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Why Music Really Is Getting Louder
Teksty Piosenek writes "Artists and record bosses believe that the best album is the loudest one. Sound levels are being artificially enhanced so that the music punches through when it competes against background noise in pubs or cars. 'Geoff Emerick, engineer on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album, said: "A lot of what is released today is basically a scrunched-up mess. Whole layers of sound are missing. It is because record companies don't trust the listener to decide themselves if they want to turn the volume up." Downloading has exacerbated the effect. Songs are compressed once again into digital files before being sold on iTunes and similar sites. The reduction in quality is so marked that EMI has introduced higher-quality digital tracks, albeit at a premium price, in response to consumer demand.'"
I have noticed that the older I get the louder I need music to be. Especially voice.
... Really who the Hell could actually stand "A Scanner Darkley" at normal speed?)
In fact I am 35 and I watch all DVDs with the subtitles. (Of course, part of that is that I watch a lot of DVDs at 1.2x to 2x speed, but
But back to my point, as I age I am less and less able to sift background noise from speech.
And we now live in an aging society.
Couldn't we just add a tag to every track with a floating point number by which to multiply the magnitude of all the samples in that track by default.
You already have a built in upper limit, normalizing the range to that limit fixes the problem.
Normalize-audio is a package that does this. Here's what the Debian repository says:
The package also works on ogg vorbis and mp3. You can do it on ripping, or playback. Each song can be normalized individually or as a collection. The result is that you don't have to reach for the volume knob all day.
You are SOL if the record company has already applied dumb techniques to the CD before you get it. Peak "compressing", where all of the peaks are maxed out is a real distoriton of the original sound. When you add a heavy handed turn up that clips as well, you get Californication as mentioned. As the article also notes, it's difficult to digitize clipped audio. A clipped wave is like a square wave - it has all frequencies and takes lots of bandwith.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
It's tough being able to hear. Unlike many of my peers, I'm not going deaf, and so going to a bar is painful, since I haven't spent years ruining my hearing like they have. Yes I'm old, but their ears are older, and they wouldn't need it up so loud if they'd cared for their ears like I have done for mine.
I try to congratulate DJs that don't cross the pain threshold with their volume level. There are even some restaurants like Boston Pizza in some locations, that play their music loud enough to damage hearing after not a long exposure.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
In blind testing of audio equipment, it is critical to match volume levels within a fraction of a decibel. That is because people have a strong tendency to prefer a slightly louder source. In blind testing, listeners will describe the louder source as better in all sorts of subjective ways that have nothing to do with loudness: brighter, richer, warmer, etc. This happens with any kind music, from chamber music to stadium rock.
I think the article oversimplifies somewhat by casting this as a matter of taste for loud rock music, rather than a more subtle issue of psychoacoustics.