audiokid, post: 407882 wrote: “The way to turn the loudness race around right now, is for every producer and mastering engineer to ask their clients if they have heard iTunes Radio. When they respond in the affirmative, the engineer/producer tells them they need to turn down the level of their song(s) to the standard level or iTunes Radio will do it for them—and not always in a pleasing way. iTunes radio will not just ‘turn down the volume,’ but may peak-limit the important transient peaks of the material and make the song sound ‘smaller’ and less clear than its competition.”

Evidently Mr. Katz forgot that it's the songs with lower RMS values and more dynamics that will be limited, not the ones that are already limited to death. The loud songs can simply be attenuated to the desired target value.

Not only is the statement wrong, it assumes that iTunes Radio is the whole world of streaming. I stream audio all the time and this is the first I've heard of iTunes Radio. But then I don't buy Apple products or use iTunes since I'm quite capable of making my own decisions about which audio files I should be allowed to burn to disc etc.

bouldersound, post: 407887 wrote: Evidently Mr. Katz forgot that it's the songs with lower RMS values and more dynamics that will be limited, not the ones that are already limited to death. The loud songs can simply be attenuated to the desired target value.

I'm not at all sure that Katz got it wrong and think it more likely that you have. Surely with the target of -16.5 LUFS , there is now room for the dynamic peaks in "better" mastered content. I can only see that your argument would stand up if the attenuation was set by just the peaks of any content and not the LUFS level.

This seems to be backed up by the arguments in the text that the target is to get all content played on the itunes radio to have similar loudness and hence it will be the horribly flattened "pop" content that will be attenuated (as you suggested yourself) but will not be taking any advantage of the available dynamic headroom available.

I don't know all the details either but to add, I've heard rumors and listened to Bob talking about this for a while now. Audio that has a "flat top" will actually be penalized and lowered in volume. I'm guessing its a simple calculation based on the obvious transient level and number of transient peaks that don't exists for the norm.

The more natural transients, the better the rating or score. thumb

The flat line crap is actually going to be pushed down and its about time! How cool would that be?

Thinking out loud here, I know electronic music is already transient compromised. Rich acoustic information vs VSTi generated, big difference here. I wonder how they will get around this? Through categories. Through an automated sampling process?
Talk about a new way to fool or rework the system once again. But, I do know first hand when I run electronic music through my hybrid system, I add transients on purpose.

This is another reason why so many uniformed people are talking about "glue". Trying to "glue" electronic/ digital music to vocals is a trick indeed. I've been playing with this for 25 years now. Acoustic music and VSTi mixed together is a bitch to get right. So, every kid on the block is buying into the " better get an API 2500" or SSL G comp" to glue your mix. Its all a bunch of hype and BS to me but it works because it forms a common distortion to the entire wave. Processing stems and distorting them in various ways (colours) helps the wide transient pallet between real and digital fit better.

I'm liking where this is going!
Interesting times for Mastering Engineers and hybrid processing .

audiokid, post: 407905 wrote: Thinking out loud here, I know electronic music is already transient compromised. Rich acoustic information vs VSTi generated, big difference here. I wonder how they will get around this? Through categories. Through an automated sampling process?
Talk about a new way to fool or rework the system once again. But, I do know first hand when I run electronic music through my hybrid system, I add transients on purpose.

I don't think the genre is going to be relevant to where this is (hopefully) going. My take on all this agrees with Bob's points and I think that the quote "Boulder" picked is where he perhaps misinterpreted things.

To explain my thoughts on the article...

Apple are, by their own stated standard, going to ensure that all streamed tracks will have a similar perceived loudness and that will equate to -16.5 LUFS. Any tracks that already meet this requirement and whose peaks do not exceed 0dBFS will not need any further processing by them.

If a typical overcompressed modern track is played, it will automatically be attenuated to meet the -16.5 LUFS standard (but naturally will have no transients). If a track with a large dynamic range is encountered, such that it is less than -16.5 LUFS, then it will be amplified. However in this case the peaks that will now exceed 0 dBFS will be (apparently not too elegantly) limited.

Clearly the target for mastering for Apple airtime will be to master tracks to meet the required standard and can therefore take full advantage of the headroom provided for transients. I think the point Bob is making is that this will have an impact on those producers who currently insist on maximising percieved volume to the limit and crushing every single transient in the loudness war. They will now have absolutely no benefit in doing so. Hurrah!

MrEase, post: 407899 wrote: I'm not at all sure that Katz got it wrong and think it more likely that you have.

Based purely on reputation I would agree with you, but I'm basing this on the information given, not reputations.

