Music Into Noise: The Destructive Use Of Dynamic Range Compression part 2

I don't tend to notice corrective autotuning but I accept that a lot of people can spot it immediately (and it often bugs the hell out of them).

People listen to and for different things in music.

I don't tend to notice corrective autotuning

jesus

I mean, like, I know people come from different musical perspectives but I didn't realize the human listening/sound-parsing experience was anything but universal

to the extent that people wouldn't notice something like autotune, anyway

If I focus and/or it's pointed out to me, then yeah, but otherwise it doesn't really leap out.

Obv I notice post-"Believe" distortive aututone.

oh, I thought that's what you meant. lol. that's why I was so shocked.

haha yeah i thought that might be it.

like i've said before, i know people - music fans - who can't tell the difference between a 128kpbs and 320 kpbs mp3, and that shocks the hell out of me.

when i say i don't notice dynamic range compression, i mostly mean that despite listening to music in 90% of my waking hours, i never have cause to think about it - there's just nothing about how the music sounds that bothers me or sounds wrong.

i mean, it made sense as a concept when i first read about it, but all these years on it doesn't remotely impinge on my actual listening, and i'm way more inclined to just disbelieve it. it's not there. it is literally just not there when i listen. the music sounds fine.

It might be so ubiquitous now that it'd take its absence (especially if you were listening in a car, or through cheap headphones) to catch your attention. That music would sound wrong to you without it....

when i say i don't notice dynamic range compression, i mostly mean that despite listening to music in 90% of my waking hours, i never have cause to think about it - there's just nothing about how the music sounds that bothers me or sounds wrong.

― lex pretend, Friday, October 14, 2011 6:46 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i guarantee you've noticed it, you just didn't recognize it ~as dynamic range compression~

Ears adapt very quickly. You'd have to A/B something with and without the compression/limiting to hear the differences in audio compression. The easiest way to do this is to grab a cd from the late 80s and compare it with a reissue from the last few years. The REM or Feelies reissues spring to mind. The original tracks will have average levels (rms levels) at around -17 db; the stuff done in the last couple of years will be around -11. It's way louder and punchier. Flattened a touch. Sometimes sounds great, sometimes not. But it's obvious.

Though if you're talking about data compression (320 kbps vs. 128), that will be more a matter of the equipment you're listening on and its resolution. Crappy headphones? Noisy car? Computer speakers? Not a big deal. Real stereo? Studio monitors? It'll be there, but more instantly audible will be the mastering job and the levels. It'll be mostly in the highest and lowest frequencies, especially where the sound is busiest, that you'll hear more data compression artifacts, but again, only with better gear.

i listen to old CDs (ripped to mp3) and current mp3s, don't notice any particular fundamental difference. older CDs are quieter but that's just a question of turning the volume up or down, nothing fundamental about the sound.

i have noticed, weirdly, that in my new room it sounds like the bass on my stereo has been turned WAY UP even though all the settings are the same - this is the case even with DBFB turned off. acoustics are weird things. i presume it's because my old room was carpeted and the new one isn't.

Lack of carpet will do that, also having speakers in corners of rooms, too close to rear walls, etc etc.

The "old CDs need turning up, new CDs need turning down" thing is exactly what dynamic range compression is, btw, so you have noticed it. The problem comes when new CDs are so loud that they distort, that they lose any movement from naturally quiet passages to crescendos. With r'n'b ANC hop hop and some dance music it's not so much of an issue as minimal music can be made much louder before losing clarity of individual instruments, but it severely fucks up very dense, layered, or acoustic / live sounding music.

yeah my new desk is in a kind of wall nook, maybe moving the speakers out of that will help it. or maybe i just will never be bothered.

but just turning the volume down seems to be the solution then? like, i don't notice any fundamental difference in how the music sounds. including on the dense/layered/live-sounding stuff i listen to.

like, it doesn't seem to affect the rock artists i love eg hole, ashlee simpson...

Maybe not on your stereo at low volume, but I suspect if you played it on my system and tried to pump it up loud you'd be horrified.

Play Electrelane and then Ashley Simpson back to back and see which you prefer turning right up.

Basically it makes everyone sound like Oasis.

well happily i don't have your stereo then!

i enjoy turning both electrelane and ashlee up

of my many objections to oasis, "too loud" has never been one of them

It's not "too loud", it's "no dynamics", no move from quiet to loud.

The "old CDs need turning up, new CDs need turning down" thing is exactly what dynamic range compression is

well you imply that it is a question of "too loud" there?

i hear dynamics in most of what i listen to.

