Loudness Wars a Modern Example (Radiohead)

[blancmage31]

i mean, i can hear a difference, but if the band preferred the sound, who are we to scold them?

[edagainstthemachine]

Is there really that much of a difference that's worth crying about?

[blancmage31]

@edagainstthemachine Ex fucking zactly. this is audiophile snobbery at its worst.

[antonio610]

@blancmage31 I shouldn't have to suffer poor quality mastering because of your shitty hearing. Don't really care about music? Fine. Just don't act like your opinion matters.

[AwesomeDeadScum]

and this is a fair comparison and signal RMS has nothing to do with this anyway its from 2 totally different sources and you can see the dynamics on the video waveform as you see the first one is artificially clipped and the second one has no clipped dynamics.

[AwesomeDeadScum]

huge f*cking difference ... shit quality vs good quality ... if it was just listener choice how loud he wants to listen to music... loudness war's just sad!!!

[RavianArp]

This isn't a fair comparision! Show the waveforms of both the cd and vinyl and then we can talk. Different mixes make for different dynamics. If you want to compare the sounds normalize the CD to the RMS level of the vinyl and you can compare 1:1.

[cisplatine]

Sorry I didn't read the video description completely, the mix is indeed different ! I didn't know Radiohead published the song in multitrack!

[cisplatine]

The mixing is definitively different between the two versions ! This is a BIG reason to feel some much changes ! Listen to Jonny's guitar right at the start : the CD version pans it on the left side, whereas the vinyl's on the right speaker. Were the L&R channels voluntary swapped ?

[jcims]

This is an excellent example. The soundstage in the stem is so much wider and more well defined...the guitar really pops in the right channel...great stuff.

[fu1501]

sounds alot nicer in the second part

[Nakkinak]

the bass sounds much better and softer uncompressed :/

[bkev93]

Did you alter the whole album? I'd be very interested in your changes...

[bkev93]

@bkev93 Actually, a more practical (legal) question: would their vinyl release be any better? Or is it mastered the same?

[briab]

@bkev93 The vinyl version definitely sounds better and is mastered to be much more dynamic. Hail to the Thief, Amnesiac, Kid A, and OK Computer have much more dynamics on vinyl too. CD versions of Pablo Honey and The Bends sound pretty good, though.

[Auralnoirr]

@briab both Pablo Honey and The Bends were made in 92 and 95 respectively, so thats before this whole "loudness war" started really picking up.

pick up the remastered collectors editions of both those albums and they're loud as shit...sound like shit too.

[darthnozo]

You can really hear the difference when the strings come in 0:45 vs. 0:13. Beautiful, the depth of sound.

[Tablo0213]

@ParanoidAndroid15 that's when SVG comes in.

[mikosoft]

This is so far the best example of what loudness war does to recordings I have heard

[ParanoidAndroid15]

One time, I drew a pig on microsoft paint and shrunk it so as to give it a higher resolution. But I accidently upset the original ratio, making it too skinny. So I made it bigger again to try and get my original pig back, but alot of the pixels were lost or approximated. Having not saved, I lost my pig forever, with a morphed monster in its place. So I guess compression is pretty bad.

[spead]

I WANT TO FUCKING CRY!!!. There is an abysmal difference.

[billstpor]

Also, the overall quality (and musicality) of much of the consumer gear sold these days is pretty appalling. Not just the amplifiers, which nowadays double as home theaters, which means they need to heavily compromise on their musical performance, but also the low quality DACs (either in the CD/DVD player or the home theater depending on the type of output) that severely degrade the quality of the sound, even as it gets converted to analog.

[drionshk]

Wow... in the better mastering, each and every little sound has its own position in space.. each sound comes from a certain direction.

But wait, listen to the CD. there's that little guitar sound in the left ear. then in the vinyl version, it's in the right ear. Why is the stereo swapped?

[MegaBigA2]

I don't see why Radiohead feels they need to have their records loud. They're popularity comes from their close relationship to their fans, not from strings of chart-topping hits and heavy music TV rotation.

Ah, well. Thank god for vinyl, and needledrops.

[Auralnoirr]

@MegaBigA2 its most likely the labels or the mastering engineers fault. Radiohead's albums aren't as loud as other albums out there. Actually In Rainbows is fairly "quiet" and somewhat more dynamic than most albums today.

nothing compares to the loudness of Californacation though.

[Trancefreak12]

Great video, I've actually heard worse compression than this, in which everything became quieter when the kick drum sounded.

[guigoaz]

This really explains why some tracks like Pyramid Song, The National Anthem and Morning Bell (Kid A), sound much less dynamic than others on their same respective albums.

