Loudness compression, loudness wars.. What exactly it is and why is it happening?

[Doodski]

My question has always been WHY did they have to crush everyone's music? There has always been compressors and limiters available to anyone that wanted/needed it. I remember people complaining to the local FM radio stations (rock) back in the 80s and 90s about all the heavy handed compression going on. If the labels wanted limited DR for their cassette tapes and radio stations, they had the tools, hell they've been compressing masters designed for vinyl use forever to stay within it's technical limits.. Now we had this miracle of digital recording in our hands and they had to go fu-ck it up for everyone so their releases could sound louder (better to the laymen) on low quality sources. CD and later HiRez recordings, were designed to bring TRUE HIGH FIDELITY to those who wanted it, instead we get the time and effort of recording the best sounding, widest DR master, and put on a 1950s, drag a rock thru a ditch medium., I ask you how a-s backwards is that?
This whole industry is being lead by rip-off artists who build and sell $1000 a foot power cords and color painted ammo primers as reproduction improvement devices. Just buy our record clamp and then tune it's sound with different colored magik dots..
It's no wonder our industry is in the toilet, they got unknown thousands of people believing that it's worth putting a fortune into these retro devices while they sit by and let them make a mess of the musical product that's being put on a SOTA medium.
Of course this is only my personal opinion, and YMMV.

When I retailed audio product for 9 years we where encouraged by reps to to push the snazzy interconnects and garden hose speaker cables. Sometimes we would get spiffs for selling the expensive interconnects. Meanwhile back at the sound rooms we had 18G speaker wire run into blade type switchboxes and used low end RCA cables for everything. For our own curiosity we bypassed the switchbox, ran tests of identical speaker pairs with identical amps using different speaker cables and interconnects and we noticed no difference doing blind listening tests. The majority of us then encouraged the customers to invest that additional budget into their speakers and matching amp. It was actually more work in most cases to convince the customers to follow our lead and oftentimes resulted in the customer leaving the store to go compare product but if done properly they returned and bought a better system and became loyal customers. The hard and fast closers never deviated from the regular sales routine though and sold them the interconnects and 12G speaker wire with lower end speakers. It was oftentimes what the customers wanted.

 

[Blumlein 88]

My question has always been WHY did they have to crush everyone's music? There has always been compressors and limiters available to anyone that wanted/needed it. I remember people complaining to the local FM radio stations (rock) back in the 80s and 90s about all the heavy handed compression going on. If the labels wanted limited DR for their cassette tapes and radio stations, they had the tools, hell they've been compressing masters designed for vinyl use forever to stay within it's technical limits.. Now we had this miracle of digital recording in our hands and they had to go fu-ck it up for everyone so their releases could sound louder (better to the laymen) on low quality sources. CD and later HiRez recordings, were designed to bring TRUE HIGH FIDELITY to those who wanted it, instead we get the time and effort of recording the best sounding, widest DR master, and put on a 1950s, drag a rock thru a ditch medium., I ask you how a-s backwards is that?
This whole industry is being lead by rip-off artists who build and sell $1000 a foot power cords and color painted ammo primers as reproduction improvement devices. Just buy our record clamp and then tune it's sound with different colored magik dots..
It's no wonder our industry is in the toilet, they got unknown thousands of people believing that it's worth putting a fortune into these retro devices while they sit by and let them make a mess of the musical product that's being put on a SOTA medium.
Of course this is only my personal opinion, and YMMV.
View attachment 95216

What you said Sal! Exactly a**-backwards.

