MQA Off-Topic Spinoff

[Samuel T Cogley]

6 hours ago, Brian Lucey said:

 

Jimi Hendrix, or SRV?   Both so great.  Joe Bonnassa?  Not even close !

 

Look, I am making records in the present.  For artists of the present

 

This really is the point others have been trying to make with you regarding dynamic range.  Many (me too) have the older versions of various catalog titles and it's quite clear when the mastering engineer compresses the dynamic range of a remaster.  So while DR on contemporary recordings is something like an aesthetic decision, for catalog titles, it's more like wanting them to be as loud as those contemporary recordings, which pretty much ruins them.  I totally get that you're making modern music.  But modern and audiophile don't usually cross paths, unless it's music specifically made to appeal to audiophiles, which based on your posts in here, I don't think you have much interest in.

[Samuel T Cogley]

5 hours ago, Brian Lucey said:

 

Wrong. wrong, 100 times wrong.

 

I'm 50.  I know the Recorded History of Music I would bet, even better than you.   From the earliest Smithsonian Collections of early American field recordings to early blues from the Delta, to Benny Goodman or Harry Belefonte at Carnegie Hall, to Kind of Blue, to the 60,70,80 and the horrific 90s in rock (overcompressed and all midrange) to the modern era where the ARTISTS are 100% in charge and I SERVE THE ARTIST.

 

Not you. 

 

Them.

 

When did "Audiophiles" decide that you entitled to tell artists what to make?  For the 1% or less of their audience?   REALLY ?

 

You are not listening, MASTERING ENGINEERS ARE NOT MAKING THE DECISION YOU DESPISE.  Give it a fucking break.

 

----------------------

As far as the remastering of old work,  I have said many times that is almost always a money thing, done on the cheap by B level MEs, I don't like to see it done and I am not hired to do it.  Those however are a TOTALLY UNIQUE TOPIC because once the label owns the work the artist is out.  Louder is the easier way to make it different, label people are not the most sensitive to musicality in the remastering departments, and I agree that it's not always better, often worse.

 

I would love to remaster Steely Dan, however, I can't listen to the CDs anymore.  Far too much perfectionism, not enough vibe.  I doubt that would ever happen, but it would be great.

 

Speaking of Steely Dan, the mid-90s remasters are generally what I listen to.  Anything after that is way too strident and loud for me.  You may not be aware of this, but there is some consensus that overly loud content causes listening fatigue. 

 

Going in a little different direction, I'm curious what you think about the work Bob Katz has been trying to do to bring awareness of the destructive aspects of excessive loudness to the music industry.  He has proposed a loudness standard for music mastering with an LUFS target of no greater than -16 and an LUTP ("true peak") target of no greater than -1.

 

It's important to understand that loudness is really what we're talking about here and DR suffers (sometimes greatly) when modern loudness levels are used.  Bob Katz has talked about the concept of "competitive loudness" and how it doesn't have to be as loud as "the industry" thinks it does.

 

I understand that scoffing at or even mocking audiophiles is kind of a thing with some mastering engineers.  But as you point out above, you're mastering for earbuds, Beats headphones, portable Bluetooth speakers, and car stereos (the 99% to the 1%).  And again, modern music is not what we're talking about here.  The idea that there is an "audiophile" quality to something like this (for example) is absurd in the extreme.  It's formulaic pop music.  The flavor of the month/year.  It's the polar opposite of the audiophile experience.  But, sure enough, there's an MQA version of that on Tidal.

 

As a music lover, I sincerely appreciate the work you do and the advocacy that you've engaged in regarding the negative aspects of MQA.  But you have to understand that this is an audiophile forum and MQA was sold to audiophiles as, "In almost 40 years of attending audio press events, only rarely have I come away feeling that I was present at the birth of a new world."  The MQA content I care about is catalog titles, not contemporary releases.  And most of the MQA content I've heard has been content that has too much of a loudness boost (hence, less DR and less fidelity).  I get that the heads of the major record labels don't really care about audiophiles.  Which is why believe that the record labels see MQA as a kind of DRM and there is zero desire there to create "Quality" (the middle letter in MQA) content.  Fidelity = Quality is my mantra.

 

Your point about (re)mastering engineers of catalog titles being the "B team" is valid (though I can think of a handful that might take great issue with that).  There are certainly some who turn out great stuff and even a very few who are able to persuade the labels to not step on the catalog titles too much (Vic Anesini comes to mind).  An example of the other end of the spectrum is Jon Astley, whose Judas Priest remasters where a downright crime.

 

Finally, why did you bring up Joe Bonamassa when the topic was Joe Jackson?  You're 50.  Don't you remember Joe Jackson?