MrEase, post: 407899 wrote: Surely with the target of -16.5 LUFS , there is now room for the dynamic peaks in "better" mastered content. I can only see that your argument would stand up if the attenuation was set by just the peaks of any content and not the LUFS level.

This seems to be backed up by the arguments in the text that the target is to get all content played on the itunes radio to have similar loudness and hence it will be the horribly flattened "pop" content that will be attenuated (as you suggested yourself) but will not be taking any advantage of the available dynamic headroom available.

Bob Katz wrote: iTunes radio will not just ‘turn down the volume,’ but may peak-limit the important transient peaks of the material

This is incorrect. Loud songs will be turned down with no limiting needed. Quiet songs may be turned up, and if they have to be turned up more than the available headroom they will have to be limited. There's no logical reason to attenuate and limit any song.

The disadvantage to mastering loud isn't that the dynamics your audio will be changed by Sound Check, it's that the track won't be louder than the next guy anymore, just more compressed (because that's how you mastered it).

Here's a quote from the Apple.com page explaining Sound Check confirming that boosting/limiting may be applied (in stunningly bad English):

http://support.appl… wrote: 2. Any boosts in playback volume are designed to be protected against clipping by iTunes' build-in limiter.

bouldersound, post: 407911 wrote:
This is incorrect. Loud songs will be turned down with no limiting needed. Quiet songs may be turned up, and if they have to be turned up more than the available headroom they will have to be limited. There's no logical reason to attenuate and limit any song.

The disadvantage to mastering loud isn't that the dynamics your audio will be changed by Sound Check, it's that the track won't be louder than the next guy anymore, just more compressed (because that's how you mastered it).

I think that's pretty much what I was saying in my last post??? Of course if attenuation is applied, limiting is irrelevant but, as per my earlier comment, anything that is lower than -16.5 LUFS will be amplified and hence peaks will be limited.

I think that the how's and why's of processing that will be applied by soundcheck to pre-existing tracks is not really the argument put forward by Bob. It's really about the future.

That's why I think we seem to disagree. I'm not concerned about what happens to any track currently available but am thinking about what an ME will do in the future when mastering for Apple Radio.

I think Bob is saying is that any content that meets the soundcheck requirements will not incur any further processing. Therefore, in the future, to mix/master for Apple Radio, the ME should be aiming to ensure his content does not receive any (usually unwanted) post processing from the soundcheck algorithm. If this is done, it is not in the interest of the ME to compress anything to the point that is regularly done with other media. Any decent ME should therefore be taking full advantage of the transient headroom that inevitably becomes available - by the Apple definition. Pressure from any producers or musicians to make their tracks sound louder - or at least as loud as other "competing" tracks becomes absolutely irrelevant as the loudness is now defined by Apple Radio.

In a nutshell, mastering for Apple Radio clearly defines the targets and in doing so enables the ME to include transient peaks without upsetting anyone. Surely this is a good step in the battle against the loudness wars?

MrEase, post: 407929 wrote: I think that's pretty much what I was saying in my last post???

Yes, I agree with your last post, which you posted while I was writing my response to:

MrEase, post: 407899 wrote: I'm not at all sure that Katz got it wrong and think it more likely that you have.

So now we both agree to disagree with that one point Katz made:

Bob Katz wrote: ...they need to turn down the level of their song(s) to the standard level or iTunes Radio will do it for them—and not always in a pleasing way. iTunes radio will not just ‘turn down the volume,’ but may peak-limit the important transient peaks of the material and make the song sound ‘smaller’ and less clear than its competition.

bouldersound, post: 407933 wrote: So now we both agree to disagree with that one point Katz made:

Originally Posted by Bob Katz
...they need to turn down the level of their song(s) to the standard level or iTunes Radio will do it for them—and not always in a pleasing way. iTunes radio will not just ‘turn down the volume,’ but may peak-limit the important transient peaks of the material and make the song sound ‘smaller’ and less clear than its competition.

I guess that depends on how you read Bob's English! :confused:

While he mentions both "turning down the volume" and peak limiting in the same sentence, I personally did not read them as occuring concurrently which seems to be your assumption. I think even Bob would not expect both to happen in one pass! That's why I seperated the two cases thinking you had not appreciated the volume up AND volume down requirements.

Now I don't know whether I'm right or wrong in the way I read it as I see it just as an ambiguity in the English. That doesn't bother me so long as the understanding is now clear for everyone. Is it?

I think we all understand the principle, that loud songs will be turned down and quiet songs will be turned up and likely limited. Bob's comment seems unambiguous enough to me, that loud masters will be turned down and might also be limited. I think he was just eager to make the point, that mastering loud is going to be a clear disadvantage, and overstated the case a little.