So is there any progress on the loudness front?

[SubFunk]

I'd rather be able to turn up a quit song than have to turn down a loud one because it's distorting .

absolutely

and a quieter song well produced and mastered that still has healthy dynamics will sound even better turned up, then a 'high volume master' that is squashed.
and those 'high volume' masters sound real disgusting turned up really high on the system.

[josephjobling]

I'd rather be able to turn up a quit song than have to turn down a loud one because it's distorting .

absolutely

and a quieter song well produced and mastered that still has healthy dynamics will sound even better turned up, then a 'high volume master' that is squashed.
and those 'high volume' masters sound real disgusting turned up really high on the system.

yep i agree its what people do to the bass and kick drum that hurts me most - i love a good bass line, so i'm rocking away thinking this bass sound sweet - turn it up to feel the bass and ...........ahhh nasty farty distortion - producers of the world sort it out.

[SubFunk]

...........ahhh nasty farty distortion - producers of the world sort it out.

man don't get me even started on this... that was my first big discussion when i joined this forum, this whole mastering issue... tiring, very tiring, there are to easy available tools most people don't even remotely understand around that can 'destroy' music, it want be solved, i really don't think so... i mean i totally gave up... i mean to argue about it, the kids will do it anyway louder and louder they love it.

i only love when a club PA or concert is played real MF loud, but not loud produced tracks or music.

[josephjobling]

...........ahhh nasty farty distortion - producers of the world sort it out.

man don't get me even started on this... that was my first big discussion when i joined this forum, this whole mastering issue... tiring, very tiring, there are to easy available tools most people don't even remotely understand around that can 'destroy' music, it want be solved, i really don't think so... i mean i totally gave up... i mean to argue about it, the kids will do it anyway louder and louder they love it.

i only love when a club PA or concert is played real MF loud, but not loud produced tracks or music.

i here you man i love loud music my self - through a good quality amp and speakers - all the producers destroyin dynamic range all over the world need to remember we can buy amplifiers -
would i be right in thinking the only advantage to the "louder" music these days is for radio broadcast?

[Tarekith]

I've already seen a pretty big shift in people's attitudes when it comes to the loudness of the songs I master for them. 3 years ago everyone wanted it louder louder louder no matter what, but in general more producers these days seem to recognize that there's a point of no return. At the very least, more producers seem willing to trust the mastering engineer to handle that decision.

I think a lot of it is just education of artists and labels, by both the industry as a whole, and mastering/mixdown engineers too. More people today know what the loudness wars are, and seem less inclined to take part. I still think that artists expect to have a loud and competitive master, but they seem to realize that there ARE bad side effects if you abuse this. I still have a couple producers who don't care and still want me to squash things to the point of no return no matter what, but it's definitely not nearly as common as it used to me.

I think part of it is that we're getting better tools now too, some of the software limiters are able to push things a bit more transparently than they used to in the past. And luckily we're also finally getting a lot more choice in these decisions other than the Waves L2 or (shudder) L3.

[SubFunk]

would i be right in thinking the only advantage to the "louder" music these days is for radio broadcast?

not really, radios typically use 'volume slammers' such as jünger compressors those are hell.

and any already ueber loud track will just sound even worse...

you are totally right, the PA system or home stereo should be whacked up that the walls start to tumble, not the productions.

but in the days of hardly existing good home hifis, but plastic speakers driven by mp3s or cheap in ear headphones, people just give a damn anymore.

[håkan bråkan]

...........ahhh nasty farty distortion - producers of the world sort it out.

man don't get me even started on this... that was my first big discussion when i joined this forum, this whole mastering issue... tiring, very tiring, there are to easy available tools most people don't even remotely understand around that can 'destroy' music, it want be solved, i really don't think so... i mean i totally gave up... i mean to argue about it, the kids will do it anyway louder and louder they love it.

i only love when a club PA or concert is played real MF loud, but not loud produced tracks or music.

But I started this thread to get some artists perspective, I mean the artist who releases the material her/him-self can choose. We have chosen mp3 as 'standard' now (which I think is pretty crappy, and which we will regret later), a mastering level standard in sound pressure related to digital dB, i.e. dBFS would not be that hard... Just some label to start with it that people support, but I can see that there is a lot of attitude in the business.

[SubFunk]

...........ahhh nasty farty distortion - producers of the world sort it out.

man don't get me even started on this... that was my first big discussion when i joined this forum, this whole mastering issue... tiring, very tiring, there are to easy available tools most people don't even remotely understand around that can 'destroy' music, it want be solved, i really don't think so... i mean i totally gave up... i mean to argue about it, the kids will do it anyway louder and louder they love it.

i only love when a club PA or concert is played real MF loud, but not loud produced tracks or music.

