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Firstly, the loudness war largely died with Spotify. LUFS normalization means that pushing beyond -14 is an artistic choice and not necessary to compete with ot

by mjr00 3y ago

Firstly, the loudness war largely died with Spotify. LUFS normalization means that pushing beyond -14 is an artistic choice and not necessary to compete with other tracks on loudness alone. Secondly, more compressed (less dynamic range) doesn't mean worse, or better. It means more compressed. In some genres, tons of compression is desirable; in others, less so. Is an orchestral Hans Zimmer piece that maxes at -10 momentary LUFS better than a Skrillex song that hits -4 during a drop? You could argue either song is better, but I don't think your argument would have anything to do with its LUFS measurement. Compression is similar to distortion. Too much distortion is generally seen as bad. But if distortion were always bad, people would use acoustic guitars and clean electrics and never run things through a distortion pedal. Same idea with compression. Too much compression will kill a mix, but not enough will reduce the impact the song has on the listener. In other words, trying to say that LUFS is an "objective metric of quality" is complete nonsense. To me that's like saying that lines of code written is an objective metric of quality of a software developer.

Slow_Hand 3y ago
Agreed. LUFS as an "objective metric of quality" is nonsensical. I work as the assistant to a world class mastering engineer and we never discuss LUFS or aim to hit a target loudness. Such metrics (while well understood) are never a consideration. All we do is listen. Often the goal is to get the record to feel as loud as it can be, but the moment our choices start to degrade the feel of the record we back off. We're doing very little in the way of actual limiting for loudness. We have ways of making the record feel louder, and they don't always involve dynamics processing. Quite often no limiting is necessary because the mixes that we receive are mixed hot, which leads me to my next point: Where I'll push back a little - for the sake of conversation - is the assertion that the loudness war died with streaming services. I consider their automatic level compensation features to be a big plus for audio fidelity. For artists and mixers who are sensitive to this issue it relieves them of the pressure of feeling that they need to deliver super hot mixes. The record can simply be what it needs to be and not conform to a certain loudness standard. It's a positive step. Where my objection comes in is the reality that artists and mixers (who are well aware of the dilemma) nonetheless deliver us mixes that have been crafted for maximum perceived loudness. And they're really good at it. Even world class producers and mixers are sending us records that are squashed to hell, but very often they still sound good! The craft of mixing is evolving and people have become very adept at making an objectively loud record (-3 LUFS, etc) still work. HOW they do that is far too big of a topic to broach here.
- mjr00 3y ago
  Yeah it's true that people are still trying to make loud stuff. But as you say, people are so good at making it work now that's not really a "I'm making this -3 because I need to be competitive with other songs," it's "I'm making this -3 because it's a heavy bass record and I want this to melt people's goddamn faces when they listen to it." In other words, an artistic decision, rather than a business one. I think most modern EDM-pop now is at about -7 or so. These are world-class engineers doing the mixing, they could absolutely push it to -5 or -3 if they wanted, there's just no need thanks to LUFS normalization. Like when people think about the real victims of the loudness war, it's albums like Californication or What's the Story (Morning Glory), which really didn't need to be that loud except for sounding better (in the louder = better sense) on the radio. Something like Death Magnetic you could argue is both intentionally loud + a victim of the loudness war, but it's also just really poorly mixed/mastered in general.
  - radicaldreamer 3y ago
    Stadium Arcadium was a victim of this until the LP corrected the levels and is now considered the definitive version of the album. I'm not sure if the high-res audio version on Apple Music has corrected this sin of the original CDs.
aqfamnzc 3y ago
I generally agree, but I don't think your comparison between distortion and compression makes sense. Distortion (guitar pedals, etc.) is something the artist intentionally adds to the song, in a specific way, intensity, and time. Compression is something added after the fact, for transit and storage. The artist doesn't really have control over what sort of artifacts lossy compression is going to add, so I don't see how "not enough [compression] will reduce the impact the song has on the listener."
- mjr00 3y ago
  I'm talking about dynamic range compression[0] in this context, not audio compression (e.g. MP3). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression
- biorach 3y ago
  > Compression is something added after the fact, for transit and storage. The artist doesn't really have control over what sort of artifacts lossy compression is going to add, so I don't see how "not enough [compression] will reduce the impact the song has on the listener." This conversation isn't about file compression, it's about dynamic range compression. Very different. https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/what-is-audio-compression.html https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/what-is-audio-compression.h...