 

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

Decreased DR is a side effect of high target loudness.  The conversation gets confusing when discussing a low DR as the aesthetic goal, when the more likely goal is more loudness.

 

Vinyl "loudness" isn't really a thing, as the master everyone will hear on Spotify, etc., is the digital (or louder) one and that's where Brian's comments about "insecurity" come into play.  Artist A doesn't want their song to be quieter (which, the conventional wisdom says means, "wimpier") than Artist B.  Or to move the view up in altitude, Label A doesn't want their current catalog to be quieter than Label B.

 

15 minutes ago, Abtr said:

Also, the apparent trend in music streaming services to (optionally) 'normalize' loudness may ultimately make the practice of (extreme) DR compression obsolete or even undesirable..

 

Bob Katz has been predicting this with regards to Mastered For iTunes, but I don't think it's really panned out yet.  But there's hope.

[Samuel T Cogley]

Some interesting back and forth, but it seems @Brian Lucey is only responding to those posts that allow him to rant against the audiophile stereotype.

 

Low DR is because the music is LOUD.  The music is LOUD because some combination of the artist/management/record label believes loudness sells (funny how Mr. Lucey doesn't expound on what that "insecurity" is and where it comes from).  Mr. Lucey's thesis seems to be "real" music lovers don't care about excessive loudness (and all the damage it causes).

 

Nonsense.

 

As others have pointed out in the thread, there is modern music with a more reasonable overall loudness and some mastering engineers (Bob Katz for example) are active in their support of increased dynamic range in modern recordings.

 

I suppose a mastering engineer that has any sympathy for the geezerly Audiophiles would be the opposite of "hip", "cool", or whatever passes for pop culture cred these days.  And as Mr. Lucey points out, he's 50 and will have to redouble his efforts to appear to be with the 20 somethings and their artistic aesthetic.  Let's face it, fancy stereos are a grandpa thing.  Earbuds, Beats headphones, Bluetooth speakers and car stereos are what the "top" mastering engineers shoot for these days.

[Samuel T Cogley]

16 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

Your post, at least to me, simply reinforces the need to reference a live analogue when judging fidelity.  Of course a recording, photograph, etc. is not the "real thing" but we already know this and Brian is pushing the point as if we don't.  However, we use the live analogue to judge said recording/photo with.  If it is to be judged separately, as some ephemeral "art" then Brian is right and niether DR or anything else matters because it is wholly subjective.

 

As to your last excellent point, someone up stream posted this article which I found useful:

 

https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/dynamic-range-loudness-war

 

This is really good and breaks down the issues from the perspective of the mastering process.  Limiting is not new.  An example I always use is Phil Spector and the The Wall Of Sound.  That stuff was mastered for AM radio.

 

And depending on how much limiting was used during the track creation and mixdown process, it's possible to get to a "competitive" target loudness without much additional peak limiting.

 

One of the things I've never seen discussed among mastering engineers who "live in the loud" is what target loudness they're shooting for?  Is it -10LUFS?  -8?  There is such a thing as too much loudness boost (and the necessary peak limiting to prevent clipping).  But what is that threshold?  What is the level of loudness that the loudness advocates deem "too high"?

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

2 hours ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

Whatever happens, the industry will not go the route unless there is money in it.

Perhaps they should take a leaf from the video world - offer HDR - High Dynamic Range as per the latest TV's.

I cannot see the entire CD being HDR, but remixed HDR tracks using spare space, would work - same cost, added value, which may then become the new "in vogue".

If the record labels realised this has the potential to sell more CD's, then it will be worth the slight extra effort.

Regards,

Shadders.

 

Picture quality and sound quality are treated differently in western culture.  And even on the picture side, there's all kinds of technology that distorts (motion interpolators, gradient smoothing, etc.) the picture in a way that some find pleasing, but would not be characterized as "fidelity" to the original image.

 

The crux of the argument that Mr. Lucey is advocating is that "sounds good" is what he gets to decide, free from any restrictions of "fidelity".  Any complaints from audiophiles can be safely ignored because they (according to Mr. Lucey) are the 1%, armchair quarterbacks, etc.

 

Does loud sell?  Advertisers on TV certainly think so.  But with loudness leveling taking hold in streaming services, loudness will matter much less as everything will be the same loudness.  And the mastering will have to take into account downstream processing and leave enough overhead for it.  That will drive down the loudness in the mastering stage.  But it's a slow roll.  There's still plenty of loud stuff out there.  Just look at the MQA catalog. 

 

 

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

3 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi Samuel,

I understand that video and audio are different in the public's perception, and each have their own processing methods.