 

[levimax]

My question has always been WHY did they have to crush everyone's music? There has always been compressors and limiters available to anyone that wanted/needed it. I remember people complaining to the local FM radio stations (rock) back in the 80s and 90s about all the heavy handed compression going on. If the labels wanted limited DR for their cassette tapes and radio stations, they had the tools, hell they've been compressing masters designed for vinyl use forever to stay within it's technical limits.. Now we had this miracle of digital recording in our hands and they had to go fu-ck it up for everyone so their releases could sound louder (better to the laymen) on low quality sources. CD and later HiRez recordings, were designed to bring TRUE HIGH FIDELITY to those who wanted it, instead we get the time and effort of recording the best sounding, widest DR master, and put on a 1950s, drag a rock thru a ditch medium., I ask you how a-s backwards is that?
This whole industry is being lead by rip-off artists who build and sell $1000 a foot power cords and color painted ammo primers as reproduction improvement devices. Just buy our record clamp and then tune it's sound with different colored magik dots..
It's no wonder our industry is in the toilet, they got unknown thousands of people believing that it's worth putting a fortune into these retro devices while they sit by and let them make a mess of the musical product that's being put on a SOTA medium.
Of course this is only my personal opinion, and YMMV.
View attachment 95216

My understanding is the that loudness wars / really heavy compression did not get going until the "look ahead" compressor was developed. This enabled the entire track to be evaluated and then maximum compression could be applied... before the "look ahead" compressors were invented you could not get too aggressive with compression without the risk of severe clipping. Sad it turned out digital technology is used to make things worse and not better. I can kind of understand it though as I have recently been playing around with level matching amps before AB testing and it is amazing how much difference even a little bit of louder volume "sounds better" . In the hyper competitive music business people will do anything to "stand out" and get noticed so they go for the lowest common denominate which is "louder sounds better".

 

[Sal1950]

The majority of us then encouraged the customers to invest that additional budget into their speakers and matching amp. It was actually more work in most cases to convince the customers to follow our lead and oftentimes resulted in the customer leaving the store to go compare product but if done properly they returned and bought a better system and became loyal customers.

Sadly some people are just too hard to get thru to. LOL
I've got a 55 year friend that knows how much I'm into this stuff but will rarely ask me about anything before he buys, only as the last option cause he wants to believe the more he spends the better it sounds not matter what I say. He just bought the latest XBox for his kid and can't get it going in his HT rig. The last step was to buy $2,000 in AQ cables cause some sales jockey told him that's where the problem is., Well it wasn't so he finally broke down and called me.
Too long a story to get into but it's just fustrating to the limit to hear from him, "well he does this stuff (audio sales) 10 hours a day, he should know what he's taking about right? I don't get it".

In the hyper competitive music business people will do anything to "stand out" and get noticed so they go for the lowest common denominate which is "louder sounds better".

Exactly. And when we try to tell the subjectives how such a minor change in level can make a big difference in their impressions, they don't believe it. They insist they can "hear around it"

 

[Doodski]

The last step was to buy $2,000 in AQ cables cause some sales jockey told him that's where the problem is., Well it wasn't so he finally broke down and called me.

Ouch! That's just unprofessional and crooked. Did your friend return them?

 

[Sal1950]

Ouch! That's just unprofessional and crooked. Did your friend return them?

No not yet. I told him to but not sure he believes me that they aren't worth it. I attached a link to Monoprice HDMI's but haven't heard back on that yet. He's really locked into "if it costs more it must be better" thing. I see that in many aspects of is life.

 

[Doodski]

No not yet. I told him to but not sure he believes me that they aren't worth it. I attached a link to Monoprice HDMI's but haven't heard back on that yet. He's really locked into "if it costs more it must be better" thing. I see that in many aspects of is life.

Meanwhile I run Startech 15' USB2.0 cables for stuff and they work just fine. I also use Startech USB extender cables too and they work fine.
https://www.startech.com/en-ca/cables/usb2hab15

 

[Sal1950]

Meanwhile I run Startech 15' USB2.0 cables for stuff and they work just fine. I also use Startech USB extender cables too and they work fine.
https://www.startech.com/en-ca/cables/usb2hab15

That looks like a decent cable, at the 15' length it's getting a good test.

