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End of Loudness War
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TimeTraveller
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Nov 11, 2013 05:45:12
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Babaluma
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 11, 2013 10:55
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it's only being implemented in iTunes radio at the moment, i know no one who actually uses that. these things (replay gain, soundcheck, and the itu/ebu specifications etc.) have been around for ages. if people choose not to use them, then it makes no difference.
whilst i applaud bob's efforts to end the loudness wars, i often feel he is somewhat premature in his voracious proselytism. same thing with the mastered for itunes thing (mfit) last year. same thing with his "k system" years before that.
bob also works mainly with acoustic classical and jazz artists, not electronic or pop music.
  http://hermetechmastering.com : http://www.discogs.com/artist/Gregg+Janman : http://soundcloud.com/babaluma |
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TimeTraveller
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Nov 11, 2013 15:04
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On 2013-11-11 10:55, Babaluma wrote:
it's only being implemented in iTunes radio at the moment
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In the german article it is written Spotify aswell - at this moment even. It has begun, they both use the new algorithm and more is in plan. Personaly I also know only producers or audio engineers or 99% of all that I have personal contact with, but it is a very big group of people that are listening to iTunes radio and Spotify.. this will be revolutionizing and still this is only the beginning.
https://soundcloud.com/shivagarden |
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frisbeehead
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 11, 2013 16:19
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Quote:
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On 2013-11-11 15:04, TimeTraveller wrote:
Quote:
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On 2013-11-11 10:55, Babaluma wrote:
it's only being implemented in iTunes radio at the moment
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In the german article it is written Spotify aswell - at this moment even. It has begun, they both use the new algorithm and more is in plan. Personaly I also know only producers or audio engineers or 99% of all that I have personal contact with, but it is a very big group of people that are listening to iTunes radio and Spotify.. this will be revolutionizing and still this is only the beginning.
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I think it would be beneficial to everyone, even on dance music, to lower the loudness and have more dynamic into the music.
But something about this strikes me as being a bit odd. To start with, I'm not exactly a fan of Apple's way of seeing the market. That is, not exactly keen of seeing them rule the market.
A couple of things:
1. after they've promoted firewire to oblivion, they then decided to drop it in favour of thunderbolt, while most of us (me included) have very expensive firewire audio interfaces that still live up to today's expectations and perform great.
2. they've dropped cd support as well, since their idea of "where things are going" is very much connected to their own music store, their gadgets and - yes indeed - itunes as a platform for both computers and gadgets and radio.
3. they've dropped 32 bit plug-in support, which was also an arrogant move on their behalf, not really caring - again - for people that have invested money on instruments that would otherwise continue to serve them well.
obsolete is a word that doesn't really match the vocabulary in audio, because what we've grown to expect is to see vintage gear - and indeed even software - continue to be praised or praised even more over time.
ok, so there's that. I was very interested in this article as I think this loudness thing is just another form of modern madness that took hold of almost everyone and had an extremely detrimental effect on music in general.
however, that doesn't mean I'd feel confortable trusting an algorithm that really changes the music. I could live with the idea of some folk on a radio station adding extra compression, even a touch of EQ, but that was a human making a decision, not some automated thing you can't bypass.
so what I mean is, even though I think efforts should be made to lower the loudness, I do think that should come from a common understanding of the benefits. not some decision that reads more like an imposition to me - as most things Apple. |
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Padmapani
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431
Posted : Nov 12, 2013 04:52
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as much as i'd like to see the loudness war end, i don't think that apple's soundcheck will have any part in it. that thing is abysmal.
ime it increases the loudness differences in the music i listen to by something like tenfold. and seemingly at random. some oldschool goa (which wasn't mastered nearly as loudly) is extremely silent while some new overcompressed fullon is just as loud as before.
i just tried artifact303's feelings. i have both the released version and a pre-release one he had shared for free on a forum, so i thought it's an excellent test here. while normally both are comparably loud - well, of course the mastered version has a fuller bass and is a little bit louder - after i switch soundcheck on the unmastered track is extremely loud compared to the mastered one. i had to take to volume adjustment slider to -90% (apple y u no give up db instead of percent?) to get both to the same apparent loudness.
so anyway, i don't see the majority of people use that thing that obviously doesn't work as intended . |
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Babaluma
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 12, 2013 10:41
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frisbeehead
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 12, 2013 16:21
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On 2013-11-12 10:41, Babaluma wrote:
i find replaygain works really well in loudness matching, when i want to put a random playlist on, crank it up, and dance about the house etc. but it also sounds like it's doing something weird to the sound too. have heard people say the same thing about soundcheck.
and afaik itunes radio is still only available in the US, right? regular itunes doesn't have soundcheck on by default.
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it's doing something to the sound, like some form of automatic compression - more obvious on some trakcs then others, maybe due to the loudness differences on them.
I mean, can we expect some algorithm to put an end to the "loudness war", really?
by applying nasty compression that screws up the transients on loud masters, like a punishment. and who makes such decisions on what's loud enough? |
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daark
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Nov 12, 2013 18:29
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daark
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Nov 12, 2013 19:02
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http://www.apple.com/itunes/mastered-for-itunes/
nice stuff here there are tools aswell will need to give it some more research . will be really comfy with the tools. soundcloud should post their process properly aswell and some tools like listening to it before uploading it would be nice.
but looks like nothing new to me. as if like everybody uses that much dynamics in music. i actually don't like the dynamics on movies most the time being suddenly too loud or suddenly you can't hear wtf their whispering so i love to have a compressor while i watch movies.
i hope there will not be too much mess and artifacts. with the shit getting released today nobody will give any fuck... 
http://soundcloud.com/magimix-1/chilling-forest-whispers
Wierd shit happens :) |
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frisbeehead
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 13, 2013 03:44
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On 2013-11-12 19:02, daark wrote:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/mastered-for-itunes/
nice stuff here there are tools aswell will need to give it some more research . will be really comfy with the tools. soundcloud should post their process properly aswell and some tools like listening to it before uploading it would be nice.
but looks like nothing new to me. as if like everybody uses that much dynamics in music. i actually don't like the dynamics on movies most the time being suddenly too loud or suddenly you can't hear wtf their whispering so i love to have a compressor while i watch movies.
i hope there will not be too much mess and artifacts. with the shit getting released today nobody will give any fuck...
