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Calibrated monitoring levels in the studio

As a complete aside (but related), I've been setting up a home recording studio and decided to calibrate the reference levels on the near-field monitors. Using Audition I generated a 30 second blast of pink noise at 89.0dB, which I then ran through MP3Gain (confirming that the RMS level was indeed 89.0dB). I then played this back through the near-field monitors and adjusted the level so that a hand-held SPL meter read 89.0dB at the listening position, approximately 1m from the NFMs.

Having done this I played a series of test tracks through the system, all ReplayGained to 89dB RMS. They ALL sounded too quiet. Playing the non-ReplayGained versions of some late 1990s material gave a much more satisfactory listening level. So I went back to a ReplayGained track and adjusted for comfort, then did a level test using pink noise. The result was that the NFMs were actually operating at 95dB, not 89dB.

My point? Perhaps this could all be avoided if mastering studios increase the level of their monitors by 6dB. Bearing in mind that modern equipment is capable of much higher replay levels without distortion (as an aside I cranked up the monitor level as high as it would go without audible distortion and the system was producing 109dB RMS at the listening position - after a mere 2 minutes of this my ears were ringing!). This lack of distortion means it doesn't sound as loud as it actually is. Comments anyone? Squirrel (talk) 18:38, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Have reverted and restored this section as my intention was to propose putting something about this into the article, my point being that on modern monitoring equipment the calibrated level can often sound "too quiet", thus prompting engineers to start compressing to make it sound louder. Probably should have made that clearer in the original posting above. Squirrel (talk) 07:06, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
The WP:OR policy forbids us from using your experimentation as the basis for article content. I suggest discussing your observations in the HydrogenAudio forums. You might also want to compare your pink noise sample with the reference sample. —mjb (talk) 21:54, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:EL, I have removed the following from the External links section. Some may be usable as references but I couldn't see an application in the existing article text. ~KvnG 19:10, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

New refs

Anyone up for incorporating these? See also Talk:Loudness_war/Archive_5#New_ref. ~KvnG 16:12, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

  • LLEWELLYN HINKES-JONES (2013-11-25). "The Real Reason Music's Gotten So Loud". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2013-11-25. {{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
  • Devine, K. (2013). "Imperfect sound forever: Loudness wars, listening formations and the history of sound reproduction". Popular Music. 32 (2): 159. doi:10.1017/S0261143013000032.
  • Stuart Dredge (2013-11-25). "Pop music is louder, less acoustic and more energetic than in the 1950s". The Guardian. Retrieved 2013-11-25.
I have moved these into the External links section of the article. ~KvnG 19:17, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

New Nine Inch Nails album Hesitation Marks?

I was wondering whether it would maybe be helpful to mention the new Nine Inch Nails album 'Hesitation Marks' as there will be a standard 'loud' release and a dynamic release as well: Engineer Blog Post

It might be interesting as a recent input in the whole 'loudness war' debate as this is not normal practice - to release a 'loud' version and a 'dynamic' version?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.159.190.141 (talk) 13:01, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that's an excellent idea --Rodneyorpheus (talk) 13:51, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
As it turned out the "audiophile" version wasn't very dynamic - is it worth adding this and the debate about it ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Florix g (talk • contribs) 13:30, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Dissenting views neutrality

Is anyone else concerned with how that section of the article has progressed over the last few months? The thing is brimming with a massive amount of unexplained technical jargon ("crest factor", "RMS", "pianissimo to fortissimo", "LRA", etc.) that most people wouldn't understand, so for a start the entire thing needs to be re-written ASAP. But even more concerning is that fact that the section seems to be entirely based around the work of one Emmanuel Deruty. Over the first half of the section, every non-Deruty-written source used is merely mentioned to either support one of Deruty's reports (ie, "Joan Serrà, in an article published in Nature's Scientific Reports"), or are specifically brought up for another of Deruty's reports to later criticise ("Suhas Sreedhar's 2007 IEEE Spectrum article entitled The Future of Music"). A lot of the sources used in the latter half of the article to allegedly support his research ([1], [2], [3]) are in fact dead links. I don't know if random papers posted on AES E-Library are WP:RS to begin with, but Google searches for those report titles and author names bring up nothing, so a lot of that information is virtually non-confirmable.

