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YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

productionadvice.co.uk

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Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#51

Post by rplst8 »

polshaw wrote: post #22

>[on YT] Everything plays at a similar loudness, regardless of how it was mastered. And no-one has noticed. None of us noticed; it seems like the labels and sound engineers may have; take this image comparing the dynamic range of the CD and youtube releases of Pharrell's "Happy"[1]- I thought at the time it might just have been a mishap or random occurance, but now it looks like it was a very deliberate move. So, rat…

The examples you've cited look to be mastered (or at least sourced) differently. True loudness normalization should not affect the short term dynamic range of the material. It simply looks at the average level and lowers or raises it to some preset point. YT could be doing inter-song normalization, i.e. adjusting parts within the song to the same overall level - but this is not a good thing as it would affect properly mastered tracks too.

Your example seems to show a completely clipped sample (in the CD) and a more reasonably mastered copy (in the YT clip) with greater dynamic range. Once the dynamic range has been destroyed through compression (not digital compression, I'm speaking of gain compression http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gain_compression) it would difficult or nearly impossible to restore without affecting the quality.

My guess - in this instance, I think the CD and YT clips come from different masters.

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#52

Post by ferongr »

tormeh wrote: post #48
ferongr wrote: post #41

I don't get it. Loudness normalization past the mastering stage (i.e. at the audio track uploaded by the label) will only make all audio louder or quiter, it can't increase the actual dynamic range of the track. Furthermore, the DR meter can easily produce bogus results if the equalization changes or with non-lossless joint-stereo encoding algorithms. I'd be cautious before celebrating.

Humans like loud music, so louder music sounds better and sell more. So, how do you make your music MAXIMUM LOUD? Well, our digital formats have a setting for how loud any given sound is, but you can't just set it to the maximum value because then all sounds in your track will be equally loud. Or can you? Not all parts of a cymbal "phish" is equally loud, so setting it all to max will distort the sound (sacrifice dyn…

Applying Replaygain or EBU R128 loudness equalization will not change the perception of dynamic range and, all other things being equal will actually slightly decrease the DR rating. And TFA is not talking about Replaygain-like algorithms from the description.

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#54

Post by rplst8 »

MrJagil wrote: post #11
rodgerd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The average viewer will probably listen through laptop speakers in a noisy environment, and a large dynamic range is not helpful to them. If you use compression on the assumption that a chunk of your audience will be listening on shitty speakers you ensure that anyone not listening on shitty speakers also gets a shitty experience. Perhaps Google would like YouTube to be a non-shitty experience for people with nice…

> anyone not listening on shitty speakers also gets a shitty experience This hyperbole serves no one. Modern limiters are tremendously transparent, and only people who are listening for it will notice the increase in compression. That said, there is a case to be made for listener fatigue. Personally, I'm not on youtube for extended periods where that would be a problem, but I can see how it might be. Further, as a mu…

> This hyperbole serves no one. Modern limiters are tremendously transparent, and only people who are listening for it will notice the increase in compression.

Agree. Though, I'd add a qualifier - "...are tremendously transparent when used correctly..."

The one thing even audiophiles with the best speakers on the planet need to realize is that no speakers can approach the dynamic range of what modern digital audio have to offer us. Therefore, some tasteful compression (or limiting) will be needed, or the signal will launch the speaker cones out of their baskets.

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#55

Post by tormeh »

pz7e wrote: post #50
tormeh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans like loud music, so louder music sounds better and sell more. So, how do you make your music MAXIMUM LOUD? Well, our digital formats have a setting for how loud any given sound is, but you can't just set it to the maximum value because then all sounds in your track will be equally loud. Or can you? Not all parts of a cymbal "phish" is equally loud, so setting it all to max will distort the sound (sacrifice dyn…

Although the tracks have been normalised to have the same average loudness, the more aggressively compressed tracks that have less dynamic range will still sound louder at this lower level. I don't see how what YouTube is doing is going to help.

As I understand it, tracks with more dynamic range will have louder loud's and quieter quiet's, while those with low dynamic range will have less of either.

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#57

Post by glomph »

ilghiro wrote: post #40
gadders wrote: post #39

Semi-related: Has anyone else noticed how HD channels have their volume levels set higher than non-HD? This is quite noticeable on the BSKYB service in the UK. I wondered if it applied for other suppliers.

With Virgin Media I have to pretty much double the TV volume on HD channels to get the same volume level.

Is this to do with multi channel audio?

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#58

Post by mrob »

pz7e wrote: post #50
tormeh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans like loud music, so louder music sounds better and sell more. So, how do you make your music MAXIMUM LOUD? Well, our digital formats have a setting for how loud any given sound is, but you can't just set it to the maximum value because then all sounds in your track will be equally loud. Or can you? Not all parts of a cymbal "phish" is equally loud, so setting it all to max will distort the sound (sacrifice dyn…

Although the tracks have been normalised to have the same average loudness, the more aggressively compressed tracks that have less dynamic range will still sound louder at this lower level. I don't see how what YouTube is doing is going to help.

If the lower dynamic range tracks sound louder even after normalization then the normalization algorithm is flawed. ReplayGain weights the energy by frequency to better match perceived loudness, and it does a reasonably good job. Other algorithms might do an even better job at matching human perception.

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#59

Post by dccoolgai »

jon-wood wrote: post #38
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re the commercials, over here in NL they (finally!) introduced a law that prohibits that behaviour.

Related to the sibling comment here on the CALM act - who thinks up these names? Is there a committee in some basement somewhere that gets told the gist of each act, and has to think up a suitable acronym for them?

Underpaid legislative aides, generally. Occasionally with the help of overpaid lobbyists.

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#60

Post by torrent-of-ions »

ferongr wrote: post #41

I don't get it. Loudness normalization past the mastering stage (i.e. at the audio track uploaded by the label) will only make all audio louder or quiter, it can't increase the actual dynamic range of the track. Furthermore, the DR meter can easily produce bogus results if the equalization changes or with non-lossless joint-stereo encoding algorithms. I'd be cautious before celebrating.

Dynamic range compression (DRC) is destructive so of course the normalisation cannot repair the damage. But the point is there is no longer any reason to use DRC simply to try to increase the playback level because Youtube will undo any attempt. DRC now simply reduces the dynamic range, making music sound worse, not louder.
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