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Are the loudness wars fake so record companies can destroy the music?

Sam here and if the music industry have implimented EBU R 128 for loudness normalisation how come the volume on most digital remastered albums leaving the studio is set to "11" lf the listening volume will be the same across the board for streaming services why bother? l’ll tell you why. By lowering the overall volume after the fact does not repair the damage that has already been done! The goal here is to destroy the sound quality of the music and it makes no difference what side your on because the end result is still the same the album is unlistenable. l remember listening to music before the digital age and you not only heard the music you felt it.Well nothing has changed only now you hear the music and feel pain? Draw your own conclusions friends.
guitarsam
glupson
7,842 posts
 
"If you’re on a noisy subway, its easy for quiet passages on a wide DR recording to get lost beneath the ambient noise level of the subway car."

I am as lost as n80, just maybe in different ways. If compressing makes quiet passages easier to hear, what is the disadvantage? Better to ask, what is the advantage of not being able to hear quieter passages in uncompressed material?


I tried a few of the recordings from that gospel people like to reference (DR database on the Internet) and which seems iffy at its accuracy to me, Some of those with allegedly narrow dynamic range sound horrible to me while some of the others sound just fine, again to me. Can it be that complaints about the sound are more due to something else than to the dynamic range? Could some other step in the production, or fashionable sound, be responsible?

n80
2,133 posts
 
@cleeds  I guess what you are describing is simply not what I experience when it comes to normalization.

With Amazon you can switch it on and off and it changes as you listen.

So if I'm listening to a compressed song and have normalization "off" and the volume set to where the quietest parts are just audible and then turn normalization 'on' then those barely audible quiet bits are no longer audible. In other words, normalization seems to have defeated the benefit of compression. 

On the other hand, if playing a non-compressed song with the quiet parts just barely audible and I turn normalization off or on, almost nothing happens.

So from an experience standpoint I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean when you say normalization has no effect on compression. I understand it does not change the level of compression or the level of the quiet bits _relative_ to the loud bits. But it does decrease the loudness across the entire DR which lowers the volume of the quiet bits and the loud bits together  in which case the quiet bits can become harder to hear. 

@glupson, I'm guessing, but do not know with any certainty, that producers could selectively compress specific portions of the DR and not just across the whole range. I would assume this is how artful DR compression is used with classical pieces that have extremely wide DRs.

I would also think that the effect of DR for the listener would vary with various types of music, recordings and production technique.
cleeds
6,093 posts
 
glupson

If compressing makes quiet passages easier to hear, what is the disadvantage?

Part of the power and emotion in music is attributable to dynamic range. It’s why composers include such notation in their scores. The nuance of a solo oboe and the thwack of a tympani are two different things. Yet a tympani can also be used to create a gentle roll, which is distinguished (in part) from the thwack by volume difference - dynamic range.

... what is the advantage of not being able to hear quieter passages in uncompressed material?

None at all! That’s why we have compression. But you can hear much deeper into a wide DR recording if you’re listening in a quiet room than you can in a noisy subway car.

Can it be that complaints about the sound are more due to something else than to the dynamic range?
Sometimes. There are many ways to ruin a recording. Overuse of compression is just one of them.


danvignau's avatar
danvignau
935 posts
 
guitarsam,  Please see my answer to the tin foil hat question on my post above.
coltrane1's avatar
coltrane1
831 posts
 
You’re right about one thing. Music was much better before 1980, or the invention of cds. In fact, when did the cd become competitive? 1995? And still it’s not vinyl. Pity. But on the upside. Vinyl never went out of style for many of us. Thank goodness. You digital heads can do your thing. Me, I’m vinyl through and through. Fully satisfied. So in short there’s no problem. Reason being is there’s been no decent music available since what, 1993? There you go. 
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