Comments on: The Distrustful Nature of Leveraging Loudness

By: Freddy Gabrsek

Freddy Gabrsek — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:46:53 +0000

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.

By: James Pew

James Pew — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:03:57 +0000

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.”

By: warrenpeace

warrenpeace — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:21:34 +0000

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.

By: James Pew

James Pew — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:09:21 +0000

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.

By: Mark Marshall

Mark Marshall — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:46:06 +0000

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.

By: warrenpeace

warrenpeace — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:43:19 +0000

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.

By: Studio Manifesto | Loud Pitches: Braining Your Audience Away | Studio Manifesto

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:43:05 +0000

[...] See also: The Distrustful Nature of Leveraging Loudness [...]

By: Freddy Gabrsek

Freddy Gabrsek — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:42:45 +0000

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.

By: seizuresalad

seizuresalad — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:12:36 +0000

Great article, a salute to all of the engineers out there willing to take a stand against excessive loudness and loss of dynamic range.

By: the dustbin » New design, the loudness wars and a trip to Ikea

the dustbin » New design, the loudness wars and a trip to Ikea — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:24:39 +0000

[...] 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 [...]