I made a deal with myself, in the years after my blog posts about the loudness of Metallica's "Death Magnetic" went viral. (They ended up being reported in The Guardian and Wired magazine, and with me being interviewed by the BBC about how loud it was, and why Metallica fans were complaining.)
The deal was - no more negativity and moaning about extreme loudness. I would always look for positives - I'd celebrate great-sounding new releases with decent dynamics instead. That's where the idea for the Dynamic Range Day Award came from, and I've stuck to it ever since.
Until now, because this is one I really care about.
Disclosure - I'm a MASSIVE Beatles fan and nerd. As a kid I was indifferent to the early singles - but then my best friend bought a copy of 'Magical Mystery Tour' on CD while we were at college, and everything changed.
Suddenly I was listening to everything Beatles I could get my hands on, collecting demos and bootlegs, obsessively re-reading Mark Lewisohn's 'Beatles Recording Sessions', learning how wide and far their influence reached, in almost every aspect of popular music - and especially in the use (and creative abuse) of audio technology. And it's continued to this day. I've been eating up the "Get Back" documentary, the bonus tracks and out-takes in the recent re-issues… you name it.
But in a strange way, I was indifferent to the imminent release of their 'last' single, 'Now and Then', as well - until I watched the short film above. That gave a hint that the production sounded really authentic, and that the "de-mixing" of John's vocal from the original piano demo was surprisingly successful. Suddenly I was excited !
Until I heard it.
Now don't get me wrong, there's loads I'm enjoying about 'Now and Then'. It's a good song, it feels authentic, and it's spine-tingling to hear Lennon's voice singing something new again after all these years. The 'de-mixing' magic that has cleaned up his voice is quite remarkable, compared to the original cassette demo.
But the mix is another matter. About 40 seconds in I heard the compression first clamp down, and by the time you've passed the one-minute mark the saturation and pumping is obvious. The song actually gets quieter when the drums come in !
So I fired up a loudness meter and sure enough the song measures -6.5 LUFS. With the loudest moments at -5.3 😕
That's absurd. Especially because right after it, the second track on the digital single is a new stereo mix of their first ever single, 'Love Me Do' - which measures only -12.8 LUFS.
Over 6 dB quieter - that's a lot.
(Yes, of course, it's a much leaner and lighter production musically, so it shouldn't be as loud as a really full arrangement… but 6 dB is way too big a difference to be musically satisfying)
Don't get me wrong, the stereo version of 'Now and Then' doesn't sound terrible. Far from it, it sounds… OK. But it feels big and stodgy and monotonous, the guitar-solo doesn't sing, the strings are buried… and Ringo's toms sound stilted and constrained, instead of the big booming "Come Together" tone we love so much.
It could have sounded so much better.
And at this point someone will jump up and say "How dare you, it sounds exactly the way the artists intended it to, it's a creative choice, you have no idea what it might have sounded like with more dynamics…" - except I do.
Because the Atmos Binaural version sounds very different, and measures only -14.8 LUFS.
That's right, it has more than 8 dB of extra dynamics ! Take a look - here are the short-term LUFS graphs (and PSR readings from my Dynameter plugin) of both versions to compare, after roughly matching the levels of the intro by ear. Atmos Binaural on the left, Stereo on the right:
You can see that the intros are similar (although there's less variety in the stereo version) but after that the Atmos version builds and builds through to the guitar solo, whereas the stereo version… doesn't.
It just gets to a certain point and stops there - and that's exactly how it sounds.
The Atmos version sings. The drums have variety and snap and the strings have space and bite. (Thank goodness - I was really looking forward to Giles' string arrangement after watching the making-of video, but in the stereo version I barely noticed them !) And the guitar solo soars out as I know it would have done in the studio, instead of sinking back into the sonic mulch of the stereo version.
THIS is how the song was meant to sound, surely. Yes it's a modern release, but this isn't some sort of Beatles EDM re-boot, it's an old song produced in a classic style. Especially since right now this is a digital-only release. The majority of people will hear it on YouTube with loudness matching enabled - so it won't sound loud to them at all, anyway - just stodgy and congested.
Update - I made a short video demonstrating the difference between the two mixes, at matched loudness - see what you think:
So why does the stereo version sound so different to the Atmos ? We can only speculate. Some people are blaming the mastering, but bearing in mind the choices made for most of the other Beatles' material out there and comments by people involved, it's clear that's not the case.
My best guess is that Paul & Ringo wanted a 'current' sound and this choice guided all the decisions made from then on. And of course that's absolutely their right - this is their music, after all. But for me, imposing a 'current' sound onto a classic-arrangement-of-a-classic-song-by-a-classic-band didn't get the best result, and I wish they'd gone a different way.
The irony of all this is painful. Yes, John would have loved using cutting-edge technology to achieve magical results no-one has ever heard before. And yes, the Beatles often broke the established rules in their recordings, pioneering the use of close-micing, over-compression and distortion for creative effect. So why am I complaining about the same thing on this release ?
Two reasons.
First, the Beatles used to do it because it sounded cool, and this doesn't.
And second, they always did the surprising, unexpected thing. These days, that isn't making it bog-standard 'loud' like everything else because someone in the production chain thought it was necessary to 'compete'.
The surprising, unexpected thing for this release would have been to harness the power of dynamics, instead.
It's such a shame that didn't happen - but thank goodness for the Atmos version !
[Edit to add: There's been lots of... 'heated debate' about this post 😂 So I wrote a follow-up with my replies to the criticisms and to clear up some misconceptions – you can read it here.]
PS. If you're a fan of more balanced dynamics in your music, Atmos mixes are often worth checking out, even if you don't have a 12-speaker system to listen on. Sometimes the mixes can be a bit quirky, but with a bit of luck the binaural render will sound very similar to the stereo - but with better dynamics. To find out more about why this is, and hear some examples, click here.
PPS. Edit to add:
I'll say this though - I love the video !
It distracts me from thinking about the sound and helps me connect with the words instead, which are very touching - and it's good fun 
