Today’s post is from Guest Blogger James Pew, owner and head soundwave cruncher at Euphonic Sound and blogger at Studio Manifesto, who offers a unique perspective on radical trust. – collin
In order for recording artists and music producers to fully commit to trust, they must let go of the Loudness War.
Loudness War Background:
The loudness wars refers to the practice in modern audio production where a severe decrease in the dynamic range, leads to obnoxious levels of average loudness. I’m referring to the audio we hear in movies, commercials and 99% of modern music. Dynamic range is the differences between peaks (or the loudest parts) compared to the quietest parts. The best produced modern music has a wide dynamic range of 10 or 20 or more decibels. Meaning there is a very large spectrum of volume choices for an artist mixing the elements of a song together. When things are louder in a mix (considered as a ratio to the things that are quiet) they are said to be upfront or “in your face.” The simplest way to feature an element, like a lead vocal, is to turn it up. But if the average loudness of the soundtrack is so close to the peak level that, in some cases they are almost the same, how do you feature that vocal? And what does that sound like when the dynamic range is less than 3 decibels? Short answer: Like Crap. Slightly longer answer: Like a wall of sound where everything is mashed together competing to be louder but nothing is. Bob Dylan describe the phenomenon as sounding “Like static.”
I used to rant about how the loudness wars was just another way corporations were ruining music and society. So I became an independent music producer and opened a recording studio focused on developing indie artists. I figured I would lead, or join, a revolt against loudness from the indie trenches. But then I learned a sad fact, the loudness wars are embraced by the indie music community. Indies are just as likely to leverage loudness as Universal or EMI.
What exactly is Leveraging Loudness?
Its using digital audio production tools (like limiting and audio compression), to “artificially embed” a recording with hyped up average loudness, because you think it will help you capture the attention of the average music consumer. Basically, you slap people in the face with your music! Confront them with it! And you defiantly make sure that your song is louder than everyone Else’s or you think you won’t stand out. You won’t get discovered!
The Loudness Wars is deeply rooted in Trust issues.
When loudness is leveraged it robs the listener of the choice to turn it up and hear it loud. The music maker says to the music listener, you are going to get it loud weather you like it or not. It says, I don’t trust that you will pay close enough attention to my art. I don’t trust you will appreciate it. I don’t trust that you understand subtlety. The loudness wars has brought about the loss of subtly in music. Boom! But more than that a brick wall of loudness is being built between artist and fan. Isn’t social media, community building, radical trust, Direct-to-Fan about tearing down walls?
The solution lies within you
This is where I re-adapt 4 of the 6 principles of Radical Trust in an effort to provide a solution to the loudness wars for indie and mainstream music brands alike:
You must radically trust that your fans:
1. are best equipped to determine their own volume needs, and left to their own devices are best equipped to set their stereo’s volume control for optimum rocking out.
2. would rather be communicated with through artistry, subtlety, maybe sometimes even complexity, than relentlessly attacked with sonic bulldozers.
3. require freedom of expression, but often require guidelines to create expressions within. Allow them uncompressed versions of your music to mix they way they want to hear it.
4. (This one is the hardest) People are inherently good, and don’t require punishment by sound pressure level.
Why are artists afraid to reject loudness?
The common fear is that your music won’t stand up against the music of other artists in your genre. But again this is showing a basic distrust that the fans of the genre are unsophisticated and will only like music that sounds as close to what they already listen to. Not true. The most common thing music fans say they are looking for in new music is innovation. No one is looking for loudness.
Leveraging loudness in an effort to stand out, but actually results in a very generic sound. You want to stand out but you end up blending into obscurity.
Finally…Trust Thyself
Trust that your music is good enough that it does not need any help from loudness. Create something beautiful and stay away from the manipulative practice of leveraging loudness. Be true to the art. Its a leap of faith…its Radical Trust.
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25 Responses to “The Distrustful Nature of Leveraging Loudness”
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October 24th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Great Post: “The distrustful nature of leveraging loudness”Guest Post on radicaltrust by @jamespew http://bit.ly/41UYcy
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
October 24th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Great Post James. We watched a movie last night from the NFB that we had to turn the volume up to 15 in order to hear it.
Afterwards we watched network television where we needed to reset the volume to 2! Imagine the amazing shock, not to mention waking up the baby.
