How loud is loud?

[danika]

Interesting article on varying loudness standards:

HOW LOUD IS LOUD? | Articles | Post Magazine

[masterizer]

"As the technology keeps getting better and higher in quality, it means we can become more detailed. We can utilize these tools to our benefit, but we can also abuse them. If I have a car that goes 150mph, that doesn't mean I should drive to work at that speed."

I like that quote!

[IIIrd]

Originally Posted by masterizer

"As the technology keeps getting better and higher in quality, it means we can become more detailed. We can utilize these tools to our benefit, but we can also abuse them. If I have a car that goes 150mph, that doesn't mean I should drive to work at that speed."

I like that quote!

more people should learn to use the volume control that the hifi manufacturer gave them for free....instead of us having to waste our working lives amking things sound worse, just for the sake of having a loud cd...utter madness

[It'sJoeAgain]

i like the fact that the word keeps spreading around and believe me, there are lots of ppl reading all this.... ....i am finding mylself opening up file submissions and saying YEAH BABY! (lots of headroom) ...one thing never changes though, mix errors are in abundance out there....that prpobably will never change

[IIIrd]

Originally Posted by It'sJoeAgain

i like the fact that the word keeps spreading around and believe me, there are lots of ppl reading all this.... ....i am finding mylself opening up file submissions and saying YEAH BABY! (lots of headroom) ...one thing never changes though, mix errors are in abundance out there....that prpobably will never change

i've noticed the same, headroom. maybe the war will end soon.

[macc]

I always insist on headroom in the mixdowns.... Doesn't mean they don't want it mashed to oblivion though!

[danika]

Originally Posted by danika

Interesting article on varying loudness standards:

HOW LOUD IS LOUD? | Articles | Post Magazine

I expected that this article would generate a lot of preaching to the choir here about the evils of loudness. I actually found the comments about 5.1 and digital TV more interesting:

The upcoming FCC mandate to broadcast all television digitally includes expanded audio capabilities, such as 5.1 mixes. "For the short term, I think that broadcasting 5.1 is more of a problem," says Coyle. "It reminds me of the mid-'80s when we went from mono to stereo TV. This is even more dramatic. The problem we are having is the variety of standards. Some networks want VO only in the center channel, and some networks want VO in the left and right channels. In some cases, this applies to music, where one network wants the singers only in the center channel. It's sort of awkward right now because we are getting our spec on a per-network basis. I am hoping that within the next couple of years, everyone will settle on a standard."

Even with the wide spread use of the Dolby LM100, Coyle does not see this common broadcast spec helping set an industry standard. "For our broadcast commercials, we don't use the LM100," he says. "When I am mixing, I am using a surround compressor and limiter with the Digidesign surround metering. So, that's not where the problem lies; it's the fact that the release formats from the different networks are still too varied. The LM100 can't take into account whether or not some stations want the announcer a little bit in the left

[barefoot]

"For my industry, I feel that my job is to maximize the frequency range and the voltage I am given to work with," he says. "In other words, to make my commercial as loud as possible when it's on the air."

Believe it or not, this statement makes me happy and hopeful. Those loud commercial blasts make watching commercial television extremely annoying. The more consumers are annoyed, the more they will demand products with automatic loudness controllers. As more and more devices incorporate automatic loudness controllers there will be less and less incentive to over compress because, as everyone knows, content with more dynamics sounds better and is more interesting to even casual listeners, assuming levels are matched.

So, to all you folks producing commercials, I say "Squash baby, squash!"

[Jesse Graffam]

"For the short term, I think that broadcasting 5.1 is more of a problem," says Coyle.

Is it?
LINEAR ACOUSTIC - Products - AERO.air (5.1)
These boxes (some of them the older "DTV" version) are used on over 75% of "HDTV" (including the actual HDTV off-air standard, but also mainly digital satellite HD) channels, about 90% market share in live events & sports like NASCAR, Football (both types, including the SuperBowl for the last 4 years), award shows like the Grammy's, etc.