[Nettacki]

It actually started with Oasis and their album "What's the Story? (Morning Glory)"

[sneskid]

I don't care what anyone says clipping or not, it still sounds like shit!

When I turn up my music, I like to feel ATTACKED by the drums, which doesn't happen with this garbage.

Bass is muddy, everything sounds forced, and the PUNCH that ALWAYS gets my attention is missing!

Yeah, I notice this right off the bat - I notice that I DON'T WANT TO LISTEN TO IT! The only thing about it that attracts my a attention, is how shitty it sounds.

Just BORING!

Marketing people - EPIC FAIL!!

[freddiecintron]

wow even the compressed version sounded way better in 480p, I think as far as youtube goes you can get more benefit from uploading uncompressed 480p and putting an annotation that tells people to turn the volume up...awesome vid

[googenshlagen]

I've listened to In Rainbows many times on pretty high quality systems, and while I understand what you are saying, I've always considered it a fantastic sounding album. In fact, better sounding than almost any album I've ever heard.

[truefaith00]

@googenshlagen

I have a high quality system as well, but for some reason I'm still not satisfied with the mastering on In Rainbows. Although it's not overly loud, it's the much unneeded compression that annoys the hell out of me. Thom Yorke's voice isn't high enough in the mix, and the drums sound very dull and lifeless at times (see Bodysnatchers). I find the Hail to the Thief master MUCH MUCH better -- even though I know that gets a hard rep. At least it's cleaner and more dynamic!

[googenshlagen]

@truefaith00

I agree as far as dynamic, and I would say, as a mix, Hail to the Thief has a lot more life. But I've always though In Rainbows was incredibly clean.

What/Where (in the album) do you mean by that?

[Gerrit944]

Are they mentaly handicapped or why do they let someone cripple their music to these extend!?!?

[MUSEDRUMS]

Can I ask, how did you get a version different than the CD version, and which sounds that good? Do you have the whole album in the uncompressed version?

[ajuk1]

Radiohead released the stems for this and Reckoner, unfortunately not Jigsaw.

[MUSEDRUMS]

Ah ok, I had the stems, just didn't realise they were that quality. Thanks for replying!

[crazyedd123]

arctic monkeys fucked this up aswell XD

look up the album with 'i bet you look good on the dancefloor' on it, the quality's terrible.

i noticed in alot of these things that the drum suffers the most from the clipping, shame really, i love hearing that kick of the bass or the snare hits

: /

[ajuk1]

There is no clipping, the sound quality isn't distorted, Radiohead are very careful to just have it loud.

[irrellevents]

It's not clipping and thus doesn't have distortion, but it's lacking in clarity, and attack in the drums. The uncompressed versions has more "life" in it

[crazyedd123]

@ajuk1 ye but you can tell the difference in the drums mostly.

i know what you mean though, i only noticed the drums being different in the 'better' version, the other instruments sounded fine

[wado1942]

@ajuk1 You can't "make it loud" without harming the audio. Any damage done to the audio is distortion. When a snare drum snaps and causes the limiter to push it down to the level of everything else, while pushing everything else down to a fraction of that level for a few milliseconds, that's distortion. Not only that, but very squishy and generally wimpy sounding.

[arumdevil]

@ajuk1 it's not clipping in the sense of breaking the absolute zero limit of a digital recording (ie nasty distortion), but rather clipping the peaks. Of course technically it's compression, not clipping.

But regardless, the CD master IS compromised in my opinion. The second example shown in this video has much better dynamics and the sound quality of the drums in particular is much, much better.

[Auralnoirr]

@ajuk1 while there is no barely any audible clicking and distortion, most of it is removed during mastering.

also a better example would have been comparing the CD to the Vinyl version. Most notably the ending to All I Need.

[Progrogger]

i was just wondering.. is it possible, if i had a realllly good expander, could i apply it to the overcompressed master and somehow revive the dynamics that were lost?

[ajuk1]

Not to this extent.

[JiveDadson]

@Progrogger Nope. It's the deconvolution problem. Once the dynamics are gone, they cannot be restored. I multiplied two integers together to get the number 256. What were they?

[lazrpo]

@Progrogger potentially, but there is no real way to re-add dynamics. You can improve them, but not completely fix them.

[merdufer]

If you listen to the whole song, it still has a good contrast even at this level of compression, especially at the start.

I did feel the drum was kinda mushy when it got to this part, but the huge flood of sound was so awesome I really couldn't care less about drum articulation at that point.

p.s. Why did you pan the guitar to the right? I liked it on the left :(

[darthhomie]

I don't believe the original online release suffered from this. I DLed the MP3 version of the album on release. As Ironic as this is, I feel like the 160 kb/s MP3 has more depth due to this compression. I checked the sound wave file and it looks like the remastered version.

