Great video Ian. I work in radio, including the supply of processors which are essentially very trick boxes that ensure everything sounds consistent. The irony is that music execs gets stuff mastered as loud as possible to sound competitive on the radio but the heavily mastered material is hammered by the processor and ends up sounding worse. Their best bet would be to keep the CD dynamic & clean. As you mentioned, Daft Punk did this and their stuff really shines both from CD and on the radio.
The Optimods ones are famous to perform Horrible with over processed music. Over processing everything will make it even more distorted. I don't know what these guys have on their minds doing this to music
Yeah, we can only hope. I did like your suggestion to tell record companies when we notice their use of dynamic range. Enough feedback directly from consumers is sure to influence them.
Ok, you got me convinced. :D I come from multimedia production. You can never satisfy anyone here. At night people don't want to wake up neighbours with explosions in movies/games, they want less dynamics, but still want to hear the dialogs. While with full experience, they want the action to break windows.
The big downside of the sound check on Ipod is that it kicks in half a second after the song has started. This means that you get half a second of ear-popping loudness (because you turned the overall volume up to compensate) before it balances.
I just love this topic so much, I hardly can listen to many of my new favorite songs, only because they're clipped and hurt my ears! A smart choice would not let the "1 or 2 extra db" to kill the experience. at the end of the day we all have a volume control on our player systems whatever they may be...
The problem comes when artists make songs on an album with different volumes on purpose, in classical music for example. Suddenly the quiet gentle piano solo piece becomes as loud as a full concerto.
A victory for sure. But only when the mastering engineers "re-learn" that as same as "too brittle" or "too bassy" are extreme practices. "Too loud" compromise the recording process. Only then, we'll be ready to win this war. Great video Ian!
«And the loundess war is by no means over» And that's I think it because you're missing the whole point of loudness wars nowadays, or tend to ignore them, or, most likely, tend to replace them with reasons that were here 10 or even 20 years ago.
People with subpar sound systems (which includes a lot of people) won't use apples autogain/replaygain function due to the limited volume this system provides. Yes, people hate moving the volume knob, but people also want their latest rock song to sound loud on their crappy small speakers. Unfortunatley, if you want to do these automatic gain adjustments you need to provide some extra headroom (which apple achieves by just turning everything down, but less so on the quieter songs).
I agree that is not exactly the end of the loudness war but is a step, but for me will not be a final combat against loudness, the return to more dynamic music will be the result of a lot of steps like this put it together. When the recording industry have 2, 3 or more reasons to see clearly that loudness music is shooting down the business in terms of money, they will react; not before. That's why is important that the consumer make his voice listening for those who produce music.
I wonder how this will work. Do you remember "Peek Search" on old Pioneer stack CD players?! It was used so you could adjust the Tape input to perfect levels! :D If the Sound check adjusts the levels based on "peek" volume, this could force everyone to make tracks even MORE flat & compressed to make the whole track peek constantly as the new loudness technique if you get what I'm saying? I still think we need to inform people so they're aware, rather than limit the limiting! Great Video Ian.
Thanks for this video, Mr. Shepherd. I wonder how you managed to got the audio of iTunes into the metering plugins. Did you do it via SoundFlower or how did you do it?
That's not the aim. The idea is that everything will be played back with sufficient headroom that the limiters won't have to act.The iTunes limiter is not a function of SoundCheck, but is just there in case a user chooses to boost replay volume manually to a point where clipping would otherwise occur.
There are more good mastered albums this year, for example Steven Wilson solo project, and, first of all, new Avenged Sevenfold album "Hail to the king" which reached very high places on selling lists across the world. It's a great news, really. I also see that days, when top bands released DR 5 albums have passed, now it's DR 6 or 7, maybe not a huge change, but it's getting better and better. I see progress, and I hope it will continue, thanks to campaign against loudness war.