They automatically handle 2.0 and 5.1 cross mixing, as well as making sure that none of the other program material steps on the center-channel announcer voices (including advanced processing making sure that AFTER artificial surround-sound processing in TVs it's still quite audible, and not over-exagurated surround, from the 2.0 outputs)

It handles & syncs all of the meta-data streams, and makes sure to fix common problems from the data sources. Even encodes the AC3 for you complete with dynamic range control meta-data (the smoothest i've ever heard btw).


As far as content "ingestion", they have a unit that is *just* about to come out publicly, and beta units are already making significant strides in "taking over" the large network plants...
LINEAR ACOUSTIC - Products - AERO.qc
the AERO.qc (quality control), which makes sure that all content stays within specified dialnorms, with MINIMAL processing for spectrum and dynamics. Only enough to make sure there won't be a significant problem somewhere down the line. It uses LKFS (ITU-R BS.1770-1) for it's average level detection, same as the LM100, except it's not just a meter.


The company was bought by Telos about 1.5 years ago (the people behind Omnia), at NAB to basically no fan-fare. It's even more so one of those companies and devices that you never know existed, or how prevelent it's use is.... until now.

[chk027]

Originally Posted by danika

Interesting article on varying loudness standards:

HOW LOUD IS LOUD? | Articles | Post Magazine

pretty loud I guess?

[Susceptor]

I believe Bob Katz had the signature "when everything is loud, nothing actually is loud".

[Fredrik]

Originally Posted by barefoot

Believe it or not, this statement makes me happy and hopeful. Those loud commercial blasts make watching commercial television extremely annoying. The more consumers are annoyed, the more they will demand products with automatic loudness controllers. As more and more devices incorporate automatic loudness controllers there will be less and less incentive to over compress because, as everyone knows, content with more dynamics sounds better and is more interesting to even casual listeners, assuming levels are matched.

So, to all you folks producing commercials, I say "Squash baby, squash!"

I saw this link the other day.

Bill would turn down volume on TV ads - The York Daily Record

[danika]

Originally Posted by Fredrik

I saw this link the other day.

Bill would turn down volume on TV ads - The York Daily Record

From the article:

Broadcasters say they have their own plan to lower TV ad volume, which could take effect within a couple of months. The switch to digital TV on Friday, they say, also could help by enabling advertisers to use a wider range of sounds, instead of relying on pure volume to get attention.

Hmmmm. I wonder what that means. A guy I know who has a fancy home-theater system tells me the only time he ever hears anything from the rear speakers while watching TV is when the auto commercials come on.

[wado1942]

Some real big holes in some people's arguments there. Like the guy saying his commercials aren't any louder than the exposions on the TV show it followed. Should speech (which is what most commercials are) REALLY be as loud as an explosion? That's not human perception at fault, that's idiocy. I think if we just adopt the Dolby Digital level specifications for speech, the world will be in much better shape. Hey, something good's come from DD after all!

I was at my TV station the day after they shut off the analogue transmitters and you know what? The audio is still clipped and awful, though it no longer screws up the picture anymore. That means people will probably be pushing the levels even harder. New technology does nothing for us if we don't use it optimally. Strangely enough, we have an $800,000 video switcher and yet we don't have a $200 compressor to go between the audio console and master control. So the audio person (not an engineer, just a PA) has to constantly ride the gains, pulling down levels as much as 14dB just going from the news to commercial.

That said, are the guys trying to make commercials as loud as possible really getting attention? At my house, we've become very good at muting the TV just before the commercials start. I've seen numerous people completely ignore the commercials because they're too busy scrambling for the remote to end the ear-pain. I think if commercials kept their average NORMAL dialogue levels at -31dBfs, more people will actually sit through the commercials. All though, most commercials made locally are edited on Final Cut with no NTSC production monitor, just the Macs own LCD with its incredibly high gamma and no overscan region or safe lines. Most of them mix on the same tiny PC speakers they use to listen to iTunes so they try and force everything up to that level. I've tried again and again to encourage the local film/video community to do themselves a favor by using at least near-field monitors calibrated to a constant reference point. They go "we don't know anything about this stuff so we won't try to understand it." and continue making washed out, distorted commercials with the words cut off by the bottom of the TV screens at home. In the ever-worsening attempt to cut costs, complete amateurs who can't even set the exposures on their cameras are making program materiall that'll be relayed across the state. They don't know anything about video or audio and they don't WANT to know. They don't know why their commercials look and sound bad, they don't want to take the steps to correct it. So the few who do know what they're doing have to suffer with it.

