“Blurred Lines”

“Happy”

“Uptown Funk”

Four of the biggest hits of the last couple of years, maybe even THE biggest – in fact “Uptown Funk” is already on course to be the biggest seller of 2015.

What do they all have in common, apart from Pharrell ?

(OK, he didn’t actually have anything to do with “Uptown Funk”, but he HAS worked with Mark Ronson recently…)

Melody ? Hooks ? Groove ?

Sure, but that’s true of any pop hit, and always has been.

The less obvious answer ?

Dynamics.

Light and shade, give and take, life and energy.

NONE of these massive hits have suffered too badly from the loudness war, unlike so many things we listen to.

And that’s important, because it flies in the face of one of the myths driving the “war” in the first place – the idea that “loud records sell more copies”.

It’s nonsense.

I’ve talked about this before – there’s research that proves it’s not true, and I’ve demonstrated that it simply doesn’t work, in practise – listeners don’t care about loudness.

But the simple fact at the top of this post maybe trumps both those points – let me say it again.

The four biggest songs of the last two years weren’t “loudness war casualties” – they had GREAT dynamics.

(Of course they all had real musicians, great performances and great production too, but let’s stay on-message…)

They’re not crushed, they’re not horribly distorted, and they do sound fantastic.

And we love them.

And we bought them, in huge quantities.

QED.

If you love the sound of these records too and want to hear more like them in future, please help spread the word about Dynamic Range Day this year.

To find out what that is, click here.

And a great way to start is to share this post

Thanks for listening !
 
 

What do these four massive chart hits all have in common, APART from Pharrell ? is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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This is HUGE.

It may not look like much, but if you’re involved in music production, recording, mixing or mastering, this image could be the most important thing you’ll see all year.
 

What is it ?

It’s the loudness output of a YouTube playlist, as measured by the MeterPlugs LCast loudness meter.
 

So what ?

First – it’s quiet. The loudness levels are all quite low, especially by modern “loudness war” standards.

Second – it’s very consistent. More importantly than the low loudness, they’re almost all playing at the same loudness.

What does this mean ?

It means that YouTube have been using loudness normalisation on their music videos – and they’ve been doing it since December last year. Everything plays at a similar loudness, regardless of how it was mastered. And no-one has noticed.

Hear it for yourself – this playlist is composed almost entirely of current releases, with a wide variety of loudness on CD – and some of them are REALLY loud:
 

 
So for example, at the more dynamic end of the spectrum, Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars’ massive hit “Uptown Funk” measures -12 LUFS (DR 8 on the TT Meter) on CD. Whereas “Love Me Like You Do” by Ellie Goulding is squashed up to -8 LUFS (DR 5) on CD, and later in the playlist, Madonna’s “Living For Love” clocks in at an eye-watering (and heavily distorted) -7 LUFS (DR 4!)

But on YouTube, all of them are being played back at a similar loudness of roughly -13 LUFS.

And that’s HUGE, because YouTube is the single largest online discovery source for music. More kids look for music on YouTube than on iTunes, TV or radio, or anywhere.

This is where they hear new music for the first time, decide if they like it, and whether to share it with their friends.

And YouTube just took “loudness” out of the equation.

Dynamic is the new Loud

It’s now irrelevant how high the mastering levels of your music are – as I’ve shown before, on iTunes Radio, on Spotify and now on YouTube, we have no control about how loud people hear it – just as it’s always been on FM radio.

In fact, heavily crushed, distorted “loudness war casualties” will often sound worse than more dynamic releases.

And if you ever wanted proof that the extra dynamics in “Uptown Funk” are a crucial part of it’s success, press Play above and see which song it it that gets your head nodding and foot tapping first…

When music is loudness normalised, “loudness war” mixing and mastering sounds worse – and music with balanced dynamics sounds better.

This is the final nail in the coffin. The loudness war really is over – the only remaining question is, how long will it take for people take to notice, and start releasing music with great dynamics again ?
 

So why do people even bother with loudness any more ?

If you’re new to this issue, you’re probably asking, like everyone else – “why is music still being crushed like this ?”

If loudness is irrelevant on iTunes Radio, on Spotify, and now on YouTube – why bother ? You can read my answer here:

Learn the Loudness War’s dirty little secret

But we still haven’t heard the whole story, yet.
 

The plot is actually thicker…

This is such an important issue, I’ve glossed over a few interesting details in this post – and a big problem with YouTube’s loudness control.

The main point – YouTube is using loudness normalisation – still stands. But if you’ve been thinking “Why are some of songs in that graph quieter or louder that -13 LUFS ?” – you’ve asked a good question.

If you’re wondering “How have YouTube implemented this ?” – you deserve a straight answer.

And if you’ve spotted the big problem with the way it works, you know it needs to be discussed.

And I address all those points, and more, in my next post:

YouTube loudness normalisation – The Good, The Questions and The Problem

But while you’re here, if you want to help spread the word about the harm the loudness war has been doing to our music, and the good news that Dynamic is the new Loud – please support Dynamic Range Day.

For more details, click here.
 

 
 

YouTube just put the final nail in the Loudness War’s coffin is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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So, yesterday was the big headline:

YouTube just put the final nail in the Loudness War’s coffin

And the news has had a fantastic, positive response from almost everyone.

But there’s a problem, as I mentioned.

And I’ll get to that in a minute.
 

Before we start

First, I should be clear that everything here is based on research and speculation. As far as I know, there has been no official word from YouTube about normalisation at all. Which means…
 

This is a moving (dynamic ?) target

Some of what I say here will probably be wrong, or go out of date really fast. But for now, here’s what (I think) we know.

This is a playback setting only

The underlying audio isn’t affected – downloading raw files shows that the original levels are encoded intact. That makes sense – adjusting the playback level is faster than re-encoding music, non-destructive, requires less processing power, and allows for future changes to the normalised level.
 

Not all songs are normalised (yet)

Everything I’ve tried that’s been uploaded this year is playing back normalised, but older songs aren’t. That’s the reason you can see some examples that are louder or softer in the LCast graph in my original post – for example, the very last song is “Bangarang” by Skrillex, which still plays at thunderously high level. But…
 

Some songs are being normalised after the fact

Eric Perlas from Tower Of Doom studios has seen older songs that have also been normalised – some time after he uploaded them.

(I didn’t realise it when I posted yesterday, but Eric had actually beaten me to it, blogging about this issue just the day before me – and he has some interesting other observations to add, especially as he regularly uploads music videos to YouTube. You can read his original post here.)
 

It can take up to a week for the normalisation to come “online”

Several people have told me they’ve recently uploaded songs which aren’t playing back normalised – yet. But based on what Eric is telling us, we can expect YouTube to “catch up” with those songs fairly quickly.
 

It’s not just major label artists, and not just VEVO

Several people have suggested that this is only happening to major artists releases, most of which are on VEVO rather than the main YouTube site. However Eric’s examples again show that this isn’t the case.
 

It doesn’t use R128 (LUFS)

R128 is the internationally agreed standard method for measuring loudness, measured in LUFS – and we’re pretty sure YouTube isn’t using it, at this point. At least, not the standard “integrated” overall value.

Most normalised songs we’ve measured come in somewhere between -12 and -14 LUFS integrated, at the moment – but if that’s how YouTube were measuring it themselves, you’d expect those values to be exact.

Unless they’re using a tweaked version, of course. We’re trying to get to the bottom of how it works – you’ll know as soon as we figure it out ! Other options might include ReplayGain (like Spotify), for example.

(When I say we, I mean Sigurdór Guðmundsson and I – he’s been helping me with measurements and testing all this)
 

It doesn’t add extra processing

Everything we’ve seen and heard so far suggests this is just a volume control, nothing else. Some people feel things sound more compressed, or less bassy – I’m pretty sure that’s just loudness deception.

Although, some labels may already be using more dynamic masters, in a reaction to the normalisation – perhaps that’s why the Skrillex video I commented on recently is more dynamic ?
 

Quieter songs are being boosted

“Loud” songs are being turned down, but quieter songs are also being turned up. This is a good thing – it means great-sounding music with more dynamics will stand up well against the “smashed” mainstream stuff.

