Comments on: How Spotify will end the Loudness Wars

By: Studio Manifesto|The Decibel Heap – A List of Loudness

Studio Manifesto|The Decibel Heap – A List of Loudness — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:37:22 +0000

[...] 2. How Spotify Might Defuse the Loudness War from Production Advice [...]

By: Why I was wrong about Spotify

Why I was wrong about Spotify — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:03:06 +0000

[...] How Spotify will end the Loudness Wars [...]

By: Ian Shepherd

Ian Shepherd — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:19:39 +0000

@Tor That’s a fair comment and something I’ve worried about. I think I will write a new one with only the correct information. I felt it was important to keep this one up to begin with, though. I’ll archive it and link to it from the new one for people who are interested.

By: Tor Arne

Tor Arne — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:17:26 +0000

You should leave the original article without the strikeouts and red, reading it now for context for your other post (the update) is completely impossible.

By: Studio Manifesto | How Spotify might defuse the Loudness Wars | Studio Manifesto

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:13:48 +0000

[...] Read the full article (and subsequent corrections) at Production Advice [...]

By: pete whitfield

pete whitfield — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 09:15:24 +0000

Good to provoke this discussion Ian – and to be so honest and transparent about it.

By: Dean Whitbread

Dean Whitbread — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 02:05:51 +0000

As a passionate audiophile, you can be forgiven for making the odd mistake. Your honesty is a shining beacon of hope and decency – remind yourself never to go into politics.

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:49:21 +0000

I’d just like to add that you should be careful because when Spotify update their app, at least on mac, they do it in the background, and the user is not notified. When the app is updated, the preferences are reset to default.

Just now I noticed that Spotify had been updated and had reverted to normalisation on, and disabled high quality files for playback!

By: ludde

ludde — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 09:33:38 +0000

Ian,

I’d like to find the cause as much as you do, but from my analysis, having normalization on results in less distortion than if normalization is off.

I have a bunch of sample files from my test. Drop me an email and I can send them to you as well as a more lengthy explanation/clarification.

By: Ian Shepherd

Ian Shepherd — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 07:58:50 +0000

Hi Ludde,

Thanks for posting !

Sorry, but this is working in the opposite way to what you describe, in listening terms.

With “Volume Normalisation” ON (ie. with the checkbox ticked) the playback level is LOWER, and the kick and snare drum have audibly less impact, as a result of limiting. This is the “flat, empty sound” described by everyone in the thread on your forum.

With “Volume Normalisation” OFF (ie. with the checkbox un-ticked) the playback level is HIGHER, and the kick and snare have more impact.

Try listening to “Yellow”, by Coldplay, for a clearer example.

But you are saying that the gain is added to the “normalised” version only, and that the limiter is always active ? If so, the limiter settings must be incredibly aggressive, to reduce the overall replay level by 3dB – it would be no wonder in this case that the normalised version sounds bad. It’s also, as my post says, completely unnecessary since to achieve normalisation, all that’s required it to reduce the level of louder tracks somewhat.

Are you saying that there is no adjustment of level based on the original dynamic range, in the “normaliser” ? You’re simply lifting the level of everything and letting the limiter squash it all ?

Ian

PS. Both VN-ON and VN-OFF samples were captured from Spotify, using Wavelab.

PPS. The “trebly” stuff is just high-frequency content that is left over from the null test (remember you need to level-match before nulling). A complete null isn’t possible, even adjusting in increments of 0.1 dB, but most of the signal does cancel, except for the limiter “pulses”.