Remastering (Improving) your own Audio Albums as Big F.Y. to corporate Loudness War trend.

[Snarfie]

I experimented with Audacity software in "fixing" clipped/low DR recordings, and I'm having some results with following effects applied in sequence.

1) Clip Fix:

2) Limiter:

Here are some before/after results.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

I also work with Audacity in the same way using clip fix. I also get cracking background noise considerble down when a Vinyl record is ripped.
My experience is a some what better sound stage but the most important difference i noticed is the fatigue is basicly gone when listning to a processed High compressed track. Try Amy Whine house Back to black or Adel 25.

 

[renaudrenaud]

Is there any way to fight against loudness war just avoiding to buy these kind of records?

 

[LF78]

Try Amy Whine house Back to black or Adel 25.

Yes, I declipped both I don't listen to pop music a lot, but there are some albums that I like to listen from time to time: this kind of post-processing makes them bearable to me.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Adele 25, oh what a travesty. You could only think the declipped and fixed version is good compared to one of the biggest mastering tragedies in the history of music. In the end, I just don't listen to it. And to think people won more than one Grammy for effing this up the way they did.

 

[Julf]

Well said. Hard limiting is just another tool used to achieve the desired result. The golden rule applies-those with the gold rule. This all started because the playback method, fm radio, youtube, apple etc. did not establish a max level. So the louder the better as when your tune played it was louder than the previous tune it "sounded" better. Now that most playback methods have indeed established a max level hard limiting is a thing of the past with a few exceptions.

It really started back in the days of AM radio.

 

[Snarfie]

Adele 25, oh what a travesty. You could only think the declipped and fixed version is good compared to one of the biggest mastering tragedies in the history of music. In the end, I just don't listen to it. And to think people won more than one Grammy for effing this up the way they did.

Ha ha i agree however i do listen to Amy Whinehouse (when declipped) but my wife liked Adel (in Tha car) till the moment see listen true my gear than she was cured/horrified. When i let here listen to the 25 declipped version from Brickwallhater it was way better. I find it from a point of musicality unbelievable that artist like Adel do not have anything to say how they want there work to sound probaly thinking only about how much they can make.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Ha ha i agree however i do listen to Amy Whinehouse (when declipped) but my wife liked Adel (in Tha car) till the moment see listen true my gear than she was cured/horrified. When i let here listen to the 25 declipped version from Brickwallhater it was way better. I find it from a point of musicality unbelievable that artist like Adel do not have anything to say how they want there work to sound probaly thinking only about how much they can make.

She does have a say in it. 21 was a record selling album and also very over-produced to me. She had a stop start period of time on what would become 25. She chose who to work on it, and they went much further from over-produced to stupidly over produced. It sold even more than 21. I don't know what she thinks of the sound of the end result. My opinion is she put it in hands of people who are supposed to be the best and let them work. I'm sure she could have stopped them if she didn't like it and change direction. Her sales results would reinforce whatever she is thinking. it is one of many examples that thinking you want the sound the artist prefers is often a bad idea. Artists can never listen to themselves like other people will hear it. Or at least very few of them can.

 

[BDWoody]

It really started back in the days of AM radio.

Apparently speeding up the masters by a few percent to give it more 'pop' wasn't uncommon... I'm sure that's the least of it.

 

[tmtomh]

Ha ha i agree however i do listen to Amy Whinehouse (when declipped) but my wife liked Adel (in Tha car) till the moment see listen true my gear than she was cured/horrified. When i let here listen to the 25 declipped version from Brickwallhater it was way better. I find it from a point of musicality unbelievable that artist like Adel do not have anything to say how they want there work to sound probaly thinking only about how much they can make.

Amy Winehouse - now there is a very talented artist who made some great music, but whose albums sound just terrible.

 

[Tool]

Ha ha i agree however i do listen to Amy Whinehouse (when declipped) but my wife liked Adel (in Tha car) till the moment see listen true my gear than she was cured/horrified. When i let here listen to the 25 declipped version from Brickwallhater it was way better. I find it from a point of musicality unbelievable that artist like Adel do not have anything to say how they want there work to sound probaly thinking only about how much they can make.

Problem is that Adele probably has nothing to do with the way company (simple butcher house ) is mixing and producing her records, unfortunately.

 

[PaulD]

Wow, this sounds like every second recording is smashed against the limiters... I know people who have worked on some of the recordings mentioned, and I've worked on plenty of others. I'm pretty sure nothing was deliberate;y clipped in the recording.

A few things people may not be aware of - no engineer deliberately clips a recording, or an internal buss, EVER. Mixed recordings are usually delivered for mastering at -1 to -3 dBFS.

Compression and limiting started with radio (danger of over modulating the transmitters), it is also useful for a lot of pop recordings, particularly if they are on analogue media or are listened to in less than pristine environments. The limited DR makes for a better listening experience for most listeners.