And don’t worry…
 

It doesn’t cause clipping or extra limiting

Another concern is that if quieter, more dynamic music is boosted in loudness by the normalisation, it might cause clipping, or add limiting to prevent it, as Spotify does.

Again, our testing suggests YouTube isn’t falling into this trap. More dynamic songs aren’t boosted so far that they will distort. And although that’s a good thing, it also leads directly to…
 

The Big Problem

I mentioned in my first post that there’s a big problem with the way all this has been implemented, in my opinion. And that is:

-13 LUFS is still pretty loud

Don’t get me wrong, this is a very positive step in the right direction. There’s no question that the normalisation as it is today is vastly better than nothing, and I’m delighted that YouTube have taken this step.

But because the normalisation system avoids clipping or extra limiting, it also means that some more dynamic material will end up playing back quieter than everything else.

For example, Steven Wilson’s critically acclaimed new album is one of the nominees for this year’s Dynamic Range Day Award, measuring DR11 on the TT Meter. Allowing for some extra peak information in the decoded waveform caused by YouTube’s lossy data-stream, it plays back several dB quieter than the -13 LUFS average.

Which is a great shame, because one of the benefits of loudness-normalised playback is that it gives great-sounding music like this the chance to really shine.

If YouTube chose to follow Apple’s lead with iTunes Radio instead, and chose a value like -16 LUFS instead, this issue would be far less of a problem.

Let’s hope they update the value in future.
 

Questions, questions…

It’s still early days for figuring all this out, and there are still lots of un-answered questions. For example:
 

How exactly does this work ?

I’ve made some suggestions in this post, but it will be interesting to see exactly what method YouTube are using for their normalisation, and why. Are they using R128 ? Or ReplayGain ? Or something similar of their own design ?
 

Why did they do it ?

Actually I think the answer to this is pretty obvious – Google Play was recently announced, and a key part of what it offers is unlimited access to YouTube’s music archive – ad-free. Since the #1 cause of complaints from audio listeners is always loudness-related, it makes perfect sense that YouTube needs a loudness normalisation solution to give their subscribers the best possible user-experience.
 

Does it apply only to music, or all videos ?

I have no idea, yet. Maybe you’d like to do some testing, and let me know !
 

What about adverts ?

Several people have raised concerns that ads won’t have their volume controlled in the same way, meaning they could be very intrusive if they were louder than the music. All I can say at this point is that during my testing, none of the ads played back louder than the loudest music moments – but some were actually somewhat quieter.
 

So where does all this leave us ?

Loudness normalisation on YouTube is a Good Thing.

No question.

Even if the target loudness YouTube have chosen is a little louder than I’d like right now, they have made loudness for it’s own sake a waste of time if you’re trying to stand out on YouTube.

And because YouTube is such an important part of the music discovery and sharing process in 2015, people are going to pay attention.

As more people (like Daft Punk, Pharrell, Mark Ronson et al) experiment with more dynamic masters, those masters are going to sound better (punchier, livelier) than more squashed stuff. On YouTube, on iTunes Radio, on Spotify, and any device that uses ReplayGain – pretty much everywhere.

And just like our clients used to ask us “why does that sound better ?” when they heard a master that sounded louder, they’ll start to ask “why does that sound better” when they hear something more dynamic.

That’s when we get to tell them why, and that’s when the word will start to really spread.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait.
 
 

Take action

If you know someone at YouTube – please forward them this link ! And if you agree that YouTube’s loudness normalisation is a good idea, tell them. You probably don’t, but even so you could contact their support and social media accounts, and say Thanks. But also mention that you think a lower overall loudness would be even better

And if you prefer your music to have great, balanced dynamics, please support Dynamic Range Day – make a start now by Liking the Facebook page:
 

Dynamic is the new Loud

Let’s get the word out.
 
 

YouTube loudness normalisation – The Good, The Questions and The Problem is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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(Click on the image for a larger version)

This is a 2015 re-boot of one of the first, and most popular memes I created for Dynamic Range Day – not a “Top 10″ as some sites have reported, it’s actually the “selected high (and low) -lights” of recorded music levels over the last few decades.

And the information it gives is just as crazy as it ever was.

As a result of the so-called loudness wars, mainstream pop releases are being pushed onto CD and into mp3 files at such high levels they’re technically much ‘hotter’ than some of the loudest acts in history, in an attempt to make them stand out from the competition.

Why is it crazy ? Because it doesn’t work.

None of these “loudness” differences will be audible in any of most popular places we listen to music.

Not on Spotify.

Not on iTunes Radio.

Not even on Youtube, any more !

And certainly not on radio or TV.

Replay volume is ‘normalised’ in all of these places, to improve the listener experience, because the number one source of complaints about audio is always big variations in loudness – we hate to have to keep adjusting the volume control.

So if you’re wondering – “why do people still bother?” – you’ve got a point!

It’s not all bad news

Take another look at that infographic, though.

There are some interesting features.

Look at the 2015 releases.

As well as ridiculous results like Taylor Swift being as loud as Oasis, and Nicki Minaj being almost as loud as Metallica – there are two massively successful pop albums by Daft Punk & Mark Ronson that have great dynamics.

And D’Angelo’s critically acclaimed album “Black Messiah” measures DR8. In a genre like R&B where almost everything is clipped and crushed by default, that’s a serious result ! And it’s not alone – in an interview on NPR’s Hip Hop show, J. Cole described how he and producer Juro “Mez” Davis deliberately chose not to compete in the loudness war – and his fans loved the decision.

(To hear the right section of the interview, click here)

And there have been a host of other great-sounding, dynamic releases in the last year, too – some of them are nominated for the Dynamic Range Day Award 2015. Check them out, your ears will thank you.

It ain’t over yet…

Of course these are the exceptions, rather than the rule.

For every great-sounding success, there are ten more that have been smashed. As I said in my interview for CE Pro, the situation is getting more polarised, and will probably keep getting worse, before it gets better.

But loudness normalisation is a fact, now – and gradually, the music world will wake up to the new reality. Just as U2 and Pharrell and D’Angelo and Daft Punk and J.Cole and Opeth and Aphex Twin and Mark Ronson and Jack White and Paulo Nutini and The War On Drugs and many other already have.

And when they do, our ears will thank them.

So Taylor Swift is louder than Motorhead, AC/DC and The Sex Pistols… – wait, WHAT? is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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It’s the question we all dread.

You finished the master, everyone is really happy, and then they hit you with it:

Can you just make it a bit louder ?

Because even though we know that loudness is pointless, even though we know that if you want to sound louder on YouTube, or iTunes Radio or Spotify or anywhere, the answer is to master with balanced dynamics – no-one else believes it yet.

The artists don’t believe it

The labels don’t believe it

The producers don’t believe it

The A&R people don’t believe it

And plenty of mastering engineers still don’t believe it, either !

Even though we know that:

• Metal sounds better with more dynamics
• Rock sounds better with more dynamics
• Pop sounds better with more dynamics
• Even EDM sounds better with more dynamics

No-one believes us.

They’ve bought into the myth, they’re feeling the FUD.

Don’t Panic

Luckily, they don’t have to believe us, because now we can show them. Quickly, and easily.

This strategy is free, non-techy and simple to implement.

Here it is:

Step One – Empathise

No-one likes to be argued with. If you go straight in with “Dynamic is the new Loud”, they’ll shut down and stop listing to you – they’ll think you just don’t Get It.

For the demonstration I’m going to show you to work, they need to know you understand the issue, you feel their pain – and you still think making it louder is a Bad Idea.

So take a little time to listen to their concerns, and show them you understand. Don’t be tempted to argue, or justify, just listen.

Then say something like “I know exact what you mean. I’ll make it louder for you, and we’ll take a listen.”

Which brings us to

Step Two – Demonstrate

• Keep your optimal master, with balanced, powerful dynamics
• Create a louder version as requested
• Import both versions into iTunes
• Go to Preferences > Playback and enable Sound Check

(This may take a while, the first time you tick the box – iTunes will scan your whole music library. So, it might be best to this step well in advance. In fact, why not try it now, and see how it affects the music you’ve already imported ? And don’t worry, after you’ve done it once, it’s really quick)

• Play both versions
• Explain that this is how it’s going to sound in the Real World, pretty much everywhere
• Ask them – which one sounds better ? Which one sounds bigger, punchier ? Which one makes you want to dance, to nod your head – which one moves you more ?

