I emailed a producer of an album about the loudness issue. This CD is good but very loud: -10.24db album gain

Album: Daysend - serverance (Australian metal on a small record label www.chatterboxrecords.com)

Asked him why this is happening IN CAPS hoping to get a response and boy did I ever:

===========================================================================My original email:
=====================================================

LOUDER ISN'T ALWAYS BETTER. SEVERANCE SOUNDS FLAT LIKE A TOP 40 CD. ITS JUST BORING AND TIRING AFTER 20 MINUTES.

STOP THE LOUDNESS RACE NOW

www.loudnessrace.net

http://www.proaudiorx.com/dynamicrange.htm

www.digido.com

http://replaygain.hydrogenaudio.org/



=====================================================
The response:
=====================================================


Subject: Re: Daysend - Severance


hey f---witt,
who r u ? don't flood my email with your pathetic crap.
just f--k off w--ker

=====================================================
Now my response:
=====================================================

Nik,
>
> I wrote in caps because the labels never reply to my questions. All I am
> saying is that in my opinion the loudness level on the album is too
> excessive on the album - it causes fatigue. Why is this happening
> everywhere? Do you really think that it sounds better ?
>
> Maybe you are not the person to address this issue, in that case I am
sorry
> for all this noise.

---===================================================
His response:
=====================================================

To: "ng"
Subject: Re: Daysend - Severance

we love the sound.we love the record.and not interested in your nonsense.
louder is better.



=====================================================


Conclusion: According to mr producer my questions are 'nonsense' and louder is better. Full stop.

Damn I posted into the wrong forum - sorry.

Seriously, what the crap would you expect from a mail like that? Coming on like some besserwisser is really a bad approach.

The mail you sent looks no different than the common spammail.

If you'd try to be more polite and informative you'd surely get a more appropriate answer and a dialog, now you're pretty much stuck with a really really bad first impression.

Another thing is that you can't expect anyone to appreciate being "saved" from loudness. You can't change the world over a night.

Way to go Shadowking... That really helped the cause, didn't it?

Is the producer even the guy to email about this? I'm not sure what his(her) role is in the whole process.

Actually, with a fair and reasoned approach you could get even harsher words back!

When people (who are paid for doing the job) start to suspect that maybe you do know something that they don't, i.e. that you understand this aspect of audio and music better than them, and can hear things that they can't - then they can get really aggressive!

The "top guys", even if they're making squashed records (for whatever reason), don't mind the criticism. But the mediocre guys, who are just copying everyone else - they don't like to be made to feel so insecure!

(this is a general observation on life, not a specific experience in this area - it's wise not to show mediocre people how mediocre they are - they probably know already, and have no ability to change)

Go shadowking!

Cheers,
David.

P.S. - of course the most likely response is "how many (No.1) albums have you mastered?" - I can't think of a good reply to that one!

Lie. Tell them 2. Then go on to tell them that they are ruining your music. I'm sure you know more than enough to blag your way thought it.
Anyway, if you're looking for another artists/producers coments look for my post on "Dynamic Compersion". Vladislav is a very nice man, but his album was about "replaygain_track_gain = -6.54 dB" He was more than willing to discuss this with me and still e-mails me to this day. So not evey one isn't open to constructive criticism. I know if I had recieved an e-mail like the one you sent him, I'd be pissed too. Telling a man his engineering/mixing/mastering is crap just isn't the way to go about it.

PLUG; look at his site if you want www.luomomusic.com

Simple :

You think that this egg tastes bad ? How many eggs have you layed ?

I actually think shadowkings original e-mail was fine. The producer is not likely to forget it. So what if he got pissed. That's a normal reaction to someone telling you something of yours sucks. A politer message would likely have been ignored. Maybe next time, he'll at least think about it.

Its a fad, if you do not like the sound, don't buy.. They want it to sound that way, its the way that style of music "should" sound. It is what people buy, you buy it! Which is what that producer told you, in his own Luser (another FAD) way. Fads pass when people get tired of supporting them with plastic... err dollars (another passing fad it seems, alas).