[darthhomie]

Sorry I should say, more like the remastered version.

[deSadetheImpaler]

okay,NOW i understand what all the fuss is about,thanks for the upload.there has to be some kinda grass roots movement to stop this sort of thing.and with a band like radiohead no less, WTF!?!

[Cletonico]

other things that i understand form the mastering is that you can pull up or down and correct Freq's, so how this isn't so obvious in the remastered song's examples?

The mastering is important as the mix, in a way that i understand that you have to know how is gonna be your mix (For example: style of music) to know what kind of mastering "treatment" you want.

how can know really if it's or not the artist desire to really have it that way?

obviously this is not exclusive to pop music only

[Cletonico]

hey, great Explanation about the Nude song on loudness wars, i really hoped their cd's werent trap in that.

hey

do you know if the vinyls (all new Lp's or just the radiohead ones) suffer from this too? beacuase of waht i've read they have more dynamics, and they must to be done in that way

from where you could make you mix? it would be great then listen all in rainbows without compression

[LoboPlomo92]

I'd love to hear the whole remix you did..it's fantastic!

[Markn951]

WOW! What a difference!! How long ago have producers been doing this do you reckon?

[zdfhjk]

The first clip just sounds squashed- particularly the drums I reckon, the compression just kills off all the dynamics. I easily prefer the second one. Maybe that level of compression is suitable for some music, but definitely not this IMO. Good video

[ajuk1]

@zdfhjk, there are loudness war examples of heavy rock music also on Youtube, and they also sound like crap when brick walled.

[zackpliskin]

So where can you get this unmastered version? I'd love to tinker around with it, make my own mixes.

[consortium1979]

Interesting, Listening to my CD version the compression didn't seem as bad as your demo. I recorded the same section of the track into Logic and left plenty of head room and the wave form is far more dynamic that the one you show (admittedly not as dynamic as your mix). While I agree that there is an unfortunate trend of over compressing at the mastering stage (the last metallica album even clipped at points) Im not sure that this is the best example.

[velociround2]

WOW. The difference is so HUGE I actually have no idea why do the producers fuck up with the songs so badly. Why can't they simply put the song without trying to make it louder? wtf? Do they really think we don't have volume sliders? It really makes me mad

[MadCat360]

LOL, "volume sliders". Whatever happened to knobs and dials?!

[MadCat360]

The second one is so much nicer!

[nhancakes]

The guitar playing in the 2nd example is brought out more by the dynamics, but it gets washed out in the first example.

[idunnolala]

second one is more dynamic, obviously. i prefer how the first one sounds though. it's a good effect for this particular song. somewhere in the middle of these two would be ideal, but if i had to choose from the selections id go with the first one. also im way better than you are rah rah

[idunnolala]

first version sounds better sorry

[h0lx]

it just sounds louder, compare it at matching subjective levels.

[Passitivity]

sorry but your ears suck. any idiot can tell you the second one sounds more exciting and alive, even through youtube's compression.

[spellingmastake]

their new song "my twisted words" seems even louder and it still sounds great. i am against music being made louder then it should for the sake of it but sometimes it sounds good.

[spellingmastake]

i know the loudness war is stupid. and some albums sound terrible because of over compression but i have to say in rainbows sounds incredible. i've put some of the songs into cubase to check the levels and i can see that they have been slammed but somehow they don't sound like it. i've noticed no digital distortion or level dipping. and the songs sound big and they seem to kick in when they need to, i would say it's one of the best sounding cds in my collection.

[ajuk1]

I know In Rainbows sounds good but it's bound to as you don't know it any better that is the point of this vid, it does sound good but it could be even better, I hope MFSL are allowed to do Radiohead one day.

[orangesquish]

I noticed the first time straight away after down loading it. When I mixed it in with other Mp3s - when it would hit an In Rainbows track - the volume would jump through the roof. I looked at the waveform and it was real blocky looking and none of the recordings were as suspiciously that loud. - it is a real crying shame. Did people really pay £45 for the box set crapola mix?

[iamlameduck]

How did Radiohead allow this to happen?

[liquidribs]

where can i actually buy or download unscrewed music?

[SeanPatrickFM]

@liquidribs Concert tickets.

[AverageCabbage]

@liquidribs On Vinyl

They can't master music as loud as they do on CDs due to physical restrictions and shit. Therefore Vinyl is superior, and always will be not only because of the loudness war, but because of the warmth of the sound.

[billstpor]

@AverageCabbage So just because people suffer accidents when they drive, walking is a superior method of transportation than driving, no? CDs are capable of producing better sound than vinyl (fact) in the hands of capable engineers.. blame those who "force" them to make 'em louder. As for the so called "warmth" of vinyl sound, it's actually a distortion due to the limitations of the technology. It's funny considering how the same people who praise them for their high fidelity like that too..