by mjr00 3y ago

Slow_Hand 3y ago

Agreed. LUFS as an "objective metric of quality" is nonsensical. I work as the assistant to a world class mastering engineer and we never discuss LUFS or aim to hit a target loudness. Such metrics (while well understood) are never a consideration. All we do is listen. Often the goal is to get the record to feel as loud as it can be, but the moment our choices start to degrade the feel of the record we back off. We're doing very little in the way of actual limiting for loudness. We have ways of making the record feel louder, and they don't always involve dynamics processing. Quite often no limiting is necessary because the mixes that we receive are mixed hot, which leads me to my next point: Where I'll push back a little - for the sake of conversation - is the assertion that the loudness war died with streaming services. I consider their automatic level compensation features to be a big plus for audio fidelity. For artists and mixers who are sensitive to this issue it relieves them of the pressure of feeling that they need to deliver super hot mixes. The record can simply be what it needs to be and not conform to a certain loudness standard. It's a positive step. Where my objection comes in is the reality that artists and mixers (who are well aware of the dilemma) nonetheless deliver us mixes that have been crafted for maximum perceived loudness. And they're really good at it. Even world class producers and mixers are sending us records that are squashed to hell, but very often they still sound good! The craft of mixing is evolving and people have become very adept at making an objectively loud record (-3 LUFS, etc) still work. HOW they do that is far too big of a topic to broach here.

mjr00 3y ago
Yeah it's true that people are still trying to make loud stuff. But as you say, people are so good at making it work now that's not really a "I'm making this -3 because I need to be competitive with other songs," it's "I'm making this -3 because it's a heavy bass record and I want this to melt people's goddamn faces when they listen to it." In other words, an artistic decision, rather than a business one. I think most modern EDM-pop now is at about -7 or so. These are world-class engineers doing the mixing, they could absolutely push it to -5 or -3 if they wanted, there's just no need thanks to LUFS normalization. Like when people think about the real victims of the loudness war, it's albums like Californication or What's the Story (Morning Glory), which really didn't need to be that loud except for sounding better (in the louder = better sense) on the radio. Something like Death Magnetic you could argue is both intentionally loud + a victim of the loudness war, but it's also just really poorly mixed/mastered in general.
- radicaldreamer 3y ago
  Stadium Arcadium was a victim of this until the LP corrected the levels and is now considered the definitive version of the album. I'm not sure if the high-res audio version on Apple Music has corrected this sin of the original CDs.

aqfamnzc 3y ago

I generally agree, but I don't think your comparison between distortion and compression makes sense. Distortion (guitar pedals, etc.) is something the artist intentionally adds to the song, in a specific way, intensity, and time. Compression is something added after the fact, for transit and storage. The artist doesn't really have control over what sort of artifacts lossy compression is going to add, so I don't see how "not enough [compression] will reduce the impact the song has on the listener."

mjr00 3y ago
I'm talking about dynamic range compression[0] in this context, not audio compression (e.g. MP3). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression
biorach 3y ago
> Compression is something added after the fact, for transit and storage. The artist doesn't really have control over what sort of artifacts lossy compression is going to add, so I don't see how "not enough [compression] will reduce the impact the song has on the listener." This conversation isn't about file compression, it's about dynamic range compression. Very different. https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/what-is-audio-compression.html https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/what-is-audio-compression.h...