That’s it ! Chances are, the two versions with will either sound very similar (because loudness is pointless), or the louder, more squashed version will actually sound worse.

Sound Check makes songs play back at similar volume, so the “benefits” of creating a ‘loud’, crushed master are lost. And in fact, many over-squashed songs sound dull, lifeless, muddled or even distorted once Sound Check is enabled.

And if you’re lucky, your job is done – many people are persuaded just by this simple, real-world demonstration. But if not, proceed to…

Step Three – Answer questions

Chances are the person who asked for the extra ‘loudness’ will immediately say – “But no-one uses Sound Check!” or something similar.

But… no-one uses Sound Check !

Here’s your reply:

Actually, iTunes Radio uses Sound Check. And iTunes Radio is a major discovery source.

Spotify uses ReplayGain, which does something very similar – and these days, it can’t be disabled.

And here’s the killer – I noticed earlier this year that YouTube also normalises playback volume.

Soon after your ‘loud’ master finishes uploading, YouTube will adjust it’s playback loudness so the volume people hear will be similar to almost everything else. And they’re slowly working back through the archive, doing the same thing to everything that has already been uploaded.

TV already does the same thing – in fact in the US it’s a legal requirement to regulate the loudness of commercials !

And loudness doesn’t matter on radio either – that’s been true for decades.

“Loud” doesn’t matter, any more

So if you won’t hear the ‘loudness’ of a mix or master on YouTube, or Spotify, or iTunes Radio, or TV or radio – where do you hear it ?

Well, you might hear it in the car – but the first thing you do when you put a new CD in is adjust the volume, right ? So that doesn’t matter, after the first 20 seconds.

And you won’t hear it in a club, because any DJ worth her salt will balance the levels of her mix, just like she balances BPM and mood to make a balanced, satisfying set.

So that leaves… no-where.

(Well, you might hear it on an mp3 player in shuffle mode, if you don’t have Sound Check or ReplayGain enabled. But how important is that, really ? After all, we’re only talking about a few dBs difference between bangin’ and busted.)

This isn’t just hot air, either. Some of the biggest hits of the last year have been mastered without being stupid-loud.

Step Four – Wait

People care about YouTube.

They really care.

Everybody “gets” how crucially important YouTube is for music, in the 21st century.

So show them the demo above in iTunes, and make sure they understand – that’s how it will sound on YouTube, too.

Then stand back and wait.

Let them take both masters home and try it for themselves. Show them this blog post, and some of the ones it links to, especially this one.

If you think they’ll be interested, show them the research, which proves listeners don’t care about loudness.

The penny will drop, eventually.

Optional Bonus Step – Check for success

If you have time and space – try this test with your two masters first, before you play them to anyone else.

I have pretty much a 100% success rate, but Sound Check can be a little quirky – there’s no harm in making sure you get the results you expect, before you do the demo for anyone else.

If it doesn’t quite sound the way you’d hoped, maybe the EQ isn’t quite balanced, or you don’t have the balance of limiting and compression perfectly optimised.

In my experience though, lower level, less crushed masters almost always sound better when Sound Check is on – and my guess is that’s what you’re going to find, too.

This strategy really works. Try it !

FACEPALM: “It sounds great! Now can you make it louder ?” – My simple four-step solution is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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Click the image above for higher resolution

We know now that all the major music streaming services are using loudness normalisation – meaning every song is played at a similar level, aiming for a “target” loudness, which is different for every service.

Loud songs are turned down, quiet songs are turned up – IF there’s enough peak headroom.

And because the target level for some platforms is pretty loud, that’s a very significant “IF”.

Because when there isn’t enough headroom to lift the level up without clipping, your music either won’t get turned up and will sound quieter than everything else as a result, or it may have extra peak limiting applied to get it up to the target level. Which may or may not sound good.

Neither of these is an ideal situation !

So…
 

How loud is loud enough, and how loud is too loud ?

The answer is… it depends.

It depends on your views on dynamics, your views on the loudness war, and which platform we’re talking about – YouTube, Apple Music, Spotify – wherever.

To try and shed some light on the subject, I’ve put together an infographic summarising as much as I can about the topic – take a look, I hope it’s helpful !

Click on the image to see a high-res version, or click here for a PDF copy you can download and print.

If the terminology used is new to you (LUFS, PLR etc) please see the end of this post for a brief glossary.

Edit – for those what have been asking, BeatPort and Pandora also use a loudness target to even out replay volume. SoundCloud and Bandcamp currently don’t, however in my opinion it’s only a matter of time. And, I’ve been right about this before.
 

So how does it sound ?

First I’d like to say Thanks to members of my Home Mastering Masterclass course, who helped me get this infographic right, offering loads of helpful feedback and suggestions.

Next I want to share the first question most of them asked about it:

Where does your suggested mastering level fit into all this ?

And the answer, I’m glad to say, is that I’ve been recommending for years that you master no louder than PLR 11 – that’s roughly DR 8, if you’re a user of the TT Meter.

And if you follow my advice, your music will fit the “green” category on the infographic, meaning it’s loudness will be changed very little when it’s played online – and when there is a larger change, it will sound better than more squashed, “loudness war” masters.

In other words, the loudness sweet spot I suggest to make your music sound great is also a sweet spot for translating well online.

Coincidence ? You decide…!

And if you’d like to find out in detail for yourself what loudness I recommend, and the best way to achieve it, you might like to sign up for the masterclass course yourself. It begins this Friday, and if you get started now you can score 25% off as part of the introductory discount. To find out what’s included, click here.

Maybe I’ll see you there !
 

Not happy ?

Of course you might be looking at this infographic and saying – “This is crazy ! Why shouldn’t I master my music at really high levels, if I want to ?” – or alternatively, “I love dynamics ! Why should my music be penalised for being less squashed than YouTube or Spotify want ?”

And you’d have a point. The answer is, that large changes in loudness are the number one cause of complaints from listeners, so loudness management of some kind is inevitable from this point on. The best we can do is try to encourage streaming services to implement it in the best way possible.

A while ago, Spotify removed the preference setting that allowed you to disable loudness management, to avoid over-limiting dynamic music. But after pressure from users, they brought it back.

We can do the same for loudness management. Spotify have shown they listen to their users before, and maybe they will again – you can add your name to the list asking them to reduce their playback level here. Apple’s Sound Check is pretty good already – we just need them to pressure them enable it by default. And YouTube ? We’re working on it…

The use of loudness management by all the major streaming services was the first step in the right direction. Hopefully before long, replay loudness online will be standardised at a sane level like Apple’s Sound Check, and we can go back to mastering our music exactly the way we want to !
 

Glossary

Some of the terms and topics in the infographic may be new to you – if so, this should help get you up to speed:

LUFS – Loudness Units (Full Scale)

The internationally agreed method of measuring loudness, measured in loudness units LU). Loudness units take into account the fact that our ears are more sensitive to some frequency ranges than others. How do LU relate to more familiar measurements, like RMS, dBFS etc ? See here:

LUFS, dBFS, RMS… WTF ?!? How to read the new loudness meters

dB TP – True Peak Level

Normal peak meters only read sample levels, but in some situations the decoded digital signal can generate levels which exceed 0 dBFS, especially if the music is mastered or mixed at a very high level.

“True Peak” meters use oversampling in order to measure these higher values, sometimes giving results as much as 3 or 4 dB above 0 dBFS ! Lossy encoding for streaming or mp3 can also generate extra peak information above zero, so I recommend you don’t exceed -1 dB TP when mastering.

More information in this video.

PLR – Peak to Loudness Ratio

The difference between the peak level and the Integrated loudness in LUFS. “Integrated” loudness is an overall figure for a whole song or piece of audio. PLR gives an indication of the “crest factor” of the music – how compressed or dynamic it is.

So for example, if the integrated loudness is -15 LUFS and the music peaks at -1 dBFS, the PLR is 14. If the music peaks at -1 dBFS but the integrated loudness is -10 LUFS, the PLR is only 9, which means it has probably been quite heavily compressed and limited.