Never did like SoundCheck, as I had already been ReplayGaining all my files since before SoundCheck was introduced (or at least until I discovered the feature in there) and it seems to fail where ReplayGain succeeds. SoundCheck *sounds* way too different in volume from song to song, whereas with ReplayGain I never notice any difference in volume from track to track. How does ReplayGain compare with the method you're using to measure with in this video?
***** I did a very small amount of reading about R128 on hydrogenaudio and it sounds like in most cases it achieves results pretty similar to ReplayGain, with mostly just some odd cases here and there where it disagrees by a large amount. Sounds like the difference is typically due to how the two differ in their view of sub-bass content and/or the fact that R128 gates out stuff from the results that might mess a bit with ReplayGain, which does not do something similar. At any rate, it's nice that at least some people in the industry have been working on the issue in some manner.
Well normalisation exists for ages, yes, but it ised to be RMS based. That made it unreliable. All the new ones are based on fequency-weighted meaturing. (that's difference between dB and LUFS) That makes it usable. That makes it hopeful...
Hah! loudness war is really ending! I've just installed spotify and took a listen to Steve Lukathers' album All's well that ends well and guess what? It's different master that the one made on CD (where there was DR3). Freakin' amazing! I still can't believe it. On spotify it's way more dynamic, I hear it and even see it ... This war really can be over!!
genuineuni p.s. Sony and Universal are following with their Pure Sound. I'd like to think everyone is on a HQ sound kick, but in my estimation, as with Stereo (mixing), MAYBE 15% demand great sound. Thank for your videos, feel free to contact me www.angelfire.com/empire/abpsp
Sadly the war wasn't won back then :( Now they produce loud songs because everyone is hearing music on the go with their Airpods. And in those loud environments compressed music does better. Dynamic details would get lost. However: The wireless revolution takes, but it also gives: With the rise of noise cancelling in wireless headphones and in-ears people can mute those loud environments. Which means they can enjoy high dynamic music even on the go! Soooo, maybe producers will realise that …
is this the new remaster/release of Smells Like Teen Spirit? the new one's been smashed to the wall, and i think even clips... here's the only comparison i could find: i5.minus.com/iH3afMV8atvAT.png (bottom is my old record club version)
Why is Bob Katz even concerned with loudness? If he doesn't like it, then avoid it. It appears him an Bob Ludwig are on a loudness trip that has been used on vinyl, too. Loudness is an important component in music. Electric guitars? Heavy Rock? Hard to tell when electric guitars don't have a distorted sound.
***** If people feel it's so bad, they won't buy the music, will they? Let's forget about current music, lots of early CDs, mastering levels were very low. I used to digitally enhance these and post snippets and was called an "audiophile". Go figure. Loudness, to some degree, is an important component in music. I do associate Loudness with amplitude, but more of the density of sound. Why many artists overdubbed and overdubbed to increase sound density, what I refer to as loudness.
man i'd love to watch your videos', you sound like a smart guy who knows what he is talking about and you do it intrestingly , but why do you have to boost the low end and get this scooped tone?! it sound "pro" but it's just annoying
Your forgetting something Ian... just because iTunes radio and Spotify will even out volume levels of each song on your playlist, if it's making louder albums less loud, you're not getting the dynamic range back that was lost in the first place when it was smashed to bits during the mastering stage. In terms of dynamic range, this isn't a positive step at all. This has nothing to do with the loudness wars. Action needs to be taken during the mastering stage and to the music that people buy (as opposed to stream) via whatever platform. Most CDs are still way too loud. High resolution 24bit album releases have much more dynamic range than their CD counterpart. The future is high resolution audio (probably via download), such as Pono Music and HDtracks. Just today I was reading a statement by someone who worked on the new album by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers called Hypnotic Eye. He said the CD was made louder to match the volume levels of other CDs on the market, and the 24/48 Blu-ray audio and website FLAC download (which come from the same master) were made with much less dynamic range compression and no peak limiting, which was especially done for audiophiles and people who care about how their music sounds. The way music is streamed and how you can even out the volume level itself has nothing to do with dynamic range. The reason why an increasing number of people don't like their CDs and downloads to be over loud/compressed is because the dynamic range of the recording is lowered/lost when this happens. That's what The Loudness Wars is about.
