mean that most of my favorite music has been in a Billboard, American Top Forty, or other such chart. What 99% of other people also listen to. I listen to few 'indie' artists, am not into so-called 'alternative', and I intersperse my Beatles, Chuck Berry, Little River Band, Jackson, Run DMC, Cold Play, and Springsteen with the classical greats and some jazz or big band. And no, I am not a "1%er" - musically or politically Heaven forbid!

4b-4c: I guess we will just have to respect each others' views on remastering. I cannot accept remastering as 'change for the sake of change' itself.
I play 1980s music from original 1980s sources, and 1970s and earlier music released on CD originally in the '80s, at gatherings here in 2018 and no one to my knowledge has complained about how it sounds. Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're suggesting making *whatever* changes to the sound of legacy audio, be it EQ, dynamics, spatial, etc, just to get people to buy something they already have. Well, my 1980s CDs, and CDs from original tape masters of 1970s and earlier material, sound just fine in my car, or ripped to my iPod. The few remastered CDs I played in the car droned on in a lifeless manner, and I could not finish them. If I wanted 10-12 tracks totalling 50 minutes of in-my face blast of over-compressed sound, I could just roll down all my windows at 60mph on the interstate for 40-50 minutes at a clip.

Exactly why, please do tell, would a '70s classic rock album released on CD in the mid-'80s need to receive the sonic characteristics of a rock or pop album from circa 2010-2017? That's not doing younger listeners eager to explore their parents' youthful tastes any favor. If I had kids and I wanted them to hear my music the way it was intended - by those artists, in that era - I'd pull out my vinyl collection, and CDs of albums from that time period, not 'remastered' versions.

 

[Steve999]

There is something really nice about hearing nearly exactly the same sound you heard in your youth, down to the cartridge, which does have very sensitive and unique sound characteristics. With software you can preserve that sound and improve the noise and pops and clicks. It's really nice.

So a CD that mimics the LP mix would be really nice. Now, on the other hand, if there is an original master tape somewhere and they can remaster it to CD without the compromises inherent to mixing for pressing an LP I'm very interested in that too. Then you get to hear the original recording in greater fidelity.

So I'm of both minds. I want both. : )

1. The quoting system here must be screwed up, because it looked like I was quoting bigshot.

2a. By "musical 99%er" I mean that most of my favorite music has been in a Billboard, American Top Forty, or other such chart. What 99% of other people also listen to. I listen to few 'indie' artists, am not into so-called 'alternative', and I intersperse my Beatles, Chuck Berry, Little River Band, Jackson, Run DMC, Cold Play, and Springsteen with the classical greats and some jazz or big band. And no, I am not a "1%er" - musically or politically Heaven forbid!

4b-4c: I guess we will just have to respect each others' views on remastering. I cannot accept remastering as 'change for the sake of change' itself.
I play 1980s music from original 1980s sources, and 1970s and earlier music released on CD originally in the '80s, at gatherings here in 2018 and no one to my knowledge has complained about how it sounds. Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're suggesting making *whatever* changes to the sound of legacy audio, be it EQ, dynamics, spatial, etc, just to get people to buy something they already have. Well, my 1980s CDs, and CDs from original tape masters of 1970s and earlier material, sound just fine in my car, or ripped to my iPod. The few remastered CDs I played in the car droned on in a lifeless manner, and I could not finish them. If I wanted 10-12 tracks totalling 50 minutes of in-my face blast of over-compressed sound, I could just roll down all my windows at 60mph on the interstate for 40-50 minutes at a clip.

Exactly why, please do tell, would a '70s classic rock album released on CD in the mid-'80s need to receive the sonic characteristics of a rock or pop album from circa 2010-2017? That's not doing younger listeners eager to explore their parents' youthful tastes any favor. If I had kids and I wanted them to hear my music the way it was intended - by those artists, in that era - I'd pull out my vinyl collection, and CDs of albums from that time period, not 'remastered' versions.

 

[bigshot]

Now, on the other hand, if there is an original master tape somewhere and they can remaster it to CD without the compromises inherent to mixing for pressing an LP I'm very interested in that too.