PLR values measure something similar to the “DR” values you may be familiar with from using the TT Meter, but typically read a few points higher – for example PLR 11 is roughly equivalent to DR 8.
 
 

Loudness online – how loud is loud enough, and how loud is too loud ? is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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Today is the day !

My new plugin is ready, and I can finally tell you about it.

It’s called Dynameter, and you can see exactly what it is, and how it works, in the video above.

Stop worrying about loudness – start succeeding with dynamics

In a nutshell, Dynameter allows you to see a snapshot of the dynamic profile of your music, in realtime – and set your own targets, to achieve your dynamics goals for your music, whatever they might be.

When will it be available ? That’s the great news – it’s available now.

And for the next week, you can get it with a special introductory discount, saving $30.

For all the details, click here.

Take a look, I’d love to know what you think of it ! And if you have any questions, please post them in the comments below !

Announcing Dynameter – my new plugin is released today ! is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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What is Dynameter ? I’m confused !

That’s easy – click here to see a demonstration.

Do I really need this ? I already have an LUFS loudness meter/RMS meter/VU meter

Maybe not ! You can deduce a lot of the information Dynameter displays from any LUFS loudness meter, and achieve similar goals with a VU or RMS meter – for example, I demonstrate one approach here.

BUT

I own many different meters, and none of them display exactly what Dynameter does, in exactly the way that it does. For me, it’s more helpful, more immediate, and easier to use, than any of the other options. (Of course, I would say that…)

The main reason for this is:

It’s not a loudness meter. Dynameter shows you the difference between peak and loudness, which is a great indicator of dynamics. The more dynamic your music is, the larger the PSR value. Whereas if the loudness is pushed very close to the peak level, the PSR value reduces, reflecting the potential loss of punch, impact and space in the music.

But I already have the TT Meter, doesn’t it do the same thing ?

In some respects, but there are some important differences. The TT Meter‘s DR value is similar to PSR, but Dynameter uses the more modern ITU loudness standard, with a history graph. You can see how the dynamics of your music vary over time, making it easy to tell if you’re consistently reducing them further than you want to, or if the music just dipped briefly below your target value.

Finally Dynameter allows you to choose a Target PSR that suits your musical goals. The Target Guides show you at a glance whether you’ve achieved your target, and you can adjust the level or processing accordingly.

So what is PSR ? Why not use PLR or DR ?

PSR stands for the peak to short-term loudness ratio. It’s the same idea as the TT Meter’s ‘DR’ reading, but it’s calculated using LUFS loudness, not the RMS level. This is important, because LUFS places the most significance on the most sensitive frequency range of our ears, so its values reflect our perception of loudness much more closely than raw RMS level.

The two readings are often very similar, though – in our tests, for material with balanced EQ, if you keep Dynameter’s PSR reading above a target of 10 (say) then your master will measure DR10 in the offline TT Meter.

PLR, on the other hand, means simply “peak to loudness ratio”, and is based on the peak to integrated loudness of the music. The integrated loudness is calculated over a whole song or album. The difficulty with this is that short sections may be at a much higher level than the integrated loudness readings suggest, and it’s the loudest moments that suffer the most from excessive compression, limiting or clipping.

Because PSR is based on the short-term loudness, it accurately reflects the loudest moments in the music – and the history graph means you can see them in context.

OK, so what do the presets do ? Do they change the sound ?

No, Dynameter is just a meter, so it doesn’t change the sound at all. The presets are just quick ways for you to get started with finding the right Target PSR for your music. There are some guidelines in this video, and more detailed discussion in the user manual.

Summary

Dynameter combines several simple ideas and presents them in a unique way. The result is a simple, intuitive and effective way to assess the dynamics of your material, and help achieve your musical goals.

For more information, including a short video demonstration, click here.

Confused about Dynameter ? Your questions answered is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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Confused by loudness ? Not sure what dynamics are, or how to measure them ?

No problem – last night I held a live Google+ hangout, on exactly this topic.

Topics I covered included:

• What loudness is, and how to measure it
• Why loudness matters
• Why loudness doesn’t matter (!)
• Why “dynamic is the new loud”
• How to measure “dynamics”, and why you need to
• How loudness works online, and how to optimise your audio loudness for streaming

Plus answering a load of great questions from the people watching !

You can watch the full replay in the video at the start of this post.

I hope you find it helpful !

Ask me anything – about loudness or dynamics is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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At the end of last year I was interviewed by the makers of a new BBC radio documentary called Compression Versus Art, talking about the Loudness War, mp3 compression and their effects on audio quality.

We talked for well over an hour, and I really enjoyed the discussion – but couldn’t help wondering how the final show would turn out ! Presenter Trevor Cox and producer Nick Holmes were determined that it should be detailed, nuanced and accurate – but they only had half an hour to do it in.

Also featuring contributions from Dynamic Range Day award-winner Steven Wilson, legendary producer Steve Levine, members of the BBC Philharmonic and Dr Bruno Fazenda, I was left wondering how they would manage to fit everything in, including an introduction to some quite complicated issues for a general Radio 4 audience.

As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. The show was accessible, clear and comprehensive – really excellent. They packed in an amazing amount of detail – but not at the expense of accuracy. And it was entertaining to boot!

It covered both types of compression (dynamic and data) without confusing the two; it explored both the benefits and the problems of both; it even covered the impact that loudness normalisation on YouTube and elsewhere is having – without needing to dumb the subject down, and including useful demonstrations along the way.

So, if you’ve ever wondered what all the fuss is about the loudness war and/or mp3 compression, this is a great way to get up to speed quickly. And please tell your friends !

I did have a couple of minor reservations – I disagree about the idea that we only like compression because we’ve been conditioned to it by listening to so many recordings over the years. I think the reason is more subtle and interesting – but I think that might have to be a new blog post in it’s own right ! And, I was a little concerned that people might miss-interpret the comments about the benefits of high-quality audio being “masked” by our listening situation. It’s true you won’t hear the differences the show was discussing on small, cheap speakers or in noisy environments, for example – but that doesn’t mean they don’t matter, as I discussed in this post.

These are very small quibbles, though – overall the show was excellent. Congrats to Trevor and Nick – this was Hi-Def Journalism at it’s finest. For a limited time only you can listen to the whole show on the BBC website, here. I’m genuinely proud to have been part of it.

Compression Versus Art – the Loudness War on BBC Radio 4 is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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It’s not about “how to be loud” anymore.

It’s about “What does loudness mean online ?”

Because that’s where everyone listens to music, that’s where everyone shares music, that’s where everyone discovers music.

Youtube, Apple Music, Spotify and all the rest.

And everywhere you go, loudness is managed. Loudness is normalised. It’s measured in different ways, it’s normalised to different levels, and implemented with different tools, but you can’t get away from it.

The loudness of your file is irrelevant, in the 21st century

The question “how do I make my music loud” is irrelevant.

The question you need to be asking is:

“What happens to loudness online ?”

Actually you don’t really need to, because I already have

And all you have to do to find out what I’ve discovered, is watch the video above!

(When you do, you’ll find out that a really easy way to put the information to use is to get my Dynameter plugin. It’s on sale this week, $30 off ! If you’d like to find out more, click here.

To use the PLR feature, existing users will need to update to the latest version, which you can get here.)

Online loudness ? You’re asking the wrong question… is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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This is the video from a great new petition I’ve helped put together with Bob Katz, Eelco Grimm and Matt Mayfield, the creator of the original (and best) YouTube Loudness War video. If you’d like to support the petition, please click here:

Music Streaming Services: Bring Peace to the Loudness War

So what’s it all about ?

Well, you might remember my posts last year about YouTube starting to use loudness normalisation, and what that could mean for the loudness war. They caused the biggest spike of traffic to my site ever – over half a million visitors in less than 48 hours !

My argument than was then (and still is) that loudness management is a Good Thing. If mastering your music “loud” doesn’t reliably mean people will hear it loud because of normalisation, then what’s the point ? People will start looking for other ways to get their music to stand out – and in my experience, optimal dynamics are a great way to achieve that.

So overall, I see it as a positive step.

But it’s not quite that simple.