BTW, why DO HDCAM tapes have 12 tracks? I could never understand why anybody would want more than 6 tracks on a video tape. 7.1 mixing seems completely rediculous to me, particularly since most people don't have adequate audio systems even for stereo.

[Jesse Graffam]

12 tracks....

9.2 surround, plus SMPTE.

It doesn't justify the relative total lack of a NEED for that many channels, but you asked.

Btw, point your station's CE @ Linear Acoustic website. They can thank you later. thumbsup

[HookedOnHardware]

Originally Posted by wado1942

<SNIP> At my house, we've become very good at muting the TV just before the commercials start. I've seen numerous people completely ignore the commercials because they're too busy scrambling for the remote to end the ear-pain. <SNIP>

I used to live in the states and my parents just moved from the states to Mexico (not that that is relevant but the point is I'm in the states quite often still).

I've never noticed such obscene difference in loudness on Dutch television stations as I have in the state. If the main focus of aforementioned is to catch peoples attention, then they really f*ed up. All that change in volume does is create sharp shooters like Wado. Since living in The Netherlands I often catch myself WATCHING the commercials. Well waddayaknow? In the states I'm quite a fast muter myself. My parents have this great 5.1 setup that ear rapes you when the commercials come on.
Whose idea was it to make the commercials so damned loud? I also wonder who thought it was a good idea to switch the program to commercials every bloody 4.5 seconds.

Sorry, this should be in the moan zone (I do wonder though).

[JPeters86]

Originally Posted by HookedOnHardware

I used to live in the states and my parents just moved from the states to Mexico (not that that is relevant but the point is I'm in the states quite often still).

I've never noticed such obscene difference in loudness on Dutch television stations as I have in the state. If the main focus of aforementioned is to catch peoples attention, then they really f*ed up. All that change in volume does is create sharp shooters like Wado. Since living in The Netherlands I often catch myself WATCHING the commercials. Well waddayaknow? In the states I'm quite a fast muter myself. My parents have this great 5.1 setup that ear rapes you when the commercials come on.
Whose idea was it to make the commercials so damned loud? I also wonder who thought it was a good idea to switch the program to commercials every bloody 4.5 seconds.

Sorry, this should be in the moan zone (I do wonder though).

Well the difference in loudness with regards to the commercials is still large enough for me to mute them! But that might also be a result of my hate for (most) tv commercials. And I live in NL as well. But let's stop moaning

[HookedOnHardware]

Originally Posted by JPeters86

Well the difference in loudness with regards to the commercials is still large enough for me to mute them! But that might also be a result of my hate for (most) tv commercials. And I live in NL as well. But let's stop moaning

Haha, well surely the content of the commercials might be the same (although when I'm in the states I feel I have to do something about all the 'health problems' they tell me I have) but the difference in loudness is MUCH less. Every once in a while a Tel sell commercial will kick me in the ear but in general the difference is much less.

Indeed, less moaning more sharing! I'm still interested in the birth of the rediculous loudness for commercials though.

Ok back to the topic!

[wado1942]

9.2 surround, plus SMPTE.
It doesn't justify the relative total lack of a NEED for that many channels, but you asked.

Huh? IMAX uses 10.2 but that wouldn't be delivered on HDCAM. HDCAM has its own time code embeded into the video signal so I'm not sure I get that either. I'd rather they dropped 6 channels and use the bandwidth for better video quality. And who's idea was it to use 3:1:1 color-space? Goof balls!

I also wonder who thought it was a good idea to switch the program to commercials every bloody 4.5 seconds.

