It makes me wonder if there won't be employed a "pay to play louder" scheme on these services, much like how TV commercials are louder than normal programming. For example, an artist with cash to spare might pay for their song to play louder, thus stand out (which is what started this nonsense to begin with on radio). Just a thought.
Thanks for these videos, very enlightening. At 0:59 "And there's another video where you can find out more about that (Short term peak to loudness ratio)" Can you link to that video? I have no idea which video you are referring to.
+Ian Shepherd yeh, people in fact complain if anything when its clipping their cheap system, though will still buy things for good songs despite low DR
Another nice and instructive video Ian. One question though : at 5:05, I read "if the PLS of your music is [...] lower than the platform PLR, it will be played at similar volume". Just to make it clear, that means the platform system will *boost* the gain on my song to match the platform PLR ? In fact the whole thing is a *normalization* process at the platform PLR done by adjusting the gain before sending audio to the client/user ? Or is this more subtle ?
Yes ***** that helps a lot. I will rewatch the video at the light of your reply ! One point that I missed is the PLR is actually mesured on a positive (?) scale. And I confused that with the loudness as measured in LUFS which by definition is a negative scale.
So one question I have concerning this is, why do some songs get played back significantly quieter than others when I have "soundcheck" enabled on my iphone?
Yesterday I did a test on YT with two masters and the louder one is still much louder. Does YT sets the volume immediately or maybe it's done for tracks with some popularity?
How much do you really think loudness effects perception of a song? I mean, if a song is well written and well produced isn't that 90-95% good enough? This whole loudness war stuff is very irritating to me. I also think that the listener fatigue an over compressed song/album will cause is just not worth it. Thoughts?
First it says "2. If the PLR of your music is higher than the Platform PLR, it may not be turned up as much as other songs" and at 6:47 you say "In fact what will happen is that this song will be turned down" when it is within the confines of the platform PLR. To me this seems contradictory or have I just misunderstood something?
+Ian Shepherd Ok thanks for replying, that makes sense. As for spotify, does your local music go through the same algorithm as the streaming music? Also, why is PLR used for loudness control and not something like RMS or LUFS?
+Ian Shepherd Thanks for replying Ian. It makes sense now. I tried mastering one of my tunes at 10, 8, 6 PLR respectively to compare it with how loud it was compared to some of the streaming music. It had good mid-range content but still sounded a few dB lower than some of the louder material (such as Travis Scott - Upper Echelon), even when my track was at 6 PLR... However, I found the lower PLR I got the louder it sounded in Spotify, which at first didn't make sense but does now. Thanks!
+Ian Shepherd I had mastered the same piece of music at 6, 8 and 10 PLR respecitvely. So it was a local file, which I think explains why the PLR made such a big difference in loudness; it hadn't been run through the Spotify algorithm. Yet when I compared this to a Travis Scott track (his tracks are known for being incredibly loud), it still sounded a few dB lower. I hope I'm making sense!
I'm a bit lost with this one. How come songs with less PLR values than the platforms' would be played at a similar volume to other material, if the loudness management is going to turn them down? And also, why songs with greater PLRs would not be turned up as much? I thought the whole point of loudness management was the opposite, namely turning loud songs down and playing the most dynamic ones with as much volume as possible.
+Ian Shepherd The confusing part is when you say that if a song has too little dynamic headroom, it won't be turned up any further. When you show the Death Magnetic graph however, you point out how heavily the audio has been turned down. So, as far as I've understood, it should be like: songs that have the same loudness as the platform's target = no change; songs louder than this stepoint = turned down to match it; songs quieter than the target value = can't be turned up because increasing volume without extra limiting would not be possible without clipping. Is that right?
+Ian Shepherd Now that you mentioned that, it would be interesting to know if UA-cam's algorithm considers clipping everything above 0 dBFS, or if it takes into account true peaking, and all the problems with intersample peaks and lossy compression. That could represent an issue if a quiet song has a louder section as it may clip slightly. But I guess that's just too much technicality for a platform that wasn't conceived as an online music service in the first place!
+Ian Shepherd Thanks for all the info, your videos really changed the way I work for the better. I'm looking forward to see more and more dynamic masters in the future from the whole industry, I think this is definitely the way to go.
Thank you, Ian. You keep making great content; keep it up!
this is great information, thanks Ian
It makes me wonder if there won't be employed a "pay to play louder" scheme on these services, much like how TV commercials are louder than normal programming. For example, an artist with cash to spare might pay for their song to play louder, thus stand out (which is what started this nonsense to begin with on radio). Just a thought.
