1. I take it you would agree that on the basics that compression affects the level of a signal? If you do, then applying compression on an individual track changes the level of that track and increases it's perceived volume by the amount of make-up gain. In order to create a balance with this track we have to increase the other tracks accordingly. So I'm going to have to disagree, applying compression on a per track basis does indeed affect the overall loudness of the piece. In some pieces/genres compression is applied to almost every individual track and is largely responsible for the overall loudness.
Except that you don't have to increase all of the other tracks, you can lower the compressed track to re-establish balance. Per-track compression need not affect overall loudness.
Except of course that compression is never, in my experience, only applied to one track in a mix but to several, the majority or sometimes all the tracks. The latter is most commonly the case with EDM, even if there isn't some sort of compressor placed on every track by the mix engineer, the samples/source sounds they're using have often/usually already been compressed. If every track has some form of compression and one is doing as you suggest and lowering those tracks, then obviously that per track compression is in fact largely responsible for the overall loudness of the piece. Even in the case of many or the majority, rather than all, the tracks having compression, that will still significantly affect the overall loudness of the piece.
2. No, I'm not talking about any specific type of compression but all compression. On all compressors a threshold level is set, any part of the signal/waveform which peaks above that threshold level is compressed, attenuated by the amount defined by the ratio setting or limited to that threshold in the case of a brickwall limiter.
That's an overly simplistic view of compressors and limiters. A compressor may also have separate attack and release time adjustments, and the transition around the threshold can be made a hard corner or soft entrance into the compression ratio curve. Even more importantly a compressor may have one of three different types of envelope detectors, peak, average or RMS. An RMS, mild slope, slower attack and very slow release compressor is an entirely different animal than a peak limiter function, which is defined by using a peak envelope detector, very fast attack (sometimes actually negative, in the case of "look ahead" limiters), fairly fast release (required, or excessive overall gain changes result from very short, nearly inaudible peaks), and an infinite compression slope. It's a special case, and fairly singular relative to just about any other form of compressor.
"Simplistic"- possibly, but that is fundamentally what a compressor does. Sure, we can change virtually every aspect of the attack and release response and my most commonly used compressor has about 40 or so adjustable parameters but fundamentally, what I said is what a compressor does.
4, 5, 6 & 7. Respectfully I have to say that you are the one "confused". You are confusing compression with extreme amounts of make-up gain applied on the master buss with a brickwall limiter, which is just one specific type and use of compression. That is the tool/process of the loudness war, a phenomena I was discussing 25 years ago with other audio engineers.
No, I don't think so. I'm well aware of what make-up gain is, how and why it's applied. And a sure know what a brick wall limiter is (though, again, you've grossly generalized, there are many different way to handle a firm, maximum peak limiter).
However, even without the excessive master-buss brickwall limiting which defines the loudness war, there is still a considerable amount of compression applied to all popular music genres, even quite extreme amounts in some genres like EDM.
No argument there.
Ducking for example, is virtually a requisite for some of the harder-core EDM and not using very significant amounts of compression on the electric guitar and vocals of say thrash metal would most probably change it's genre, it would no longer be thrash but some other sub genre.
I doubt that reducing the amount of extreme processing would change the genre, if the tune was a good one in that genre to begin with. From experience in broadcasting, changing processing doesn't attract or drive away listeners, they listen for content. Processing may make something more easily audible in some conditions, or less attractive in others, but it never changes the content. I've run stations through radical processing changes that should have impacted TLS, Cume and total numbers if listeners detected a shift in genre. It never did, not even a tiny bit.
You appear to be using the term "extreme processing" only to mean the abuse of master-buss compression/limiting. There is all sorts of extreme processing which defines genres, both compression processing (not on the master-buss) and other types of processing. One (of many) indicative processing features of EDM is the use of extreme filter sweeps for example. One of the defining differentiating features of most popular genres is the difference in the bass/kick drum sound, a difference which is largely achieved with compression. In virtually all cases "normal acoustic life" or "sounds very unnatural" is completely missing the point/irrelevant, because those kick drum sounds are so processed they bare little or no relationship to an acoustic kick drum. In some genres, EDM being a typical example, the starting point is not a kick drum which exists in "normal acoustic life" but a kick drum sample which is already massively processed beyond recognisability, which the song's creator then further processes! The same is true of the snare and indeed pretty much all of the sounds used in the creation of EDM, which is why it's called EDM and not ADM (Acoustic Dance Music)! I can only assume that as a broadcast engineer you are thinking in terms of broadcast processing, rather than fully understanding the process of content creation, the history of the popular music genres away from the the acoustic genres which started more than 50 years ago and the evolution which has occurred since. Phil Spectre's "wall of sound" was certainly not "natural", there was nothing natural about electric guitar valve distortion in the 60's and the massive distortion of the heavy metal guitar in the 80's was even less natural than that And since digital processing, we've moved well beyond what was done in the 80's!
