"Loudness War" Pleasurize Music (VST meter plugin)

[Marah Mag]

I'm having fun with these meters. And if Reaper optionally offered such metering, it would make Reaper that much cooler (as if it could possibly be....)

But still....

The so-called loudness wars are about aesthetic standards.

To criticize the "lack of dynamics" in any given piece of music, or category of music, or music in general, is to hold that music against a set of aesthetic standards.

The Pleasurizing Music Foundation is about establishing a set of aesthetic standards. It's right there in their name.

The use of a 'DR number' label is about enforcing a set of aesthetic standards.

To invoke a "moral commitment" to live up to a "public stance" one took to follow a set of aesthetic standards is about enforcing those aesthetic standards with emotional blackmail; if that's too harsh a word, call it guilt-tripping. Or peer pressure.

The attempt to establish and enforce aesthetic standards is about as unaesthetic as it gets.

I'm sure this movement will find its followers. I'd be very surprised if it got anywhere. It's all so incredibly prissy.

And that assumes this movement is not just an April Fool's joke and a publicity move for the company behind the DR measurements (whose concern for aesthetic standards didn't keep them from making a VST that takes up 3/4 of the vertical height of a 1920x1200 monitor.)

From their "Our Aim" page: http://www.pleasurizemusic.com/en/our-aim

The objective is to revive the willingness to pay for music and therefore to create a healthier basis for all creative participants within the music industry.

We are not surprised by the fact that music listeners are losing the willingness to legally acquire music, because of the fact that contemporary releases are mercilessly over-compressed – a situation that turns off even the biggest music fans.

I can't verify this... I suspect it couldn't be verified in any case... but I don't buy the idea that "music lisateners are losing the willingness to legally acquire music" because "contemporary releases are mercilessly over-compressed." Both facts may indeed BE facts. But their relationship...?

From the Agreement page: http://www.pleasurizemusic.com/en/agreement

Dear musicians and music creators: By checking the box "I agree" or "I commit," you are expressing your commitment on a completely voluntary and non-binding basis. This document has NO legal value.

But you are agreeing to a moral commitment and are also taking a public stance in favor of the creation and production of music having certain loudness and quality standards.

Please carefully read each voluntary "obligation" which is linked to an Agreement or Commitment:

* I agree 1 (Music Listener, Musician, Music Producer, Mixing Engineer, Consumer Electronic Industry)
* I agree 2 (Mastering Engineer)
* I agree 3 (MI & Pro Audio Industry)
* I commit 1 (Record Companies – during Phase 1)
* I commit 2 (Record Companies – during Phase 2

And more from the Our Aim page:

Phase one begins officially on April 1, 2009. We will inform music listeners around the world about the advantages of a more dynamic music and show them how to recognize this on recordings.
The DR logo provides a quality label recognizable by everyone inside and outside the industry. The logo is already available on this site for download and license-free use. It exists in several variations and will be visible on the back side of CD jewel cases (on the inlay cards) and tells the consumer how much dynamic range the album contains.
At the same time record companies which have already signed the voluntary Commitment 1 begin to furnish CD releases with a small info sheet (b/w, booklet dimensions) and will print the DR logo on the back of the CD. This way music consumers will be able to see how much music they really have in their shopping cart.

The whole thing sounds kind of boy-scouty and purity-ringy.

It leaves a bad taste in my ears.

[yep]

Originally Posted by Marah Mag

...The whole thing sounds kind of boy-scouty and purity-ringy.

It leaves a bad taste in my ears.

I agree 100%.

The whole thing is pissing in the wind, and is assuming that music pirates are genuine in their claim that piracy is a result of music not worth paying for. Which is a little sad.

The chicken-and-egg aspects of modern popular music recordings and the effects of piracy on gutting borderline and smaller artist contracts is a gordian knot. Getting a bunch of audio nerds to "promise to pay" for good-sounding records is ridiculous on its face, when flatlined teenybopper records are still going multi-platinum, and when indie and "niche" artists are being consigned to zero-advance self-recorded distribution contracts anyway.

Music pirates have zero voice in the music industry. They are unregisterable voters with a loud mouth but zero power. Their "promise to pay" is laughable.

The good news is that there IS a lively and thriving industry of music under the radar, consisting of smaller and independent artists connecting with smaller niche audiences, and their records are often not killed with limiters. For good or for ill, most of them have little chance of quitting their day jobs unless they're already from a fairly privileged class, but we get what we pay for.

[yep]

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

but, at least most of the problem.

Way to take a quote out of context.