Personally, nothing made in this way appeals to me so I do not buy that style of music.

You could look at it another way, the way your producer friend probably does. Good dynamic range and responsive music was just a passing fad, now we know that highly compressed LOUD music is actually more IN DEMAND and we like it that we can make money this way. Making every CD sound that way no matter who the musicians were must be hard work. They worked hard making that CD sound like that, why should they not be proud of it? Just because you think they should make it sound some otherway they should change from what they like and what is proven successful for them by people buying it, like you.

Do you know how few people can actually tell that the music they listen too is over compressed/loud? Be happy you at least can tell the difference, most people don't know, don't care. Likely will lead to a greater enjoyment of music for you as you find more music of the type you would like to become accustomed to hearing.

Buy the music you like. Which would explain the continuing existence of opera anyway.

Somehow, although I would like that to happen I don't think it is likely...

regards
echo

maybe we should stop buying CDs that are too loud. for me it's a waste of money anyway because i really don't enjoy listening to such CDs. i reckon that's the only way to get producers and record labels to change the way they record music.. hit them where it hurts most: the wallet (or in the nuts )

The music industry people seem to be so stuborn and stupid they will just blame it all to music piracy. Aaaargh... Oh, I forgot, they already blame piracy as the only reason music sales have dropped

regards
echo

These CDs probably do well in focus groups, dance clubs and the like. They will re-mix a song over and over trying various things, hoping for a hit. At least they used to, until they got the most popular sound for that song possible. It isn't so much that they deliberately set out to ruin the music, just they want to be popular and make money..

Maybe the results of the studies they conduct are slanted towards a very very different listener than would be represented here at Hydrogenaudio. From my reading of the boards here people tend to listen for long periods of time. I myself have music on all through my day if I can, only some of that is spent with the headphones on actually listening intently though. Most people I know listen at most to maybe half a song they like on the radio when it comes on in the car or at work. Pleasing such widely varying listening styles would be difficult, some artists go for popular loud sound because they become famous and make good money doing stuff they enjoy. Some still want to make music like art even if it means they will not be a big success, some just want to make a living

To get a popular hit takes much hard work, mostly in just getting people to hear you that first time, to pay attention and actually listen to your song instead of tuning it out while they are in the car coming home from work talking on the cell phone with the radio going... Louder probably does lead to more listeners and once you got their attention, if they want more of your music you will stick with the _sound_ that attracted them in the first place. Compression and Loudness become the ways that work.

The good part is that not all music will be crafted to meet this criteria. Praise what you like to your friends and explain why you like it in a positive way. Be gentle when hearing music you do not like. Music has changed so much, always when this happens some will hate the new sound. I heard some people thought the beatles sounded horrible, "like noise, not music". Probably the most successful, listened to muscians of all time.

All of the CDs that I have purchased under the Sony Music Entertainment label have guarantees that read:



I believe an RMS of -8 and extreme amounts of clipping constitutes "a manufacturing defect."

I have Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf in my playlist, and it sounds absolutely nasty next to some of the less compressed music. It makes my ears ache after listening for a while. I'm glad I can set foobar on shuffle so I don't hear it that often. I especially hate the drum tones, there's no attack anymore, on their single No One Knows the snare drum sounds like an electronic snare.

these CDs don't sound better in clubs. they don't sound better on decent stereos. they don't sound better on crap stereos.

they are mastered for "bedroom listening"... the maximum volume you can manage without your mum running in saying "turn that noise down!".

with equal SPL, the dynamic mix will _always_ sound better. try it with foobar - output to a large-ish hifi, and crank it until things start moving. you'll be searching your playlist for the more dynamic songs, i guarantee. (at least i did. it's a shame when only a few songs out of about 1000 give you this sound)

there's a flip-side to not buying squashed CDs, and that is buying dynamic CDs. let the people know what you like, not just what you don't like. marketing people are slow learners, but they'll learn twice as fast this way.



hang on... all the money is plastic in Australia (except schrapnel). has been for several years.