8. And this answer maybe explains some of your other answers. We know that "far larger numbers of people like and purchase music of those genres than the acoustic genres" because for many decades we've had the sales figures!
That has nothing to do with compression, it has everything to do with what the music is. Nice quote, but it's not mine.
No, it was my quote, to which you were responding. With reference to my previous answer, you don't seem to be getting it. You are separating "what music is" from how music is processed. Which is perfectly fine for acoustic genres but nonsensical for most popular genres, where "what the music is", is an arrangement of individual sounds which only exist due to moderate or heavy processing!
Of course consumers have a choice in the final processing, they can choose to buy another piece of music with different processing.
Like Mom used to say, "You have two choices for dinner: take it or leave it." That's not a choice. If I want Song 15 by XYZ group, I have no choice but to accept what they've released. The ONLY possible option may be a vinyl release where the choice of less processing may have been made. Otherwise, you have no choice for a given track.
There's a choice before that, why choose group XYZ in the first place? For most, it's because they like the genre/sub-genre, which is very largely defined by the sound, which in turn is defined by the processing. If group XYZ is a heavy metal band for example and we remove all the processing, use acoustic instead of extremely distorted electric guitars, an unprocessed drum kit, no processing on the vox and no compression, what are we left with? I've no idea but one thing's for sure, it's no longer heavy metal! It could potentially have a big dynamic range but it would be neither heavy nor metal, maybe we could call it balsa wood? lol
Yes, they buy it for what it is BUT, processing is not besides the point, processing is what defines "what it is" in the first place! This fact, which trumps any number of studies, is not only what has caused the loudness war but the very evolution of the many popular music genres themselves!
I'm afraid we disagree on this, and I don't see us coming together on it. I don't accept that extreme processing defines a genre. I've already explained why I feel this way.
And I've partially explained why that's simply incorrect. I can fully appreciate that you may "feel" that you like acoustic music and not like modern heavily processed genres but I can't understand how you can "feel" contrary to a fundamental fact which the creators of popular music all know.
10. "Largely transparent" was perhaps the wrong term, unobjectionable would perhaps be better. And, I wasn't talking of just music recordings but of all commercial audio.
Now you've expanded it to "all commercial audio"? We'll disagree again on that one, unless film isn't commercial audio. Unobjectionable or not is in the ear of the listener, very subjective. Processing research shows people favor less processing across the board. Less doesn't have to mean none.
Film is certainly commercial audio, I don't get your point though? As a professional practitioner, I'm not directly interested in research, I'm interested in the requirements of my clients and in many cases they're concerned about audience complaints. The relatively recent change of specs for TV content enables a larger dynamic range, which has caused a significant number of consumer complaints.
11. What makes you think that the choices made by broadcasters reflect listener preference? Nothing at all, in fact quite the opposite, which is why the choice was taken away from the broadcasters and is now defined by federal law (in some countries). For this reason, the "goals" you talk about no longer exist in TV and haven't for a few years. "Your concept of a brick-wall limiter is also blatantly incorrect" I've used one almost every working day for more than 2 decades, so I don't think so, not to mention that I'd loose my job if my printmasters were not precisely limited to -1dBTP (or -2dBTP for my North American clients).
So, do you insure that your printmasters are precisely limited to -1dBTP by driving the mix 10dB above threshold of a fast attack/fast recovery brick wall limiter? Or is it done tastefully as appropriate to the mix and end use?
No, slamming the mix into a limiter 10dB above threshold would break the integrated loudness spec, though it wasn't uncommon before the loudness spec. Would I slam an individual track/sound 10dB above threshold? Sure, not routinely but yes, sometimes it's artistically necessary and very occasionally by significantly more than 10dB btw! Same is broadly true of music production.
The studies I'm aware of, which support a preference for a greater dynamic range, are all contingent on the conditions I detailed previously. In other conditions, in a car as you mentioned and these days also in a bus, train, plane, cycling, when walking the dog, doing the homework, jogging and numerous common other conditions, this would obviously not be the case.
You of course know that the total dynamic range can be effectively reduced and be made appropriate to any of those situations without slamming into a brick wall. Or is that the fix for everything?
You seem fixated by slamming a brick wall limiter on the master-buss! While I'm sure that does happen, it's not particularly typical, even with the very heavily compressed genres. Typically there are several stages of compression, individual track compression which is fed into a sub-group where more (though often different) compression is applied, then it's on to a mastering engineer where final (master-buss) compression/limiting and other processing occurs. In some/many cases, the most amount of compression applied occurs at the individual track stage and for artistic reasons!
G
