The ReplayGain values for Weezer's "Pork and Beans" indicate about a 10dB difference in loudness from the 1st verse to the 1st chorus. Talk about dynamics!
When I heard it on the radio on WBCN last summer, the choruses were substantially quieter than the verses, because of the dynamic compression scheme they use. The radio station's dynamic compressors really clamped down on the louder choruses.
Obviously an unintended effect by the record producer. Basically their intent on maximizing loudness backfired. Anyone else notice this? Any other examples?
Oh, how I miss 'BCN....
It's no secret that that radio stations use extensive multiband compression. Another good example is Foo Fighters - Let It Die. It kind of makes the Loudness race a moot point.
It's no secret that that radio stations use extensive multiband compression. Another good example is Foo Fighters - Let It Die. It kind of makes the Loudness race a moot point.
QUOTE (dreamliner77 @ Sep 4 2009, 20:10) 
Oh, how I miss 'BCN....
+1 Sad end to a once-great station.
QUOTE
...kind of makes the Loudness race a moot point.
+11 "But this goes to 11..."
QUOTE (dreamliner77 @ Sep 4 2009, 19:10)
Oh, how I miss 'BCN....
It's no secret that that radio stations use extensive multiband compression. Another good example is Foo Fighters - Let It Die. It kind of makes the Loudness race a moot point.
It's no secret that that radio stations use extensive multiband compression. Another good example is Foo Fighters - Let It Die. It kind of makes the Loudness race a moot point.
And that is why I listen to no FM radio at all. Listening to the various frequencies pump and breathe gives me a headache.
Many years ago I got a call from a friend about his buddy with a bootleg FM station in my neighborhood. 'Buddy' was running a CD player directly into his transmitter and he had the modulation set correctly. It was the best signal I ever heard from that HK Citation 15 tuner (quite good in it's day) and his taste in music was eclectic - like mine. Best radio experience I ever had.
G˛
QUOTE (LocrianGroove @ Sep 5 2009, 04:54)
Obviously an unintended effect by the record producer. Basically their intent on maximizing loudness backfired.
Galaxy Studios in Belgium has recently organised a special seminar for (these) audio professionals about loudness in general and its result on radio broadcast sound quality. The first half of the day consisted of several lectures about loudness, why we need it, and the importance of stopping the loudness war. Most colleagues seemed to agree that overcompression is no good.During the second half many audio samples were played with various levels of dynamic compression. Interesting part was the presence of an Orban multiband compressor in the chain, the model that most radio stations (at least here in Europe) use. The Orban representatives could actually reproduce the settings as used by major radio stations, to mimic their "sound". This clearly showed that there is absolutely no advantage in using a louder version of a music track since the Orban will make them equally loud anyway. The only difference is added distortion in the version with more compression.
It was also demonstrated how the Orban device would massacre mp3 format audio, resulting in nasty artifacts. They also stated that lossy compression schemes can work very well (Internet radio for example), but they should be avoided in combination with devices like the Orban.
I kinda have to wonder how many radio people actually know this stuff. Is it too rude to possibly expect we know more than the local station engineers on such matters by now?
They may know that, but they may have different priorities. There is a classical station in my area, which uses heavy dynamics compression, which does terrible things to this kind of music. But people listen to them in cars, in noisy offices, they are played as hotel muzak. You can't listen to full dynamic range of classical in these cicrumstances.
In my opinion, the ideal solution would be to broadcast uncompressed (as much as the transmission yrchnology of FM radio allows) signal and have compressors on the receiving side, with an on/off switch, or a few settings for more sophisticated receiver models.
Of course, with millions FM receivers in operation there is no way to make such transition. It should have been done my way when the FM broadcasting started in 1940's-1950's. Though, at that time, the price of placing a compressor (or compressors) in each receiver would likely make the technology prohibitively expensive.
In my opinion, the ideal solution would be to broadcast uncompressed (as much as the transmission yrchnology of FM radio allows) signal and have compressors on the receiving side, with an on/off switch, or a few settings for more sophisticated receiver models.
Of course, with millions FM receivers in operation there is no way to make such transition. It should have been done my way when the FM broadcasting started in 1940's-1950's. Though, at that time, the price of placing a compressor (or compressors) in each receiver would likely make the technology prohibitively expensive.
QUOTE (Glenn Gundlach @ Sep 5 2009, 06:30)
And that is why I listen to no FM radio at all. Listening to the various frequencies pump and breathe gives me a headache.
