Doesn't the process of compression (to make it seem louder) destroy some of the information? I always assumed this was a irreversible process?
Yes it does. That is (partly) why those who love music often hate (too much) compression.
YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin
61–70 of 130 posts
Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try System of a Down's Holy Mountain, where the damn CD clips ! I can't imagine who would let a CD track clip.
Pretty sure that first MGMT album clips all over the place. And yeah I agree. That first SOAD album is an impressive piece of mastering though.
> Pretty sure that first MGMT album clips all over the place.
I haven't heard their first album but I'm surprised at this. In my experience, most indie acts have greater creative control over mastering and just about every indie act I listen to (with the exception of some of the heavier stuff) is very light on the "loudness". By contrast, some of the more "pop" stuff I like, even songs that should be clean and distortion free, are unnecessarily jacked up way past the redline. A great example is John Mayer's "Heavier Things" album, with clipping and distortion on the lightest, cleanest tracks, and it gets worse with each of his albums after. It's frustrating because I know he's a brilliant musician who knows better, but I imagine it's the label who has the final creative control over what sound is heard on the CD.
Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin
#63>[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 properl…
I think that is exactly what OP was trying to say:
> None of us noticed; it seems like the labels and sound engineers may have
They noticed and adjusted their YouTube masters accordingly.
Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I noticed! I am a bass player who now happens to write software in the audio industry (I work for a company that makes hardware). But I noticed before coming here. Some of the worst CDs in my record collection are: 1. Paul McCartney - Memory Almost Full (this is the worst album I own - considering Sir Paul left The Beatles over the mix of The Long and Winding Road, he should leave his own band over his master of this…
The one which had me sad recently is the soundtrack to the game Bastion: http://supergiantgames.bandcamp.com/album/bastion-original-s... It's noticeable on almost every track basically as soon as the drums kick in. (About ten seconds into "A Proper Story", for example). It's depressing that this has occurred even on a piece of indie content for which so much care has otherwise been taken— Darren Korb was the sound de…
I always thought that drum sound was on purpose. I kind of liked the way it sounded.
Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin
#65>[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…
Wait, the audio in YouTube doesn't come from the CD? I never suspected that. I thought the article referred to that they took the audio, sourced from the CD, and lowered the volume if it was too loud (which obviously can't bring the dynamic range back).
Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin
#66>[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…
I noticed! I am a bass player who now happens to write software in the audio industry (I work for a company that makes hardware). But I noticed before coming here. Some of the worst CDs in my record collection are: 1. Paul McCartney - Memory Almost Full (this is the worst album I own - considering Sir Paul left The Beatles over the mix of The Long and Winding Road, he should leave his own band over his master of this…
The last Dead Can Dance album was terribly mastered too. Why am I hearing clipping on one of their albums!?
Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin
#67>[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…
I noticed! I am a bass player who now happens to write software in the audio industry (I work for a company that makes hardware). But I noticed before coming here. Some of the worst CDs in my record collection are: 1. Paul McCartney - Memory Almost Full (this is the worst album I own - considering Sir Paul left The Beatles over the mix of The Long and Winding Road, he should leave his own band over his master of this…
Addition to that Metallica - Death Magnetic is also on my list.
It already makes 2 albums from Rick Rubin in the list.
EDIT:
Add reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regard...
Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin
#68>[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…
I noticed! I am a bass player who now happens to write software in the audio industry (I work for a company that makes hardware). But I noticed before coming here. Some of the worst CDs in my record collection are: 1. Paul McCartney - Memory Almost Full (this is the worst album I own - considering Sir Paul left The Beatles over the mix of The Long and Winding Road, he should leave his own band over his master of this…
Metallica, Death magnetic was famously poorly mastered on CD. [1]
So much so that people ended up downloading the rip from the Guitar Hero version as it was far better.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regard...
Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin
#69Earlier 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…
This is of course what the "war" is about at its core - do we prefer to to sound OK everywhere, but not great anywhere, or do we prefer to sound great for some people, but be inaudible to others. The right answer depends on the content, context and audience. The choice is with the content creator, not with YouTube, and for many content creators optimizing for people with bad speakers is the right choice. Lowering the…
If they can offer several different tiers of video quality, they could do the same with the audio. Imagine a set of options that not only offers audio versions optimized for great headphones or optimized for phone speakers in a public space, but educates the (interested) user about the difference!
Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin
#70The loudness war isn't dead until people stop brick-walling their mixes at the mastering stage.
You can adjust playback volume between tracks all you want, but if they all have like 6dB of dynamic range, they're going to sound like garbage.
You're not really eliminating the loudness wars unless you find a way to Command-Z all of that ridiculous limiting (or convince people not to do it in the first place).