There is a clear difference between 16bit and 24bit. You hear so much more ambience from the recording. Different parts of the song (such as particular instruments) sound further apart from one another and there is a wider stereo effect as well as more headroom (although those two might mean the same). When I go back to listening to CDs (older ones that aren't crushed to death) I still miss that extra ambience that you get with 24bit and various sample rates. I wish more artists would release their music in high resolution. I'm hoping that Pono Music might put out some good stuff when it opens later this year. I'm just listening to the new Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers album in 24/48 (which it was recorded and mixed to). It sounds fantastic.
***** I've heard a lot of CDs with little or no compression or clipping and they sound good, but even then I don't hear the extra ambience and headroom you get with 24bit playback, and before you say it, no it's not just my imagination. The thing is, I've read comments from so many other people who have also explained the same things I'm explaining when comparing 16bit to 24bit. Some of these people even convert the 24bit file to 16bit/44.1kHz themselves, so the mastering is identical, and they still hear the same difference. So, HDtracks and Pono Music are just a waste of time and EVERYONE is just imagining the difference?
It would've been more convincing if you hadn't posted a link to an article written by yourself. The second link gives you an opportunity to see if you can notice the difference between 8bit and 16bit. Is there a page that does the same but instead gives you the chance to see if you can notice the difference between 16bit and 24bit?
***** Through my smartphone speaker? No, but listening through my high-end headset? Yes, I could. First of all, the biggest difference is that the bass sounds more natural and open (real) on the 16-bit version. I can't help thinking it sounds a bit more flat on the 8-bit copy. Also, that wave you hear at the opening sounds a bit more atmospheric on the 16-bit version. Overall, It's a bit like comparing a WAV or FLAC file with a 192kHz MP3 file. That's all I can say.
The problem is from the producers, if they release something already destroyed, clipped, distorted, you can't get it back no matter what you use to edit or to play it. Best example is Alright, Still from Lily Allen, especially songs LDN and Smile. More and more idiots do that either because they are stupid or because somebody ask them to be stupid. There are a lot of albums ruined in that way by the first release and a lot also "remastered" by empty-head people that try to make old releases to sound like these days releases but they are only destroying those records. Probably in they're mind after that "master" music sounds "better" but it is exactly the opposite. I think most of it to blame is the artists because if they are not happy with a release they should change people who work for them, there are a lot of new good releases that sound really good when others are awfull. Sorry if I have some english mistakes, it is not my mother-tongue.
well inour view the loudness war was never about radio or streaming in the first place. t was alwways about club DJs. if your record was not as loud as the one preceeding it your production would sound like wimpy crap. thats what started it. it seems very odd that ppl think itunes has that much power. its djs that break records not itunes or pandora or any other streaming service or even radio that just plays the same ole music from 30 and 40 years ago. producers want their productions to bang and thump and that means they gotta be loud!
Well it "won" the loudness war by forcing everyone to listen to (unlistenably) compressed music. Soundcheck forces the level way too high. So, I suppose that means that pop producers will similarly ruin their albums so that soundcheck won't have to change anything. Well, they won't HAVE TO but they might. Won. Whowee! I canceled Spotify because it has a similar compressor, and on the android version you can't turn it off.
+Ian Shepherd Seven months later, and I just switched from many many years of Spotify to Apple Music because of two reasons. Firstly, Spotify drains a lot of battery on my phone and I hope that this won't be the case with Apple Music since it uses AAC files. The second reason is good volume leveling (or Sound Check). Spotify added the option of disabling the volume leveling (which in their case still reduces dynamic range) but especially if you listen to a lot of metal, the volume of most 80s and early 90s albums is way way lower than the volume of today's albums. If you're listening to a full album that's fine but playlists where one song might be from Metallica's Master of Puppets and the other from Death Magnetic are impossible. We already see different more dynamic mixes being used for music videos after youtube added volume leveling so hopefully since CDs are pretty much extinct anyway, big music streaming services with a volume leveling feature can change the way albums are mixed and mastered to the better.