Due to the historical use of mild compression, tape compression and limiting, pop records traditionally have that sound, so today it is still practiced, it is a style issue. Classical recordings almost never see a compressor or limiter, even in analogue days (listen to the Decca 1963 recording of Miserere - LOTS of tape hiss).

Thrash metal made clipping into an effect that was used to make it sound harsher (sigh) that has sometimes been used on other types of music, but it is not common.

Mastering engineers hate clipping as much as you do, and love dynamic range as much as anyone, but they usually have to compress the recordings they get (ok, not classical) to satisfy the record company and the producer. If they refuse, the job just goes to another house...

Extreme compression was only available with digital media because it has "look ahead" algorithms instead of realtime operation in analogue production workflows. This led to the loudness wars. There has been a huge amount written about the Loudness Wars, check up what (for example) Bob Katz has written about it. It might be over, too bad for the recordings that have been released that way.

If you want to complain or change it, complain to the record companies, they are the ones who are insisting on recordings being "louder" and the compression etc that delivers this. And vote with your wallet, do not buy sub-par recordings. Tell the record companies that you would buy the music again if it was released UNMASTERED, if the original mix was released with full DR. They might get enough requests to take notice...

 

[digicidal]

While I agree with the sentiment, I think there's little to no chance of moving the needle at all - at least in referrence to pop music. Even if every person bothered by the compression wrote a hand written letter, tweeted, blogged and made a YT video about it... it would still be statistical noise in the face of the millions of BT mono-pod and/or $5 IEM consumers. Not only do those guys love/need their compression - they're listening via lossy file formats as well - as long as the beat is clean enough... that's 99.99% of their concern.

 

[audimus]

Even the audiophiles won’t pay enough for non mass-market targeted production. Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs weren’t a great success commercially.

It will only happen if one of the bigger streaming distributors get a brilliant idea to sell a audiophile channel to increase ARPU in the future, charge more for it and market it so that many of the mass-market sheep will upgrade to it because it is the in thing to do and get enough interest for the music producers to provide an alternate mix for such channels.

So you are better off lobbying Apples, Spotifys and Tidals than threaten the music producers not to buy music.

 

[digicidal]

That's the problem with almost all boycotts of commercial products... although with advertisers it might have some small impact depending on how large the grassroots effort is. If anything, it would probably have more of an impact to purchase multiple copies of good recordings and give them away. If the sales numbers increase sufficiently, the production companies might begin producing more similarly mastered recordings.

It took quite awhile for the vinyl resurgence to result in a broader return to producing vinyl pressings of anything not considered "audiophile or DJ music"... but it eventually happened because they saw the money being there.

 

[Julf]

Not only do those guys love/need their compression - they're listening via lossy file formats as well - as long as the beat is clean enough... that's 99.99% of their concern.

Not sure that is an issue in any way, as modern decent-bitrate lossy codecs are more than good enough for their use. Remember that people listen to vinyl and FM radio too...

 

[Julf]

So you are better off lobbying Apples, Spotifys and Tidals than threaten the music producers not to buy music.

Actually the Apples, Spotifys and Tidals are our biggest allies in the fight against loudness wars, as they apply loudness normalization that defeats a lot of the "smashing against the limiters".

 

[audimus]

Loudness normalization is like application of ReplayGain. Its main purpose is to keep the levels close between tracks.

It can sometime also be done with end devices/clients (like the night mode in some AVRs).

It does not solve the industry practice of compressing the music to reduce the DR so that increasing the gain max staying within loudness mandates makes it “sound” louder (tv ads do the same thing to stay within the loudness mandates but sound louder to grab attention). This destroys the quality of the music for critical listening. Loudness normalization does not really discourage this.

 

[Julf]

It does not solve the industry practice of compressing the music to reduce the DR so that increasing the gain max staying within loudness mandates makes it “sound” louder (tv ads do the same thing to stay within the loudness mandates but sound louder to grab attention). This destroys the quality of the music for critical listening. Loudness normalization does not really discourage this.

As long as the loudness normalisation uses good enough algorithms (such as EBU R128) it actually defeats the "make it sound louder" compression.

EBU R128 - The important audio breakthrough you’ve never heard of

 

[LF78]

Mastering engineers hate clipping as much as you do, and love dynamic range as much as anyone, but they usually have to compress the recordings they get (ok, not classical) to satisfy the record company and the producer. If they refuse, the job just goes to another house...

I get the need of compression for the mass market, even if I don't like the result. But what about straight clipping? This is another story, there's no way it cannot be considered a gross mastering mistake.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I get the need of compression for the mass market, even if I don't like the result. But what about straight clipping? This is another story, there's no way it cannot be considered a gross mastering mistake.

Come now friend. That isn't clipping. That is very hard limiting. And no doubt done with exquisite skill and acumen by only the finest mastering people money can buy. Otherwise this track would sound like shite. Does it sound good? Why of course, it sold millions of copies. You must be mistaken that it isn't of the highest quality. You even mistook hard limiting for clipping. What you are seeing is hard limiting of less than 200 samples at a time.