Audio Quality in Streaming media

[Deleted member 46664]

@ the beginning he states that YouTube is using auto volume levelling. I don't hear that happening when I play the 2847 YouTube bookmarked music files I have. It's ridiculous how some of the tracks are reallly loud and others pretty low level.

Are you using ... music.youtube.com or just picking videos from the masses.

The video stream is not managed ... the music stream should be.

 

[Doodski]

Are you using ... music.youtube.com or just picking videos from the masses.

The video stream is not managed ... the music stream should be.

I use YouTube.com... I was not aware of Music.YouTube.com until now. Thanks...

 

[001]

Of course it goes unnoticed by the average Joe ... he doesn't care crap about it, he just wants some distraction.

So much of today's music is just garbage ...

edit: My apologies for going off-thread.
Certainly some food for thought. but there seems to be a lack of scientific rigour with this video.
Where are the references to the studies? Which 500,000 songs? From what cultural perspective are we speaking from? And, how does this completely ignore every other non-pop genre? Whilst my own musical tastes may well reflect some sympathy for the basic premise of the video, it is painting the music scene with a mighty broad brush. I don't think it is as bleak as it is being portrayed here. Here's a 'response' video.

 

[BeerBear]

This is the same discussion from a different perspective...

It's a different topic from OP, but it's a more important one that all people involved in production should see. Unfortunately many of them still aren't aware of the loudness normalization that happens in streaming services and keep making heavily squashed music.

Certainly some food for thought. but there seems to be a lack of scientific rigour with this video.
Where are the references to the studies? Which 500,000 songs? From what cultural perspective are we speaking from? And, how does this completely ignore every other non-pop genre? Whilst my own musical tastes may well reflect some sympathy for the basic premise of the video, it is painting the music scene with a mighty broad brush.

Yeah, I agree. I think "top 40" music probably got worse and more repetitive, but there's still plenty of other music out there...

 

[danadam]

@ the beginning he states that YouTube is using auto volume levelling. I don't hear that happening when I play the 2847 YouTube bookmarked music files I have.

Works for me. Here I captured (also in attachment) what is output to DAC when playing from youtube player vs when playing the same stream but externally downloaded:

You can even check in the youtube player how much quieter it plays, see "Volume / Normalized" line:

 

[Doodski]

Works for me. Here I captured (also in attachment) what is output to DAC when playing from youtube player vs when playing the same stream but externally downloaded:
View attachment 206527
You can even check in the youtube player how much quieter it plays, see "Volume / Normalized" line:
View attachment 206528

Ahhh I see. Very nice little console with info. Thanks.

 

[DMill]

My dad was at Woodstock. Saw zeppelin and Yes live. Two bands I obsessed over growing up. Played Abbey Road in his Saab till it sounded like shit with the tape so stretched out. I remember he used to let me stay up late and watch SNL even was I was 10. Talking Heads played one night. Artists Only I think and he was like, who are these jokers? We all get locked in to an era I guess. Todays R&B producers are purposefully compressing recordings and adding thump. Some of these guys (not all) are very thoughtful in their mixes. In fact, the producers role might be greater than ever in popular music. But hey there was ****** music in the 70s and 80s too. In fact a lot of it. So Kick back and enjoy some Billie Elish or whatever. You might like it.

 

[pseudoid]

Read this... watch the videos... then get back to me...

... then what?
You have every right to agree with this "SUMMARY" from the link that you made homework for me:

"The last 20 or so years have been a musical dark age. It has produced a lot of stuff that anyone who truly appreciates good music would deem unlistenable. But there is hope with streaming services leading the way back to musical sanity."

WTF does that mean? Streaming is going to save my soul and sanity? Saaaaaaaaay Whaaaat?

 

[Deleted member 46664]

... then what?
You have every right to agree with this "SUMMARY" from the link that you made homework for me:

WTF does that mean? Streaming is going to save my soul and sanity? Saaaaaaaaay Whaaaat?

Apparently your mind doesn't work anything like mine.

It is both measurable and demonstrable that the quality of recorded music has declined over the past few years.
In fact it's been studied and quantified... HERE ... you don't have to go very far back in time to see whole albums with less than 3 or 4 db of dynamic range, There is no doubt that production quality has slumped very badly.