I have a weird conspiracy theory. Sound engineered alike in the industry purposely made CDs sound terrible to increase vinyl sales. Cause with vinyl you can't go past 60db really. ;)
Totally agree! Please make Dynamic Range come back again! Great videos man!
Great video Ian. I work in radio, including the supply of processors which are essentially very trick boxes that ensure everything sounds consistent. The irony is that music execs gets stuff mastered as loud as possible to sound competitive on the radio but the heavily mastered material is hammered by the processor and ends up sounding worse. Their best bet would be to keep the CD dynamic & clean. As you mentioned, Daft Punk did this and their stuff really shines both from CD and on the radio.
The Optimods ones are famous to perform Horrible with over processed music. Over processing everything will make it even more distorted. I don't know what these guys have on their minds doing this to music
This information needs to get out to the people making these decisions. That's the only way this paradigm shift will...err...shift.
True. iTune's sound check has a built in limiter though. The songs with lots of dynamics would get their peaks cut.
Turn the feature on guys, and it will protect your speakers from being blown out and damaged.
Yeah, we can only hope. I did like your suggestion to tell record companies when we notice their use of dynamic range. Enough feedback directly from consumers is sure to influence them.
Great demonstration and explanation. Very thorough and convincing!
Ok, you got me convinced. :D
I come from multimedia production. You can never satisfy anyone here. At night people don't want to wake up neighbours with explosions in movies/games, they want less dynamics, but still want to hear the dialogs. While with full experience, they want the action to break windows.
yes..Wilson didn't even send the album to a separate engineer for mastering and sounds great as anything else! :)
The big downside of the sound check on Ipod is that it kicks in half a second after the song has started. This means that you get half a second of ear-popping loudness (because you turned the overall volume up to compensate) before it balances.
I just love this topic so much, I hardly can listen to many of my new favorite songs, only because they're clipped and hurt my ears! A smart choice would not let the "1 or 2 extra db" to kill the experience. at the end of the day we all have a volume control on our player systems whatever they may be...
Headroom reason is very good though, it sounds great.
great video, thanks for sharing!
The problem comes when artists make songs on an album with different volumes on purpose, in classical music for example. Suddenly the quiet gentle piano solo piece becomes as loud as a full concerto.
A victory for sure. But only when the mastering engineers "re-learn" that as same as "too brittle" or "too bassy" are extreme practices. "Too loud" compromise the recording process. Only then, we'll be ready to win this war.
Great video Ian!
Man I love these videos. They're very interesting and informative. Thank you.
I just noticed 10 minutes into the video that the image on the "What is the Loudness War?" article has the Death Magnetic cover on it
Excellent video Ian, thank you for uploading this!
«And the loundess war is by no means over»
And that's I think it because you're missing the whole point of loudness wars nowadays, or tend to ignore them, or, most likely, tend to replace them with reasons that were here 10 or even 20 years ago.
Could you do a video on what Apple and others are using in their mastered for Itunes Labs.
People with subpar sound systems (which includes a lot of people) won't use apples autogain/replaygain function due to the limited volume this system provides. Yes, people hate moving the volume knob, but people also want their latest rock song to sound loud on their crappy small speakers. Unfortunatley, if you want to do these automatic gain adjustments you need to provide some extra headroom (which apple achieves by just turning everything down, but less so on the quieter songs).
I agree that is not exactly the end of the loudness war but is a step, but for me will not be a final combat against loudness, the return to more dynamic music will be the result of a lot of steps like this put it together. When the recording industry have 2, 3 or more reasons to see clearly that loudness music is shooting down the business in terms of money, they will react; not before. That's why is important that the consumer make his voice listening for those who produce music.
