TimDolbear

I'm wondering if this is any different to what Magix has or is offering in Sequoia 13. Continuous Loudness Control LC1

http://pro.magix.com/en/sequoia/whats-new.529.html

http://pro.magix.com/en/sequoia/functions/loudness-ebu-r128.2013.html

Never the less, this is very interesting indeed and looks awesome. Thanks for posting this!

Here is the link to the product:
http://www.meterplugs.com/lcast?a_aid=masteringmedia&a_bid=0dfa72df

Formats
Mac and Windows 32/64-bit compatible.

If Youtube start to use loudness control, it could be the beginning of something, or the end of something for that matter.

The remaining ones who still live in fear of beeing "too low" have something to look forward to... which is great...

N.

I have a feeling all the major media sites are adapting to this now. According to Bob Katz, there will be no point in trying to slam the hell out of music soon. He has been working with itunes (most likely google and others) to come up with solutions to end the Loudness War. I posted an article / video of this a while back (Ill look for it) which is very interesting. I bet its exactly this.

The code recognizes peak reduction levels on our masters,. Offenders exceeding the peak to limit drop will actually end up with a track reduced in volume. I look forward to that day.

http://recording.org/threads/the-loudness-war-has-been-won-press-release.55058/

the other side of this is we have lost control over our music. up to this point we could choose to make thing too loud or not. i don't see this as a good thing. just another degree of control. one day it's volume, the next day ???? .... content?

Kurt Foster, post: 426457, member: 7836 wrote: the other side of this is we have lost control over our music. up to this point we could choose to make thing too loud or not. i don't see this as a good thing. just another degree of control. one day it's volume, the next day ???? .... content?

You aren't alone, that's a concern others have addressed too.

If we don't do something about it, good sounding music will never happen. Right now we are being forced to insane limiting normalization.

NOTE 14:43

even us right here will pick the loudest track over one that actually sounds better. I've done tests and everyone that was smashed was the preferred pick.

This is such a great interview.

audiokid, post: 426459, member: 1 wrote: even us right here will pick the loudest track over one that actually sounds better. I've done tests and everyone that was smashed was the preferred pick.

that will happen every time no matter what the source. louder sounds "better" to humans.

Thanks for the links.
Interesting stuff indeed.

I have to admit that my train of thoughts did not go past the "cool! no more squashing!" phase...

Kurt, i agree when you say "we could choose to make music loud or not", but in the same time you can not beat the loudness war, and still allow people to "think".... I mean, this "war" happened in the first place for lack of education, and many engineers (i am sure we all do here) tried educating their clients, but what good did it make?

You are perfectly right, this is probably not a perfect solution, but isn't it at least going in a better direction?

The only other solution would be to go back to vinyl, or to another format, but in those digital days, i don't really see how a new format could put us back in a sane world.

That was a great interview. Thanks for posing that, Chris.

Bob Katz is awesome. I began experimenting with Blumlein miking because of him, after listening to him speak at a recording/microphone seminar at The Institute for Audio Research in NYC around 1988 (?) or so....at the time I had never heard of him, I was dragged there by an audio engineer friend of mine, who was older and more experienced than I.

I say I was "dragged" there - LOL - because my friend told me that the seminar was going to be about remote classical recording, (insert eye-rolling and yawning emoticon here), at which time I had zero interest in, being the die-hard ( and narrow-minded lack of vision) "rocker" that I was. But, I went. The place was packed... I remember being amazed to see a bunch of guys who looked just like me sitting in the audience... long haired rockers... guys you would never think of as being interested in a seminar like that. I learned that he was big as an engineer in the prog scene, whcih surprised me because I was also into prog-rock, yet I hadn't heard of him before.

And, man... afterwards... I was so thankful that I went ... I learned more about miking in just the 4 hours of listening to him that day, than I had in all the years I'd studied up to that point.
I never got the chance to speak to him personally; like I said, the place was jam-packed, but I took home a notebook full of scribblings and diagrams.

At the time, I had (and still have) two AKG 414's, and I hadn't realized that with those mics, I already had what I needed for the miking arrays he was talking about.