As I wrote around the same time, YouTube’s normalisation level is pretty high, and Spotify’s is even higher – and uses extra limiting ! Apple’s is more reasonable, but Sound Check isn’t enabled by default on their devices. It was used in iTunes Radio, but they’re phasing it out. Tidal has no normalisation at all, yet !

It’s a mess.

And to help address this, last year I helped contribute to a new set of AES guidelines for online streaming loudness:

Recommendation for Loudness of Audio Streaming and Network File Playback

In a nutshell, the recommendation is that all the streaming services agree on a standardised replay volume of no more than -16 LUFS. This means we can expect consistent playback levels on every service, and also between platforms. Whereas if the recommendations aren’t adopted, there’s a real risk that a new online loudness war will ensue as a result.

Unfortunately, it’s been over six months since the guidelines were published, and there are no signs that any of the streaming services are paying attention – yet.

That’s what we hope this petition will change. If we can show significant support for the idea, we hope that all the streaming services will adopt the AES recommendations. This will result in a better user experience for us when we listen to streaming music, and more importantly leave us free to master our music using compression levels that are right artistically, without worrying about “competing” in the loudness war.

Please sign and share the petition, if you agree ! Here’s the link again:

Music Streaming Services: Bring Peace to the Loudness War

Lastly I’d like to thank Bob K. for getting me involved in both these initiatives, he has been the driving force behind both the recommendations and this petition, and he’s done a great job. I’ll be promoting them both on this year’s Dynamic Range Day, which is on April 29th.

Music Streaming Services – Bring Peace to the Loudness War is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice

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What’s happening ?

In the last couple of weeks we’ve had new releases by Drake, Beyonce, James Blake and Radiohead – and the overall (integrated) loudness of all of them is lower than I’d normally expect. Here are the numbers:

Radiohead -9.9 LUFS
Drake -10.2 LUFS
Beyonce -10.5 LUFS
James Blake -14 LUFS (!)

Wait, what ?

If you’re paying attention, you’ll have noticed that the number for the Radiohead album is barely different from Beyonce or Drake’s – and in a recent post I said that those numbers were “positively restrained, especially in these genres”. But in the same post, I criticised the new Radiohead single for being unnecessarily loud ! How can both statements be true ? Do I need to eat my words ?

Sadly, no. And this post will show you what I mean.

It’s not about loudness, any more

The awkward fact is, the raw integrated loudness figure for an album tell you almost nothing about individual songs within that album.

All these releases include plenty of songs with sparse, mellow arrangements – and their integrated loudness measurements are lower than many current pop releases as a result. And this means they can sandwich in a few really loud songs without having a huge effect on the integrated loudness number – in every case apart from James Blake’s, which really is at a much more sensible overall level than most new releases. (Did I tell you how great it sounds yet ?!)

It’s about dynamics

So if raw loudness isn’t helpful, what is ? That’s where my Dynameter plugin comes in. As the name suggests, it’s a dynamics meter. It gives an estimate of how “squashed” the dynamics of the music are, by measuring the difference between the peak level of the music and it’s loudness. The closer the loudness level of the music is to the maximum peak, the less “loudness space” it uses, and the more “squashed” it will be.

The technical name for this value is PSR , which stands for the “Peak to Short-term loudness Ratio”. It’s effectively an updated version of the TT Meter’s “DR” measurement that you may have heard of – and Dynameter shows a colour-coded graph this value over time, so you can see at a glance how much “loudness space” the music is using.

In a nutshell, the higher the PSR values, the more dynamic the music is likely to be. Very low PSR suggests the music is heavily squashed, utilising relatively little loudness space, and having limited dynamics as a result. Whereas larger PSR values are usually seen in music with more dynamics.

In my experience, audio quality inevitably starts to suffer when the PSR falls below a value of 8, so PSR 8 is coded red on the graph, and lower values go brown and then grey to indicate extremely limited dynamics. Whereas higher PSR values are coded orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.

But what does this tell us ?

You can see how Dynameter measures the PSR profiles of three of the albums I’m discussing in the infographic above, and immediately you can see why I still say the Radiohead album is “too loud” and Drake has better dynamics, even though they both have almost identical integrated loudness measurements of -10 LUFS.

Focusing on the lowest PSR readings, where loudness-war crush is most audible, you can immediately see that “A Moon Shaped Pool” frequently drops as low as PSR 6 – with a tragically low minimum reading of PSR 3. Whereas although “Views” dips down as low as PSR 6 for two songs, visible as bands of dark red in Dynameter’s display, most of the time PSR 8 is more typical – and as I mentioned above, it is possible to go down to PSR 8 without too much risk of loudness damage.

And James Blake ? His album briefly dips down to PSR 6 a couple of times too, but the typical value is even higher, at PSR 10.

So how does it SOUND ?

I said in my original post about James Blake’s “The Colour In Anything” that the dynamics of the album encouraged me to turn it up – and when I did, it sounded great.

In stark contrast, I constantly find myself turning the Radiohead album down. The overall LUFS loudness measurement suggests you should be able to listen to it at a similar volume to Drake, but that’s not how it feels. Fatigue and irritability soon set in, and I keep reducing the volume untill it becomes nothing but background music – which I’m guessing is the exact opposite of what the band were hoping for!

The sound is blunted and stodgy in comparison to Drake and James Blake, for me. They have far more space and detail – in particular there’s far less depth and thump in Radiohead’s sub bass. And the biggest moments feel “held back” to me, full of compression pumping and saturation, whereas the loudest moments of James Blake sing out, sending shivers down my spine. Isn’t that what music is supposed to do ?

Which is a huge shame, because just a few dB more PSR could have made all the difference in the world. The music of “A Moon Shaped Pool” positively cries out for that extra loudness space to take advantage of. It’s tailor-made for dynamics, but the band have chosen to let that opportunity slide. The album was mastered by Bob Ludwig, who is a passionate advocate of dynamics. But he always offers multiple versions and lets the artist choose – and Radiohead went for the “loud” option, as they always have recent years.

Online

The algorithms of the online playback platforms seem to agree with my subjective opinions – YouTube turned “Burn The Witch” down by 5.6 dB soon after it was uploaded, whereas “Hotline Bling” by Drake is only turned down by 4 dB. In contrast, the replay volume of James Blake’s “I Need A Forest Fire” is left virtually unchanged from the level it was originally mastered at, meaning the loudest moments are actually a dB or two louder than the end of “Burn The Witch” !

Don’t take my word for it, though – here’s a playlist with all three songs, judge for yourself. Which song really jumps out of the speakers at you ?

(If your answer is “none of them”, it just goes to show that “loudness” really is pointless…)

The verdict

So is this the end of the loudness war ?

No.

But it’s a step in the right direction, even though both the Drake and Beyonce albums still have a handful of songs on each where the levels go over the top – and the James Blake album shows that they didn’t need to.

But until artists like Radiohead can reject the loudness FUD and choose a more dynamic master, the war will rumble on.

Meanwhile, we can’t sensibly compare whole albums from raw loudness figures – or even the internal dynamics of a single song. Whereas PSR analysis can give immediate, intuitive, at-glance feedback – in realtime, as we work.

According to both my ears, the measurements and the online loudness management software, if the PSR of your music is too low, too often, it will suffer both sonically and in in terms of the playback volume.

Whereas if you want your music to sound great and stand out, a typical PSR of 10, dipping lower at the loudest points, will sound excellent, with maximum punch, clarity and impact – and will be played just as loud as anything else, if not louder – both online and by end users.

And most importantly ? People will want to turn it UP.


#DynamicIsTheNewLoud

For more information about Dynameter, click here.

Please support Dynamic Range Day !

Pop goes the Loudness War is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice

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Music streaming services turn down music that’s louder than their reference level.

They also turn up music that’s quieter.

And that’s a good thing, usually – it improves our listening experience, meaning we don’t get “blasted” by loud masters, or strain to hear quieter songs.

But what happens if you submit a song that the loudness management system wants to boost, and it’s more dynamic than the platform expects ?

Your song will be either be clipped or limited, or more likely it just won’t be turned up as loud as everything else.

If maximum playback loudness isn’t your goal, that’s not an issue. But if it is, you have a problem.

So where is the sweet spot ?

How loud is loud enough, and how loud is too loud ?

