The Loudness War

This article does an excellent job of explaining what's been going on with the excessive dynamic range compression that is being used these days by the audio industry. There is a audio/video graph that goes along with this article.

http://www.avguide.com/news/2007/01/04/insider-with-robert-harley-the-loudness-war/

"It’s no secret that record companies crush the dynamic range of rock and pop releases in order to make their records sound louder during radio play."

This just doesn't make sense to me. The video proves only that he can do that on his own.. He's not showing us any evidence that record companies are doing this, so it's just his theory.

I would say there is a lot of truth to this statement. “It’s no secret that record companies crush the dynamic range of rock and pop releases in order to make their records sound louder during radio play”.

If I play my mass produced CD of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and then the MFSL (Mobil Fidelity Sound Lab) copy off of the original master there is a big loudness difference. I have to turn down the volume on the mass produced CD to equal the same level as the MFSL original CD. The MFSL CD offers more clarity and definition over the mass produced CD this I can hear.

Related info:

http://www.mindspring.com/~mrichter/dynamics/dynamics.htm

TomDac said:

"It’s no secret that record companies crush the dynamic range of rock and pop releases in order to make their records sound louder during radio play."

This just doesn't make sense to me. The video proves only that he can do that on his own.. He's not showing us any evidence that record companies are doing this, so it's just his theory.

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In the studio recording class that I took, the teacher said that studies had been done that proved people had a preference for music that played at higher levels. Some kind of subliminal thing I guess

Yeah, it's funny...there's no inherent advantage to doing this...except that in comparison to normally recorded stuff, your music is played at a higher level...thus sounding "better" initially...until everyone does it, at which point they turn the volume down...and you have less dynamic range being played at a softer volume....so just a decrease in quality. That's fine with me if they do it for radio edits...but I'd assume a lot of regular cds are put out like this too.

All the more reason to keep a DBX Dynamic Range expander in my system!

Indeed Tom

Beat_Dominator said:

In the studio recording class that I took, the teacher said that studies had been done that proved people had a preference for music that played at higher levels. Some kind of subliminal thing I guess

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Well, I know when I hear the thump of some BS hip hop it ****es me off when I am driving... :haha1:

Dynamic compression is a fact of recording...for a few reasons.

One is to make the listening level louder and at a more constant level. In fact some radio stations even compress recording even further to make their station sound louder. Recording companies use one of two processes, one being peak limiting to analogue tape to prevent saturation at high levels such as transients and crescendos. The second being compression which brings quite levels up to a louder level and high levels to a lower level...it's really done to keep the audio signal in the "quite" zone of the analogue recording medium, be it tape or vinyl.

Tom you have the right idea there with your dbx, I to have two models a dbx 118 dynamic range enhancer and a dbx II 124 noise reduction system with the dbx disc (vinyl records) decoder.

Anyway back to the discussion. Most all recordings made on tape need some sort of signal processing to keep the audio signal away from the noise of the tape itself or the distortion of overloading a hot signal to the tape...this is where noise reduction such as Dolby or dbx limiting or compression is needed. They both work differently and treat the signal in a different way. Once the multi-track tape is finished, the Mastering process is next..that is mixing down to 2 channels. The engineer will most likely use a limiter on the two channels between the multi-track tape and the two-channel mastering tape machine. Next the master tape is brought to the record cutter...where guess what...possibly more compression or limiting and the addition of the RIAA Curve encoding. Some good engineers will know just how much compression is needed for each part of the recording process however you have to consider not everyone thinks the same way. In fact most of the time the multi-channel recording engineer is a different person than the Mastering engineer who in turn is a different person than the record cutting engineer.

One important thing to remember at the record cutter process...they have to be able to limit recording to a certain velocity at the cutter head...if the signal is to hot or loud or with to much dynamic range...it will be extremely difficult for the needle/arm combination to track the undulations in the tiny groove in the record. There are guidelines as to how much of a signal can be cut into these grooves...with some occasional peaks and transients...but this is where the record cutting engineers feel comes in.

Compression is there for a very necessary part of recording to avoid noise and to avoid distortion. dbx took a different approach to this by encoding a compressed signal and then upon playback the decoding was the exact opposite expansion of the original compression. Great idea and it does work as I have used it at the recording studio and at home in my own recorded tapes. Both the encoding signal and the decoding signal have to be calibrated at three frequencies in order for the professional dbx system to work optimally...this would not be the case at home where the level is one pot you adjust for an overall level match.