So, after I got home, I started experimenting with various types of mic placement, and I recall that first "jaw-dropping" moment, when I tracked a drum kit using just a kick mic and a Blumlein Pair. The natural sense of space blew me away, and I wasn't even recording in what would have been considered to be an "optimal" space, either. The room was probably "average" at best ( I had taken a remote rig to a church basement to record a jazz combo). Everyone here has had "those" occasional moments in their careers, when they discover something new, something that knocks our socks off - it could be a piece of gear, or a mic, or a recording or mix technique of some kind... Well, that recording, on that day, and with the drum kit in particular, was an epiphany for me... it was a pivotal moment.

LOL.. I then began miking everything in Blumlein and/or MS... even when it wasn't required, and, even when it was actually kind of detrimental to do so.... LOL... but, we all know how enthusiastic we can get as artists, when we discover something new like that.

There was a lot that he said that day that stuck with me, but one of the things that he said really stuck, and I'm paraphrasing here because it's been so long ago, but he said something like:

"If you can learn how to successfully record an orchestra, or a choir, using mostly room mics, with minimal spot miking - you can record anything..."

;)
FWIW

niclaus, post: 426471, member: 33719 wrote: Kurt, i agree when you say "we could choose to make music loud or not", but in the same time you can not beat the loudness war, and still allow people to "think".... I mean, this "war" happened in the first place for lack of education, and many engineers (i am sure we all do here) tried educating their clients, but what good did it make?

You are perfectly right, this is probably not a perfect solution, but isn't it at least going in a better direction?

The only other solution would be to go back to vinyl, or to another format, but in those digital days, i don't really see how a new format could put us back in a sane world.

i don't think it's "a better direction." even with vinyl we had loudness wars. The Beatles had Sir George and Ken Scott pushing the levels of their records. i remember how Beatle records always "jumped out" of the radio. it's not about the volume or the format. if people want to squish the life out of their recording let them. i don't know why someone would want to do that, intentionally destroy dynamics (i don't even like to compress drums) or clip it so hard it distorts to sh*t .... but if someone wants to do that, let them ..... falls under the heading of "enough rope".

We've seen what rope did to this industry. Just like the web, spam and bs everywhere. And our kids being exposed to peer pressure until it eventually curves their thinking.
No rules it's why we're in this mess.
Once you get the mass brain washed, industry builds , in this case, the playback systems with no need to use your brain. No volume "control".
No rope left to even take the high road.

The good guys leave and so it goes.

audiokid, post: 426484, member: 1 wrote: We've seen what rope did to this industry. Just like the web, spam and bs everywhere. And our kids being exposed to peer pressure until it eventually curves their thinking.

i've run across this point before in regards to decriminalizing drugs and i'm sure i'll get flack for this but ...... other peoples kids are their problem, not mine. i don't need "rules" that inhibit my behaviour just because someone else decided to squeeze one out and now all of a sudden it's the whole worlds problem. i will conceed that i might feel different if i had kids but there's a reason i decided not to.

i don't like the idea of anyone imposing limits on others. the more people self govern themselves, the happier they are.

Until you have your own children you cannot understand that part of life, period.
But that's beside the point. I'm just using that as an example for the music buying population and what keeps music alive. It's not you or I buying music. We came from an era with volume "control' and great amplifiers

People and domesticated animals need boundaries, just as we have laws and boundries and , 0 db in the digital world.

I don't think you are understanding this right kurt. I get what you are saying but I see this as a very good move.

should we use traffic lights ?
Speed limits?
I mean, the list goes on. I don't think this crosses into free speech at all. Once this is in place, You can still hit 0db but it will now sound like crap if you don't put some thought into it lol..
I will hit 0db but my sound will /should sound pro .
Basically, its an improved process, like an improved plug-in or piece of gear. Improved threshold setting. Thats how I'm interpreting this..

i'm sure my whining won't change an already in place policy. but i doubt it will be a solution to the problem it's like a sausage ... squeeze at one end and the other end will swell up ..... someones gonna find a way around it or at least some other way to make it sound bad because the Gen X crowd likes audio that sounds sh*ty.

I don't think people in general have the attention span that they used to (most of us included). I don't know a lot of people who still listen to an 'album' in its entirety anymore. Immersing yourself in an entire album in a comfy chair in a quiet place should be its own reward. Unfortunately, I don't think that happens much - so nobody's making product for an audience that doesn't exist much anymore.