Agreed. I stopped listening to FM around the time I heard Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight". When the drums kicked in, it sounded like someone had turned down the volume of my radio by 12dB or so. But I'm happy to hear about the seminar Kees mentioned. At the AES convention in Munich in May, there was also a tutorial on loudness compression. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend. Did someone hear that an can report on it?
Chris
QUOTE (Axon @ Sep 5 2009, 17:01)
I kinda have to wonder how many radio people actually know this stuff. Is it too rude to possibly expect we know more than the local station engineers on such matters by now?
It would be interesting if a radio expert could chime in. AFAIK radio has its own set of "rules" because of technical and legal limitations.I found some interesting reading on the Orban site here.
Some quotes:
QUOTE
broadcast program material typically comes from a rapidly changing variety of sources, most of which were not produced with any regard for the spectral balances of any other. Multiband limiting, when used properly, can automatically make the segues between sources much more consistent. Multiband limiting and consistency are vital to the station that wants to develop a characteristic audio signature and strong positive personality, just as feature films are produced to maintain a consistent look. Ultimately, it is all about the listener experience.
QUOTE
the regulatory authorities in most countries have little tolerance for excessive modulation, making peak limiting mandatory for signals destined for the regulated public airwaves.
QUOTE
Depending on the Region, FM uses either 50μs or 75μs pre-emphasis. This severely limits the power-handling capability and headroom at high frequencies and requires very artful transmission processing to achieve a bright sound typical of modern CDs. Even the best audio processors compromise the quality of the high frequencies by comparison to the quality of “flat” media like DAB and HD Radio.
QUOTE
broadcast program material typically comes from a rapidly changing variety of sources... automatically make the segues between sources much more consistent.... wants to develop a characteristic audio signature and strong positive personality... Ultimately, it is all about the listener experience.
Right... I guess that's the bottom line... They've decided that the "average listener" preferes "constantly loud". Unfortunately they are probably right... radio stations live and die by their ratings.QUOTE
the regulatory authorities in most countries have little tolerance for excessive modulation, making peak limiting mandatory for signals destined for the regulated public airwaves.
True. A limiter is required. They could use the limiter to tame the occasional peak... Or, they can drive the signal into limiting 90% of the time! QUOTE
Depending on the Region, FM uses either 50μs or 75μs pre-emphasis. This severely limits the power-handling capability and headroom at high frequencies and requires very artful transmission processing to achieve a bright sound typical of modern CDs.
Hmmm... I'm not sure about this one... It seems like the solution would be to reduce the modulation. Maybe "artful transmission" is required if you are using lots of compresion to get that "hot" signal?
I admit I have not much technical knownledge when it comes to FM modulation, but I doubt that it's by any technical limitations that they "have" to compress the signal. I think the problem varies, i.e. I can name a few stations in Denmark that are simply horrible to listen to because they obviously apply even more compression to music genres that are already extremely compressed (R&B, Hiphop, Dance, Pop etc). I think they do it of the same reasons why commercials are louder than other material - To get to the listerner "zapping" through stations. Other stations doesn't seem to apply the same amount of compression, but they are not really trying to compete on the same group of listeners.
There are two basic forms of compression at FM radio stations. "Normal" compression in the audio path is bad enough when it "pumps it up", but the real damage is the composite clipper. The encoded composite signal (L+R_in_baseband and L-R_on_19KHz) is clipped so they can use maximum deviation as allowed by the FCC. This lets them pump it up a bit more. The problem is that it creates all sorts of terrible non-linear audio artifacts since it is clipping an encoded signal.
We have a local classic rock station that almost hurts to listen to. Many years ago they had a savvy chief engineer that toned down the composite clipper and the station was a joy to listen to (rock is generally compressed to the max anyway, so compression in the audio patch is not so bad).
If you have a way to view the deviation, you will see little "horns" where the tails were folded back by the clipper.
Composite clippers suck, and station managers that "pump it up" with them are ignorant of the listening fatigue that the distortion causes. The studies I have seen never focus on how long people stay on the station once they tune it in.
We have a local classic rock station that almost hurts to listen to. Many years ago they had a savvy chief engineer that toned down the composite clipper and the station was a joy to listen to (rock is generally compressed to the max anyway, so compression in the audio patch is not so bad).
If you have a way to view the deviation, you will see little "horns" where the tails were folded back by the clipper.
Composite clippers suck, and station managers that "pump it up" with them are ignorant of the listening fatigue that the distortion causes. The studies I have seen never focus on how long people stay on the station once they tune it in.
QUOTE (odyssey @ Sep 5 2009, 18:34)
I admit I have not much technical knownledge when it comes to FM modulation, but I doubt that it's by any technical limitations that they "have" to compress the signal.
What is the S/N ratio inherent in stereo FM radio transmission?
