Episode 36 - Loudness Pt. 1

Jan 19

Show Notes: Loudness Pt. 1

Live with Matt Rad - Episode 36
Jan 19, 2021
w/ Jon Castelli - Week 33

Spotify defaults to loudness normalization enabled while Apple Music defaults to loudness normalization disabled.

Volume and loudness are two distinct things: Volume is a measurable quality while loudness is a subjective perception of the music’s intensity.

The human ear does not perceive things in a simple, measurable way.

Fletcher-Munson Curves cause us to perceive sound differently at different volume levels.
As volume goes up the human ear naturally compresses and distorts. Your ear protects itself from getting blown out and as a result your perception of mid-range and highs are turned down.
This is why ear fatigue leads us to add more upper-mid or brightness when we mix. We are compensating for our ear’s reaction to excessive volume.

All of the various loudness standards are measuring the average apparent loudness of a song, but they are doing it in a different way.

Every streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music are doing something different to measure this loudness.
For the most part we don’t need to understand the math behind each one. Only a few benchmarks.
Do we want to consider it? Yes. Do we have to play by their rules and guidelines for loudness? Not always.
That said, we can’t break the rules if we don’t understand them, so it’s worth going into detail about loudness.

Loudness Normalization On Streaming Services:

Loudness normalization on streaming services allows you to automatically balance the LUFS loudness between two different tracks of differing loudness so that they are matched perceptually. Overly loud tracks will be lowered to bring them towards a baseline dynamic range, while overly quiet tracks will be turned up. Tracks that already match the loudness guidelines will not be adjusted.

Say you’re making a playlist on a streaming service. The algorithms are automatically balancing the levels of each song to perceptually sound the same loudness.

According to Tony Maserati, It’s the engineer’s job to understand the limits of technology.

Jon thinks there is a sweet spot to getting perceived loudness while still keeping the mix feeling dynamic.

There are trade-offs to making your mixes super loud:

A loss of 60Hz energy. If the record is mixed to -5 LUFS this frequency will sound choked.
A loss of transients.
Loudness normalization functions will turn it down. And the perceived loudness will be diminished when compared to records that aren’t so hot.

Matt:
We are music consumers before we are music creators. As soon as you become a creator first Matt generally doesn’t care for the music that that person makes. You have to be a lover of music and a consumer first. It can’t be the other way around.

Understand that Spotify is making their decisions from a consumer/lover standpoint first. Not from a creator’s need for auditory perfection.

Q: Why does my mix sound quieter than another mix at the same LUFS levels?

You don’t have transients.

You need to understand density of sounds and density of an entire mix.

Clarity is a huge component of loudness.

From a neuroscience standpoint, Jon believes that transients help the brain make predictions.

Transients are timbre that help the brain recognize familiar sounds.
That’s what the art of pop music is about: It’s the art of making the same feelings and emotions we’ve felt one hundred times before feel new.

Sustained loudness for the sake of loudness makes it very irritating to listen to an entire album all the way through.

Some Katy Perry albums are like this. The problem is that they were all engineered to be singles with maximum attention-grabbing potential.

Transients are what anchor sounds.

As songs get louder and transients are squashed the distinguishability of certain instruments becomes harder to recognize.

Our jobs as producers/mixers/sonic architects is to determine how much of a transient quality to allow in a sound.

It will give a depth to your records.

It’s our job as engineers to create the maximum emotional impact possible in a song. This struggle against loudness has made that challenging.

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The difference between a record that hits hard and a record that is just loud is that the former is turned down a click or two.

Jon thinks that a huge contributor to the bad loudness of records is that non-engineer writer/producers are just slamming the limiter from the get-go and everyone on the team become used to it and want that quality.

As a community we need to be better about understanding that the goal ultimately is the finished product that the consumer is going to hear, and if you start the process off by making your record stupid, stupid loud you’re going to make it harder for professionals down the line to maximize it’s potential and achieve something dynamic and great sounding.

If the song is amazing it doesn’t matter if the song is a few clicks quieter.
Loudness doesn’t make a hit.

Density:

When Matt thinks of density he thinks of loudness.

Density can be a measurement of loudness in a specific frequency range. A vocal can be dense in 1kHz and less dense in 500 Hz.

Arrangement contributes hugely to density. You need sound in all ranges of the frequency spectrum for the music to connect. The balance of your orchestration will enhance this or work against you.

Q: How do you handle a bad arrangement? Do you send it back?

Jon: No.
Matt: As a producer he will improve the arrangement.

Jon may sometimes pitch instruments like a kick up or down to get them to sit better. That’s generally bad form, and not to be done lightly.

Q: How many different ranges do you perceive as the registers?

Jon thinks like a 5 band EQ:

Sub bass
Upper-bass to low-mid
Mid
High-mids
Top-end

You need to hear where the instrument sits and make a decision as to whether that will be above or below the next adjacent instrument.

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Communication is key in all aspects of life.

Call up the producer if you have a question about their intention when making a creative choice.

Instead of being a “black box” mix engineer try fostering an open dialogue with the creators.

As a record making professional, you need to be a communicator.

If that makes you uncomfortable, you need to practice it.

Your goal is to become the trusted professional.

What you want to do as a professional is not just have the skills to do it, but be able to instill confidence and trust in the people who are hiring you.

It’s a hard conversation to have with some in which you say “My mix is going to be quieter, but it’ll be better”.

We’ve lost the sense of professional expertise in mixing engineers.
We want to be open to collaboration and hear everyone’s voice.
When you need surgery you go to the surgeon who’s an expert in that organ. You don’t question who that person is. You want that person.

Matt’s essential skill as a record maker is being able to communicate with the insane artist who is a total introvert and doesn’t trust anyone, and also being able to sit in the office with the head A+R of a label and have the meeting. That’s what he’s best at.

When the artist loves the loudness of the demo and asks “why can’t we have it like this?” It’s not the producer’s job to say “No, you don’t understand” but to make something and communicate something that makes them go “I get it. I love it.”

This is a huge challenge.

Engineers should be sensitive enough to vibe and not mess up the vibe of a session/track.

Ask the producer: “Are you looking for me to restart this mix with a ground-up overhaul and really get the sounds dialed in or are you looking for just a little extra polish on the end?”

For the people who are the biggest experts, their value is maximized by their ability to communicate in a way that builds trust.

Ultimately expertise is both about having that expertise and being able to communicate it.

Matt became a producer not from seeing a producer and wanting to know how to do it. He became one because he is someone who wants to know enough about a topic to talk to an expert about it.

Bradley Will