I like your reply Pio2001!


Someone said something today which fitted in well with this thread:

"...well, my experience suggests you should do it this way. Still, you know what experience is don't you?"
"No..."
"25 years of doing the same thing wrong..

...and in really good companies, they get the experienced person to train up someone else before he retires so that the same thing can be done wrong for the next 25 years!"


btw, it's very easy to make a loud CD. It's difficult to make a good loud CD, but it's probably even more difficult to make a good dynamic CD.

Cheers,
David.

Actually, good dynamic recordings come easy. It's only when you start trying to comress the whole mix you make things difficult.

Tony

Wow, your mentioning of my website in that letter managed to desecrate it even more than that crappy April Fool's joke I posted on it a couple weeks back!

Seriously, your e-mail sounds like it was written by a hyperactive 12-year-old. Not only that, but it didn't really say anything at all. How are you going to convince anyone with just "HURR THE CD IS TOO LOUD"? It kinda helps if you actually DISCUSS the issue. Point out what happens to the music when it's pushed far beyond the limit (and in a lot of cases it also helps to tell them that there IS a limit), explain why the entire idea is so futile, tell them that there are many more peope who hold this view, etc. etc. Of course people are going to think louder is better when they don't realize what they're doing.

What's even worse is the bad name you're giving for everyone who shares these views. People will be LESS likely to change their ways when the people offering such write letters like yours. You're representing a very underrepresented ideology; try to refrain from sounding like a drooling Linkin Park fan when you do it. And no, posting links isn't going to make up for it.

i don't think emailing is going to help this situation much. i think some of us are going to have to start mastering CDs professionally.

bring the level down from the inside

of course, with the likes of Bob Katz shouting about this, and still no response, i doubt anything is going to change until CD finally becomes obsolete

I still don't think shadowkings e-mail was that bad. In fact, his response to the producers rude response was polite, and the producer was still non-receptive and rude.

Not e-mailing complaints to producers, bands, etc... will also accomplish nothing. If these guys get enough e-mails/phone calls, they will at least be aware there are people unhappy with it. shadowking (and all of us) have every right to be pissed, and express that to those at fault. It's not like shadowking would get his money back (at least I can't return opened CD's here).

Not buying CD's also doesn't convey the message. If they are even aware that sales are down (which a small label is probably not capable of tracking), they would probably not correlate it to bad production.

You have to tell them. In one form or another.

It's the noisy-minority theory. It works for activists all the time. But not doing anything will produce nothing. And no... simply posting a web site won't do much either. If they don't know already, it's not like they'd find the sites otherwise.

how about sometime in the near future making a point for as many of us to write to bands/record labels and seeing if anyone gets reponses (and what they are)? i'm already thinking of writing to Evanescence and ... hrm, some other band i just heard in the last day or two...

Maybe someone should compose a good song with lyrics describing the issue. Maybe even have parts of the song overcompressed as to demonstrate the squarewave/whitenoise "feel" that the current trend is heading to.

I happen to like the way these songs were made

Your website could attract similar criticism. I don't recall that Bob Katz needed to use the word "f..k"* when discussing the same issue in much greater depth.

In the big wide world, "bad" language is an easy way to stop people listening to your argument. Lots of people will just leave your site - and some with filtered connections (e.g. school children) won't even be able to see it.

btw - thanks for the link!

Cheers,
David.

* I can type the word just as well as you, but I don't want HA blocked on such filtered connections either.

To go totally against my previous post...

http://www.airwindows.com/analysis/Albums/...ours/index.html



That's so sad and funny at the same time!

Cheers,
David.

I seriously doubt writing to mega-popular bands will have any effect. If we were to write to bands/studios, I'd suggest starting with a little less popular (smaller) outfits.


Edit: Hit reply button on accccicddenttt

The problem would be finding a label that would be willing to promote it.

Yeah, I do plan on making a soccer mom-friendly version once it actually becomes good. Right now there are many other reasons that it's not quite ready for prime time as well, such as lack of content and poor design.