Because that's the easiest consumer-end solution to it, turning it down. But music sounds crap when it's loud, amplifiers and speakers perform better when they're turned up.

Most of what you listen to will have dynamics because of the arrangements, and specifically, the way the beats are put together.

I don't know why I'm replying. It's obviously as useless as talking to you about cooking or changing a lightbulb.

Argh, music sounds crap when it's QUIET, not loud. It sounds BETTER loud.

It's not just dynamics, it's that the difference between the loud and quiet part is made narrower. In older records the quiet parts were quieter and loud parts louder, so there was a bigger dynamic difference between the two. This is the reason why your old records you have are mastered at a lower volume level than the newer ones. But like Nick said, I suspect most of the stuff you listen is in genres where the dynamics are such that compression doesn't change the music that must. But for people who listen to jazz, experimental/minimal electronic music, classical, etc, it can be a big deal.

(xx-post)

"that must" = "that much"

To put it in another way: compression doesn't matter so much in types of music where the aesthetic is that it should sound CONSTANTLY LOUD. But in genres of music where musicians want to create a dynamic between the LOUD and quiet bits, compression can damage that dynamic.

lol @hearing dynamics in a ashlee simpson record

i hear dynamics in most of what i listen to.

but when going from, say, an intro to a drop, is it going from less dense -> more dense (or maybe less low frequencies -> more low frequencies, or a narrow frequency range -> wider frequency range)? or is it actually going from quiet to loud?

and again, some kinds of music sound better with more mastering compression, others not so much.

ashlee's "autobiography" (song and album) is one of the most obvious offenders of limited range. just listen to the beginning of it, which you'd think would get louder once the guitars come in, but it doesn't.

The definitive article: http://www.sfxmachine.com/docs/loudnesswar/loudness_war.pdf

This paper was presented to the Audio Engineering Society last year. It's a bit of a dry read, but for those interested, it covers pretty much all the issues, and proposes specific actions. It could probably benefit from smart people in the media passing on a sort of "executive summary" version that would stir up more popular demand for the actual decision-makers (labels, bands, producers, engineers) to change behaviors.

ashlee's "autobiography" (song and album) is one of the most obvious offenders of limited range

but the thing is, this didn't stop it becoming one of my favourite songs of the past decade. listening back i guess i can hear that but it doesn't bother me in the slightest, it sounds fine to me? i think the song and its production sound fantastic. it doesn't sound weird or inadequate in any way.

like, i assume all of ashlee's music is mastered like that, but i still hear loud.quiet dynamics in it, and in 7 years of listening to it have never found it exhausting to listen to. i cannot hear what the problem is meant to be. i also guarantee that most music fans would think the same.

i just talked to most music fans, they disagree with you, you owe me a beer

i guarantee a lot more people would like it if it was mastered properly

like, its good in spite of mastering, not because of it

i think it's a weird audiophile fetish that you could only care about if you have super-expensive listening gear, which most people don't, so...ehhh

no what you said is not true, i can hear the difference between, say an old police song and a new green day song on my local FM station easily

i think it's a weird audiophile fetish that you could only care about if you have super-expensive listening gear, which most people don't, so...ehhh

― lex pretend, Monday, October 24, 2011 5:19 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is absolutely untrue! you can hear the difference on a pair of earbuds, dude

agreed, you can hear it even when it's going through some other kind of shitty compression (like youtube or radio).

i can't hear the difference unless a specific moment in a song is pointed out, and then it doesn't make any difference to how much i enjoy the song!

like in my everyday listening this just doesn't cross my mind at all

it does, though -- you're just refusing to acknowledge it. you dont have to be consciously aware its happening

um are you actually telling me what crosses my mind there? taking deejian mind reading to new levels there

i couldn't tell you whether any of my favourite albums this year are over-compressed or not

lex yr insistent philistinism would be lolsome were you not a professional music writer. and i'm not even talking about the compression thing, I mean this exchange:

i have noticed, weirdly, that in my new room it sounds like the bass on my stereo has been turned WAY UP even though all the settings are the same - this is the case even with DBFB turned off. acoustics are weird things. i presume it's because my old room was carpeted and the new one isn't.

― lex pretend, Thursday, October 20, 2011 9:44 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Lack of carpet will do that, also having speakers in corners of rooms, too close to rear walls, etc etc.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, October 20, 2011 11:49 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah my new desk is in a kind of wall nook, maybe moving the speakers out of that will help it. or maybe i just will never be bothered.

There is no global warming, too.

i don't understand what's so wrong about the room acoustics exchange?

i know nothing and understand little about science and technology, it's less philistinism and more ludditism