There's almost as much commercial time now as there is program time. What I want to know is where all that ad money is going. It's definitely not to the writers, the crew, the engineers etc. They're all getting paid the same thing they were 30 years ago.

although when I'm in the states I feel I have to do something about all the 'health problems' they tell me I have

When the average prescription medication is marked up 320,000% in the U.S., they're a reminder of where the real power in government is! Some times I think they make up deseases just to sell more drugs. My favorite part of those ads is when they list all the side effects which are often the same as or worse than the problem they supposedly treat. Seizure medication causes seizures? Depression medication causes exposive diarrhea, kidney failure and thoughts of suicide? I'LL TAKE THE DISEASE! I heard that something like 48% of elementary school children are on some kind prescription medication, largely for depression and ADD suposedly.

And the real topper is Cadbury cream eggs are 1g lighter in the U.S. than the rest of the world! I can gripe till I turn blue, the real question is why does everybody get away with so much crap here but not the rest of the world?

[unitymusic]

Originally Posted by masterizer

"As the technology keeps getting better and higher in quality, it means we can become more detailed. We can utilize these tools to our benefit, but we can also abuse them. If I have a car that goes 150mph, that doesn't mean I should drive to work at that speed."

Originally Posted by Susceptor

I believe Bob Katz had the signature "when everything is loud, nothing actually is loud".

Both of these are very good quotes, and very relevant. The thing I don't understand...if it is such common knowledge that the "loudness war" does more harm than good, why do "professionals" continue to abuse music and mixes to satisfy someone who obviously is not as experienced as themselves to even know any better (artist vs. engineer), or they would not be going to someone else to mix or master their music in the first place. And should these people (engineers who compromise quality and integrity for $) really be in charge of industry standards, such as at what dB level and sound quality is something considered "professional"?

[music is not just about making money]

[wado1942]

[music is not just about making money]

Do you know what you call somebody who puts art over profit? Broke.

Art is serves one purpose only when it comes to businesses. That purpose is making money. They'll do whatever their market research tells them to do. So if all the top 40 singles are distorted crap, then that's what they want also. Music is no more about art to BMI than a truck is to Ford. There's hard, fast formulae detailing how a truck should look & perform in order to sell. It's the exact same thing for manufacturing music. However, the human condition doesn't like everything being so cookie-cutter like, which is probably one reason why the record industry is failing.

[okydoky]

Originally Posted by danika

Interesting article on varying loudness standards:

HOW LOUD IS LOUD? | Articles | Post Magazine

hi,

well, its not quiet, i can tell you that much.



right.

[Ben F]

"If you can't make it sound good make it loud!"

...overheard in the corridors of a mastering studio.

[inlinenl]

Originally Posted by Ben F

"If you can't make it sound good make it loud!"

...overheard in the corridors of a mastering studio.

thumbsup

[HookedOnHardware]

Originally Posted by unitymusic

<SNIP>

[music is not just about making money]<SNIP>

For many of us it's our bread and butter so that statement is simply too easy to make. It's not just about making money but making money for 'us' professionals is the reason we can continue to do/make music.

I see what you are getting at though.

Both of these are very good quotes, and very relevant. The thing I don't understand...if it is such common knowledge that the "loudness war" does more harm than good, why do "professionals" continue to abuse music and mixes to satisfy someone who obviously is not as experienced as themselves to even know any better (artist vs. engineer), or they would not be going to someone else to mix or master their music in the first place. And should these people (engineers who compromise quality and integrity for $) really be in charge of industry standards, such as at what dB level and sound quality is something considered "professional"?

It has been said already but to repeat: It's a trend for a reason, the big guys (due to labels etc) started doing it and now everybody wants LOUD LOUD LOUD. It's not necessarily the engineers fault, it's more the clients. Client is king right? However, I see more and more mastering engineers saying ''well this is as far as I can go before it starts sounding bad" (or worse...). I'm sure more and more people are starting to realize that squashing the f* out of songs really hurts the quality.

[DuX]

To answer the original poster's question: loud is when you turn the volume knob clockwise all the way! Hear a K-14 track that way and RMS matched "K-6" that way and then one starts to realise what is loud, punchy and simply better.

What I'm doing is compromising with the customers... trying to open their mind and ears. It sometimes works, sometimes not. Considering the "bread factor" you have to comply with anything a client wishes, but it's getting better and better every time. I usually use the "all radio and TV have limiters and K-12 masters sound better through those" argument.

I'm a stubborn SOB...

Cheers!