Streaming services broke up the loudness war (as in the second video) and by loudness normalization, they've lead the way back to better production values and better sounding music ... i.e. Musical Sanity.

And yes, I agree with that summary ... I wrote it.

Now if you don't know what any of that means, I can only feel sorry for you.

 

[RayDunzl]

So much of today's music is just garbage ...

Explained in two minutes:

And that was before it REALLY got bad...

 

[Doodski]

Explained in two minutes:

And that was before it REALLY got bad...

Speaking of Frank Zappa his recordings are still exemplary for sound quality. He really laid it down good. I used his music as demo material for years. It worked well and made some friends doing it.

 

[001]

Speaking of Frank Zappa his recordings are still exemplary for sound quality. He really laid it down good. I used his music as demo material for years. It worked well and made some friends doing it.

Yeah, that's one of the nice things about ASR, you *DO* meet some friends doing this

 

[Cbdb2]

I stopped watching at some point, because I didn't hear anything interesting and he exaggerates and speculates too much. Missing letters, fuzzy stairsteps... please.
Look, I'm all for lossless music, but lossy at a decent rate is not that bad and it's not what's stopping most people from enjoying music.

And it's ironic that Andrew Scheps would whine about audio quality, when he's one of the two guys responsible for making Death Magnetic so unbearably compressed/loud (it's either him or Greg Fidelman, or both). Does he at any point in the video apologize for that?
Crappy music production is a way bigger problem than lossy compression.

And RHCP Stadium Arcadium is one of the worst sounding over compressed Albums ever.

 

[Cbdb2]

If were lucky this new loudness scheme might prompt new remasters of old music that aren't ruined by compression.

 

[SKBubba]

It is something I often wonder about, my lack of interest for most, if not all, 'new" music.
I somehow concluded that my lack of feeling was most likely due to me being a boomer, that somehow talent and inspiration was not what it has been or just a lack of interest in music from the younger generations leading to a very uninteresting music.
But, I am starting to think that the biggest cause might be because of the way music is produced/distributed.
It has nothing to do with the digital side of it, it is because of the way it is fed to us. As mentioned in the my OP video, so much is removed by what happens to the file on its way to our speakers/ears, that at best it is exhausting just trying to make sense of it and at worst, all the emotion is gone leaving us with nothing, as what is music if not the language of emotion?

My theory is that our musical tastes are formed during our adolescent years by whatever was playing at the time.

Recording technology, playback formats, etc. don't much matter. You heard all that stuff on AM radio, or FM or Napster or Spotify on whatever lo-fi box you could afford.

Really, it's the feeling you felt when you had your first kiss, your first joint, your first bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry, the first time you heard Led Zeppelin (yeah, I'm an old coot), the first time your parents let you go out unsupervised, your first car, etc.

There's new stuff coming out all the time that may possibly relate to you in some or all of those ways, whatever it was, even if the recordings are overproduced, synthesized, auto-tuned, written by algorithms, etc.

But some of that new stuff, even if not in your lane, is actually innovative and actually creative, and sometimes pretty good.

So I'm rambling now. I guess my point is that there's still a lot of great music being made. It may be harder to find depending on your age or preference.

And even if you can't find it, there's a whole world of great vintage music that you may have missed that you can find on streaming if you dig deep enough.

 

[jsrtheta]

My dad was at Woodstock. Saw zeppelin and Yes live. Two bands I obsessed over growing up. Played Abbey Road in his Saab till it sounded like shit with the tape so stretched out. I remember he used to let me stay up late and watch SNL even was I was 10. Talking Heads played one night. Artists Only I think and he was like, who are these jokers? We all get locked in to an era I guess. Todays R&B producers are purposefully compressing recordings and adding thump. Some of these guys (not all) are very thoughtful in their mixes. In fact, the producers role might be greater than ever in popular music. But hey there was ****** music in the 70s and 80s too. In fact a lot of it. So Kick back and enjoy some Billie Elish or whatever. You might like it.