If pirates didn't "pay for" music in the form of high-speed internet connections, expensive mp3 players and big hard disks, if they didn't invest time in actually searching for and downloading the music that "isn't worth paying for," but merely listened to the *free* radio indiscriminately, then they might have a case that the music isn't worth paying for.

Anyway, not to hijack. Back to the topic of limiting/compression.

[liteon]

This is strange, my "Rummors" CD (import from France) says:


"Don't Stop"


A quick note: old records weren't exactly produced in 64bit FP environment.
Example: The Beatles - Michele ("Love Songs" LP, 12" Vynil, issued 1977) - DR8
On Sinatra or Thelonious Monk for example the results might be similar.

Another quick note: You can't smash the sound that much on Vynil and thats why I prefer the medium 100x more than CD.

Not particularly interested in finding problems with the PMF strategies. But I approve the idea of putting DR stickers on modern CD. I'd be happy tbh, if I had the chance to trust a DR value and not to buy some of the new CD's I've bought.

Edit: Example of ME who masters the same for CD and Vynil:
Rob Acid
http://www.eclectro.nl/2008-03-22-ro...over-mastering

[griz lee]

Initially, I thought this was a good idea. Dynamics are good, right?

After measuring a cd which i just put out where there was no limiting of any kind on the master, and found it came in at DR 10 I am way pissed off that their literature suggests that this is 'bad' because it comes in at less than 14.

10 is what the guys playing on the record produced. Some minor vocal compression (2:1) only. Acoustic instruments.

So, 'YES' TO providing the information to make informed decisions (which can be done through non legislative meters like Bob Kat's K-System, or Peak+RMS that we have already). That's good.And, i'd really like to see RMS+Peak meters on the channels in Reaper as discussed in the F/R section of this forum recently to assist with good mixing practice.

...and a big 'NO' to some outside organisation telling me that because the DR is too low that music 'unfit for consumption'. Take a hike - that's one step too far. How about the producers, engineers and musicians and public decide that. Every record is different, and has different demands. Dynamics become part of that equation and seriously enter the aesthetic domain. No 'rating system' can determine that I think.

[airon]

Unfit for consumption ? Nah, in order to get the DR sticker that people want to have so nobody can lie about the dynamic contents of their records, a record with a DR number of 10 simply get turned down by 4 dB. That's all. There's no blame attached to it.

I support the effort of placing DR stickers on the CDs for the simple reason that normal consumers now have a number to gauge their purchases by, in addition to whatever other things have influenced them so far.

[Zargon the Destroyer]

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

irrelevant irrelevant

I don't know why you're having such a hard time with this simple concept. It's really very, very easy to understand.

Person X says: "If music sounded better, people would buy it, not steal it."

Person Y says: "If people who are currently stealing, not buying the music didn't already like the product, they wouldn't invest the time and energy to steal it, thus it seems unlikely that any qualitative improvement in product would inspire the end of theft, since there seems currently no such demand from the thieves."

You say: "Irrelevant."

How then, since the discussion concerns a claim that (subjective) qualitative improvement in produt would end/lessen theft and inspire greater sales, is this 'irrelevant'?

Or are you simply t-rolling?

[politcat]

Originally Posted by Marah Mag

I'm sure this movement will find its followers. I'd be very surprised if it got anywhere. It's all so incredibly prissy.

i'd call it preachy, rather than prissy. Still, I think they're on the right track

I don't buy the idea that "music lisateners are losing the willingness to legally acquire music" because "contemporary releases are mercilessly over-compressed." Both facts may indeed BE facts. But their relationship...?

they seem to just be trying to tie it in with the loss of sales quandary major labels have been facing. it's a stretch, but no biggie

I think you go too far in even considering this a hoax. Loudness is a big problem and some people are trying to fix it, that's all

to others about their plugin, if it is faulty, write them and say so

I think Pleasurize Music Foundation is a good effort, like the one charles dye is involved in

btw, here's a cool article on dynamics by Dave Moulton:
Beyond Levels Management

[Lokasenna]

I think overcompression is a rather small factor on the list of Why People Pirate Music. Much bigger items include "Laziness", "Free vs $$", and "4/5 Of An Album Today Is Filler To Go With A Nice Single".

[Zargon the Destroyer]

Originally Posted by Lokasenna

I think overcompression is a rather small factor on the list of Why People Pirate Music. Much bigger items include "Laziness", "Free vs $$", and "4/5 Of An Album Today Is Filler To Go With A Nice Single".

Exactly.

You know why people shop-lift cans of delicious meat-product?

Because the the meat-product isn't quite delicious enough, that's why. Add a little more gravy to the meat product and shop-lifting will be a thing of the past!

Um, no.

