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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

#71

Post by learnstats2 »

vanderZwan wrote: post #15
Joona wrote: post #3

Good. I absolutely hate videos that are so low volume that I have to turn Youtube up to 100%, and then adjust volume in Windows too, to hear anything. And then imagine finding one of the louder videos next. I've tried to give people advice on volume levels, but it feels like no one is willing to do it. Hopefully Twitch will do something similar soon, too.

I think that is exactly the motivation: avoiding the random shifts in volume between videos. Pushing back against the loudness war was probably just a bonus. It's like watching a series on TV and then getting blasted with EXTREMELY LOUD COMMERCIAL BREAKS (and they do that shit on purpose too).

> It's like watching a series on TV and then getting blasted with EXTREMELY LOUD COMMERCIAL BREAKS (and they do that shit on purpose too).

Call me cynical, but I immediately thought that formed part of YouTube's motivation for this.

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

#72

Post by vilhelm_s »

On the other hand, Youtube plays commercials louder than the videos (this is pretty jarring if you use Youtube playlists for background music, as many people do). So I fear this is less due to an altruistic desire to improve the music landscape, and more in order to give themselves headroom to outshout the music...

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

#73

Post by anentropic »

kevincennis wrote: post #70

The 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).

people will stop doing it though, if they can't get any advantage out of it. see also "Mastered for iTunes"

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

#75

Post by mattmcknight »

learnstats2 wrote: post #71
vanderZwan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is exactly the motivation: avoiding the random shifts in volume between videos. Pushing back against the loudness war was probably just a bonus. It's like watching a series on TV and then getting blasted with EXTREMELY LOUD COMMERCIAL BREAKS (and they do that shit on purpose too).

> It's like watching a series on TV and then getting blasted with EXTREMELY LOUD COMMERCIAL BREAKS (and they do that shit on purpose too). Call me cynical, but I immediately thought that formed part of YouTube's motivation for this.

I must be the opposite of cynical, because I assumed they were doing it to combat that. The FCC already acted against the practice on TV. http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/loud-commercials

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

#76

Post by bsdpython »

72deluxe wrote: post #26
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…

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…

Really interesting post thanks. Even as an audio novice I've noticed the terrible loudness trend in music, particularly in Foo Fighters releases. It literally makes my ears tired.

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

#77

Post by kevincennis »

anentropic wrote: post #73
kevincennis wrote: post #70

The 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).

people will stop doing it though, if they can't get any advantage out of it. see also "Mastered for iTunes"

I totally get your point, but I would argue that they've _never_ gotten any real advantage out of it. They just think they do.

I'm not sure that's going to stop. It's just the way that people think they have to do things. Cargo cult mastering techniques, basically.

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

#78

Post by rada »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #18
vanderZwan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is exactly the motivation: avoiding the random shifts in volume between videos. Pushing back against the loudness war was probably just a bonus. It's like watching a series on TV and then getting blasted with EXTREMELY LOUD COMMERCIAL BREAKS (and they do that shit on purpose too).

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

They passed a similar law here in the US (http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/loud-commercials) but unfortunately, it did not help very much because sound engineers use tricks that make the commercials meet the technical requirements while still being loud to the human ear. For example, they mix a loud opening and a quieter closing so the overall decibel level averages out but you still get startled when the commercial starts.

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

#79

Post by soylentcola »

Thiz wrote: post #74

Interesting. Can they sell it to TV manufacturers so they can automatically lower the volume level of commercials?

Not sure if it's still a thing but I used to have a TV that did this. Basically if the overall volume increased more than a certain amount it would drop it a little bit. I believe you could set it by the input you were using so it applied to cable TV but not your A/V input (so it didn't mess with movies on DVD for example).

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

#80

Post by hvidgaard »

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.

I believe what makes the author excited is the fact that Youtube makes this normalization in the first place, means that a properly mastered track and a track mastered for maximum loudness, will play at roughly the same volume. The benefit is that tracks where the dynamic range have not been compressed, will sound far better than the loudness tracks.

In other words, there is no reason for the studios to master for loudness (at least for Youtube audio).

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