Sound Check has been around for over a decade. Did something change, aside Album Mode?
Most songs don't start with noise but especially punk-rock and such they just blow your earbuds in that first second.
I wonder how this will work. Do you remember "Peek Search" on old Pioneer stack CD players?! It was used so you could adjust the Tape input to perfect levels! :D
If the Sound check adjusts the levels based on "peek" volume, this could force everyone to make tracks even MORE flat & compressed to make the whole track peek constantly as the new loudness technique if you get what I'm saying?
I still think we need to inform people so they're aware, rather than limit the limiting!
Great Video Ian.
Thanks for this video, Mr. Shepherd. I wonder how you managed to got the audio of iTunes into the metering plugins. Did you do it via SoundFlower or how did you do it?
That's not the aim. The idea is that everything will be played back with sufficient headroom that the limiters won't have to act.The iTunes limiter is not a function of SoundCheck, but is just there in case a user chooses to boost replay volume manually to a point where clipping would otherwise occur.
Very good informations here ! thank you a lot . Have you also tested with a low db tune ? Is it push the volume up ?
There are more good mastered albums this year, for example Steven Wilson solo project, and, first of all, new Avenged Sevenfold album "Hail to the king" which reached very high places on selling lists across the world. It's a great news, really. I also see that days, when top bands released DR 5 albums have passed, now it's DR 6 or 7, maybe not a huge change, but it's getting better and better. I see progress, and I hope it will continue, thanks to campaign against loudness war.
great stuff all the way around!
The volume may be evened when you listen to it, but there's no guarantee producers will stop compressing our music. Logic hasn't stopped them before.
I was thinking that very same thing.
Never did like SoundCheck, as I had already been ReplayGaining all my files since before SoundCheck was introduced (or at least until I discovered the feature in there) and it seems to fail where ReplayGain succeeds. SoundCheck *sounds* way too different in volume from song to song, whereas with ReplayGain I never notice any difference in volume from track to track. How does ReplayGain compare with the method you're using to measure with in this video?
***** I did a very small amount of reading about R128 on hydrogenaudio and it sounds like in most cases it achieves results pretty similar to ReplayGain, with mostly just some odd cases here and there where it disagrees by a large amount. Sounds like the difference is typically due to how the two differ in their view of sub-bass content and/or the fact that R128 gates out stuff from the results that might mess a bit with ReplayGain, which does not do something similar. At any rate, it's nice that at least some people in the industry have been working on the issue in some manner.
Well normalisation exists for ages, yes, but it ised to be RMS based. That made it unreliable. All the new ones are based on fequency-weighted meaturing. (that's difference between dB and LUFS) That makes it usable. That makes it hopeful...
thanks a lot for this detailed explanation btw :)
Both of these albums feature Dave Grohl on Drums.
The one that sounds like crap is called "Songs for the Deaf"!
Hilarious!!
Is this simmiler to mp3gain?
EBU R128, the loud war is over! Now ppl ned to be creative again to make good music. lol.lol.lol. EBU R128 is a gift from god, im soo happy!
Hah! loudness war is really ending! I've just installed spotify and took a listen to Steve Lukathers' album All's well that ends well and guess what? It's different master that the one made on CD (where there was DR3). Freakin' amazing! I still can't believe it. On spotify it's way more dynamic, I hear it and even see it ... This war really can be over!!
great!
Ian, FYI, Apple is now on a Pono kick along with Neil Young. So I can see why Apple is now changing their "tune".
*****
www.ponomusic.com/
genuineuni
p.s. Sony and Universal are following with their Pure Sound.
I'd like to think everyone is on a HQ sound kick, but in my estimation, as with Stereo (mixing), MAYBE 15% demand great sound. Thank for your videos, feel free to contact me www.angelfire.com/empire/abpsp
*****
I believe they are. Someone is making the hardware and it's certainly not Neil Young.