This is a question my Dynameter plugin aims to help answer, by measuring the dynamic profile of your music. And for YouTube and iTunes, it works pretty well – to see this feature in action, click here.

But on Spotify, it’s not so easy.

Dynameter user and BBC engineer Guy Rowland discovered that no matter how he tried, the results predicted by Dynameter’s readings (and every other meter he tried) failed to accurately predict how Spotify handled it’s loudness.

Whatever he did, his song wasn’t playing back at the same level as his chosen reference tracks, and lost impact as a result.

So Guy did what any self-respecting BBC engineer would – he threw Science at the problem.

And he found a formula.

You can read his highly detailed and entertaining blog post about the whole process, and all the other things he learned along the way, here.

But in this post I’m just going to go straight for the juicy details and summarise his findings, so you can try the formula for yourself. In my testing so far, it works pretty well !

Measuring dynamics

Dynameter measures the micro-dynamics of your music in two ways. The long-term overall PLR measurement, which works pretty well for predicting loudness on YouTube and Apple Sound Check, in our tests – and the short-term Minimum PSR measurement, which helps you avoid crushing the peaks of your music too much.

In a nutshell:

• If the Min PSR is too low, your music will be turned down
• If the PLR is too high, your song may not be turned up as much as you would like

But on their own, neither of these values reliably predicted how loud Spotify would play Guy’s songs.

Now you may be thinking – isn’t that a huge fail for Dynameter ? Well, not really – Dynameter is not a loudness meter, and predicting playback loudness isn’t our goal for it –  the main focus is optimising musical dynamics. But Guy wanted to go further, and he pressed on with his tests.

And as part of his observations he investigated another valuable way of using Dynameter’s measurements – comparing PLR and PSR.

PLR versus PSR

Remember, PLR is a long-term measurement of dynamics, and PSR tracks the short-term values.

So if the PLR and Min PSR values are similar, it suggests that your music has very consistent dynamics – there isn’t much variety over the length of the song. That doesn’t necessarily mean your song doesn’t have enough dynamics, though – just that they are consistent.

Whereas a larger difference between PLR and Min PSR suggests that the dynamics are likely to be more varied. It’s easy enough to see why – if the overall PLR is high but the Min PSR is low, it suggests that even though the song is quite dynamic overall, some sections are still very crushed.

All this is something we talk about in more detail in the Dynameter manual.

But Guy went a step futher. In his testing, he found that for Spotify, the numerical difference between PLR and Min PSR was crucial in predicting the final playback level.

The bigger the difference between PLR and Min PSR, the more likely it was that the song would be played back below the maximum reference level. In other words, the song would be played quieter than other songs on the platform.

In fact, he boiled it down to a formula.

The formula for playback loudness on Spotify ?

Here it is:

Min PSR – PLR – 8 = Spotify Playback LUFS

(Up to Spotify’s maximum of approximately -11)

So for example, if you play a song from beginning to end and measure it with Dynameter and find it measures Min PSR 9, PLR 12, Guy’s formula predicts that it’s final playback loudness will be

9 – 12 – 8 = -11 LUFS

And since Spotify’s maximum replay loudness is roughly -11 LUFS, that’s about as loud as you can hope for.

What about a more squashed master of the same song ? This might measure Min PSR 6, PLR 9, for example. So the predicted playback loudness is

6 – 9 – 8 = -11 LUFS

The extra compression and limiting used to create this master doesn’t achieve anything – it will play back at the same loudness on Spotify, exactly as we’d expect.

BUT

What about an version of the song with more dynamic variety ? Say with Min PSR 6, PLR 12 ? Meaning the loudest sections are still quite squashed, but overall there is more contrast ? This was the case for Guy’s original master, where he couldn’t get the playback loudness as high as he wanted, and sure enough his formula predicts

6 – 12 – 8 = -14 LUFS

This is 3 dB below Spotify’s normal playback level, and as predicted it sounded quiet in comparison to the reference tracks he’d chosen.

So what does all this tell us ?

1 – No, it’s NOT ‘the formula’

The best results I’ve got with this formula are correct to about 1 dB of accuracy. But a dB can make a big difference to perceived loudness ! We’ll never get it to be perfect, because Spotify doesn’t use LUFS for it’s normalisation – so you need to treat this formula as an “early warning system”, rather than expecting exact results. At the end of the day, Spotify’s algorithm will do it’s thing, and we have to put up with the results!

But we can say…

2 – The loudness ‘sweet spot’ rules

The simple conclusion is that balanced dynamics will be most successful.

This has been my message all along – crushing your music in pursuit of loudness won’t work on Spotify (or any other loudness managed playback system). But equally, too much dynamic variability can also work against you as well, if playback loudness is an important goal for you.

Guy’s final master was less crushed at the loudest moments, and more controlled at other times – and crucially this worked better musically, as well as playing back louder on Spotify.

The key is to find the perfect balance – the loudness sweet spot, and the great news is that the guidelines and presets we offer to Dynameter users work really well. If loudness with great dynamics is your goal, just choose the “YouTube” and “Limited” presets and you’ll be in great shape, for both loudness and musical impact.

3 – More testing is needed

It’s early days – Guy’s formula needs more testing. On the songs I’ve measured, it works pretty well, predicting the right replay loudness to within a dB or two. Most of our testing has been on loud material, though – it may be less accurate for more dynamic songs.

So please, help us out! If you own Dynameter or fancy doing the maths yourself, please give it a try and let me know how you get on in the comments below.

4 – If it SOUNDS good…

Finally, remember to treat all of this with a large dose of salt. Our ears are always the most important judge of what sounds great, not numbers.

In particular, balanced EQ is crucial to sounding great (and loud) – your masters need well-balanced EQ and dynamics. More on this topic here.

Dynameter has been carefully optimised to reflect what sounds best in my experience and opinion, but at the end of the day your ears must be the judge of that. Just remember to loudness-match as part of your decision-making process – click here to find out how.

Conclusion

Online loudness is complicated.

Different platforms have different rules, and none of them use LUFS or follow the AES guidelines – yet.

But with LUFS metering and a little ingenuity, we can have a good idea what to expect.

And by following a few straightforward guidelines – balanced EQ and balanced dynamics – we can be confident our music is going to sound great, have maximum musical impact, and sound loud online.


To read Guy Roland’s blog post about finding a formula to predict loudness on Spotify, click here. For more information about Dynameter, click here.

Predicting Spotify loudness – is this the formula ? is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice

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It’s the question we all dread.

You finished the master, everyone is really happy, and then they hit you with it:

Can you just make it a bit louder ?

Because even though we know that loudness is pointless, even though we know that if you want to sound louder on YouTube, or Apple Music or Spotify or anywhere, the answer is to master with balanced dynamics – no-one else believes it yet.

The artists don’t believe it

The labels don’t believe it

The producers don’t believe it

The A&R people don’t believe it

And plenty of mastering engineers still don’t believe it, either !

Even though we know that:

• Metal sounds better with more dynamics
• Rock sounds better with more dynamics
• Pop sounds better with more dynamics
• Even EDM sounds better with more dynamics

No-one believes us.

They’ve bought into the myth, they’re feeling the FUD.

Don’t Panic

Luckily, they don’t have to believe us, because now we can show them. Quickly, and easily.

This strategy is free, non-techy and simple to implement.

[Update – AND it works ! Matt Colton from Alchemy Mastering used exactly this strategy when he was talking to James Blake’s management when he was mastering his latest album – to listen to my interview with him about it, click here]

Here it is:

Step One – Empathise

No-one likes to be argued with. If you go straight in with “Dynamic is the new Loud”, they’ll shut down and stop listing to you – they’ll think you just don’t Get It.

For the demonstration I’m going to show you to work, they need to know you understand the issue, you feel their pain – and you still think making it louder is a Bad Idea.

So take a little time to listen to their concerns, and show them you understand. Don’t be tempted to argue, or justify, just listen.

Then say something like “I know exactly what you mean. I’ll make it louder for you, and we’ll take a listen.”