For me, the best I can do these days is listen to complete albums on long drives - but that's not really ideal since I'm in a workingman's pickup truck - not a nice quiet luxury car.

And more to the volume point, if you listen to an entire 'album' (whether it's turned up to 11 or not) you probably don't have to fiddle with the volume knob every 3 minutes. People can carry thousands of their favorite songs in their pocket, so not a lot of B-sides or 'contractual obligation' filler songs. I never 'Shuffle', partly because if you're bouncing from decade to decade, the disparity in volumes from one song to the next is startling. It just reminds me how ridiculously overcooked and lifeless the brickwall limited tracks sound.

But unfortunately, I'm afraid the client will always want louder when they A/B it with a big budget recording, that is usually more forceful, tighter, and inherently more powerful from the ground up, then professionally mastered to boot. (Assuming they could be a star if you would just make theirs louder)

The loudness thing isn't going anywhere. The public has grown too accustomed to it. I think that when dynamics starts to get lost, so does fidelity... but then again, with the exception of car audio, as Hawk mentioned, people are generally listening to music through $8 ear buds, and few really care all that much for "hi fidelity" anymore. They're looking for several things when they look for music: they want it cheap, in quantity, with portability, in privacy, with ease of access, and whenever possible, for free.

Fidelity is way down on the list, and for many younger listeners, they don't have anything to compare what they are listening to with other music that has a higher form of fidelity, anyway... so they simply don't know. And if they don't know, they can't care.
If they think that what they are listening to is the best fidelity available, then they go for the other things that matter to them.... those reasons listed above.

I can't lie, there have been times when I'm mixing, especially something of nuance, those little "esoteric" characters that are often hidden but that can be so cool,.... and I think to myself... "why am I doing this? The people listening to this song won't hear this anyway..."

But, I still pay attention to those things anyway, in the event that perhaps one person out of 100 listening might hear and enjoy them. ;)

What this new code may do is educate people as they listen to a song on youtube that actually sounds better than on their mp3 player(s). All it takes is a new sound to hit and you know how that goes. If it sounds better, the marketplace will start doing it and we will start finding new playback systems that are about sound quality. Out with the old, in with the new.

audiokid, post: 426498, member: 1 wrote: What this new code may do is educate people as they listen to a song on youtube that actually sounds better than on their mp3 player(s). All it takes is a new sound to hit and you know how that goes. If it sounds better, the marketplace will start doing it and we will start finding new playback systems that are about sound quality. Out with the old, in with the new.

That would be fine by me. ;)

I'm a little dubious as to the majority of listeners being able to actually hear a difference, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere. If even just one person out of 100 hears a difference, an improvement, then that's one less dolt we have to mix for. LOL ;)

Although, some might hear a difference simply by the power of suggestion...
I'm not saying that there won't be an actual difference, but it's amazing how many people will hear "an improvement" even if they are simply told that there's been an improvement.

Which is also fine by me. ;)

Donny,

I am 100% with you.

Education is the key.
I have a lot of friends who don't know anything about sound quality, but still listen , not consume, but listen to a lot of music. And I can tell you that each one of them start to care about sound quality once you start explaining things to them.

I am not a big believer in the human race as a whole bit I still have hope in the human, as a person. People are not so stupid, they just don't know any better. Try to educate them and they'll start caring.

Well, at least I hope so.

Here is the follow up post by Ian for those who are interested :

http://productionad…

Kurt Foster, post: 426457, member: 7836 wrote: the other side of this is we have lost control over our music. up to this point we could choose to make thing too loud or not. i don't see this as a good thing. just another degree of control. one day it's volume, the next day ???? .... content?

We've never had control over volume, the listener has always had that control. We only ever had control over dynamics, which is still true. All the automated volume control does is prevent drastic differences in volume when listening to audio from various sources. This has been done for decades in radio but in the upward, dynamics destroying, direction. At least this operates mostly in the downward, dynamics preserving, direction. Something similar has been used in film for years, Dolby dialnorm, where the average dialog level is specified to be xdB below peak and corrective gain is applied so dialog levels are normalized while peak levels can vary depending on the production requirements.

I'm waiting for the smart-car that automatically recognizes a used car commercial on the radio where the salesman is yelling at me, and mutes it. Screw gas mileage. ;)