[AverageCabbage]

@billstpor I thought exactly the same as you did.a few years ago I went into a record store ( I never listened to analog-music) and listened to a mono-version of Bob Dylan. It was at that moment that I knew Analog-Music was superior. You can't describe how it felt, it was as if the music was alive, as if Bobbby was singing this song just for you. Everytime I listen to digital music, it mostly sounds as if it was merely a copy, an impression of what it actually would have sounded like

[AverageCabbage]

@billstpor But don't get me wrong, I believe in "theory" Cds are superior, they have more space + their mobility etc.

But nevertheless, I'd advise you to go to your record store and just take your time and listen to an all-analog recording, preferably music before the 80s. It is not only the warmth but the depth that Vinyl can offer, making it in my opinion more desirable. As to surface noise: "life has surface noise"

[billstpor]

@AverageCabbage Actually I'm closer to 40 now, so I'm more than familiar with its sound. It's just that as I was saying, those subjective impressions (depth, warmth, etc.. ) are a byproduct of the physical limitations of the format. However, both the equalization and amps used in the analog era were quite different than today's, which have a flatter response. Objectively, there's no more "depth" or "dynamic range" in those records than in a digital format, just for the fact of being analog.

[AverageCabbage]

@billstpor In theory Cd's have more than double the dynamics of a vinyl. But those can't be used, due to amplifying limitations and due to shitty mastering processes aka Loudnesswar.

So in theory the Cd of course "wins" but not in terms of Hi-fi.

Even nowadays many artists prefer an all-analog recording process for the aforementioned reasons. I for myself do believe that an all-analog recording does make a big difference in terms of hi-fi.

[AwesomeDeadScum]

@AverageCabbage maybe because first you record a digital version and before it can be amplified a DAC (digital-analog converter) needs to be used anyway... which makes the quality even worse

[regulargonzalez]

@liquidribs Classical music and opera seems to be relatively untouched by the loudness war, possibly because dynamics there are more noticeable and important than in many other types of music; aside from that, you're basically out of luck.

[TheOneartist]

@liquidribs Get the vinyl version. Radiohead have all their albums on new vinyl.

[okhijo]

@liquidribs that's a bloody good question... any suggestions?

[ajuk1]

The second version is not from the Vinyl, Radiohead released the stems for the song and so I was easily able to create a much more dynamic version.

[Jeefs]

The loudness wars are everywhere..but wow...this one really got destroyed

[jaspertine9]

One word man: Gorgeous.

[tetavo]

ooh. this is a very legitimate reason to use vinyl instead of cds.

[ajuk1]

The Vinyl version isn't much better than the CD.

[Quanturos]

I really like this example. Probably the best one I've heard so far, as you can really hear the difference between the master/remaster.

So you got both the CD and Vinyl to show this, or did you make the edits yourself?

[ajuk1]

The vinyl version of this album unfortunately not much more dynamic, which tell me the source might have already been brick walled and it wasn't done during mastering but I would love to be proved wrong if MFSL ever got their hands on this album, as for how I did this read the description.

[UberDTfreaK]

That's a lot of effort to make basically just the snare sound better.

[ajuk1]

Effort?

[peckishere]

I think they have to put more 'effort' into it to make it sound louder. when this was recorded on the master it would of sounded like the second example rather than the first

[ajuk1]

No there is no requirement.

[youxinxmotion]

haha sorry about this, must've been really tired when i wrote this. Looks like i was getting sample rate and compression mixed up. Thanks for the -6 rating though :)

[oogenesis]

man, this hurts. the original mix is much gentler and cleaner sounding and not fuzzy at all.

[merlucco]

even if in loudness war mode, it sounds great cause it has been well mixed.

[514mtl8410]

hey i get what youre saying and yes you do hear some things clearer...but does that mean that thats the mix they were looking for? i think theyre own mix is exactly what they wanted hehehe

[ajuk1]

So they are doing it for aesthetic reasons, and it's just a coincidence Radiohead are nearly as loud as everybody else I hear fans of lots of bands try to say that about their favorite band.

Its not really a remix, more a remaster with the drums having the correct relative volume. The second part has about the same dynamic range as their own first album.

[Hzqi]

Ahhh, space, breath. It opens up the feel to sing a exhale. Beautiful work.

[Teejman2010]

If you get the vinyl version, it's not limited loudness-war style like the CD, so no, it's not the effect they were going for.

[singerofsong]

you can hear johnnys guitar part clearer and some of Thoms oo's really come out