My proposal is that audio picks up on the HDR bandwagon, stating that on the same CD are HDR versions of the same single songs.

I think the changes with HDR will probably be better received than MQA, since HDR changes will be more pronounced.

Regards,

Shadders.

 

I hope you're right.  But it seems like advances in consumer video viewing (or audio listening) are always driven by the equipment manufacturers, and never by consumers.

 

HDR video content (if done properly and displayed on the right gear) can be stunning when compared to the color gamuts of old.  "HDR audio" is only really convenient to listen to in a very quiet room with expensive gear (unless you enjoy fidgeting with the volume knob constantly).  And really, the obvious source material for "HDR audio" would be classical.  That's grandpa music for sure.

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

37 minutes ago, Abtr said:

I do disagree. IME, any type of music can benefit from high DR.

 

 

It depends on how high you mean.

[Samuel T Cogley]

8 minutes ago, Brian Lucey said:

You have gone too far.   I am all about great playback, but DR is no God to anyone who loves music.

 

Your trite responses are a little disappointing.  I can see that the argument about "great playback" will unravel into an argumentum ad populum (something like, "how many great selling records have you mastered?", or, "my stuff sells so it must be great!") and it's pointless to continue this.  If you want to engage in an actual discussion about the efforts of some mastering engineers to educate people and improve sound quality by decreasing loudness, let me know.  I would like to know if you support them, find their cause quixotic, or something in between.

[Samuel T Cogley]

14 minutes ago, Brian Lucey said:

 

Totally absurd, actually backwards.   Dynamic and simple records are easier but just barely.  Records that are well done, are all time consuming.

 

In your vernacular, "well done" means loud?

[Samuel T Cogley]

16 minutes ago, esldude said:

Here is a simple video of compression at its very simplest. 

 

We haven't talked about side chaining compression (where one track sort of controls compression of another track) or the use of parallel compression of tracks or any number of techniques commonly in use for decades.   It is nothing like riding a gain knob up and down to go back to the pre-compressed state.  

 

 

While I freely admit my knowledge of these things is something like the high side of layman or the low side of amateur, there is a significant different between compression used on studio tracks, and a "mastering limiter" used on the final product.  The latter is where the evil happens.

 

 

 

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

2 minutes ago, esldude said:

Maybe. With modern mixes you probably are treading the line where high ratio compression and soft limiting aren't all that different.  I agree with Lucey that blaming the mastering guy for the evil in the current climate is misplaced. 

 

Perhaps we could ask B. Lucey for some insight on this. 

 

I never blamed him for anything.  I never got past all the "you're too old", "you don't understand", "you aren't a music lover" shtick.

 

I would be happy if he gave a more detailed answer than, "I want what my clients want", but dude has to pay the bills like the rest of us.  I get it.  Other mastering engineers seem to find room for their own opinion and not hide behind their clients.

[Samuel T Cogley]

13 hours ago, Brian Lucey said:

 

So untrue.   I would say you're firmly mid low layman.   

 

Overly compressed mixes are happening in MIXING, mastering is at times LOWERING levels.  When asked for more level LIMITING and not COMPRESSION is used very often.  They are not the same thing.

 

Please stop blaming MEs fro your DR issues, it's artists, and spreading this crap about mastering compression as truth.

-----

 

The REMASTERING world, is not the mastering world.  Please don't combine them.

 

Fair enough.  But the topic is loudness, not compression.  How much loudness is too much?  Simple question.

[Samuel T Cogley]

54 minutes ago, Abtr said:

 

@Brian Luceydoesn't seem to be able to answer simple questions about sound. My own unanswered simple question is: which do you prefer, the DR10 or the DR6 version of The Black Keys' album Turn Blue..?

 

I think he has some strong feelings about audiophiles, and those feelings are not what someone would call complementary.

 

Quote

MQA has been targeting the weakest players in our world, the audiophiles.  And they’re targeting those most dependent on pimping new tech, the audiophile press.

 

I predict you will not succeed in getting a straight forward answer to a straight forward question.  His presence here is to protect his brand, and nothing more.

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

On 11/20/2017 at 2:39 PM, fas42 said:

 

Nope. "HDR" playback works at all volumes - something that many people may not realise is that competent replay still works beautifully at very low SPLs - the sound never degrades into background filler, but retains its subjective impact and vitality. When you hear a live musical event from quite some distance away the measurable SPLs are very low, but you have no trouble discerning the "liveness" of what you're hearing. And exactly the same behaviour occurs with capable audio reproduction.

 

In practice, I can't see how this works without having to constantly control the volume.  Up for the quiet parts, down for the loud parts.  I'm not against the idea of "HDR audio", but I can't see the practicality of it.  With headphones or IEMs, perhaps.  But not with speakers unless you're in a quiet room with good gear.

