Modern songs and 'brick walling'

[FullumMusic]

Yah, like others have said, brick-walling was part of the Loudness Wars that ran from the early 1990s through approx 2015. It's not really a huge issue anymore because of new-ish loudness standards. Using digital maximizers to brick-wall a master is still done, but to less extreme amounts these days because of various Loudness Standards (LUFs/LKFS) on the streaming/broadcast services that sorta kinda negate attempts to brick-wall loudness.

First understand there's a difference between volume and loudness.

Music and Movie/TV streaming services analyze the loudness of the audio of each song/movie using the standard metric for LUFS/LKFS. It's looking at the loudness of the entire audio (full song, full movie), not moment-to-moment. It's basically averaging the loudness over the course of the audio.

So, for example, Apple Music has -16 LUFS Integrated standard. If a song's loudness measures higher than -16 LUFS, Apple Music automatically lowers the playback level so it doesn't exceed -16. If the song is lower than -16 LUFS, some services will boost it to -16 so everything plays back at the same loudness. Other services will just let things be lower than their standard. TV and Radio stations also do this these days too.

Different streaming services have their own LUFS standard level. Also, the USA and Europe have their own standards as well.

This negates the need to brick-wall too much because no matter how loud you get your master, your audio is just gonna be the same loudness as everything else on the streaming service. It does lead to some other problems with people trying to game the LUFs analysis. You hear this a lot in movies where they still want the big explosions to be insanely loud, so they make the quiet parts extra quite to lower the average loudness, to leave a little space to make the loud noises louder. It's one of about a dozen reasons why you can't hear dialog in movies anymore.

 

[dune]

Metallica's Death Magnetic album comes to mind. I think the songs on it are pretty good, but it's a hard album to listen to.

Also @BigJohnAZ mentioned Rush's Vapor Trails, which also suffered horribly. I have the remastered version and it's better but not great. I also think that it didn't end there, Snakes and Arrows and Clockwork Angels also seem to be albums with good songs that for some reason give you a headache if you try to listen for too long, which is a shame since they have good music.

Personally, I don't really understand compression. I mean I know what it is and so on, but I can't tell you the difference between a compressed and an uncompressed recording just by listening. I do know that album A sounds pretty good but album B, even though I like the songs, gives me ear fatigue after a few minutes.

I never noticed that about "Vapor Trails", but a mix would have to be horrendously bad before my non-golden ears are going to pick up on it. Perhaps it's because of my more "leaden" ears, but I've always paid more attention to the songs themselves than how they were mixed or mastered. With "Vapor Trails", I was just thrilled that there was a new Rush album and I was all in from the downbeat on "One Little Victory". I loved the album and had it on repeat for months. Sadly, it's the last Rush album about which I can say that. Even with repeated effort, I have never been able to get into anything they put out afterward.

 

[pbass2]

Yah, like others have said, brick-walling was part of the Loudness Wars that ran from the early 1990s through approx 2015. It's not really a huge issue anymore because of new-ish loudness standards. Using digital maximizers to brick-wall a master is still done, but to less extreme amounts these days because of various Loudness Standards (LUFs/LKFS) on the streaming/broadcast services that sorta kinda negate attempts to brick-wall loudness.

First understand there's a difference between volume and loudness.

Music and Movie/TV streaming services analyze the loudness of the audio of each song/movie using the standard metric for LUFS/LKFS. It's looking at the loudness of the entire audio (full song, full movie), not moment-to-moment. It's basically averaging the loudness over the course of the audio.

So, for example, Apple Music has -16 LUFS Integrated standard. If a song's loudness measures higher than -16 LUFS, Apple Music automatically lowers the playback level so it doesn't exceed -16. If the song is lower than -16 LUFS, some services will boost it to -16 so everything plays back at the same loudness. Other services will just let things be lower than their standard. TV and Radio stations also do this these days too.

Different streaming services have their own LUFS standard level. Also, the USA and Europe have their own standards as well.

This negates the need to brick-wall too much because no matter how loud you get your master, your audio is just gonna be the same loudness as everything else on the streaming service. It does lead to some other problems with people trying to game the LUFs analysis. You hear this a lot in movies where they still want the big explosions to be insanely loud, so they make the quiet parts extra quite to lower the average loudness, to leave a little space to make the loud noises louder. It's one of about a dozen reasons why you can't hear dialog in movies anymore.

Yep, for a little while there I had some clients asking me to make different masters for different streaming services specs, thinking it would make a big difference. I tried it, and on my own stuff as well. Not worth the hassle for music IMO. For film, broadcast, etc there's so much else to consider with VO, SFX, music the whole shebang. My post mixer friends have all kinds of tricks you'd never need to worry about for a music master.
Lots of ways to measure all this stuff these days, but these guys plugins can be pretty handy: LEVELS | Audio Metering That Catches What You Miss

 

[J Wilson]

In too many cases, the digital recording process, when used by less experienced (or less careful) producers and engineers has turned a lot of music into the equivalent of a beautiful woman . . . . who's had too much plastic surgery done. I'm worn out to vocal harmonies where three and four parts just ring straight like a synth, vocoders should be outlawed, the time is straightened up and perfected to nearly Naval Observatory precision, the dynamic range may be boxed between a hard floor and ceiling, and on and on.

It just seems to have lost the human touch, that slight beat of a great blend of singers, a drummer sitting ever so slightly behind the beat, the slight out of tune instrumental moments, all the things that great singers and musicians can accomplish just this side of a Pro Tool'd perfection that's simply not real.

There are great digital recordings, and I realize many mixes have to work as streaming to earbuds, etc., but so much of it just sounds as if it's been forged into a certain shape or box.

My two cents.

 

[ctmullins]

In too many cases, the digital recording process, when used by less experienced (or less careful) producers and engineers has turned a lot of music into the equivalent of a beautiful woman . . . . who's had too much plastic surgery done. I'm worn out to vocal harmonies where three and four parts just ring straight like a synth, vocoders should be outlawed, the time is straightened up and perfected to nearly Naval Observatory precision, the dynamic range may be boxed between a hard floor and ceiling, and on and on.

It just seems to have lost the human touch, that slight beat of a great blend of singers, a drummer sitting ever so slightly behind the beat, the slight out of tune instrumental moments, all the things that great singers and musicians can accomplish just this side of a Pro Tool'd perfection that's simply not real.

There are great digital recordings, and I realize many mixes have to work as streaming to earbuds, etc., but so much of it just sounds as if it's been forged into a certain shape or box.

My two cents.

You’re not wrong. But the problem isn’t digital technology. The technology is just a tool. It’s a very sophisticated and capable tool, which of course means that it is capable of damage when wielded by less discerning engineers. Like the old adage, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Just because you can auto-tune your vocals doesn’t mean you should. Just because you can quantize your drums doesn’t mean you should. It’s the choices of the engineers, producers, and mixers that separate a great track from a robotic track, regardless of what technology is used. There are lots of people working in this world that understand the need to preserve the human touch. Doubly so now that AI is generating such soulless music….