Funny you should mention Billie Eilish. I first heard her on Saturday Night Live. I liked what I heard, bought the album (her first).

The CD arrived, and I put it on. Had to leave the room for a moment. Suddenly I heard my speakers being shredded and the subwoofer driver hurling itself into the opposite wall.

The dynamic range was about a 2, with bass energy jacked up to render some species extinct.

The pisser is that I like Eilish's stuff. But the albums, both of them, are near unlistenable.

The problem with most current popular music is that it seems they design the dance moves first, and then maybe toss in an actual melody. When it's performed on live TV, the priority appears to be cramming as many dancers dressed in underwear as can fit on a stage. The non-dance stuff sounds like the musicians have owned their instruments for maybe a week, when they got their tax refund check. And when I listen to alt-rock/college rock stuff on offer, it's abysmally written and abysmally performed. Quite depressing.

 

[DMill]

Funny you should mention Billie Eilish. I first heard her on Saturday Night Live. I liked what I heard, bought the album (her first).

The CD arrived, and I put it on. Had to leave the room for a moment. Suddenly I heard my speakers being shredded and the subwoofer driver hurling itself into the opposite wall.

The dynamic range was about a 2, with bass energy jacked up to render some species extinct.

The pisser is that I like Eilish's stuff. But the albums, both of them, are near unlistenable.

The problem with most current popular music is that it seems they design the dance moves first, and then maybe toss in an actual melody. When it's performed on live TV, the priority appears to be cramming as many dancers dressed in underwear as can fit on a stage. The non-dance stuff sounds like the musicians have owned their instruments for maybe a week, when they got their tax refund check. And when I listen to alt-rock/college rock stuff on offer, it's abysmally written and abysmally performed. Quite depressing.

I can’t speak to the BE CD or it’s production value. I’m really not even a big fan of hers. But she did come to mind as I was considering a modern recording artist with a lot of compressed sound and way too much bass by comparison to what I typically listen to. I really think it’s purposeful and almost an effect like a grunge sound from Page’s guitar in 1970. I totally get you don’t like it. That’s cool. But lots of people do like her. My thinking was more that not all modern music sucks. I saw Brandi Carlisle last year live and her recordings are ok and consider her a pretty awesome artist. And yes, her records still over emphasize bass, but so does Annie Lennox Diva from 25 years ago. Give it a listen.

 

[jsrtheta]

I can’t speak to the BE CD or it’s production value. I’m really not even a big fan of hers. But she did come to mind as I was considering a modern recording artist with a lot of compressed sound and way too much bass by comparison to what I typically listen to. I really think it’s purposeful and almost an effect like a grunge sound from Page’s guitar in 1970. I totally get you don’t like it. That’s cool. But lots of people do like her. My thinking was more that not all modern music sucks. I saw Brandi Carlisle last year live and her recordings are ok and consider her a pretty awesome artist. And yes, her records still over emphasize bass, but so does Annie Lennox Diva from 25 years ago. Give it a listen.

I like her fine. I think she's a major talent and a fascinating songwriter.

And I remember Annie Lennox from the first release by Eurythmics. Never a huge fan, but she's a great singer. British pop is a whole different church, and I've been a congregant for decades. After all, it was the Beatles who kicked off my musical life. And just look at my avatar.

 

[DMill]

I like her fine. I think she's a major talent and a fascinating songwriter.

And I remember Annie Lennox from the first release by Eurythmics. Never a huge fan, but she's a great singer. British pop is a whole different church, and I've been a congregant for decades. After all, it was the Beatles who kicked off my musical life. And just look at my avatar.

It’s good to meet good people on this site. Your point about much of modern music being mixed and produced poorly is true IMO. it’s not hard to see why. To be Pop music the “image of the performer” is now more important than the music, at least to be commercially successful. The good news is I have 9 and a 12 year old and I see them liking Abbey Road just like I did growing up. Now if I could get the 9-year old to stop playing Baby Shark on my system at 90dB I’ll be happy.

 

[jsrtheta]

Now if I could get the 9-year old to stop playing Baby Shark on my system at 90dB I’ll be happy.

My mother was none too thrilled when Alvin and the Chipmunks broke.