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

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

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

― lex pretend, Monday, October 24, 2011 5:41 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no, im saying that whether or not you realize that compression is the source of how it sounds, you hear that it is compressed

okay but why should i care if it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the music?

yeah i'm not sure philistinism was the word i was looking for. i'm not saying it's "so wrong" of you not to move your speakers to get rid of the boomy bass problem, but i think it wd be worth the effort as presumably you listen to a lot of music and not only for work purposes.

you are however totally wrong about the compression thing! not sure how to convince you otherwise beyond what Sick Mouthy has already posted. it's definitely audible tho, including in the stuff you are into. i can't profess to know much about Ashley Simpson but there's a reason Rihanna's last album was called LOUD.

xpost boomy bass sound is affecting yr enjoyment of the music from what I can make out?

rearranging my entire room would be kinda hard work? if i move the desk i have to move the bed, the wardrobe etc too. i've put magazines, books and towels under the speakers and either it's made it better or i'm acclimatising.

i think my argument about the compression thing is that it may or may not be there but it's not obvious enough that i can hear it without being told - as i said i've no idea whether it's a problem on the albums i've played most this year (katy b/beyoncé/pj harvey), no idea at all - and even when i am told it doesn't lessen my enjoyment of the sound so...what exactly is the problem, the scandal, whatever?

lol no need to go moving your furniture around on my account lex. i'm genuinely baffled that you can't hear this but y'know whatever.

the problem/scandal re compression afaic is that:
- dynamic range is a part of music and that gets lost when everything's uber-compressed, which is a pity
- the "war" part of "loudness war" is justifiable imo to the extent that there is a constant escalation. we're now at the stage where so many records are so cranked that (unintended) distortion is an issue.

lately tho i'm coming to the view that time will heal all wounds / music will move on... over-compression will come to signify the sound of the 00s/10s, same way lashings of digital reverb make a record sound 80s.

as in, *calling* it a war is justifiable cos etc., sorry that wasn't so clear

I tend to think that volume constancy through compression has the effect of making everything more like electronic music and less like ensemble playing. On that Simpson track, the distinction between the clean guitars and the distorted guitars is only timbral, so they're like presets on a keyboard.

(That's not an across-the-board criticism of the strategy, by the way.)

Lex is clearly very proud, for some reason, of not being able to cope with certain things, be that changing a lightbulb, cooking a meal, or critiquing pure sound. I'm assuming this is because these are all practical / technical activities rather than aesthetic / hedonistic / emotional ones in his perception, and therefore not matching up to the strictures of the persona he has created. So outright denial, a la climate skeptics or holocaust deniers or Geir Hongro occurs, because the persona cannot develop or change for some reason.

Oh, come now.

Ha! I really like Lex and the above is (I hope clearly) written for parody and reaction, but there are times when his reactions are so strong and didactic and predictable as to feel like a construct rather than a real person. i.e. like Geir!

we're now at the stage where so many records are so cranked that (unintended) distortion is an issue.

really?! which ones? i don't hear "distortion". not even in the ashlee simpson record. i actually love how the guitars sound in that, so clean. i wish more guitar-based music was produced like it.

nick you're not answering my basic point, which is that 1) the effect of this is so minimal that i can't tell it's there unless it's pointed out, 2) even if it is pointed out it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the music in the slightest.

I like your posts on this thread lex -- I have to admit that I find what mixers & engineers are capable of doing these days with compression in pop is actually very impressive to me, everything literally sounds louder than everything else, it is music that is designed to sound that way intentionally and so I am not surprised that it doesn't bother listeners -- it is modern music. Not all of the transient distortion is unintended. It is absolutely put there on purpose in the same way that musical engineers have always found ways to creatively add distortion.

I do have a problem with older records being remastered to the same loudness standard as an ashlee simpson record, but I'm ready to admit that certain people will even prefer that.