Fast forward 3 years, a new album, same producer and we have made big progress:

2004 gain: -10.24 db
2007 gain: -11.51 db

Perhaps for that kind of "sound" a loud and clipped CD is OK.

Who said it was clipped?

I don't know who said. I certainly didn't.

That's very revealing. He could have simply deleted the mail and got on with his life, that he chose to unleash his toilet-mouth on you shows how insecure he is.



It shows a very low level of culture. He can't punctuate; he hasn't capitalized properly; he's also got a grammatical error in there. But most of all, he's really got nothing to say, and what he does say does not make sense. All he's got to say is "louder is better". How could that be true? It's like saying "taller is better". One might wish to be taller than one is, but no-one would wish to be taller than is comfortable for the furniture that's around or too tall to be able to buy clothes.

Maybe you should have introduced some clipping in your original message. Something like:

What's so pitifull is that they are stuck at a 'measly' -11 db because the industry has hit some technological brick wall. One gets the sense that they would use -16 db if they had the right tech.

Yes, they should purchase Finalizer 96K:

WRONG! The new Slayer CD is clipped every other sample and it sounds awful. You might think that's fine for Slayer though since their guitars are clipping anyway.. but clipping from a guitar amp is much better than digital clipping. Otherwise they'd just record the album with cheap transistor amps (which clip harshly like a CD).

This "producer" is obviously a moron. He's probably the kind of producer that keeps turning stuff up while mixing instead of turning stuff down.

He is actually in charge of the bands old label. The real producer is DW Norton. Funny thing is that I found an online interview where he gives advise on recording quality. What quality do you get at -12 db ?

http://www.australianmusician.com.au/mag/s..._dw_norton.html



Genre doesn't play as big a role as one would think. Listen to Bloody Kisses by Type O on a good setup - WOW!.. that was 93' gain is -6 gb.. Today even folk music is louder.

This is being approached from the wrong end. We audiophiles are a minority. Consider the average Beavis and Butthead consumer. I saw a response on a P2P comment thread from an MFSL download that went something like this:

"What is this crap? What's wrong with the volume? I have to turn this up way loader than normal. Don't download this there's something wrong with it."

This would be the overwhelming response from the majority of consumers if they actually did put out a decently mastered CD.

Until the masses are converted the producers are simply supplying a demand.

They'll just blame the loss of sales on Piratebay.

Me, I don't care, my country legally allows copies (since they figured that it's impossible to stop people from recording FM radio to tapes), as long as I'm not making money out of it I can freely download any and all albums. Occasionally I'll buy the better albums (building a Yello discography at the moment), albums I actually feel they are worth paying for. The recording industry can suck it, they are in to make money and not music, I'll take the music and will not pay until they change their stance on this.

It's still nice to hear an occasional well mastered album, and I actually buy them should I ever come across one. Example: "The Eye" from Yello: -5db album gain, for a 2003 electronica album.

Movie Soundtracks are also funny. Take Pirates of the Caribbean: the first movie was composed by Klaus Badelt, the soundtrack cd album gain: -7,85db. Second and Third movie soundtracks, composed by Hans Zimmer: both around -4db.

There's a big difference between audiophiles (people who spend thousands of dollars on overpriced Hi-Fi components), and people who can tell the difference between Red Hot Chili Pepper's Californication and a well mastered CD on a €40 soundcard. You won't be taken seriously about these matters if you introduce yourself as an audiophile.


They didn't seem to have that problem in the 80s. People are usually content with whatever they're fed. Don't blame them for liking crap and not demanding better from the music industry; blame the industry for lowering their standards in the first place.

Most people aren't very conscious and aware. Those who are, ARE indeed a minority. The loudness war isnt something which happened overnight. It was a slow corruption. Most people are blind to slow changes and incompetent when it comes to analyzing problems. If you put an overcompressed album next to the same album but with high dynamics, they will first blame the dynamic album, because it is quieter. BUT, if replaygain were an integral part of normal playback systems, so that both albums were calibrated automatically.... THEN people WOULD notice that dynamic albums are better - because all the homework would have been done beforehand so that the only thing left to do by the listener, is the judgement.