[Lokasenna]

Well, I don't buy a lot of albums anymore because I expect most of the disc to suck. When I can download it for free and it turns out I was right, what incentive is there to buy the album?

When I know that maybe a buck or two of the $20 sticker makes it to the artist, what incentive is there to pay it?

Note that I do buy the albums I like, though I'm admittedly in a minority there.

Anyway, my point was simply that shitty dynamic range isn't what drives people to pirate music.

[Marah Mag]

I don't seriously think it's a hoax. Just playing with the fact that their "Phase 1" starts April 1.

[airon]

Originally Posted by Lokasenna

Well, I don't buy a lot of albums anymore because I expect most of the disc to suck. When I can download it for free and it turns out I was right, what incentive is there to buy the album?

When I know that maybe a buck or two of the $20 sticker makes it to the artist, what incentive is there to pay it?

Note that I do buy the albums I like, though I'm admittedly in a minority there.

Anyway, my point was simply that shitty dynamic range isn't what drives people to pirate music.

It's my primary reason for buying close to no music any longer. I've ditched one of my favorite artists Prince, whose albums were just destroyed in the mastering process(or mix, who knows) in the past 10 years. The last two albums I listened to maybe three times at most. High quality recordings, destroyed somewhere in the chain and coming in with a very low DR score indeed. The album "312' is a 5.

So all the low-dynamics people, who don't want stop their music from screaming at me... **ck 'em. Make it sound better, or get lost.

[plush2]

In an industry were perceived value is all we've got to sell then it sure does matter how the average person perceives the product. No doubt there are those who will steal no matter what. I'm sure we all had a friend who would sooner tape hours of radio to get a copy of their favourite song rather than buy the cassette. That's another issue.

I have a crazy thought that a portion of the blame for our culture-wide short attention span when it comes to media lies with the incessant barrage of noise we encounter both in music and visual media. I believe as many people avoid commercials by downloading and tivo-ing shows because of the ridiculous volume difference between the episode and the ads as do so to avoid inconvenience. It's downright disturbing and makes the average human feel uneasy, on the edge of a primordial flight response. Music is the same. Overly loud sound/music, no matter how good is sending a subconscious overload message to the brain. The one area where individuals can spend hours immersed in a sonic landscape is in video games which have a broad and compelling dynamic range very much like....real life.

The "pleasurize" folks may be overly idealistic, a bit corny and rigid but they make a really handy free meter system that get's the point across well. The price-tag combined with ready availability means there is very little stop anyone and everyone from using this. Comparing to the thousand dollar initiatives and exclusive membership strategies presented by others I really like what these people are trying to do.

[Wilkesin]

Originally Posted by airon

a record with a DR number of 10 simply get turned down by 4 dB.

I hope people aren't confusing this thing for a loudness meter because that has nothing to do with it. It's simply and peak - RMS meter and it doesnt seem to work well for music outside of the 'pop' genre. Some of my ambient stuff (that had very very little to no limiting) that is not loud at all came back with DR numbers of 7 and 8 simply because they are 'washy' and don't move too much in terms of volume.

[Amberience]

I love music too much to be put off by engineering practices. This whole thing is just symptomatic of people looking at music as a product, rather than an artform.

And to say you've ditched an artist because of their mastering... well... why are you listening to music in the first place?

[politcat]

i'm looking fwd to depeche's new album, squished or not

[chip mcdonald]

I don't care about some authoritarian push to use this number or not, or what number defines "good" or not.

I'd just like to have compressors that would easily let me dial in defaults that I *already know I prefer*, because as a quantitative figure it's a very clever and simple way of summarizing general dynamic range preferences independent of source material. It would let one ball-park things in a quick manner, or give you a "quasi-logical" starting point.

/ No, I'm not saying I don't want any other controls or that this supplants any other approach, or listening, blah blah blah, so save it

[JonnyHomes]

I sure hope this takes off. The loudness war is crap.

[PAPT]

This system seems to be heavily flawed.

The current problem is one of over-compression which leads to a distorted sound for the entire production making it unpleasant to listen to.

The problem has nothing to do with dynamics which is an artistic choice.
If an artist wants the volume to be absolutely constant throughout a song that is their prerogative. If they do that without using limiters to squash the sound into distortion where is the problem?

By demanding a certain dynamic range this new system is forcing artistic decisions.

There have been too many examples in this thread alone where tunes that have not been compressed at all but just peak near 0bd have been shown to be unacceptable by this metering system. Most likely because there is little volume variation in the content.

[JonnyHomes]

You make a good point PAPT... some styles of music have a very constant volume as a basic part of that style (punk rock comes to mind.)