Most worryingly of all, on October 25 an IP (89.156.23.47) made a series 14 edits (2 major, the rest minor). Then just 10 minutes after these edits stopped, the user ["EmmanuelDeruty"] began a series of 5 minor edits to the same content, which were suspiciously similar to some of the IP's minor edits. A WP:CHECKUSER between Deruty's account and the half-a-dozen or so IPs who've been editing that section since October 1st wouldn't go amiss. @EmmanuelDeruty: being involved in its composition at the very least smacks of WP:Self-promotion, but any further involvement would mean there are serious issues regarding WP:Advocacy and/or WP:Conflict of interest with the whole thing. Homeostasis07 (talk) 01:50, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Certainly Deruty wrote this piece in the respected industry mag Sound On Sound, the September 2011 issue. So Deruty is not to be ignored. But let's not have Deruty be the only voice speaking against the loudness war. And his opinion is given far too much weight. Binksternet (talk) 03:00, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
There's no doubt that the guy knows his stuff, but the fact that such a large section is comprised more-or-less completely of his work, and the fact that he himself may have been editing that section is a massive problem. Homeostasis07 (talk) 03:27, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
The dead links are not dead, they just don't work with a "/" at the end..... 78.250.221.215 01:27, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
Those links were fixed over 10 hours ago by Kvng, Emmanuel. I say Emmanuel because this and this matches pretty conclusively. Homeostasis07 (talk) 02:08, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
92.147.229.78 OK - I can’t help but wonder how is it possible that in the context of an encyclopaedia project (Wikipedia is one, isn’t it), private opinions written on private blogs/sites are considered as more reliable and legitimate than peer-reviewed scientific articles. As a case in point, Ian Shepherd’s opinion from his private blog is still there, whereas the reference to Serra’s article in Nature’s Scientific Reports was simply removed - even though Nature is one of the most important and reliable scientific journals. Obviously, this is not serious in the least. Emmanuel. 10:47, 9 November 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.147.229.78 (talk)

DR online database! There is one, but where do I put it?

I'm missing a "See also" section in the article. The database I mean is this one: DR Loudness War dot info. "Further reading" would be odd to choose for section, because this is not about reading articles, but searching for artists or album titles. Gahhh...-andy 2.243.90.202 (talk) 00:18, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I've created a new External links section for it. I hope that a lot of the items in the Further reading section will eventually be incorporated as references. ~KvnG 19:11, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Loudness War itself not cause of "bad sound" according to Sound On Sound magazine

There's a very interesting article in the September 2011 issue of Sound On Sound magazine (which btw. mentions this WP article). They did a lot of technical research, and even got someone from Ircam involved. Their finding is that while the "loudness" has been rising since the early nineties, this doesn't necessarily mean that the dynamic range of recordings has decreased. A lot seems to be down to changes in, and differences between, musical styles. The article pays particular attention to the reviled Death Magnetic by Metallica, which according to SOS is simply "the wrong style of music" to compress as heavily as hip hop or r'n'b. The article is now freely available for non-subscribers at http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/loudness.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.205.77.212 (talk) 17:34, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

This source is referenced and the work discussed in the Loudness_war#Dissenting_views section. Feel free to expand or better integrate this material. ~KvnG 14:11, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Loud does not necessarily mean bad to a skilled mastering engineer. Actually the article sounds very ignorant, when for instance "the mastering engineer was floored" when they "went with the least compression". Some good compression and limiting is just good practise. You don´t want full peak played back at some levels that people actually use. In terms of hearing damage, maximally limiting things makes a lot of sense. And very good masters can be done, completely without distortion, with the right DSP and mixing. THe problem is that sometimes one engineer outperforms ten mixing engineers and mastering engineers, and they fail to do his quality loud sound, resulting in an very suboptimal master. Looking back at 92-95 aswell, the releases use much less multiband processing. It was only after this, that the loudness war argument became known. And indeed pushing a multiband limiter, gives a lot of artifacts, and "flat" sound. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.211.166.130 (talk) 17:38, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Removed this paragraph, it makes no sense for someone who doesn't already know what it means

In August 2011, the EBU published EBU Recommendation R 128,[1] which specifies a new way of metering and normalizing audio, based on ITU-R BS.1770. It is accompanied by the EBU Loudness Metering specification EBU Tech 3341,[2] which includes the so-called 'EBU Mode' to make meters interoperable. Also, a Loudness Range descriptor is defined, in EBU Tech 3342,[3] which helps audio mixers understand what loudness range their material consists of.[4]

Hamsterlopithecus (talk) 19:03, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ EBU Recommendation R 128: Loudness normalization and permitted maximum level of audio signals (PDF), European Broadcasting Union, August 2011, retrieved 2013-04-22
  2. ^ EBU Tech 3341: Loudness Metering: "EBU Mode" metering to supplement loudness normalization in accordance with EBU R 128 (PDF), European Broadcasting Union, August 2011, retrieved 2013-04-22
  3. ^ EBU Tech 3342: Loudness Range: A measure to supplement loudness normalization in accordance with EBU R 128 (PDF), European Broadcasting Union, August 2011, retrieved 2013-04-22
  4. ^ Florian Scholz (January 2012). "R128 - The Revolution". SAE Magazine. SAE Institute: 104. Retrieved 2013-04-22.

