Creating examples of "Loudness Wars" effect

[TheSonicTruth]

sorry , yes I meant while using track gain. basically, it's a song that needs to be listened to at a certain level so that the quiet part is still enjoyable. and because of the clipping limit, that means having every other songs also louder than I would like for that one song to play well for me and my listening habits.
the real answer would be some compression on that song, or to set the reference target of replaygain a good 10 or 15dB(bit perfect people start crying) lower than what it already is, so I could have that one song a little louder without clipping. and it would be only one song so I'd probably be fine with a temporarily louder music.
but it still somehow doesn't really fit with the rest because of the changes in gain within the song. only raising the quiet parts a little would solve that for me and my horrible mixing practices(no respect I tell you, no respect at all).

for classical music or some live stuff, I tend to use album gain and listen to full "albums" because they also mostly just don't "work" with other genres. but to me that's a restriction of sort. I would listen to some albums more if they weren't so dynamic. I know I've finished to prove how much of an heretic I am, but it's the truth. my way of listening to music has changed and with it what I listen to. not because of taste, but because what I like doesn't work. like classical with massive changes in gain while in a car. the options are listening too loud, missing all the quiet passages, or compressing the all thing. which I'd do more if I wasn't so bad at it.

"I would listen to some albums if they
weren't so dynamic"

^The perfect case^ for built-in compressors in car decks, and as apps on mobile devices! Compress to your heart's content, and let the rest of us enjoy the artistic intentions of the album.

 

[bigshot]

The problem with compressors is that there isn't any one size fits all application of them. Compression needs to be applied creatively, just like equalization or level balancing. It isn't just a switch that you can turn on and off and it works.

in most cases - in the old VU meter days! Sure, there were some hotter examples, like Motown, which *might* have averaged +1VU, and pretty much hovered there for those songs, but that was the exception.

I'm not sure what you're saying there, but levels back in the LP era were all over the place. You could buy a 45 and blow the windows out of your house, or put on an LP and have to turn the volume way up. With LPs, the volume was related to the running time of the side of the record. Shorter running times were louder, and longer ones were quieter. The only way you'd know this though is if you had one of those record stacking automatic turntables. That was fine then... with single play turntables, most people would reach for the volume knob and adjust as soon as the needle dropped. But today... with iTunes and random shuffle, that is a mess. Anyone who has tried to shuffle play albums with different levels and dynamics knows that you're forced to adjust volumes song by song. And those things that claim to balance levels don't really fix the problem entirely.

People today play their music in shuffle play, particularly with pop music. If that is what your audience is doing, you have to master to suit the way they want it.

 

[TheSonicTruth]

The problem with compressors is that there isn't any one size fits all application of them. Compression needs to be applied creatively, just like equalization or level balancing. It isn't just a switch that you can turn on and off and it works.

If we can land on the moon, and create artificial human organs that work, we can develop a one-knob or one-switch compressor solution for consumer audio electronics. The only obstacle is.... attitude.

 

[castleofargh]

"I would listen to some albums if they
weren't so dynamic"

^The perfect case^ for built-in compressors in car decks, and as apps on mobile devices! Compress to your heart's content, and let the rest of us enjoy the artistic intentions of the album.

it can be a little tricky to get nice compression that works well on successive songs. but yes, a slightly smart compressor would probably get some use with me.
they could sell a master with high dynamic and one for the car, or "mastered for your playlist" ^_^. but I'm not sure people would buy any if they're presented that way.

 

[Steve999]

These things I did not know. They help to fill in a lot of blanks for me and they are quite interesting. Thanks much.

The problem with compressors is that there isn't any one size fits all application of them. Compression needs to be applied creatively, just like equalization or level balancing. It isn't just a switch that you can turn on and off and it works.

I'm not sure what you're saying there, but levels back in the LP era were all over the place. You could buy a 45 and blow the windows out of your house, or put on an LP and have to turn the volume way up. With LPs, the volume was related to the running time of the side of the record. Shorter running times were louder, and longer ones were quieter. The only way you'd know this though is if you had one of those record stacking automatic turntables. That was fine then... with single play turntables, most people would reach for the volume knob and adjust as soon as the needle dropped. But today... with iTunes and random shuffle, that is a mess. Anyone who has tried to shuffle play albums with different levels and dynamics knows that you're forced to adjust volumes song by song. And those things that claim to balance levels don't really fix the problem entirely.

People today play their music in shuffle play, particularly with pop music. If that is what your audience is doing, you have to master to suit the way they want it.

 

[bigshot]

If we can land on the moon, and create artificial human organs that work, we can develop a one-knob or one-switch compressor solution for consumer audio electronics. The only obstacle is.... attitude.

Maybe we can put our scientists on creating a machine to paint paintings and write poetry. Audio engineering isn't a purely mechanical process. It's creative and it involves making a million smart compromises to make a sound mix work. There's no way to mix on auto pilot, and I seriously doubt there ever will be one. I don't even think it would be desirable at all.

An automatic compression device would probably work as well as those automatic gain plugins for iTunes that supposedly balance tracks so they shuffle better. Which means it might sorta work on most tracks and it wouldn't work at all on some.

 

[Steve999]

My Behringer DEQ 2496 has a built-in adjustable compressor and let me tell you it is not simple stuff. I just gave up with it. I think there are aesthetics involved and I worry about computers making decisions as to aesthetics.