 

[MRC01]

... Now we had this miracle of digital recording in our hands and they had to go fu-ck it up for everyone so their releases could sound louder (better to the laymen) on low quality sources. CD and later HiRez recordings, were designed to bring TRUE HIGH FIDELITY to those who wanted it, instead we get the time and effort of recording the best sounding, widest DR master, and put on a 1950s, drag a rock thru a ditch medium., I ask you how a-s backwards is that? ...

I agree 100%! Around here, this is preaching to the choir.
I've seen 24-bit recordings that only use 4 bits. Some here (including JJ) have posted examples. It's crazy.

 

[Sal1950]

I agree 100%! Around here, this is preaching to the choir.

For sure, and I've said it more than once around here also. But we get lots of new readers/members every day, my hope is to get through to some of them from the "dark side" of the hustle that's being run on them. Same deal as harping on the snake-oil of cables, and all the other subjective nonsense.

 

[levimax]

For sure, and I've said it more than once around here also. But we get lots of new readers/members every day, my hope is to get through to some of them from the "dark side" of the hustle that's being run on them. Same deal as harping on the snake-oil of cables, and all the other subjective nonsense.

From what I have seen on the subjectivist forums almost 100% agree that crushed dynamics are bad. The problem is that whether subjectivist or objectivist, people that really care about sound quality only make up a small percentage of music sales so their needs are not catered to.

 

[MetalDaze]

I worked as a mastering engineer at Future Disc in Hollywood for 25 years. Level wars were my biggest struggle. But if handled artfully, one can produce a master which is full in level, loud enough to compete, but isn’t slammed. For starters you need a client who gets it. More than once I referred clients elsewhere because I didn’t want my reputation attached to what they wanted me to do, which was slammed levels without a budget/time to do it right. I see waveforms posted here. Ever seen one that looks like a brick? That’s what any serious mastering engineer is up against. Here are some of the basics of how I worked.

Let’s say the client is Raphael Saadiq. He brings in a one inch two track analog tape master. He also brings his own machine (Ampex ATR 102). I have the 1” heads, etc., for the same machine, but 1” tape stretches azimuth and head bump to the limit. Using the same machine that recorded the tapes is the way to go. The first thing I did was to pull all the record cards. No bias current screaming around quiets the machine.

As I reproduced the master tape, I had two things happening at once. One of my two Pacific Microsonics model two codecs was creating a flat copy at 24x96 as an archive for the record label. The other model two was downstream, digitizing step one of my process. The playback of the analog master was going through the analog gear as I saw fit. My options were several pieces made by Manley, all vacuum tube. A compressor, soft limiter, and the amazing Massive Passive EQ. I also had at my disposal the well-known vintage Sontec Eq and one made by Focusrite. I would pick and choose my chain of gear to enhance, even punch up the sound, while being careful to give myself something I did not have to undo. That analog processed audio went through the second Pacific Microsonics unit and into the Sonic Studio workstation at 88.2x24 bits. Why 88.2? Integer relation to the final 44.1 CD master. In between the PM ADC and the workstation, I had a DBX digital limiter. I used it gently, I called it giving the music a haircut. But I got some level in a transparent way.

Once locked into the digital domain, I had a huge advantage, a Daniel Weiss 24/96(88.2) digital console. The dynamics processors and eq in this device were, at the time, unequaled. By the time I was finished I had a master with sufficient RMS level to compete, but the waveform didn’t look like a brick.

My point? If you have the luxury of a great chain of gear, or if your working with a variety of emulations on a laptop, massage the music with a little processing here, and a little more there. Using one tool to do the job is not the recipe for success.

I've been onto this tom foolery in the audio industry as a consumer for a few years now. Building my Hi-Fi system the way I always wanted it to be demanded I also feed it quality sources of the music I love. For digital, Using the waveform mini bar component in Foobar2000 along with the Pre & Post level meters on my RME DAC gives me a great idea of how compressed a piece of music may be, aside from just listening to it or comparing it to a different master.

This was a treat to read and I'm very glad to see there's mastering engineers out there who understand this phenomenon from both sides of the table. A previous post I read asked why the folks mastering the music allow this type of thing to take place. But the problem is, the engineers most of the time are caught between their job and the artist's wants as it pertains to their expression & how they want it to sound. At the end of the day, he/she who owns the rights to the music will have the last word.