Michael Jackson waveforms

Even the 1991 screen shot isn't all that dynamic. I'd originally uploaded 3 versions of the ABBA track "One Of Us", from 1981 (CD released 1983), 1994 and 2005, which showed a dramatic increase in loudness, however they got deleted from the article some time ago. When screen shots were finally put back in a different track was used. I'd suggest we return to the track I'd used originally as the DR was massive on the 1981 recording, and by the 2005 remaster it had been squashed down to virtually nothing. Opinions? Squirrel (talk) 13:00, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Please see previous discussion on lead image selection. Do you have a link to your "One Of Us" example so we can have a look? ~Kvng (talk) 13:48, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Loudness war isn't limited to CDs

There was more victims of the loudness war. The record companies and their customers, even the SACD format. I have no problem with new recordings using high compressions. If I do not like the result, I don't buy it. The problem for me is deceiving practice, where old music is heavily compressed. When I buy it, I expect something I fondly remembered and instead get something very different. Sometimes it's even advertised as straight transfer, or needle drop, but what I get is horrible distorted sound having nothing common with sound of vinyl or original master tape. I tried to move to DVD audio and SACD, only to get more compressed sound, then regular CDs from nineties. The example is King Crimson 40th anniversary box sets including DVD audio and "Can" SACD. Cds are not returnable. Finely I came to my senses, follow my friends and stop vesting my money. I used to buy 100 CDs a year. Last 5 year I bought 0. The problem is, loudness war is not limited to pop and rock CDs. Its spreading to jazz and classical music too. Movie theatres employ it as well. Classical music concerts and operas are nowadays amplified. If contemporary artists embrace the distortion, it's their choice. I have no problem to physically feel the music. But I have problem when opera is trying to be louder then heavy metal concert and actors on screen are whispering at ears defying levels. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.68.117.26 (talk) 23:30, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Seems that in the past, people used compression boxes, such as dbx, in reverse mode to decompress over compressed tracks. It does seem that the article could say more about compression, and that loudness perception is mostly on average level, where recording technology limits the peak level. There used to be complaints about television advertising being louder than the programs due to the use of compression. (The fcc link seems not to work, or I would reference it here.) Gah4 (talk) 11:50, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

EBU R 128 Should not redirect here

I came to wikipedia looking for technical information about the EBU R 128 standard (I am an implementor of audio software seeking to make my program compliant) and was redirected here which contains little to no information on EBU R 128. I think this does a disservice to Wikipedia's quality since Google searches for [ebur 128] have a prominent wikipedia link which is not a real article but a redirect to a related article. What's the process for changing this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Russelljryan (talk • contribs) 16:40, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

You can write the article on it, and remove the redirect such that it points to the new page. I suppose you could do that with even the barest stub of a page. If you start one, others might help finish it. Gah4 (talk) 11:41, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

It would also be nice to have a stand-alone ITU-R BS.1770 article. I have these things on my to-do list. I don't know when I will get to them. Please try to beat me to it. ~Kvng (talk) 13:03, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Loudness war due to people increasingly listening to music on substandard equipmentt?

I think the article should address that the classic hifi system is dieing out or already gone. People nowadays listen to music on their smartphones or they got ridiculously small music boxes or stereos. Compression is a must if music is supposed to sound good on tiny speakers, I guess. Though it hurts the experience on good audio equipment. -- Alexey Topol (talk) 02:08, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

My phone plays perfectly good sound files, with all the dynamic range intended by the producer, when I play uncompressed music files. Just for comparison.
As far as bringing this idea into the article, you will first need to find a published source discussing the issue. Binksternet (talk) 04:49, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Usable Owen Morris quote?

Owen Morris, producer of (What's the Story) Morning Glory? is on video[1] saying "Mastering it, I was the first person to make CDs be fucking on the red line constantly. There are no dynamics. There are none like. It's just full-on all the fucking way. It was fucking great, it worked. In fucking jukeboxes around the country, man, for that first fucking year, Oasis came on louder than everybody else." --Chrisjwowen (talk) 09:18, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

His quote valid on topic, yes. But not usable as you presented. What documentary is it actually from, or is it from TV show? Somebody ripped whatever source and uploaded it onto YT, thats not what we're gonna use here. --Yk49 (talk) 14:30, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Morris, Owen. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12nEb4uCtH8. Retrieved 17 August 2017. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

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New ABBA lead image

@Kosmosi: I appreciate that it is easier to see detail in the new lead image. But the new image is a bit larger than we normally use for this purpose. Is it possible to create a trimmed version of this for the lead? ~Kvng (talk) 15:58, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

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