Bang on trust baby. Thanks so much for the guest post.
October 25th, 2009 at 8:42 am
My pleasure Collin.
Your NFB/Network TV example is so typical of life in the land of loudness. I’m sure all your readers have at one time experienced something like this. Hopefully this post will shed some light as to why this is…and maybe this message will trickle down to the producers, engineers, and decision makers of mediums that include audio.
October 25th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Here’s that loudness war article again: http://bit.ly/4igGxj – not sure how that other one got there. sorry!
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
October 25th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Good post. This is a serious problem – and fortunately many people are working on it. In the TV business you should expect something to change for the better within 2 years. I am the chairman of the European Group P/LOUD (a group of the European Broadcasting Union), and we are finishing a couple of documents and recommendations in spring 2010. Then we will present the core ideas to management of many broadcasters, and then we hope and pray … We have members all over the world, and there initiatives i the US, Australia, Japan etc. just like ours. So light at the end of the tunnel! But the music business is much worse off, so this is going to be even tougher ….
October 25th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I have pledged not to succumb to this – tough when your stuff gets played on podcasts, and it’s quieter than 90% of what’s out there. But to me, lose the dynamics and you lose SO much of the feel. So I persist!
Thanks so much – not only for the post, but for continuing to talk about this – it’s really important.
October 25th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
(with correct url!) RT @davidakermanis An interesting take on the loudness war – as a trust issue. http://bit.ly/4igGxj
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
October 25th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Currently reading http://bit.ly/4bqxHX
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
October 25th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
James Pew on How 2 end Loudness War: http://bit.ly/4bqxHX
Key is Trust.
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
October 25th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
#loudnesswars http://bit.ly/4bqxHX
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October 26th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Very much enjoyed Pew’s Radical Trust guest post (music theme!) Great pick, @CollinDouma! http://bit.ly/41UYcy
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
October 26th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Great post. Made me think of several things:
- how I hit “mute” whenever TV ads begin playing – they are always louder than the program I am watching. I do not need it “in my face”
- how my neighbour and I used to turn up our music and literally have a “loudness war” when we were kids. Her music was almost always louder because she had better speakers, but hey I didn’t like her choice of music one bit, no matter how loud it got. It’s just another way to impose your musical taste on someone. Not the best strategy – I’d rather (like you said) choose to like it enough to turn it up.
October 26th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Thanks for the comments everyone. Glad to see so many people actively engaged in trying to change the culture of loudness. Please keep me up to date on your efforts and experiences in doing so Mark, Florian, and Elena. Feel free to email me anytime at james@euphonicsound.com
October 26th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
[...] On another note, I’d like to mention that James Pew of Studio Manifesto fame has a great guest post over at Radical Trust about the “loudness wars”. James writes about “the practice in modern audio [...]
October 26th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
LOVE, love the new design. LOVE IT.
re: loudness wars – yes, this is a very interesting subject – I know that mastering volumes have crept up and up over the years to the detriment of almost everyone involved. I never thought to place this in the context of radical trust before, but of course this is a perfect example. I am going to go check the post out right now.
This comment was originally posted on the dustbin
October 26th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Great article, a salute to all of the engineers out there willing to take a stand against excessive loudness and loss of dynamic range.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Right On! James, great post. This is a serious problem in the music industry. The more the consumer and the artist understands what is happening to the art we hear, the more chance there is to reverse this insidious cycle. As a mixing and mastering engineer I am under constant pressure to “leverage artificial and art-less loudness” by artists and producers. I say “insidious” because although many people are aware of the trend, very few want to step up and say…”I don’t care if my song will sound quieter on somebody’s I-pod shuffle, I care about the quality of that sound”. So next time you hear a tune that sounds quiet in relation to other songs, take notice and turn up your volume dial….you’ve probably just found a jewel in a sea of brash baubels.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
[...] See also: The Distrustful Nature of Leveraging Loudness [...]
October 27th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Last TV I bought, spent it’s entire life in ‘Night Mode’ with the equalizer set to ‘Soft’ ’cause of the irritating difference in levels between tv programming and commercials.