Which brings us to

Step Two – Demonstrate

• Keep your optimal master, with balanced, powerful dynamics
• Create a louder version as requested
• Import both versions into iTunes
• Go to Preferences > Playback and enable Sound Check

(This may take a while, the first time you tick the box – iTunes will scan your whole music library. So, it might be best to this step well in advance. In fact, why not try it now, and see how it affects the music you’ve already imported ? And don’t worry, after you’ve done it once, it’s really quick)

• Play both versions
• Explain that this is how it’s going to sound in the Real World, pretty much everywhere
• Ask them – which one sounds better ? Which one sounds bigger, punchier ? Which one makes you want to dance, to nod your head – which one moves you more ?

That’s it ! Chances are, the two versions with will either sound very similar (because loudness is pointless), or the louder, more squashed version will actually sound worse.

Sound Check makes songs play back at similar volume, so the “benefits” of creating a ‘loud’, crushed master are lost. And in fact, many over-squashed songs sound dull, lifeless, muddled or even distorted once Sound Check is enabled.

And if you’re lucky, your job is done – many people are persuaded just by this simple, real-world demonstration. But if not, proceed to…

Step Three – Answer questions

Chances are the person who asked for the extra ‘loudness’ will immediately say – “But no-one uses Sound Check!” or something similar.

But… no-one uses Sound Check !

Here’s your reply:

Actually, Apple Music uses Sound Check. And Apple Music is a major discovery source.

Spotify uses ReplayGain, which does something very similar – and these days, it can’t be disabled.

And here’s the killer – I noticed earlier this year that YouTube also normalises playback volume.

Soon after your ‘loud’ master finishes uploading, YouTube will adjust it’s playback loudness so the volume people hear will be similar to almost everything else. And they’re slowly working back through the archive, doing the same thing to everything that has already been uploaded.

TV already does the same thing – in fact in the US it’s a legal requirement to regulate the loudness of commercials !

And loudness doesn’t matter on radio either – that’s been true for decades.

“Loud” doesn’t matter, any more

So if you won’t hear the ‘loudness’ of a mix or master on YouTube, or Spotify, or Apple Music, or TV or radio – where do you hear it ?

Well, you might hear it in the car – but the first thing you do when you put a new CD in is adjust the volume, right ? So that doesn’t matter, after the first 20 seconds.

And you won’t hear it in a club, because any DJ worth her salt will balance the levels of her mix, just like she balances BPM and mood to make a balanced, satisfying set.

So that leaves… no-where.

(Well, you might hear it on an mp3 player in shuffle mode, if you don’t have Sound Check or ReplayGain enabled. But how important is that, really ? After all, we’re only talking about a few dBs difference between bangin’ and busted.)

This isn’t just hot air, either. Some of the biggest hits of the last year have been mastered without being stupid-loud.

Step Four – Wait

People care about YouTube.

They really care.

Everybody “gets” how crucially important YouTube is for music, in the 21st century.

So show them the demo above in iTunes, and make sure they understand – that’s how it will sound on YouTube, too.

Then stand back and wait.

Let them take both masters home and try it for themselves. Show them this blog post, and some of the ones it links to, especially this one.

If you think they’ll be interested, show them the research, which proves listeners don’t care about loudness.

The penny will drop, eventually.

Optional Bonus Step – Check for success

If you have time and space – try this test with your two masters first, before you play them to anyone else.

I have pretty much a 100% success rate, but Sound Check can be a little quirky – there’s no harm in making sure you get the results you expect, before you do the demo for anyone else.

If it doesn’t quite sound the way you’d hoped, maybe the EQ isn’t quite balanced, or you don’t have the balance of limiting and compression perfectly optimised.

In my experience though, lower level, less crushed masters almost always sound better when Sound Check is on – and my guess is that’s what you’re going to find, too.

This strategy really works. Try it !

FACEPALM: “It sounds great! Now can you make it louder ?” – My simple four-step solution is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice

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Click the image above for higher resolution

[UPDATE: TIDAL now also use normalization, and Soundcloud say it’s “on the list”]

We know now that all the major music streaming services are using loudness normalization – meaning every song is played at a similar level, aiming for a “target” loudness, which is different for every service.

Loud songs are turned down, quiet songs are turned up – IF there’s enough peak headroom.

And because the target level for some platforms is pretty loud, that’s a very significant “IF”.

Because when there isn’t enough headroom to lift the level up without clipping, your music either won’t get turned up and will sound quieter than everything else as a result, or it may have extra peak limiting applied to get it up to the target level. Which may or may not sound good. TIDAL doesn’t turn quieter songs up at all.

None of these is an ideal situation !

So…
 

How loud is loud enough, and how loud is too loud ?

The answer is… it depends.

It depends on your views on dynamics, your views on the loudness war, and which platform we’re talking about – YouTube, Spotify, TIDAL – wherever.

To try and shed some light on the subject, I’ve put together an infographic summarising as much as I can about the topic – take a look, I hope it’s helpful !

(I’d like to say Thanks to members of my Home Mastering Masterclass course, who helped me get this infographic right, offering loads of helpful feedback and suggestions.)

Click on the image to see a high-res version, or click here for a PDF copy you can download and print.

If the terminology used is new to you (LUFS, PLR etc) please see the end of this post for a brief glossary.

Edit – for those who have been asking, BeatPort and Pandora also use a loudness target to even out replay volume. SoundCloud and Bandcamp currently don’t, however in my opinion it’s only a matter of time. And, I’ve been right about this before.
 

So how does it sound ?

In all cases except Spotify, it doesn’t have a sound. There’s no extra processing used, it’s just a simple replay level adjustment, which works reasonably well, in most cases.

The catch, as you can see from the infographic, is that if your music is too dynamic, it may not be turned up as much as other songs – like the blue song playing on YouTube in the infographic, for example.

Whereas on Spotify, this song would be played at the same level as everything else, but it would have extra limiting applied, which may not sound great.
 

Not happy ?

You might well be looking at this infographic and saying – “This is crazy ! Why shouldn’t I master my music at really high levels, if I want to ?” – or alternatively, “I love dynamics ! Why should my music be penalised for being less squashed than YouTube or Spotify want it to be ?”

And you’d have a point. The answer is, that large changes in loudness are the number one cause of complaints from listeners, so loudness management of some kind is inevitable from this point on. The best we can do is try to encourage streaming services to implement it in the best way possible.

A while ago, Spotify removed the preference setting that allowed you to disable loudness management, to avoid over-limiting dynamic music. But after pressure from users, they brought it back.

We can do the same for loudness management. Spotify have shown they listen to their users before, and maybe they will again – you can add your name to the list asking them to reduce their playback level here. Apple’s Sound Check is pretty good already – they’re the only platform whose target loudness complies with the AES Streaming Loudness Guidelines – we just need them to pressure them enable it by default. And YouTube ? We’re working on it…

The use of loudness management by all the major streaming services is the first step in the right direction. Hopefully before long, replay loudness online will be standardised at a sane level like Apple’s Sound Check, and we can go back to mastering our music exactly the way we want to !

If you’d like to see this happen too, please sign the petition.
 

In the meantime…

Until then, the good news is that you can optimise your music today so that it plays consistently on all platforms – and it can still sound great.

My Dynameter plugin was designed to help you do exactly that. For more info, click here – but in a nutshell:

You need to keep the peak to loudness ratio (PLR) of your music low enough to fit into the “loudness space” allowed by your chosen streaming platform, as shown in the graphic above – while keeping the minimum short-term peak to loudness (PSR) of your music above 8, to make sure your music isn’t turned down too much. For more about these terms, see the glossary below.

Glossary

Some of the terms and topics in the infographic may be new to you – if so, this should help get you up to speed:

LUFS – Loudness Units (Full Scale)

The internationally agreed method of measuring loudness, measured in loudness units LU). Loudness units take into account the fact that our ears are more sensitive to some frequency ranges than others. How do LU relate to more familiar measurements, like RMS, dBFS etc ? See here:

LUFS, dBFS, RMS… WTF ?!? How to read the new loudness meters

dB TP – True Peak Level

Normal peak meters only read sample levels, but in some situations the decoded digital signal can generate levels which exceed 0 dBFS, especially if the music is mastered or mixed at a very high level.

“True Peak” meters use oversampling in order to measure these higher values, sometimes giving results as much as 3 or 4 dB above 0 dBFS ! Lossy encoding for streaming or mp3 can also generate extra peak information above zero, so I recommend you don’t exceed -1 dB TP when mastering.

