YouTube's new Dynamic Range Compression (DRC).

[abdo123]

YouTube seem to be rolling out a new method of loudness normalization. Instead of only applying negative gain on tracks with above -14 LUFS loudness, it seems to be now also applying compression to all tracks regardless of LUFS / loudness value.

 

[sweetchaos]

Thanks for the heads up.
What's the reason for doing this?
To save on bandwidth?

 

[KMO]

Bit of Google searching suggests some people have been noticing this for a month or two.

Refs: 1, 2

Apparently it's tied to particular accounts - a hidden setting? Log out, or switch account, and it may start behaving.

(No login here, and no problem)

 

[antoniu200]

Thanks for the heads up.
What's the reason for doing this?
To save on bandwidth?

Not exactly. The content stays unchanged, but with DRC, your computer will be compressing the loudness of the video's audio. What they send to your computer is mostly no different.

EDIT: Or maybe not. There actually do seem to be two audio sources of the same codec for DRC'd content: one DRC, one without. In this case, we might just be in luck. This one might become an option. Worst case scenario we'll start using an add-on, like h264ify, since this is reversible.

By the way, the DRC'd Opus stream is like 7% smaller larger than the normal Opus stream, negligible by me so the change is for sure not intended to save bandwidth. Might be good for mobile devices (in some scenarios), though? There is another M4A batch of streams: DRC's and normal.

Bit of Google searching suggests some people have been noticing this for a month or two.

Refs: 1, 2

Apparently it's tied to particular accounts - a hidden setting? Log out, or switch account, and it may start behaving.

(No login here, and no problem)

I only got this change recently. It seems like it only appears on PC browsers. Mobile applications seem fine.
I highly doubt this is a bug either. I believe this is something they want to use on as many videos as possible. It makes no sense otherwise, since YT now applies it to more than just music and more and more people are getting it.

But let's hope they will make this an option, not something to force down the users' throats.

 

[PeteTheBard]

Thank you so much for posting and raising awareness of this. I've been looking for answers online and not been having much luck. Thank you for posting comparisons of audio clips as that is really useful to read.

I've explored the issue a fair bit and DRC normalisation seems to be tied to some accounts and not others (I have three old accounts and DRC is applied to playback on two out of three accounts). It also doesn't affect any videos when the user is not signed into Youtube. Youtube also seems to apply DRC to videos that are roughly 2 weeks old or older, recent uploads are played back at their original volume (presumably before being queued for DRC processing at a later date). As someone previously said here, it also seems to apply to internet browsers on PC as my mobile browsing seems unaffected.

My view is that this has ruined the Youtube experience for me. Videos that are mastered to a lower loudness than Youtube's -14LUFS integrated standard are being heavily raised in volume, overcompressed, and ruined as a result. Classical music that has been delicately and beautifully mixed now has that amateurish 'pumping audio' effect especially on the quieter sections.

E.g Holst's Planets' Suite: Mars videos now have +11DB of normalisation/compression squashing the mix - which has ruined the introduction - because during the intro you're not MEANT to hear quiet col legno string sections coming at you at -14LUFS int and this absolutely destroys the listening experience. You're MEANT to hear it faintly in the background as it creeps up. TV & sports show clips are often mastered to -23LUFS int as per the TV standard, and Youtube have now added DRC to 9DB of compression for these videos to reach -14LUFS int. Reverb tails and room acoustic really pump to the forefront of these videos now as the compression engages and rolls off. I've also noticed squashing on 'louder' sections of music.

What is even more frustrating is the lack of communication from Youtube to warn users about this, if indeed this is a permanent change. It might be a trial to see how people react. Annoyingly I can find lots of advice online that says Youtube don't increase audio levels if a master is below -14LUFS int, and yet if this isn't true anymore it will have profound implications for the playback quality of our mixes and masters on this platform.

I would be very happy to see the back of this DRC feature and let tracks play at their intended masters if below -14LUFS. It would make sense for them to keep turning down tracks that exceed -14LUFS.

 

[antoniu200]

It is possible they are starting to back out on this. At this point, I can count at least 3 music videos that have a DRC audio source, but have not been played back in DRC on my account anymore. These are not recent videos, but quite old, so I should be getting them in DRC.
But yet I am not.

Seems like good news to me.

EDIT: Okay, this video was definitely played back in DRC to me last week, but not anymore to me:

Was about time, really.

 

[PeteTheBard]

It seems to have been put back to normal on my account too. I complained on Youtube's 'send feedback' as I was watching a series of tutorials - some parts had DRC applied and some parts were played without DRC, and the loudness discrepancy was huge between the parts. If anyone from Youtube is stalking this thread, thanks for sorting it.

 

[Buckster]

my youtube account has just had DRC enabled - a track I often listen to of Kebu's - sound like it was "pulsing" - like really high dynamic range compression added

did some googling and found yes in stats it says - "DRC" for normalized

switch to my non-primary youtube account or log-out of my youtube account and no DRC and sounds fine

log back into my primary youtube account, and DRC applied and sounds very poor

this is via Chrome - I haven't tried my Shield TV which is also logged into my account - I'll try that later

 

[ejaq]

I'm glad I came across this thread, I thought I was going crazy. The dynamic audio compression (DRC) that YouTube is applying is very noticeable indeed. Seems to be an account-bound feature. I opened up the same video in an incognito tab and there is no DRC. More needs to be done about this outside of "please remove this from my account".

Should be something for uploaders decide. I can see it being useful for vloggers but not musicians and people who take care of their audio.

 

[Kardash]

Just wrote to you-tube to let them know that it can give them, and people who put a lot of effort into audio, bad impressions as it makes it so unpleasant. Gosh, i was in a quiet a shock when i started to notice the video's i worked on are sounding like worked on by an amateur. Thanks for this thread!!! I also thought i was going crazy. I am trying to mix audio differently now to avoid the impact - but it's just not possible to apply same method to every type of film that comes to me, without ruining the work that had gone into it. Anyway, thanks guys...