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yep, if they're doing something to the sound we might as well get some details so that we could make adjustments to mastering to suite the platform...
like I said, none of this feels democratic to me. you should win any war by consensus and diplomatic efforts (yeah, even the loudness one XD), not by imposing some blind decision on everyone just because you happen to own one of the biggest distribution networks on the planet...
about soundcloud. if you make it 128KB/s (mp3 format), and you don't get those levels to high (like -10 rms) it's a good start. but then you can try to upload it without making it public right away to fine tune it.
it's a very nice web site and the fact they accomodate so much for free is something worthy of an award by itself, but when it comes to sound quality it's actually a step backwards. but this is what everyone uses to get to know new stuff and keep up-to-date with musicians we already know despite of that... youtube is another mess when it comes to sound quality, guess we'll have to wait to get GB bandwidth for everyone to get decent sound quality on mass distribution networks (and servers that could save all written history on their hard drives, just filling out 10% of the available space maybe XD) |
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Babaluma
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 13, 2013 11:33
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I'm on the official Apple list to produce MFiT masters. It basically means submitting hi res masters (24/96 ideal), and then running the tracks through their applet which lets you know how many overs will caused by the conversion to AAC, and turning it down to compensate, until you have none. All the details are at that link above.
My problem, is why don't they just switch to FLAC or ALAC and be done with lossy compression forever?
MFiT (a protocol for mastering engineers to follow for submitting highest quality lossy files), and the new iTunes Radio (with SoundCheck switched on by default at the listeners end), are very different things, so be careful not to confuse them! They can both possibly help improve sound quality and end the loudness wars, but I feel there's still a very long way to go.
http://hermetechmastering.com : http://www.discogs.com/artist/Gregg+Janman : http://soundcloud.com/babaluma |
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frisbeehead
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 13, 2013 15:05
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I'm aware of the MFIT standard and have their tools installed here.
if a given track passes on their AU test tools, iTunes radio wouldn't mess up that song, right?
EDIT
going through the text right now. not so worried anymore, thought this was something entirely new we're talking about.
have a disk here with ML and Logic X (that I rarely boot to) and maybe I can turn on this "soundcheck" thing there, no? would like to listen to what it does to a diverse playlist just out of curiosity.
confident that if a song passes their test tools it won't be affected in a bad way, even on their radio platform (which, honestely, don't know anything about, since it's not really available here, but one must keep an eye on this stuff regardless, yes...) is enough for me for practical porposes.
thanks for the up-to-date info guys! very nice thread!
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Babaluma
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 13, 2013 15:11
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That's the problem, no one really knows exactly what the algorithm in the iTunes Radio implementation of SoundCheck is doing, because Apple haven't released those details to the public yet. All just seems very confusing to me, and not sure if it's really helping anything at all...
Also, can't get iTunes Radio in the EU yet, and AFAIK that's just lower quality streaming. MFiT is the protocol for releasing tracks for download on the regular iTunes Store, at higher quality, in their MFiT section.
Again, very easy to confuse the two things.
http://hermetechmastering.com : http://www.discogs.com/artist/Gregg+Janman : http://soundcloud.com/babaluma |
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frisbeehead
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 13, 2013 15:36
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Quote:
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On 2013-11-13 15:11, Babaluma wrote:
That's the problem, no one really knows exactly what the algorithm in the iTunes Radio implementation of SoundCheck is doing, because Apple haven't released those details to the public yet. All just seems very confusing to me, and not sure if it's really helping anything at all...
Also, can't get iTunes Radio in the EU yet, and AFAIK that's just lower quality streaming. MFiT is the protocol for releasing tracks for download on the regular iTunes Store, at higher quality, in their MFiT section.
Again, very easy to confuse the two things.
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yep, but I'm going through the text in the link you posted here. and might be wrong, but I think if a given track can be classified as MFiT, it will not be affected by this soundcheck, just extra loud tracks will be pushed back to this average levels?
yeah, this is confusing all right...
"The effect of Sound Check, as well as other volume-controlling technologies, is that
songs that have been mastered to be too loud will be played back at a lower volume,
letting listeners more easily notice any artifacts or unintentional distortion"
this reads to me like punishment...
but I still can't figure out if they just pick some level they consider ok and then make everything stick to it, or if some of the material on the playlist is used as the benchmark or threshold? |
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Babaluma
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Nov 13, 2013 17:35
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they have a basic average figure against which they measure everything, to see whether or not, and by how much things get turned down. but it's not just RMS, it's a proprietary algorithm, the details of which have not been made public.
there also seems to be a lot of confusion amongst professional engineers as to whether or not it's just turning down louder tracks, or also boosting and peak limiting quieter ones (which would be a very bad thing in my estimation).
yes, very confusing, and very little solid detail to go on, until apple decides to release it.
http://hermetechmastering.com : http://www.discogs.com/artist/Gregg+Janman : http://soundcloud.com/babaluma |
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