QUOTE (dreamliner77 @ Sep 5 2009, 00:10)
Oh, how I miss 'BCN....
It's no secret that that radio stations use extensive multiband compression. Another good example is Foo Fighters - Let It Die. It kind of makes the Loudness race a moot point.
It's no secret that that radio stations use extensive multiband compression. Another good example is Foo Fighters - Let It Die. It kind of makes the Loudness race a moot point.
Man and in this album "Echoes Silence Patience & Grace" this track isn't the loudest track.
REM GENRE Rock
REM DATE 2007
PERFORMER "Foo Fighters / Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace"
TITLE "Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace"
REM REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN -11.04 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_PEAK 1.000000
FILE "CDImage.wav" WAVE
TRACK 01 AUDIO
TITLE "The Pretender"
PERFORMER "Foo Fighters"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -11.89 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.988556
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
TITLE "Let It Die"
PERFORMER "Foo Fighters"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -11.05 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 1.000000
INDEX 01 04:29:28
TRACK 03 AUDIO
TITLE "Erase - Replace"
PERFORMER "Foo Fighters"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -12.15 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.988556
INDEX 00 08:34:25
INDEX 01 08:34:54
TRACK 04 AUDIO
TITLE "Long Road To Ruin"
PERFORMER "Foo Fighters"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -10.50 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 1.000000
INDEX 01 12:47:64
TRACK 05 AUDIO
TITLE "Come Alive"
PERFORMER "Foo Fighters"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -10.72 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 1.000000
INDEX 01 16:32:55
TRACK 06 AUDIO
TITLE "Stranger Things Have Happened"
PERFORMER "Foo Fighters"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -5.85 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.829773
INDEX 01 21:43:25
TRACK 07 AUDIO
TITLE "Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running)"
PERFORMER "Foo Fighters"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -11.72 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 1.000000
INDEX 01 27:04:29
TRACK 08 AUDIO
TITLE "Summer's End"
PERFORMER "Foo Fighters"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -9.58 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 1.000000
INDEX 01 30:45:42
TRACK 09 AUDIO
TITLE "Ballad Of The Beaconsfield Miners"
PERFORMER "Foo Fighters"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -4.58 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.909271
INDEX 01 35:23:40
TRACK 10 AUDIO
TITLE "Statues"
PERFORMER "Foo Fighters"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -9.18 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 1.000000
INDEX 01 37:55:56
TRACK 11 AUDIO
TITLE "But, Honestly"
PERFORMER "Foo Fighters"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -10.83 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 1.000000
INDEX 01 41:43:42
TRACK 12 AUDIO
TITLE "Home"
PERFORMER "Foo Fighters"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -5.28 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 1.000000
INDEX 01 46:19:20
And what talk about "Attack" from 30 Seconds To Mars (-13,3 dB at peak 1.0) from the album Perfect Lie (2005)
Look the cue below:
REM GENRE Rock
REM DATE 2005
PERFORMER "30 Seconds to Mars"
TITLE "A Beautiful Lie"
REM REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN -11.19 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_PEAK 0.996277
FILE "CDImage.wav" WAVE
TRACK 01 AUDIO
TITLE "Attack"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -13.13 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.988556
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
TITLE "A Beautiful Lie"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -10.30 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.988556
INDEX 01 03:09:20
TRACK 03 AUDIO
TITLE "The Kill"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -11.22 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.988556
INDEX 01 07:14:57
TRACK 04 AUDIO
TITLE "Was It a Dream?"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -10.02 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.988556
INDEX 01 11:05:62
TRACK 05 AUDIO
TITLE "The Fantasy"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -11.06 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.988556
INDEX 01 15:21:49
TRACK 06 AUDIO
TITLE "Savior"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -11.38 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.988556
INDEX 01 19:50:40
TRACK 07 AUDIO
TITLE "From Yesterday"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -10.58 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.978027
INDEX 01 23:01:72
TRACK 08 AUDIO
TITLE "The Story"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -8.36 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.988556
INDEX 01 27:10:33
TRACK 09 AUDIO
TITLE "R-Evolve"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -9.48 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.988556
INDEX 01 31:06:02
TRACK 10 AUDIO
TITLE "A Modern Myth"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -6.28 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.988556
INDEX 01 35:04:54
TRACK 11 AUDIO
TITLE "Battle of One"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -12.70 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.988556
INDEX 01 49:18:68
TRACK 12 AUDIO
TITLE "Hunter"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -7.45 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.988556
INDEX 01 52:05:63
TRACK 13 AUDIO
TITLE "The Kill (Rebirth)"
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN -11.26 dB
REM REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK 0.996277
INDEX 01 55:59:47
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....t=0#entry655652
Look the thread above I upload some samples simply terrible Sun [1146 Kbps] is the winner, judge by yourself they are WavPack files in Extra High Mode...