Would you mind having to adjust the volume level for each track? Because creating a consistent loudness level throughout the album is one of the principle jobs of mastering. Straight sessions mixes don't necessarily play as an album or in shuffle mode well.

 

[Steve999]

I definitely don't want to have to adjust the volume level for each track. : ) I would like the experience of a higher fidelity master to CD if it's possible by going back to the original mix tape and not mastering within the limitations of vinyl. Obviously you know more about the details of this than I do.

Would you mind having to adjust the volume level for each track? Because creating a consistent loudness level throughout the album is one of the principle jobs of mastering. Straight sessions mixes don't necessarily play as an album or in shuffle mode well.

 

[TheSonicTruth]

I definitely don't want to have to adjust the volume level for each track. : ) I would like the experience of a higher fidelity master to CD if it's possible by going back to the original mix tape and not mastering within the limitations of vinyl. Obviously you know more about the details of this than I do.

One can level match the tracks at the mastering stage without necessarily having to resort to compression and/or peak limiting, save maybe the very top 2dB at most, depending on the dynamics of the material.

And as in my collection's case, those remastered CD certainly were mastered without vinyl's limitations: they were remastered too dang hot!

 

[gregorio]

[1] By "musical 99%er" I mean that most of my favorite music has been in a Billboard, American Top Forty, or other such chart. What 99% of other people also listen to. I listen to few 'indie' artists, am not into so-called 'alternative', and I intersperse my Beatles, Chuck Berry, Little River Band, Jackson, Run DMC, Cold Play, and Springsteen with the classical greats and some jazz or big band.
[2] I guess we will just have to respect each others' views on remastering. [2a] I cannot accept remastering as 'change for the sake of change' itself.
[3] Exactly why, please do tell, would a '70s classic rock album released on CD in the mid-'80s need to receive the sonic characteristics of a rock or pop album from circa 2010-2017?
[3a] That's not doing younger listeners eager to explore their parents' youthful tastes any favor.
[3b] If I had kids and I wanted them to hear my music the way it was intended - by those artists, in that era - I'd pull out my vinyl collection, and CDs of albums from that time period, not 'remastered' versions.

1. Not a single one of those artists are even in the current top 100 and only Cold Play could potentially be!! 99% of people aren't even consuming those genres any more, let alone those specific artists. They're consuming EDM, Techno or various other electronic genres, Hip-Hop, modern R&B, various sub genres of all of these or pop ballads based on them. Popular music 30 years ago was the popular music of 30 years ago, it's NOT popular music today, how could you possibly not know this? How could you possibly believe you are "not a "1%er"?

2. Why? Your view of mastering is based on not understanding what mastering is, how it's done or what it's required to achieve, how can I respect that? My view of mastering is based on the requirements of popular music which is defined by popular demand (by that other 99%!). Now maybe you don't like popular music and that's fine but as far as popular music is concerned, your only option is to respect my view or disrespect it out of ignorance!
2a. It is NOT "change for the sake of change" it's change in response to a changing world, a change in popular music and culture. You do realise that popular music and culture changes, that it's constantly evolving?

3. You really don't know, you can't even guess?
3a. You have some figures or facts to back that up?
3b. You'd "pull out your vinyl collection" and then what, give them an AC generator and a turntable to play on the school bus?

Now, on the other hand, if there is an original master tape somewhere and they can remaster it to CD without the compromises inherent to mixing for pressing an LP I'm very interested in that too. Then you get to hear the original recording in greater fidelity.

In theory, that could be quite nice on occasion but it depends on the condition of the original master (or the mix tapes) how much work would be required to provide much of an increase in fidelity or if much of an increase is even possible. And then of course it depends on what sort return is likely compared to how much that work is going to cost and the cost of marketing that remaster. If there were a significant enough demand, then we'd see tons of these remasters being made but obviously demand is limited and therefore, so is the number of these types of remasters.

G

 

[gregorio]

One can level match the tracks at the mastering stage without necessarily having to resort to compression and/or peak limiting, save maybe the very top 2dB at most, depending on the dynamics of the material.