Theoretically, as the man himself has said, Andrew Scheps won the loudness war with Death Magnetic :))
lets hope the Apple factor can do what Spotify didn't manage.
Sadly the war wasn't won back then :(
Now they produce loud songs because everyone is hearing music on the go with their Airpods. And in those loud environments compressed music does better. Dynamic details would get lost.
However: The wireless revolution takes, but it also gives: With the rise of noise cancelling in wireless headphones and in-ears people can mute those loud environments. Which means they can enjoy high dynamic music even on the go! Soooo, maybe producers will realise that …
2022: The loudness war hasn't been won :(
is this the new remaster/release of Smells Like Teen Spirit? the new one's been smashed to the wall, and i think even clips... here's the only comparison i could find: i5.minus.com/iH3afMV8atvAT.png (bottom is my old record club version)
Yes, Sudden Death won with a wopping -3 LUFS, unrivaled king of heavie Riddim Dubstep
so funny,by 10:17, I saw his download folder contains torrent file, LOL
You realise there are plenty of legal, ethical uses (and users) of Bittorrent, right ?
Has the Loudness War been won ?
absolutely and unfortunately !
Why is Bob Katz even concerned with loudness? If he doesn't like it, then avoid it. It appears him an Bob Ludwig are on a loudness trip that has been used on vinyl, too. Loudness is an important component in music. Electric guitars? Heavy Rock? Hard to tell when electric guitars don't have a distorted sound.
*****
If people feel it's so bad, they won't buy the music, will they? Let's forget about current music, lots of early CDs, mastering levels were very low. I used to digitally enhance these and post snippets and was called an "audiophile". Go figure. Loudness, to some degree, is an important component in music. I do associate Loudness with amplitude, but more of the density of sound. Why many artists overdubbed and overdubbed to increase sound density, what I refer to as loudness.
man i'd love to watch your videos', you sound like a smart guy who knows what he is talking about and you do it intrestingly , but why do you have to boost the low end and get this scooped tone?! it sound "pro" but it's just annoying
There's no EQ on the vocal...
might've been close to the mic, in most cases that'll happen, where just being really close to it gives a very strong bass boost.
Your forgetting something Ian... just because iTunes radio and Spotify will even out volume levels of each song on your playlist, if it's making louder albums less loud, you're not getting the dynamic range back that was lost in the first place when it was smashed to bits during the mastering stage. In terms of dynamic range, this isn't a positive step at all. This has nothing to do with the loudness wars. Action needs to be taken during the mastering stage and to the music that people buy (as opposed to stream) via whatever platform. Most CDs are still way too loud. High resolution 24bit album releases have much more dynamic range than their CD counterpart. The future is high resolution audio (probably via download), such as Pono Music and HDtracks. Just today I was reading a statement by someone who worked on the new album by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers called Hypnotic Eye. He said the CD was made louder to match the volume levels of other CDs on the market, and the 24/48 Blu-ray audio and website FLAC download (which come from the same master) were made with much less dynamic range compression and no peak limiting, which was especially done for audiophiles and people who care about how their music sounds. The way music is streamed and how you can even out the volume level itself has nothing to do with dynamic range. The reason why an increasing number of people don't like their CDs and downloads to be over loud/compressed is because the dynamic range of the recording is lowered/lost when this happens. That's what The Loudness Wars is about.
There is a clear difference between 16bit and 24bit. You hear so much more ambience from the recording. Different parts of the song (such as particular instruments) sound further apart from one another and there is a wider stereo effect as well as more headroom (although those two might mean the same). When I go back to listening to CDs (older ones that aren't crushed to death) I still miss that extra ambience that you get with 24bit and various sample rates. I wish more artists would release their music in high resolution. I'm hoping that Pono Music might put out some good stuff when it opens later this year. I'm just listening to the new Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers album in 24/48 (which it was recorded and mixed to). It sounds fantastic.