More information in this video.

PLR – Peak to Loudness Ratio

The difference between the peak level and the Integrated loudness in LUFS. “Integrated” loudness is an overall figure for a whole song or piece of audio. PLR gives an indication of the overall “crest factor” of the music – how compressed or dynamic it is. For a great 2-minute visual summary of this, click here:

Peak to loudness ratio (PLR) – Video

So for example, if the integrated loudness is -15 LUFS and the music peaks at -1 dBFS, the PLR is 14. If the music peaks at -1 dBFS but the integrated loudness is -10 LUFS, the PLR is only 9, which means it has probably been quite heavily compressed and limited.

PLR values measure something similar to the “DR” values you may be familiar with from using the TT Meter, but typically read a few points higher – for example PLR 11 is roughly equivalent to DR 8.

The short-term peak to loudness ratio is called the PSR, and is much closer to the TT Meter’s DR readings. It’s a great way to assess the dynamics of your music, and is displayed by my Dynameter plugin – for more info, click here.
 
 

Loudness online – how loud is loud enough, and how loud is too loud ? is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice

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Today is the day !

My new plugin is ready, and I can finally tell you about it.

It’s called Dynameter, and you can see exactly what it is, and how it works, in the video above.

Stop worrying about loudness – start succeeding with dynamics

In a nutshell, Dynameter allows you to see a snapshot of the dynamic profile of your music, in realtime – and set your own targets, to achieve your dynamics goals for your music, whatever they might be.

When will it be available ? That’s the great news – it’s available now.

For all the details, click here.

Take a look, I’d love to know what you think of it !

Announcing Dynameter – my new plugin is released today ! is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice

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What is Dynameter ? I’m confused !

That’s easy – click here to see a demonstration.

Do I really need this ? I already have an LUFS loudness meter/RMS meter/VU meter

Maybe not ! You can deduce a lot of the information Dynameter displays from any LUFS loudness meter, and achieve similar goals with a VU or RMS meter – for example, I demonstrate one approach here.

BUT

I own many different meters, and none of them display exactly what Dynameter does, in exactly the way that it does. For me, it’s more helpful, more immediate, and easier to use, than any of the other options. (Of course, I would say that…)

The main reason for this is:

It’s not a loudness meter. Dynameter shows you the difference between peak and loudness, which is a great indicator of dynamics. The more dynamic your music is, the larger the PSR value. Whereas if the loudness is pushed very close to the peak level, the PSR value reduces, reflecting the potential loss of punch, impact and space in the music.

But I already have the TT Meter, doesn’t it do the same thing ?

In some respects, but there are some important differences. The TT Meter‘s DR value is similar to PSR, but Dynameter uses the more modern ITU loudness standard, with a history graph. You can see how the dynamics of your music vary over time, making it easy to tell if you’re consistently reducing them further than you want to, or if the music just dipped briefly below your target value.

Finally Dynameter allows you to choose a Target PSR that suits your musical goals. The Target Guides show you at a glance whether you’ve achieved your target, and you can adjust the level or processing accordingly.

So what is PSR ? Why not use PLR or DR ?

PSR stands for the peak to short-term loudness ratio. It’s the same idea as the TT Meter’s ‘DR’ reading, but it’s calculated using LUFS loudness, not the RMS level. This is important, because LUFS places the most significance on the most sensitive frequency range of our ears, so its values reflect our perception of loudness much more closely than raw RMS level.

The two readings are often very similar, though – in our tests, for material with balanced EQ, if you keep Dynameter’s PSR reading above a target of 10 (say) then your master will measure DR10 in the offline TT Meter.

PLR, on the other hand, means simply “peak to loudness ratio”, and is based on the peak to integrated loudness of the music. The integrated loudness is calculated over a whole song or album. The difficulty with this is that short sections may be at a much higher level than the integrated loudness readings suggest, and it’s the loudest moments that suffer the most from excessive compression, limiting or clipping.

Because PSR is based on the short-term loudness, it accurately reflects the loudest moments in the music – and the history graph means you can see them in context.

OK, so what do the presets do ? Do they change the sound ?

No, Dynameter is just a meter, so it doesn’t change the sound at all. The presets are just quick ways for you to get started with finding the right Target PSR for your music. There are some guidelines in this video, and more detailed discussion in the user manual.

Summary

Dynameter combines several simple ideas and presents them in a unique way. The result is a simple, intuitive and effective way to assess the dynamics of your material, and help achieve your musical goals.

For more information, including a short video demonstration, click here.

Confused about Dynameter ? Your questions answered is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice

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Confused by loudness ? Not sure what dynamics are, or how to measure them ?

No problem – last night I held a live Google+ hangout, on exactly this topic.

Topics I covered included:

• What loudness is, and how to measure it
• Why loudness matters
• Why loudness doesn’t matter (!)
• Why “dynamic is the new loud”
• How to measure “dynamics”, and why you need to
• How loudness works online, and how to optimise your audio loudness for streaming

Plus answering a load of great questions from the people watching !

You can watch the full replay in the video at the start of this post.

I hope you find it helpful !

Ask me anything – about loudness or dynamics is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice

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It’s probably THE single most common source of confusion I see in discussions of audio.

People say things like:

“The compression on YouTube really kills the dynamics”

or

“To get a good encode the music needs to be compressed really hard”

or

“I hate the sound of compression. mp3s sound really squashed”

Now, all of those statements are based on real opinions about music and sound quality, but they’re all also horribly confused.

Which is understandable, because they’re all talking about compression – but in audio, we commonly talk about two completely different types of compression !

They do different things, they have different purposes, and they have different effects on the sound. But people still refer to them both as “compression”, without saying which one they’re talking about. Sometimes it’s obvious from the context – but often, it’s not.

So, this my infographic is my latest attempt to help people sort out the difference – if you know someone who might find it helpful, please share !

(Click on the image above to see a higher-resolution version, or to download a PDF copy, click here)

And if you want to dig this topic in more depth, here’s something I wrote a few years ago which explains the difference using sponges.

The Gory Details

OK, so you already get it – data compression affects file size, but not dynamics. Dynamic compression affects dynamics, but not file size. And they both affect the sound, but in different ways.

High-quality data-compression can sound almost identical to the original source, while using far less space and bandwidth. But some encoders, codecs and data-rates can suck the soul out of the music, rendering it subtly cold, lifeless, edgy and two-dimensional – or even blatantly distorted, with added ultra-sonic birdies for good measure.

Whereas great dynamic compression can enhance almost every aspect of a recording, adding punch, power, impact, consistency, density and warmth. Just for starters. But inappropriate or clumsy over-compression can also suck the life out of the music, robbing it of almost all the same attributes, or even blatantly distorting the sound.
And even then we’re not done, because the two types do interact in some subtle ways.

Compression plus compression

Excessive dynamic compression actually makes it harder to get a great-sounding data-compressed encode, contrary to popular belief, because the encoder struggles to decide what’s important mjusically when everything is at full tilt the whole time.

And data-compresion can seem to affect the micro-dynamics of the music, by changing the peak level of the reconstructed waveform as a side-effect of the encoding & decoding process. And the more heavily dynamically compressed and limited the source, the more noticeable this effect is. It has no audible effect, though – except perhaps adding extra clipping distortion on playback systems that don’t have enough headroom to deal with the higher peaks.
And because almost all online streaming services use data compression plus loudness management, it’s easy to be fooled into thinking they’re somehow affecting dynamics, too – since really “loud” music seldom sounds anywhere near as impressive when it’s reduced to the same playback loudness as everything else.

Find the sweet spot

Luckily though, the solution to both these complications is straightforward.

Always leave at least 1 dB of peak headrooom, and then find the loudness sweet spot for your music -where you have the perfect balance of loudness and dynamics.

It won’t get turned down online, it’ll encode cleanly to mp3, AAC and other lossy data-comressed formats, and it’ll sound great – maximising the potential for punch, power and impact.

Job done.

Compression is your friend (both kinds!) provided you understand how it works, and how to get the best out of it.

Do YOU know someone who needs this infographic ? is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice

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