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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

#111

Post by tigeba »

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 came here to say the same thing. This move probably has everything to do with making sure people don't have to constantly change the volume when shifting between music videos and random amateur cat videos. The simple fact is YouTube can't change the average loudness of a given audio track without applying some form of 'destructive' processing, either compression or expansion. A more dynamic track will always be on average, quieter than a less dynamic track. Re-processing a bunch of audio tracks with just normalization does not change their average loudness, unless of course they are selectively applying compression to audio they find in need of a boost.

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

#112

Post by IshKebab »

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 second video you link is 240p which is always going to have awful quality. You can't really use that for a comparison (unless I guess you force the first one to 240p too).

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

#113

Post by alephnil »

Thiz wrote: post #74

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

Youtube can do this becuase they have the whole video before they transcode it, and by then they know its average loudness. TV sets receive the content as they play it, so they can only do this if they play the content with some delay, since they otherwise can't know in advance what the average loudness is going to be. They can of cause cap it at some maximal loudness, but that would also cap the loudness of the loudest section of movies as well, and by that reducing the dynamic range.

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

#114

Post by cthalupa »

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…

>so louder music sounds better and sell more

So, actually, there's not much evidence that points to this. We see albums with good dynamic range selling just as well as ones with shitty dynamic range that is louder.

The FM radio has long normalized volume for songs - so the only places this mattered was on purchased CDs.

It's some weird feedback loop. The initial input was true - to a point, humans think louder things sound better - but that idea has now been as distorted as the audio tracks they're putting out.

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

#115

Post by mmarx »

JoelHobson wrote: post #64
mikepurvis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It also fits quite well with where those tracks typically play during the game.

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

#116

Post by CompanyLaser »

allending wrote: post #53

I know people perceive louder as sounding better, but is there any research that addresses why we perceive it that way?

Higher signal to noise ratio. Dr. Barry Blesser suggests that "raising the loudness of music, like a double shot of whisky, elevates the intensity of the experience". Listeners undergo significant, measurable changes in mind-body states and Blesser reckons that "loud music is simply a stronger stimulant than soft music".

Blesser - The Seductive (Yet Destructive) Appeal of Loud Music: http://www.blesser.net/downloads/eContact%20Loud%20Music.pdf

Psychoacoustic tricks such as compression and EQ allow us to increase perceived loudness without crossing the threshold of pain.

3, 4, and 6 in this article explain this psychoacoustic phenomena pretty well: http://getthatprosound.com/hacking-your-listeners-ears-9-psy...

And this article argues in depth, that the relationship between actual/perceived dynamic range is ultimately an artistic choice, yielding different feels. What people who complain about loudness are really objecting to is the improper use of these techniques: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/loudness.htm

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

#117

Post by JonnieCache »

StavrosK wrote: post #30
72deluxe wrote: post #26

Earlier 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…

Try System of a Down's Holy Mountain, where the damn CD clips ! I can't imagine who would let a CD track clip.

Unbelievably, some "mastering engineers" have been known to deliberately clip the track in pursuit of loudness, often at an ADC stage, and then turn the level down a fraction so it doesnt clip on playback. unfortunately, lots of DACs will produce inter-sample peaks under these conditions, which leads to that awful sound.

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

#118

Post by throwmeunder »

mrob wrote: post #58
pz7e wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>If the lower dynamic range tracks sound louder even after normalization then the normalization algorithm is flawed.

That's not quite true. Listen to this: https://soundcloud.com/amp-33/sets/uncompressed-vs-compresse...

Those two things have a pretty similar loudness(A-weighted RMS) and yet the compressed one sounds louder than the measured difference - ~3dB A-weighted which is not obvious to perceive untrained.

As a test - download them both, amplify the Uncompressed one at -2.7dB and listen to them again. They have the same A-weighted RMS yet the Uncompressed one sounds louder.

A-weighting - http://www.diracdelta.co.uk/science/source/a/w/aweighting/so... RMS - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_mean_square Measurements done with Audacity, wave stats: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?p=248505#p248505

edit:to add the quote

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

#119

Post by throwmeunder »

tormeh wrote: post #55
pz7e wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's true but most people are used to a smaller DR(up to a point of course but that point is way out) and still prefer the lower DR even after normalization.

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

#120

Post by blktiger »

rada wrote: post #78
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Just one more reason not to watch normal television.
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