QUOTE (pawelq @ Sep 6 2009, 01:18)
They may know that, but they may have different priorities. There is a classical station in my area, which uses heavy dynamics compression, which does terrible things to this kind of music. But people listen to them in cars, in noisy offices, they are played as hotel muzak. You can't listen to full dynamic range of classical in these cicrumstances.
In my opinion, the ideal solution would be to broadcast uncompressed (as much as the transmission yrchnology of FM radio allows) signal and have compressors on the receiving side, with an on/off switch, or a few settings for more sophisticated receiver models.
Of course, with millions FM receivers in operation there is no way to make such transition. It should have been done my way when the FM broadcasting started in 1940's-1950's. Though, at that time, the price of placing a compressor (or compressors) in each receiver would likely make the technology prohibitively expensive.
In my opinion, the ideal solution would be to broadcast uncompressed (as much as the transmission yrchnology of FM radio allows) signal and have compressors on the receiving side, with an on/off switch, or a few settings for more sophisticated receiver models.
Of course, with millions FM receivers in operation there is no way to make such transition. It should have been done my way when the FM broadcasting started in 1940's-1950's. Though, at that time, the price of placing a compressor (or compressors) in each receiver would likely make the technology prohibitively expensive.
I used to work at a community radio station in Brisbane (Australia) in the early 90s and the engineers were adamant that we never, ever install a compressor. A lot of announcers, including me, thought it would be way cool because we would sound more like the commercial stations; us announcers weren't very interested in retaining the original dynamics, just interested in sounding as loud as our heavily compressed and extremely over modulating commercial neighbours on the FM band, but the engineers explained it to us pretty well - they totally knew what they were doing. The only filter we had was a limiter (required by law, basically set to stop things from blowing up if someone accidentally turned the knobs to 10) and the announcers, kinda like human replay gain tag writers, had to manually skim each track for the loudest part and set the appropriate levels (which wasn't always very reliable, especially after a few beers, hence the limiter). Nowadays I am in 100% agreement. Compression these days is just everywhere, it's off the planet and I cannot even begin to understand how a classical music station could justify compression, no matter what the listening environment. Unbelievable.
I think that dynamic range compression is a necessary evil for analogue radio to increase the range of the signal... The SNR on the airwaves must be pretty low especially in poor signal areas. In the UK we have Classic FM which uses dynamic range compression on the FM station but not on the DAB (digital) one (actually it does still use some, but not as much). BBC Radio 3 uses very little if any dynamic range compression on DAB, I'm not sure about the FM station.
I think FM stereo has about a 55dB SNR. It is somewhat independent of signal strength, in that you either get the signal or it breaks up. FM doesn't fade the way AM radio does. It just "crashes" when it is too weak. The loudness is determined by the frequency deviation, not the signal amplitude. If the signal is too weak to determine the frequency deviation, you get garbage.
The FCC or equivalent mandates the maximum deviation to provide channel spacing. Compressors in the main audio stream can be used to keep the material near the maximum thus increasing apparent loudness. The problem is that these compressors do not predict the frequency deviation that will result when the signal is encoded for stereo (L+R in the baseband and L-R modulated on the 19KHz subcarrier). That signal is called composite audio. It is the transmitted signal. This encoded audio is run through another limiter called a composite clipper. It is compressing the encoded signal so it is not linear in the sense that a normal compressor is. It causes all sorts of cross signal products (intermodulation distortion)
The FCC or equivalent mandates the maximum deviation to provide channel spacing. Compressors in the main audio stream can be used to keep the material near the maximum thus increasing apparent loudness. The problem is that these compressors do not predict the frequency deviation that will result when the signal is encoded for stereo (L+R in the baseband and L-R modulated on the 19KHz subcarrier). That signal is called composite audio. It is the transmitted signal. This encoded audio is run through another limiter called a composite clipper. It is compressing the encoded signal so it is not linear in the sense that a normal compressor is. It causes all sorts of cross signal products (intermodulation distortion)
Yes, yes they can. In other news water is wet and fire is hot. Also, BCN was dead years ago when they got bought out.
Everything you need to know about broadcast radio compression.
Robert Orban designed the most popular compressor models.
www.261.gr/roberthistory.html
www.261.gr/proradio.html
Robert Orban designed the most popular compressor models.
www.261.gr/roberthistory.html
www.261.gr/proradio.html
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