It always takes two for a continued abusive relationship. People can be hold responsible for their actions. The masses are guilty just as much as the abuser "music industry".

- Lyx

The "consumers" use music differently compared the 70's or 80's. Portable is Da Ting now, on small earbuds or in cars, compression gives probably a better experience. Also (since the CD) a lot more low end can be produced.
The problem (what it has become this century) is that it is way overdone. To the point that loud parts appear to be less loud . The race for the loudest record is pathetic. I play my music using replaygain, so it's not getting louder for me anyway. On the radio, where they compress the hell out of everything anyway, it will not play louder either.

Young people grew up during the loudness war and older people aren't even aware of such a thing because they think most of the music that comes out nowadays is crap. The rest just don't understand what's happening, because it's not a topic of interest to them - they don't visit hydrogenaudio.org regularly or even know about it. Can you really blame ignorance in this particular case?

Artists, producers and engineers, however, have no excuse. They can only blame each other.

There is no reason for people who have good sense to concede the use of a perfectly good noun to idiots. I'd like to think that many of the people here are audiophiles.

Given enough time for self-education, you can always blame ignorance. People are responsible for themselves. "The others" are not responsible for ones own lack of investigative behaviour. To put it bluntly: its not the others job to educate you. Its your own job. Going by your logic, all germans during WW2 weren't responsible for supporting whats happening, because no one informed them. Sheep are guilty just as much as sheep-herders

- Lyx

With today's surplus of storage space, wouldn't the way to go about it be to supply the consumer with two tracks. A 'raw' cut and a radio-edit? There's space enough on a DVDA/SACD to do this I should think. Or add the radio edit in the form of mp3's, so that they can even be 'protected' (since that is what studios like) from the get-go when transferred to a computer. A third option could be, in light of the abundance of processing-power, that a player could chose between filters that are applied real-time. Again with dynamics or without.

Since this would obviously require a new format, and the fact that DVDA and SACD have failed, wouldn't this be feasible? Let's say we use a single DVD layer with a backwards compatible CD-layer as the hardware format. This gives us compatibility and space to provide both 'cuts'. The CD layer would be your ordinary 44.1KHz 16bit radio edit. Usable in all cars (that's where we want radio-edits) and low-end stereo's employed by people who don't want to touch the volume-knob. On the DVD-layer a properly edited cut in possibly even a higher resolution. Possibly even prepared MP3 included with protection. More current devices would switch with a button on the device between the 'optimized' layer and the hi fidelity layer so that you can choose what you want. Hmm, I now realize this sound basically like a SACD with a radio edit on the CD-layer, but anyhow, that would be fine too.

Or scrap the whole backwards compatibility, and just have a single DVD layer with 'optimized' MP3's and a, say 48KHz 24bit, properly edited track. Still with a mandatory 'switch' button on devices. When inserted in a computer, offer to copy the mp3's to drive with encryption for use on MP3-player. That way even the music-bizz can be happy.

Okay, I'll stop rambling, but I think you know what I mean. Essentially, providing both cuts on the same disc so that people can choose. Technically very possible and really without any downsides. Also, it could put more steam behind the adoption of the new format, now there hardly isn't.

Hum... you lose
You can't know everything or educate yourself about everything. You can't be blamed for your ignorance on just any topic.

At one point last week, My daughter (13) was listening to her Hannah Montana, et al. music in her ipod, all suitably compressed beyond all musical recognition. I sat down to listen to Schumann's Rhenish Symphony on my stereo. After awhile she came in and started listening. Sometime after she said, "The Music is boring". But, she stayed.
She has taken a liking to Opera lately. The Magic Flute is her favorite.
Expose your kids, friends, etc to well-recorded music. Classical, Jazz, classic rock, whatever.
When they get used to something better, they'll come around.

Very interesting discussion, why not involve the AAMS (Automatic Audio Mastering System) author ?