Thanks again for your helpful info on mastering Ian!
would love to see your dynameter plugin ported to linuxVST format
Thanks for these videos, very enlightening.
At 0:59 "And there's another video where you can find out more about that (Short term peak to loudness ratio)"
Can you link to that video? I have no idea which video you are referring to.
mastering? thats ez
1. compressor
2. limiter
3.
4. Sausage Fattener, Soundgoodizer, another stack of 20 sausage fatteners
+Ian Shepherd yeh, people in fact complain if anything when its clipping their cheap system, though will still buy things for good songs despite low DR
Another nice and instructive video Ian.
One question though : at 5:05, I read "if the PLS of your music is [...] lower than the platform PLR, it will be played at similar volume". Just to make it clear, that means the platform system will *boost* the gain on my song to match the platform PLR ?
In fact the whole thing is a *normalization* process at the platform PLR done by adjusting the gain before sending audio to the client/user ? Or is this more subtle ?
Yes ***** that helps a lot. I will rewatch the video at the light of your reply !
One point that I missed is the PLR is actually mesured on a positive (?) scale. And I confused that with the loudness as measured in LUFS which by definition is a negative scale.
So one question I have concerning this is, why do some songs get played back significantly quieter than others when I have "soundcheck" enabled on my iphone?
What about electronic music management?
Yesterday I did a test on YT with two masters and the louder one is still much louder. Does YT sets the volume immediately or maybe it's done for tracks with some popularity?
How much do you really think loudness effects perception of a song? I mean, if a song is well written and well produced isn't that 90-95% good enough? This whole loudness war stuff is very irritating to me. I also think that the listener fatigue an over compressed song/album will cause is just not worth it. Thoughts?
First it says "2. If the PLR of your music is higher than the Platform PLR, it may not be turned up as much as other songs" and at 6:47 you say "In fact what will happen is that this song will be turned down" when it is within the confines of the platform PLR. To me this seems contradictory or have I just misunderstood something?
+Ian Shepherd Ok thanks for replying, that makes sense. As for spotify, does your local music go through the same algorithm as the streaming music? Also, why is PLR used for loudness control and not something like RMS or LUFS?
+Ian Shepherd Thanks for replying Ian. It makes sense now. I tried
mastering one of my tunes at 10, 8, 6 PLR respectively to compare it
with how loud it was compared to some of the streaming music. It had
good mid-range content but still sounded a few dB lower than some of the
louder material (such as Travis Scott - Upper Echelon), even when my
track was at 6 PLR... However, I found the lower PLR I got the louder it
sounded in Spotify, which at first didn't make sense but does now.
Thanks!
+Ian Shepherd I had mastered the same piece of music at 6, 8 and 10 PLR
respecitvely. So it was a local file, which I think explains why the PLR
made such a big difference in loudness; it hadn't been run through the
Spotify algorithm. Yet when I compared this to a Travis Scott track (his
tracks are known for being incredibly loud), it still sounded a few dB
lower. I hope I'm making sense!
Milo P why can't I see Ian's replies :(
Hi +Milo P can you let me know what Ian Shepherd said in response to this question? His replies have vanished!
I'm a bit lost with this one. How come songs with less PLR values than the platforms' would be played at a similar volume to other material, if the loudness management is going to turn them down? And also, why songs with greater PLRs would not be turned up as much? I thought the whole point of loudness management was the opposite, namely turning loud songs down and playing the most dynamic ones with as much volume as possible.
+Ian Shepherd The confusing part is when you say that if a song has too little dynamic headroom, it won't be turned up any further. When you show the Death Magnetic graph however, you point out how heavily the audio has been turned down.
So, as far as I've understood, it should be like:
songs that have the same loudness as the platform's target = no change;
songs louder than this stepoint = turned down to match it;
songs quieter than the target value = can't be turned up because increasing volume without extra limiting would not be possible without clipping.
Is that right?
+Ian Shepherd Now that you mentioned that, it would be interesting to know if UA-cam's algorithm considers clipping everything above 0 dBFS, or if it takes into account true peaking, and all the problems with intersample peaks and lossy compression. That could represent an issue if a quiet song has a louder section as it may clip slightly. But I guess that's just too much technicality for a platform that wasn't conceived as an online music service in the first place!
+Ian Shepherd Thanks for all the info, your videos really changed the way I work for the better. I'm looking forward to see more and more dynamic masters in the future from the whole industry, I think this is definitely the way to go.
P
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