Just got back from NYC and went to the AES panel on audio mastering. Nick have you heard about the new ITU-R 1770-2 loudness measurement / the -16 LUFS dB cap about to be mandated in broadcasting at the federal level? A definite sign that all of this is being taken very seriously.

What do you mean by the guitars on Ashley's record sounding 'clean', Lex? Because I think part of the issue here is communication; the words used to describe sound are often very impressionistic and subjective, so what one person understands / describes as 'clean', another person understands / describes as 'distorted', simply because we have different frames of reference. Unlike visual mediums, there's no physical thing which can be paused and pointed at and isolated (like artefacting on a jpeg or lens flare on a movie or whatever) and qualifiably recognised in explanation by both parties (at least not easily), talking about sound ends up being very, very nebulous indeed, and often results in people getting upset and frustrated.

Lex, you HAVE recognised the 'problem' and can hear / identify one of its clearer manifestations (older CDs needing to be turned up; newer ones needing to be turned down). Clearly, judging by your responses, it's not an issue for you and that's great - I wish it wasn't for me because it means I very seldom listen to certain albums / songs that I otherwise would very much enjoy the songs / arrangements of, because the pure sound offends / upsets / hurts me on a physical level (some stuff just can and does give me a headache).

However, just because it doens't bother you consciously doesn't a; mean it doesn't bother you subconsciously (you hate a lot of modern indie rock, much of which REALLY suffers from this, way worse than r'n'b / dance / pop, for instance), b; doesn't mean it isn't a big conscious issue for a lot of people who want something done about it, and c; doens't mean it doesn't affect loads and loads more people on a subconscious level - so many behaviours in terms of people's reactions to and consumption of music these days seem to me to be related to this, directly or indirectly (lack of monetary value ascribed to music; increased emphasis on portable and live music rather than music in the home; propogation of computers as listening devices, etc etc etc etc).

I've drawn these before but I'm not sure I've ever put them up here. This is basically how I hear compression, manifested as visually as I can muster (in 5 minutes on MSPaint). They are MASSIVELY OVER SIMPLIFIED.

Each coloured shape is a musical instrument or voice in the mix of a song; when you play music back via speakers or headphones, they each sit in a specific space relative to each other (I should have done some large and some small, rather than them being pretty uniform in size). Turning the volume up on an amplifier makes the entire canvas larger, including the white space around each element (which is needed to be able to hear each element clearly and understand their relationships with each other), and keeps their proportions the same.

Compression makes each element larger within the same size canvas, and also makes them all the same size, altering their proportions and relative positions. It also squeezes some bits outside of the canvas (distortion / clipping), and overlays some elements over other elements at various points (side-chaining).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/compression1.jpg
So this might be a bit of really minimal techno or hip hop.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/compression2.jpg
You can compress it without really affecting it too much in terms of the elements' relations and proportions.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/compression3.jpg
But do the same with something that has a lot more elements, like several guitars, a piano, several vocal tracks, drums, percussion, strings, synths, etc etc...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/compression4.jpg
...and you lose the shapes, space, and relationships.

that's why i used ashlee simpson as an example of a guitar-driven rock act.

i think it's the extremeness of your position that i take issue with (it also comes with an implication of "i'm a better listener than you"). i mean, i certainly haven't felt physically nauseous when listening to ashlee over the past 7 years, i've felt glorious! she's hardly the only act with live instruments or non-minimal arrangements that i listen to. you've heard the katy b/pj harvey records this year - is this an issue with them? i've caned them this year and couldn't have less of an idea.

(lack of monetary value ascribed to music; increased emphasis on portable and live music rather than music in the home; propogation of computers as listening devices, etc etc etc etc)

1) old man shaking stick at cloud, i'm so bored of all of these arguments, 2) other way round surely? compression comes about BECAUSE of ipods etc, because music now has to be eg louder than the tube. (was talking about this with k8 on twitter - both of us ended up listening to britney's latest album way more than we thought we would this year because it's perfect tube listening.)