What’s worse is Blu-Ray, but not for the same reasons. It’s audio is uncompressed to accurately reproduce the theatre experience, but in a person’s living room it means constantly playing with the remote control and volume for the entire movie. I understand they’re trying to improve upon the home theatre, but they’re not considering human living arrangements.
Go into an electronics shop and every stereo or home theatre is trying to outdo the one next to it, promising more Watts! In a city this sucks ’cause you’ll eventually have a neighbour with a home setup and no consideration for others.
More and more I see HDTV’s including some kind of compression setting to normalize the volume, but it can only do so much. People have complained about loud commercials for years, so why does it not sink in? To my knowledge I’ve never bought anything ’cause a loud(er) commercial got my attention, or it’s repetition brainwashed me. Actually, it means I never watch live television anymore.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Little off-topic, but I had to respond. This is the case with one of my faves – The Matrix – in its’ original form. The gunplay, etc. is WAY loud compared to the dialogue.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Thanks for the comments Freddy and warrenpeace.
Although I have to disagree with the statement that “Blu-Ray is uncompressed to accurately reproduce the theatre experience”
I think you are confusing audio compression with file compression.
File compression is what happens when you create a smaller version of a digital file. Like when file compressing a wav file (the audio format found on CD) to an MP3. The MP3 is a lot smaller than the original wav file, making it easier to email to friends, or making it possible to fit more MP3s in your ipods limited hardrive.
So yes Blu-Ray is a superior format that does not need to file compress. But audio compression (which is what the loudness wars is all about) is a huge factor in how movies are mastered. The audio of modern movies is completely ramped up on loudness. The Blu-Ray format represents this loudness abuse very accurately.
File and audio compression are often confused, but they are two completely separate issues.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
I did mean audio compression (not file size), meaning that with the Blu-Ray only audio formats (Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD) there is such a greater range available, so that one minute you’re turning it up to hear mumbled dialogue and then the next minute scaring the neighbours ’cause there was an explosion in the movie, which in such a small space, seems to be a huge range when comparing the dialogue to the explosion because there’s such a huge difference in volume.
I don’t doubt there’s some trickery involved to make the sound in your face. I just got a new surround set-up and the Iron Man Blu-Ray had such an annoying amount of bass that I got up and turned my subwoofer face down into the carpet to quiet it down a bit. That was after already turning it’s level and the bass ‘Tone’ control down as low as possible. Maybe rather than just using volume and compression they’re exploiting the extra lower range to achieve the same effect. ‘Hey, look over here! Boooom!’. It’s such overkill it makes me want to just unplug the sub altogether.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
LOL. I know what you mean warrenpeace…very annoying!! The important thing for people reading this is to understand that the loudness wars is not absent from superior formats like Blu-Ray.
There are so many cases where the resolution and potential of new formats (like Blu-Ray) is wasted due to the audio compression/limiting applied to the soundtrack.
It just doesn’t matter how great Blu-Ray can sound if the audio it contains is “squashed”& “Brick Walled.”
October 27th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
The Distrustful Nature of Leveraging Loudness http://bit.ly/2szweY
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
October 28th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
warrenpeace,
Now this is very interesting. The effect of the Blu-ray dynamic range is exactly the opposite of the loudness wars. What you are experiencing is in fact a huge dynamic range (a larger dynamic range than any commercially released media in history!). This is where the dialogue or quieter sounds are so quiet in the mix that you have to turn the volume up on your playback system to hear it. This is now your benchmark “normal” audio volume. Then along comes an explosion and the volume just about blows your head off, right? That’s called “dynamic range” and that’s exactly what “loudness wars” music production does not have. In loudness wars music production, there are no quiet parts….it’s always loud! Or more accurately, it’s all the same volume. What they do is make the quietest parts as loud as the loud parts so that everything is in your face all the time. That’s why you can listen to an over-compressed (loudness war) CD at a very low volume and still hear everything in the mix.
Please let’s not confuse the two. We have all been subjected to program material that has been compressed to pablum for so long that when something with a large dynamic range comes along we’re not used to it and think something is wrong. Think about natural sound, if you are having a quiet conversation with someone and all of the sudden a bomb goes off, it would be quiet a bit louder wouldn’t it?
Having said all that, I will agree that Hollywood loves to over-do explosions and sub-sonic information…especially in action movie trailers. This has nothing to do with loudness wars in music production however.