***** I've heard a lot of CDs with little or no compression or clipping and they sound good, but even then I don't hear the extra ambience and headroom you get with 24bit playback, and before you say it, no it's not just my imagination. The thing is, I've read comments from so many other people who have also explained the same things I'm explaining when comparing 16bit to 24bit. Some of these people even convert the 24bit file to 16bit/44.1kHz themselves, so the mastering is identical, and they still hear the same difference. So, HDtracks and Pono Music are just a waste of time and EVERYONE is just imagining the difference?
It would've been more convincing if you hadn't posted a link to an article written by yourself. The second link gives you an opportunity to see if you can notice the difference between 8bit and 16bit. Is there a page that does the same but instead gives you the chance to see if you can notice the difference between 16bit and 24bit?
***** Through my smartphone speaker? No, but listening through my high-end headset? Yes, I could. First of all, the biggest difference is that the bass sounds more natural and open (real) on the 16-bit version. I can't help thinking it sounds a bit more flat on the 8-bit copy. Also, that wave you hear at the opening sounds a bit more atmospheric on the 16-bit version. Overall, It's a bit like comparing a WAV or FLAC file with a 192kHz MP3 file. That's all I can say.
The problem is from the producers, if they release something already destroyed, clipped, distorted, you can't get it back no matter what you use to edit or to play it.
Best example is Alright, Still from Lily Allen, especially songs LDN and Smile.
More and more idiots do that either because they are stupid or because somebody ask them to be stupid.
There are a lot of albums ruined in that way by the first release and a lot also "remastered" by empty-head people that try to make old releases to sound like these days releases but they are only destroying those records. Probably in they're mind after that "master" music sounds "better" but it is exactly the opposite.
I think most of it to blame is the artists because if they are not happy with a release they should change people who work for them, there are a lot of new good releases that sound really good when others are awfull.
Sorry if I have some english mistakes, it is not my mother-tongue.
well inour view the loudness war was never about radio or streaming in the first place. t was alwways about club DJs.
if your record was not as loud as the one preceeding it your production would sound like wimpy crap. thats what started it. it seems very odd that ppl think itunes has that much power. its djs that break records not itunes or pandora or any other streaming service or even radio that just plays the same ole music from 30 and 40 years ago.
producers want their productions to bang and thump and that means they gotta be loud!
Well it "won" the loudness war by forcing everyone to listen to (unlistenably) compressed music. Soundcheck forces the level way too high.
So, I suppose that means that pop producers will similarly ruin their albums so that soundcheck won't have to change anything. Well, they won't HAVE TO but they might.
Won. Whowee!
I canceled Spotify because it has a similar compressor, and on the android version you can't turn it off.
+Ian Shepherd Seven months later, and I just switched from many many years of Spotify to Apple Music because of two reasons. Firstly, Spotify drains a lot of battery on my phone and I hope that this won't be the case with Apple Music since it uses AAC files. The second reason is good volume leveling (or Sound Check). Spotify added the option of disabling the volume leveling (which in their case still reduces dynamic range) but especially if you listen to a lot of metal, the volume of most 80s and early 90s albums is way way lower than the volume of today's albums. If you're listening to a full album that's fine but playlists where one song might be from Metallica's Master of Puppets and the other from Death Magnetic are impossible.
We already see different more dynamic mixes being used for music videos after youtube added volume leveling so hopefully since CDs are pretty much extinct anyway, big music streaming services with a volume leveling feature can change the way albums are mixed and mastered to the better.
I have a weird conspiracy theory. Sound engineered alike in the industry purposely made CDs sound terrible to increase vinyl sales. Cause with vinyl you can't go past 60db really. ;)
Sorry. "Engineers." ;)
This is wrong.
When people don't want to adjust the volumes, that means they want LESS dynamics.
I'd say the loudness war was lost long time ago.
Ahh, Songs for the Deaf. Such an ironic name. Amazing album, though, but terribly terrible mixing/mastering/production/whatever.