Bob Katz - Loudness: War & Peace

[slovokia]

Great video thanks - hopefully sanity will eventually prevail.

[DregaTV]

I think the best thing artists can do is make what they hear in their head translate as closely as possible to what they hear in real life. Competing with the loudness of another record or a/b'ing doesn't add value to the beauty of a song. It's more something someone whose not an artist is concerned with (i.e. record label, a&r).

[BOBMAN360]

let it be known! the year 2020 will not be all Peaches & Cream. Bob Katz has spoken!

[DjRippee]

thanks illangelo

[Iwantapplez109]

what is the song @ 10:49?

[jwedel09]

@Iwantapplez109 Not sure, I looked around but didn't find anything matching those lyrics.

[dubified89]

I like how cds sound from the early 90's. I do think they were a bit too quiet before in the earlier 80's, but the loudness of today is much worse.

[DjSens3]

But that's true... less than -2dB sounds too low after strong verses so mastering is needed

[Cevkarade]

Finally Someone Make Clear And Nice Video So People To Understand

[Noahaddavis]

Wow, I have a new appreciation for ReplayGain and iTunes volume normalization.

[troubl3gum]

nice video.

I think you miss a point though. electronic music and heavily DAW-assisted live music don't have much dynamic naturally. some styles of music only exist the loud way and they would sound unnatural with as much dynamic as 80s rock. if done well, (every bus optimized, ducking to optimize frequency ranges...) there is a naturally small dynamic range, even before mastering.

allowing a big dynamic range would make a rock track more natural, it would make and electro track unnatural.

[troubl3gum]

I 100% agree with you about rock, jazz or whatever being the victim of the loudness war. but your conclusion can't work with electronic music. my ears WANT everything to sound loud when I listen to drum and bass or electrohouse, because they were made this way, to be loud, and with all the pre-mastering optimizations possibilities available they would have suffer almost no destructive process during mastering. (although over-processed electronic music exists, and it's horrible too)

[dubified89]

@troubl3gum No all music benefits from having dynamic range

[unfa00]

@dubified89 But most.

[getakshat]

great info.. thanks for sharing.. i also struggle mixing and mastering between loudness and aesthetics.. especially with mixes with too many musical elements.. i hope we go back to a more relaxed sounding mixes in future..

[laffikdcaps]

yea! todays music is too loud! much louder than our records! to be honest we don't have a clue how to mak it louder, so let's contest it! it's the loudnes war! let's stop it 'cause we don't know how to play loud! it leads to disaster!

I think that good music shoud have good piano and forte. while piano can be as quiet as you wish, proper forte requires a bit of hussle. Howewer we, mighty noobs, don't know how..., so let's ban it and get rid of pain in the ass...

[keogh02]

awesome!

[therealKINDLE]

What makes me laugh is that some people are spending more time Mastering the Track, than actually composing the damn music!!

I condemn this. I make music, & I master it very little, if at all. Because I Make Music that sounds good to me. Sure I only have about 50 supporters for an otherwise quiet repertoire & I get very little money. But I'd rather eat out of the can all week, & not CARE what others think about my art, than to DESTROY it with cut-throat competitive compression.

[ITAMonkey]

Needs to be louder. 100 db

[ChrisAcosta29]

Be your own record producer and let us know where to buy your music!!

[RecordnRtist]

LOUDNESS!

[dudestube]

In the next 30 years there's going to be a lot of deaf people walking around.

[jwedel09]

@dudestube That's awesome! It's sad but it's true

[acoustics101]

Dynamic compression, although fine for most pop music, sucks the life out of classical music. It sure doesn't sound like a live performance outside that heard at an amplified event. I've always been an advocate of setting the record level b...y the highest peak level in the music. Doing otherwise defeats the very concept that digital recording with high bit rates can offer. Luckily you can still get recordings made with that philosophy on Telarc and Sony Classical.

[computerboy13]

I am 17, and personally, I still listen to vinyl because the tracks NEED to be quieter in order to fit a full album on a disk. Sadly, a few records are effected by the loudness war too, where they were digitally clipped, THEN transferred over to the record. This pisses me off to no end because I love the punches of a heavy drum or a bass that almost appears out of nowhere. Music just has no layer now, and It makes me sad when I listen to modern music...

[sardhouse76]

@computerboy13 i'm really proud of you!!!

[mreisigl]

these days it seems, labels aren't the only ones to make decisions. the larges revenues are still coming from airplay and distribution - that's why i'm hoping for iTunes to take a stand for the right thing

[Hitrate]

Thanks

[mreisigl]

2012 might get interesting as some european national broadcasters (like ORF in Austria, ARD in Germany) will pick up the ebu-r128 recommendation. It's loudness normalization will allow 23dB of headroom.

I believe true change for the music industry will only happen when media players and online distributers pick up this trend as well.

[jwedel09]

@mreisigl It's pretty wild where the industry is heading. Once the labels say it's so, it's only a matter of time before the other outlets (internet, streaming media, etc.) "have" to meet the new standard.

[ShoshotFr]

Wow. That's a treat of an informative video :)