But I started this thread to get some artists perspective, I mean the artist who releases the material her/him-self can choose. We have chosen mp3 as 'standard' now (which I think is pretty crappy, and which we will regret later), a mastering level standard in sound pressure related to digital dB, i.e. dBFS would not be that hard... Just some label to start with it that people support, but I can see that there is a lot of attitude in the business.

you don't need standards, that is rubbish and does not make any sense... i mean not here in this case...

i release stuff and i have my fave mastering guy an english bloke living in london. he makes beautiful sounding masterings and is not after a volume squash, we have the same attitude... that is why i go to him for my stuff. (the labels i deal with i always get to the point that i can choose the mastering 'facility' and if it would be a problem in the future i seriously would refuse a release if i think they gave it to a 'squasher' and it turns out to sound shite, in that respect i never sold out, but maybe that is why i am not on a very famous level)

and it is an attitude thing... but still a mainly 'wrong' one in my eyes.

or what do you mean? or want to know? did i misunderstood you?

[håkan bråkan]

i release stuff and i have my fave mastering guy an english bloke living in london. he makes beautiful sounding masterings and is not after a volume squash, we have the same attitude... that is why i go to him for my stuff. (the labels i deal with i always get to the point that i can choose the mastering 'facility' and if it would be a problem in the future i seriously would refuse a release if i think they gave it to a 'squasher' and it turns out to sound shite, in that respect i never sold out, but maybe that is why i am not on a very famous level)

and it is an attitude thing... but still a mainly 'wrong' one in my eyes.

Good to hear! So you have another level (subjectively sound pressure or -dB RMS speaking) for each release then?

[SubFunk]

i release stuff and i have my fave mastering guy an english bloke living in london. he makes beautiful sounding masterings and is not after a volume squash, we have the same attitude... that is why i go to him for my stuff. (the labels i deal with i always get to the point that i can choose the mastering 'facility' and if it would be a problem in the future i seriously would refuse a release if i think they gave it to a 'squasher' and it turns out to sound shite, in that respect i never sold out, but maybe that is why i am not on a very famous level)

and it is an attitude thing... but still a mainly 'wrong' one in my eyes.

Good to hear! So you have another level (subjectively sound pressure or -dB RMS speaking) for each release then?

yeah. it's only on one level adjusted within one 'project' or EP or whatever that is
and all those are then a little differently loud between each other... just like millions of other [mainly older] records out there...

and my stuff is generally rather very low in volume

i also don't care about issues like it has to sound good on headphones or mp3 players / plastic bombers called speakers for PCs or radios or whatever (that all accounts only for my own music!,
if a client however wants something different he gets it!) i only care that it sounds good on a club PA pushed up so high that the walls are shakin'.

[Tarekith]

I don't think it matters what kind of standard you choose, some people will always push against it as hard as they can. Even if you were to say releases can't be louder than -3dBFS (RMS or Peak), people will still squash things as much as they can against that ceiling.

[SubFunk]

I don't think it matters what kind of standard you choose, some people will always push against it as hard as they can. Even if you were to say releases can't be louder than -3dBFS (RMS or Peak), people will still squash things as much as they can against that ceiling.

yup! and then you have the same bad scenario again...

[hurlingdervish]

as far as im concerned dynamics are a non-issue for

gasp

bands who actually write songs that have dynamic changes in volumes

How in the fuck would an engineer get away with squashing a Sigur Ros album? They wouldn't! its a part of their sound and they dictate it to be that way.

[håkan bråkan]

I don't think it matters what kind of standard you choose, some people will always push against it as hard as they can. Even if you were to say releases can't be louder than -3dBFS (RMS or Peak), people will still squash things as much as they can against that ceiling.

yup! and then you have the same bad scenario again...

I can agree to some extent, but then there is the movie business with a more professional engineering perspective, which really works nice. To me it's really sad when tracks are squashed on releases which would really be top notch albums if mastered properly.

[Tarekith]

Oh man, I totally agree, don't get me wrong. I've had to ruin some pretty amazing songs because all the artist cares about is volume, it's a really sad day to be a mastering engineer when that happens let me tell you.

I'm just saying that the best way to solve the issue is to keep on educating people about the issue in the first place. Telling people (especially artists) that they have to adhere to a standard is just asking for trouble, because artists love to break rules. Even in the movie business, there's been a few movies I've been to that were surely pushing the accepted limit for the sake of volume, and they sounded awful for it. Better to let people know WHY it's bad, and then they can make their own decisions.

At least things like monitors and soundcards are getting pretty good on the low end of the price range these days, and more people are understanding the need for even rudimentary acoustic treatment. With those things in place, it's a lot easier for musicians to hear for themselves exactly how bad squashing songs for volume sounds.