Referring an artist to another engineer/studio whom may better fit their needs reaffirms my hope in certain labels. This is not only professional so both the customer and the studio retain their goals, but amicable as well (hopefully).

Although their catalogue can be pricey, MFSL takes great care in their mastering and production chain. As does Analogue Productions. Some of the Japanese SHM catalogue is quite good, but I'm not a fan of the 'EQ' normally applied to some their releases. But that's just my small opinion.

For analog there is no real way for me to see the waveform (I don't have an ADC). So I'm glad to read some names I know and can still trust for holding onto an approach that is individually unique for each album and sometimes even each song. Using all the tools in your repertoire to achieve the desired sound. If the consumer wants it louder, then have them use Their volume knob!

 

[MRC01]

... I'm glad to read some names I know and can still trust for holding onto an approach that is individually unique for each album and sometimes even each song. ...

Others who come to mind are Bud Graham who made some great sounding early digital recordings for Sony back in the day, and Bob Katz who made recordings for Chesky and I believe is still active. Also Bernie Grundman and Stan Ricker who both made some well engineered great sounding pop/rock/jazz.

 

[MetalDaze]

Indeed all of them are great names to see in the credits. One of my favorites from the old days is Robert Ludwig who I think may still may active as well. Ryan Smith from Sterling sound in NY has excellent releases. Miles Showell has done some CCR that I enjoy quite a bit, though the vinyl is from a high res digital master but we'll keep that on the DL Also the late and great George Marino who's credits are on just about everything imaginable up until his passing in 2012. His live Allman Brothers at the Beacon is fantastic. Albeit cut louder than I would like but captures the essence of the power coming off the stage that night. Previously mentioned Kevin Gray. And Steve Hoffman who also has his own following and forum. Good stuff if you know where to look

 

[Blumlein 88]

These are all great names you guys are listing, but who from today would make the list? Anyone?

 

[MRC01]

Bob Katz is still active, so there's 1 name who makes the list for today. I'm gonna look up who recorded some of my more recent great sounding classical albums and get back to you with some names.
PS: Steven Wilson. He's remixed several old rock albums and every one sounds fantastic, much better than the originals.

 

[MetalDaze]

Do you mean for current releases or main stream top 40 music?

Most of these individuals master both vinyl and digital media and are current in the industry I think. Cutting the wax is separate, and sometimes done by someone other than the mastering engineer. But Bob Ludwig I think is still active in his own studio. Ryan K Smith is a current mastering engineer at Sterling Sound. Kevin Gray is at QRP? Miles at Abbey Road. Steve Hoffman still does releases for AP on wax & SACD if I'm not mistaken. They do seem to cater to a more boutique audience geared towards remasters, high res releases and audiophiles. But I think they are available to work with most artists if said artist has a good sense of not only just good music, but reproduction in both regular consumer as well as a hifi setting.

 

[RichB]

Movie sound tracks have been provide some dynamic contact. Couple that with multi-channel audio can be impressive. Even via iTunes, "Yesterday" was impressive:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8079248/

Well worth the rental if you are into HT and some classic Beatles.

- Rich

 

[MetalDaze]

PS: Steven Wilson. He's remixed several old rock albums and every one sounds fantastic, much better than the originals.

I've got his remasters of Jethro Tull & I like them very much

 

[Putter]

I will point out one advantage of compression, which is that no part of the music gets lost in the mix. At least my experience is that all the tracks are boosted up to the same level so that you hear the drums, bass, guitars, vocals, etc. equally.

This is probably the reason that most critics have raved over remasters. You hear parts of the music that not noticed before. It's roughly equivalent to the speakers that boost the treble to give recordings more 'air'. The downside is similar which is that it causes listener fatigue. You turn the volume down and now it's too soft. At least with boosted treble you can maybe use your tone controls.