[Samuel T Cogley]

12 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

In practice, very well. "Good gear" is the first priority, quiet room is very far down on the list - put it this way: you have a grand piano in your listening room; a highly accomplished pianist comes in, and commences to play a wide array of pieces in style, from the most subtle dream state conjurings, to almighty, thunderous Chopin or Liszt extravaganzas - is the fact that the room is "quiet" or not have the slightest bearing on the experience?

 

A recording of classical piano?  That's a DR range that's pretty well defined from a recording perspective.  Is that the example of "HDR audio" in this case?

 

We're talking about recordings, right? 

 

Here's a title from my collection.  Track 1 has an Loudness range of 21.1 LRA.  Is this a sufficient example of the DR you're talking about?  Because this exists today and anyone can buy it.

 

And yes, if you listen to this in the car, you're going to have to ride the volume knob.  Unless your car is so quiet you don't have to turn up the volume for the quiet parts.  It would have to be one quiet car.

 

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

12 minutes ago, the_bat said:

Sigh.

 

I'm finding this all a bit odd.  Brian came on here with a point which I thought many, if not most, people agreed with about issues with MQA.  He's immediately attacked  basically for making records that sound the way modern artists want them, not the way some records from 35 years ago (the Nightfly) or 45 year ago (DSOTM) sound. I suspect many of those commenting wouldn't like anything from (say) Jay-Z no matter what the DR, or would complain about Bowie's Blackstar and compare it unfavourably to Hunky Dory despite both being superb recordings.

 

I suspect he adopted a persona and was clearly enjoying tweaking peoples tails.  Some of the comments he got however have been frankly insulting, suggesting that he doesn't know what he's doing, or that he doesn't care about quality which is clearly not the case.

 

Taste clearly comes into this but I keep being reminded of old men shouting "you kids get off my lawn".

 

I will say that there seems to be an underlying assumption that Brian's stature in audio production entitles him to "tweaking peoples tails", while any rebuttal to that is characterized as insulting.  He clearly came here with some audiophile stereotypes in mind, and simply would not engage in a discussion about his aesthetic tastes regarding loudness in the production process.  All we got is that we're "dogmatic" for even caring about excessive loudness and how damaging it is to dynamic range.

 

Brian himself admitted he's 50 years old, so I'm thinking that he was engaging in a little of that "get off my lawn" shtick as well.

[Samuel T Cogley]

5 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I turned 42 Monday and he called me old. 

 

No musical artist that is chasing the potentially lucrative younger demographic would want to have their stuff mastered by grandpa.  So Brian has to play up the "young at heart" shtick.  Part of that is calling people younger than him, "old".

[Samuel T Cogley]

3 minutes ago, the_bat said:

 

abtr's first comment

 

I listened to some of his products on Tidal and checked for dynamic range here: http://dr.loudness-war.info/. He must be mastering music to win the loudness war.

 

and his second

 

At the same time, however, he creates horribly compressed music. Does this guy really know what he is talking about? I'm not inclined to think so..

 

That Marilyn Manson stuff (for example) is really loud.  Brian should have stepped up and owned the loudness.  But all he did was bob, weave, and use lots of UPPER CASE letters.

 

Seriously, he could have made a case for the loudness, instead he blamed it on vague insecurities of some artists (or something).

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

 

Yes, recordings. If no compression or fiddling is done then the DR should be true to the acoustic experience that people would have had at the recording site - do we want more dynamic range than the real thing has?

 

Hmmm, you know people who manage to squash a grand piano into a vehicle, and as a bonus they get a pianist who is able to play it as they wander through the traffic? ... I think we started with a "quiet room" - so perhaps we should stick with that basic scenario. IOW, like for like - you listen to the recording in a similar place to where the live experience could/would occur - if "quietness" is a factor.

 

IME I have never felt that the playback needed more "quiet" - what happens is that one is drawn into the performance, and irrelevant, extraneous noises vanish from one's consciousness - the "strength" of the illusion dominates your awareness of what's going on - it's a primary focus of the highest order. As an example, I can have the phone ring while something is playing - and I miss it completely. The sound of the phone is so out of context that my mind dismisses it, the ringing is "invisible".

 

I'm not sure we were ever talking about the same thing.  I commented on the notion of "HDR audio".  I assumed this hypothetical new format would have a dynamic range that was higher than the highest dynamic range found in recorded music today.  And in my experience, that would almost certainly be classical music.  I was simply proposing that any DR higher than the highest DR found in currently available content was a non-starter, because it would be so impractical from a playback standpoint.