Rebels with a cause…
Are you familiar with the loudness war? Turn Me Up! wants to change what it has done to the industry.
Turn Me Up!â„¢ is a non-profit music industry organization campaigning to give artists back the choice to release more dynamic records. To be clear, it’s not our goal to discourage loud records; they are, of course, a valid choice for many artists. We simply want to make the choice for a more dynamic record an option for artists.
Here’s a short movie on the subject (from the Turn Me Up! website).
I don’t think this is going to happen, it would be like going back to candles plus most consumers don’t even care about the quality of the audio often the louder the better.A lot of things is missed by the so to speak retro guys that’s how it always was and always will be. The progress can not be stopped I really pity those who think it can be!
By Alex ~ January 29, 2008 kl 8:56 am
You’re completely mistaken, Alex.
“The louder the better” is simply untrue. The music actually never gets louder, because people simply turn down the volume as the mastering engineers keep turning it up each year.
What this does to the music is make it “less dynamic,” and that robs it of it’s emotions. It’s not better at all.
This practice has been perpetuated based on the mistaken belief that it makes these records have more impact and drives sales. Neither of these beliefs comes even close to being true.
Modern brick wall limited music is near impossible to enjoy the sound of (fall out boy… anyone). There’s no impact if the music sounds so bad it compels you to turn it down or off. The practice essentially castrates these records. They’re void of emotion, drama, and power. All tension with no release. That’s not music… that’s noise. Sonic decisions based on economics are never well informed. They’re ignorant.
Not only is the music industry waking up to this obvious conclusion, but so is the mainstream press. There have been major articles in rolling stone, chicago tribune, and many other national and international newspapers and magazines in recent months. (They have links to a ton of them on the turnmeup.org website.) The groundswell has begun.
I think you’re giving the music industry too much credit, if you see this as progress. Every person I know in the business (on all sides of the glass) are completely unwilling to defend the “loudness wars” sonically. The only defense anyone is willing to give is that “we have to do this because everybody else is doing it.” Clearly, unless you’re a lemming looking over the edge of a cliff, that’s not a very good reason.
And the argument that some people make, that consumers are in any way influenced to purchase music based on it’s “loudness” is clearly false. Sales have never been driven by the sound of records. As always, they’re driven by the music (fall out boy… anyone). People are buying these records in spite of how bad they sound. So, why not at least make them sound good, if we’re going to pay for them.
The ramifications are that today’s music sounds like crap and sales are tanking. Clearly, the “loudness race” is not the source of the sales problem, but it sure as hell isn’t the solution.
By Hal ~ January 29, 2008 kl 12:09 pm
I agree that I don’t think this is going to happen. I think this campaign is naive. People can release more dynamic records if they want to. There’s no law against it. They choose not to because of a feeling of pressure. No campaign is going to stop that trend.
I strongly disagree with your use of the word “progress.” I’m no “retro guy” (as you call it), but come on, records made with a Loudness War mentality sound terrible. Period. 20 years from now, will these recordings be considered classic? Or even listenable? Will we be stuck listening to only the Golden Age of Pre-Loudness War music (Beatles and Zeppelin forever and ever amen?) just because everything that happened after it sounded like shit? Remains to be seen. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Just because something is the prevailing trend right now does not mean it is “progress.”
I suspect that if Apple iplemented a mandatory volume adjuster — so that all songs are played back at the same average volume — in the iPod, the trend would stop. People would want their records to sound good again, instead of just loud.
– c
- c
By Chad ~ January 29, 2008 kl 12:13 pm
You’re right, there is no law. But artists don’t really feel like they have a choice here. In many cases they actually have NO CHOICE, because their record label requires them to make their records that loud.
About the apple ipod volume thing, I hear this a lot. But most people don’t realize it is already built into your ipod and itunes.
It’s called “sound check” and it’s the third checkbox in your playback preferences.
Sound check analyzes all your music and then adjusts its playback volume to match the levels. So, you can listen to ac/dc, fall out boy, and james taylor on shuffle without adjusting your volume.
By Hal ~ January 29, 2008 kl 12:24 pm
I think it’s important to clarify that Turn Me Up! is about the choice for people to release dynamic records, and not so much to actively work against the phenomenon of crushed records (at least that’s my taker on it). Pressure can come not only from the people, but from the artists own label.
You can read the entire “about” on Turn Me Up! here.
You can also sign up (for free) to support them if you like.
By stiff ~ January 29, 2008 kl 12:52 pm
The problem with “sound check” is that it is optional. If it was built-in and automatic — or even just the DEFAULT option most consumers didn’t bother to turn off — the industry would change over night. Seriously. That’d be the end of the whole thing.
Apple has the power. Turn Me Up should be lobbying THEM.
- c
By Chad ~ January 29, 2008 kl 3:12 pm
You are absolutely right. The loudness war would be resolved over night if apple did that.
Unfortunately, the labels would complain loudly and many itunes users wouldn’t like being controlled, but I could be wrong.
It would be nice to see the loudness war end.
By Hal ~ January 29, 2008 kl 4:45 pm
I just posted an article in response to this article and the youtube video:
http://www.moozek.com/2008/02/03/the-loudness-war-oh-please/
Read and weep
By Jonathan Grand ~ February 3, 2008 kl 9:19 am
1.Over compressed records cause distorion due to overload of level. A grating sound on lead vocal would be one effect.At the loudest part of the song (generally the chorus) cymbls sound squashed the and the overall sound loses definition.If this an artistic choice fine but not on EVERY record.
2.Over compressed records will cause fatigue when listened to for any length of time ,even at moderate
lisening levels.Some of these are hard work to listen to sonically.
3.More demonstrations like yours would be very helpful.Mastering that is sympathic to the material must return.
By james carroll ~ February 3, 2008 kl 11:40 am