Back to the original question, Compressing a signal makes it louder because all the variations in level are limited to a narrow dynamic range...low recorded volumes are brought up louder and loud recorded volumes are brought down lower...so everything is almost a constant loudness...ala pop recordings...try that with a good jazz or symphony recording and wow so uneventful. Radio stations love compression because they can out-loud anything else with dynamic range. They also demand more from an amplifier because those type of recordings are always asking for a lot of signal into the amplifier. Listen to a classical station in traffic...do you find yourself raising the volume to hear the quite passages...how about lowering it when the crescendos come along...that’s dynamic range working. That’s why it is so important to have as quite a room as you can possibly achieve if you want to hear all that dynamic range. Problem with recording music with a lot of dynamic range at the recording studio is that you need to have a good noise reduction system IF the recording is going to be analogue.

Most all of my knowledge is with analogue tape. I don't know much about digital recording, they did not exist when I went to school for audio engineering. However I did take one class in my second degree Mechanical Engineering as an elective, yeah recording and it was in digital format...hey it was an easy elective for me! Hope this helps some of you understand the loudness war. This is a huge subject so this is just a teaser…hope this helped a little.
Sam

Nice explanation Sam, thanks !!

Your welcome Dave. Anyone still confused let me know. I'll try to expand and help out if I can.

Cherian said:

I would say there is a lot of truth to this statement. “It’s no secret that record companies crush the dynamic range of rock and pop releases in order to make their records sound louder during radio play”.

If I play my mass produced CD of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and then the MFSL (Mobil Fidelity Sound Lab) copy off of the original master there is a big loudness difference. I have to turn down the volume on the mass produced CD to equal the same level as the MFSL original CD. The MFSL CD offers more clarity and definition over the mass produced CD this I can hear.

Click to expand...

This is probably the main reason MFSL records, CDs and SACDs always sound better!

Thanks for the very good discussions and information about how dynamic compression is used and misused on recordings. Some good news (in my opinion) is that most (but not all) recordings that are crushed with excessive dynamic compression is usually music I don't care to listen to anyway regardless of the recording quality. I.E music made for optimum sound on a boom-box or a cheesy radio station playing urban hits or country music. But then I'm sure there are more CDs in my collection that would probably sound much better recorded with the audiophile in mind rather the mass market MP3/Ipod crowd.

The winner of audio compression wars are definitely the TV commercials.

First, Sam great discussion, thanks for your thoughts.

Second, can you please, please use the return key more often and format your posts so we can easily read them

Just because the music industry compresses the audio does not mean we need to compress the paragraph separators out of the text

The winner of audio compression wars are definitely the TV commercials.

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I think they are actually the losers. I usually make an effort to record shows just so I can fast forward through the commercials or else I'll go for the mute button. I find it really annoying that their often screaming at you in your house.

JonFo,
Consider it done.

Craig,
no sweat, anytime...

I get quite aggravated with the excessive compression with recordings. As someone mentioned, I don't really listen to most of those types of recordings for my musical enjoyment given my choice. However it does seem that if the recording engineer is easily swayed by the producer with the dynamics of the recording, who is more interested in the loudness factor, then we loose out. A recording engineer who might also be an audiophile will kindly suggest a sufficient amount of limiting or compression. It depends on the client and it depends on the type of genre of music. Clients who know that dynamics are just as important to thier recording as the music itself will leave it up to the recording engineer to use limiting or compression only when it is needed and to a small degree. In some cases, compression can be used to bring an instrument out further in the recording. Compression at the multitrack recording level can be applied to individual microphones or lines to enhance just one track, instrument or vocal.

TV and Radio commercials are great examples of excessive compression. One level...loud.

Most of the time the producer IS a major factor. After all, as a recording engineer you are contracted by them. Most who have been in the bussiness for a while know what the deal is in front of that large intimidating console. He or She is going to know the end use and if it is a POP or Dance club mix...compression city! Won't see my Turntable or digital player.

I do have to admit, that as a recording associate and later engineer, it was not up to me to be particular, at least outwardly, as to the type of music that is being performed and recorded. It was my job to get the sound and effect the producer is looking for and to get that recording onto tape the best way possible.
Sam

Craig said:

I think they are actually the losers. I usually make an effort to record shows just so I can fast forward through the commercials or else I'll go for the mute button. I find it really annoying that their often screaming at you in your house.

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Yes, aren't DVR's wonderful!