"I would listen to some albums if they
weren't so dynamic"

^The perfect case^ for built-in compressors in car decks, and as apps on mobile devices! Compress to your heart's content, and let the rest of us enjoy the artistic intentions of the album.

 

[Steve999]

I remember some sort of auto compression device back in the LP days, well known in audio enthusiast circles. Was it dbx or something (searching ancient memory banks)? People would say it created “pumping” and added noise. It was the sort of thing you would buy at a hifi boutique shop.

An automatic compression device would probably work as well as those automatic gain plugins for iTunes that supposedly balance tracks so they shuffle better. Which means it might sorta work on most tracks and it wouldn't work at all on some.

 

[bigshot]

Yeah. Actually the dynamic expanders worked pretty well. Maybe that is the solution for SonicTruth. I think Pioneer made one that had multiple expansion settings. You could probably find that on eBay for cheap. I still have one in a closet around here somewhere.

EDIT: I think this is exactly what SonicTruth needs and it's only around $150 used. No digital in or out though. It patches in RCA through a tape loop. Maybe there is a DSP that does the same thing.

 

[Steve999]

That looks so cool!!! (Holding on to my wallet.)

Yeah. Actually the dynamic expanders worked pretty well. Maybe that is the solution for SonicTruth. I think Pioneer made one that had multiple expansion settings. You could probably find that on eBay for cheap. I still have one in a closet around here somewhere.

EDIT: I think this is exactly what SonicTruth needs and it's only around $150 used. No digital in or out though. It patches in RCA through a tape loop. Maybe there is a DSP that does the same thing.

 

[RRod]

A fun experiment is to take some standard rock/pop track that has any dynamic contrast, and up that contrast to the level found in more dynamic classical albums. Like CoA said, I don't think people realize how annoying it can be to make this all portable. Even when I find a good compressor setting for all my classical stuff in the car, there is invariably out-of-genre tracks that manage to pump in weird, annoying ways.

 

[Steve999]

Maybe I will try messing with my Behringer DEQ 2496 some more. It has digital in and outs. The problem is there are so many settings in the dynamic range module with so many possible values I have no idea what I’m doing. I am looking at it right now. There is an attack setting, a knee setting, a release setting, a hold setting, a threshold setting, a gain setting, and a ratio setting. There is a diagonal line that will turn into a mix of curves and straight lines to show you what you are doing. I wish it had presets. I am totally lost. The DEQ 2496 is kind of an amatuer’s Swiss Army knife for eq and dsp and runs about $300, for anyone who wonders. I’ve had mine for quite a long time:

https://www.amazon.com/Behringer-DE...pID=31BbJQXacFL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

A fun experiment is to take some standard rock/pop track that has any dynamic contrast, and up that contrast to the level found in more dynamic classical albums. Like CoA said, I don't think people realize how annoying it can be to make this all portable. Even when I find a good compressor setting for all my classical stuff in the car, there is invariably out-of-genre tracks that manage to pump in weird, annoying ways.

 

[bigshot]

Try describing what you want to achieve and then ask Gregorio or Pinnahertz to give you a setting to start with. Then you can experiment from there.

 

[Steve999]

I'll have to think about exactly what I want to do and how to put it into words. Below is the advertising blurb for the available settings in the compressor/expander module.

Compressor/Expander and Limiter
The DEQ2496 has a comprehensive set of dynamics processing tools that can be used as two independent channels or stereo linked. Everything you'd find on a dedicated compressor/ expander is here including variable ratios from 1:1.1 to 1:100, ATTACK times from 0 to 200ms, 0-3dB variable knee and 20 to 4000ms RELEASE, all adjustable from a coarse/fine adjustment scale. The built-in separate LIMITER has Threshold, Hold and Release functions.

Try describing what you want to achieve and then ask Gregorio or Pinnahertz to give you a setting to start with. Then you can experiment from there.

 

[Steve999]

To Gregorio and Pinnahertz, as recommended by Bigshot, and anyone else:

Okay, what I want to do is listen to a wide variety of music on shuffle play and not have to reach for the volume knob to enjoy it.

I do not normalize my rips for volume. I have 11,882 songs, from all types of media, accumulated since I was a teenager, all digitally archived, and including some of my family's stuff as well. I would consider this a moderately large library. It would be hard to think of a genre of music I don't have. Let's just say pop, classical and jazz, electronic and acoustic, with a substantial proportion of each, and lots of digital and analog recordings from the 1940s forward.

So I am trying to be conservative since I don't know what I'm doing. I set the gain to -3db, compression to 1:1.3, threshold to zero, attack to 0 ms, and release to 20 ms. This is all based on my vague feelings about what these values represent. I did not mess with the knee because it looks like it makes big and disproportionate changes in sound. I stayed away from peak limiting. Reasonable?

I'll have to think about exactly what I want to do and how to put it into words. Below is the advertising blurb for the available settings in the compressor/expander module.

Compressor/Expander and Limiter
The DEQ2496 has a comprehensive set of dynamics processing tools that can be used as two independent channels or stereo linked. Everything you'd find on a dedicated compressor/ expander is here including variable ratios from 1:1.1 to 1:100, ATTACK times from 0 to 200ms, 0-3dB variable knee and 20 to 4000ms RELEASE, all adjustable from a coarse/fine adjustment scale. The built-in separate LIMITER has Threshold, Hold and Release functions.