You've just made that up! You couldn't even do that in the 1960's without compression/limiting, let alone today!

G

 

[bigshot]

One can level match the tracks at the mastering stage without necessarily having to resort to compression and/or peak limiting, save maybe the very top 2dB at most, depending on the dynamics of the material.

I tend to think you've never mastered an album before.

 

[TheSonicTruth]

You've just made that up! You couldn't even do that in the 1960's without compression/limiting, let alone today!

G

What I meant was: Once all(10, 12, 13, etc. of) the tracks for a given album have, at the mastering stage, been dynamically compressed, limited, EQ'd, and otherwise seasoned to taste, some songs might still be more dynamic than others(have higher crest factor, higher 'DR' value, however you want to quantify it).

On the LUFS scale, you can do either one of two things to ensure minimal to no need for listener volume adjustment during the entire album playback:

1. Align the average loudnesses of all the tracks to an arbitrary LUFS value, like the 'K-system' Katz devised some years ago: K-12, K-14, etc.

Or:

2. Determing the average loudness of the most dynamic track of all of them by peak-normalizing just that track, then adjusting all other songs' average levels, in LUFS, to match that of that most dynamic track.

For example, the most dynamic track you peak normalized to -0.5FS for safety margin. For purposes of this discussion let's say it has an average loudness of -9LUFS(after peak normalizing). So you align, both by ear and by meter, the loudness of all dozen or so remaining album tracks to -9LUFS. That means, from most to least dynamic their peaks might max out, in that order, from -1 to -4LUFS. But because they are aligned to match the loudness of the track with the highest peaks, they will all sound about the same volume, necessitating little to no adjustment during playback by the consumer listening to the album.

Note, varying spectral/frequency content might also affect perceived loudness of each song, so the procesure outlined in #2. is not set in stone.

What I think is actually being done is...

3. that the loudness of all the tracks on the album is being done by aligning with the loudness off the least dynamic song of them all, which means that each more dynamic song needs more peak limiting(after all tracks have been compressed, EQ'd to taste) to match that least dynamic song in LUFS value. So you might end up with a total album LUFS value of -6, but with more severe peak limiting for most of the tracks - the opposite of the scenario outlined in #2.

 

[bigshot]

You can't master albums by normalization alone. You have to employ a variety of techniques including compression to make the sound flow. It isn't an "either/or thing"... it's an "this and that thing". The mix of each song is what it is- separate and stand alone. The person who makes the whole album work together is the mastering engineer, and he needs as wide a variety of tools at his disposal as the person who did the original mix. You can't tie his hands and say "don't compress". You'll end up with an album that is all over the map.

It really doesn't matter with pop music though because top 40 hits are designed to be played in shuffle mode with all the other songs by all the other artists out there. They aren't intended to be played as part of an album. You need to make sure your track stands up alongside your competition, and you have no control over what comes before or after your song. The solution to that is to even out the dynamics, particularly at the beginnings and ends of songs. The bridge is where they can break from that for a few bars.

 

[TheSonicTruth]

You can't master albums by normalization alone. You have to employ a variety of techniques including compression to make the sound flow. It isn't an "either/or thing"... it's an "this and that thing". The mix of each song is what it is- separate and stand alone. The person who makes the whole album work together is the mastering engineer, and he needs as wide a variety of tools at his disposal as the person who did the original mix. You can't tie his hands and say "don't compress". You'll end up with an album that is all over the map.

It really doesn't matter with pop music though because top 40 hits are designed to be played in shuffle mode with all the other songs by all the other artists out there. They aren't intended to be played as part of an album. You need to make sure your track stands up alongside your competition, and you have no control over what comes before or after your song. The solution to that is to even out the dynamics, particularly at the beginnings and ends of songs. The bridge is where they can break from that for a few bars.

I believe "album" was mentioned in post #65. It is in that context that I discussed the leveling of the tracks in #71.

 

[bigshot]

TL/DR

 

[TheSonicTruth]

TL/DR

Got the after part; what in turnations is "TL", somethin made by Acura motor company?