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Thoughts about Loudness and Dynamic Range (Patreon)

Published:
2021-10-28 14:33:55
Edited:
2021-10-28 14:34:10
Imported:
2026-06

Content

Here's some thoughts about audio dynamic range nad music loudness.I'm touching upon many topics like LUFS, loudness wars, loudness normalisation, limiting etc. I talk about how I determine the loudness of my albums and music releases and why and what hurst me about how music publishers insist on the music to be devoid of any dynamics at all.In the video's description there's also a list of very valuable videos others made you may want to watch to widen your understanding of the subject.Most of them have been compiled into a YouTube playlist by Ian Shepherd, who's himself taught me a lot about mastering, loundess and audio in general through his excellent podcast called "The Mastering Show". If you're srous about audio production in any sense - I recommend you just drop this into your podcacher and listen from the first episode onwards during your commutes, bike rides etc. It's well worth the time.Enjoy!

Files

Thoughts about Dynamic Range and Music Loudness

--- SUPPORT MY WORK: https://patreon.com/unfa https://liberapay.com/unfa https://paypal.me/unfa --- CHECK OUT MY MUSIC: https://audius.co/unfa https://unfa.bandcamp.com https://soundcloud.com/unfa --- FIND MY VIDEOS: - PeerTube (open-source, decentralized): https://peertube.kx.studio/video-channels/unfastudio/ https://share.tube/c/unfa_channel/ - YouTube (proprietary, centralized): https://www.youtube.com/unfa000 --- ORDER OR PRINT YOUR OWN MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/unfa https://github.com/unfa/merch --- GET IN TOUCH: https://mastodon.social/@unfa https://chat.unfa.xyz https://discord.gg/tgZSvht https://facebook.com/unfamusic (last resort) --- LIVESTREAMS: - Next event: https://www.youtube.com/unfa000/live - Past events: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi2LbJnGR-482eAAihWd6exqyp0bQMfPX - Submit music: https://forms.gle/pLDetJM2WZf8eTRt5 --- TIMESTAMPS: (none - contributions are welcome!) --- FURTHER WATCHING: - Dan Worral x FabFilter - "The secret of maximum Loudness": https://youtu.be/-10h7Mu5VP8 (part 1) https://youtu.be/brXOrmgPCfE (part 2) - Dan Worral - "DJs Want Loud Masters (Cos DJs Are Idiots)": https://youtu.be/bWFeYt4yXEw - Dan Worral - "WTF is Dither?": https://youtu.be/2iDrbgfPjPY - Ian Shepherd - "What's LUFS FFS?!"" https://youtu.be/31zHqzjRn4c --- OTHER INFO: This video was produced exclusively with open-source software and GNU/Linux. - Studio software: https://manjaro.org (operating system) https://www.kde.org/plasma-desktop (desktop environment) https://www.olivevideoeditor.org/ (v. 0.1.2; video editing) https://obsproject.com/ (video capture / streaming) https://www.blender.org/ (3d art) https://inkscape.org/ (2d vector art) https://gimp.org/ (photo manipulation) https://kx.studio/Applications:Carla (live audio processing) Audacity [pre MuseGroup version] (final audio touchup and level control) - Studio hardware: CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X GPU: AMD Radeon RX 480 Mobo: Gigabyte B550 AORUS ELITE V2 Audio I/F: Behringer UMC202HD Mics: Shure SM57 + A2WS (main); Behringer B-1 (room mic); Boya BY-M1 (lavalier) Camera: Lumix GH5 Webcam: Logitech C920 Aux camera: OnePlus 5T MIDI controller: M-Audio Oxygen 49 MKIV Coffee machine: DeLonghi ECP33.21 Mug: https://is.gd/unfamug --- Now go, make some music!

Comments

Andrey Pivovarov

Thanks, unfa! I've been fighting against the "make it louder" label's demand myself for quite some time when did the mastering of my friend's recent release. Thankfully, the label was not too picky and allowed me the -12dB. But I'm scared to think how in the world I can compress my own music if I'd have to bump it up to say -6 dB, because, for example, my latest track, which I worked on for about a year (well, with a lot of intermissions), uses a lot of dynamic range and just cannot be compressed without losing all the low frequencies up to about 500 Hz: https://disk.yandex.ru/d/nu0lKF82Tqzs0Q (crank up the volume to listen as intended). By the way, I also record everything in Ardour (Debian stable/Mate) for the last 6 or 7 years, I think.

unfa

I think Dan Worral's videos I've linked are great to send to these people so they realize they're gaining nothing and loosing sound quality and engagement of the listeners. The Loud ess War made no sense to begin with, but makes even less sense now.

unfa

By the way I've listened to this piece yesterday, but forgot to write down my thoughts. I think it's a really touching composition and I love the depth and expression of all the instruments. I really like the synthetic sub bass and how it complements yet contrasts with the rest of the instrumentation that is rather acoustic. The only issues I've had where some of the flute notes didn't sound perfectly on pitch. I would probably use x42-autotune and and use automation to correct tuning of some of the notes. Yet I am not sure if that's not intentional. The mix was definitely not too quiet for me to listen to on my phone and Bluetooth headphones. The mix was nice and dynamic, very immersive I liked this a lot!

Andrey Pivovarov

Thanks unfa, I really appreciate any opinion! My project is called "Лесной танец" (Lesnoy Tanets), it's the Siberian neofolk music with some indigenous influences (for example I wrote one song last year in the extinct Kamassian language). The slightly out of tune sound is mostly intentional, because some folk instruments cannot be tuned perfectly, and faking their capabilities I consider somewhat unacceptable. For me it's all not only about the final sounding of the recording, but about how real it is all. Although I've never played live, I always think would it be possible to play this thing live? And after all what other genre of music has a right to sound imperfectly than folk? All the instruments are real (not sampled), with minimum of editing. I prefer to do more full takes rather than do lots of editing, because each take has its own distinct character in all of its length and splices in acoustic music are often easily identifiable. The bass synth in the intro is Korg Minilogue. Besides the electric guitar, all the rest is acoustic (recorders, clarinet, Romanian kaval, bodhran, percussion). In whole, I think today everything in art is too perfect, to the extent it becomes distilled and lifeless. Too much precalculation, too little improvisation, while human nature is all about intuition, it's the moving force behind everything that's new and unique. Of course, if music is about space or some lifeless worlds, it must sound ideal. But if I make music is about peoples and cultures of the Earth, it must have some natural patina to it. Anyway, I don't afraid to be artistically different.

unfa

Thanks, that's a very valuable extra bit of information! In this context, it all makes sense. Great work!