The Stones - "A Bigger Bang" and loudness

Seeker said:

I respect Andrew  Scheps very much, he's been a big influence in my mixing approach, so this isn't a dig at him or anyone who's responded to this thread, just trying to relay the info that's out there.
Personally I think the 'volume' had to do much more with Rick Ruben, he does have a penchant for LOUD, but that's just my 2 cents...

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Normally the Bands and musicians themselves are the ones that want to be Louder than anyone else, even when you clearly explain the harmful consequences they just don't care.
I never seen a producer, a mixing engineer or a mastering engineer saying "I want to have the loudest record around" but I have heard that countless of times from Bands, musicians and Record labels.

Like I said just my 2 cents... though the other Andrew Scheps record mentioned earlier by RHCP, is also ear bleedingy loud... and produced by Rick Ruben.... 

Any way you wanna call it, it wasn't Ted Jensen who pushed the volume on death magnetic.  AND... we can't really blame Andrew Scheps... in these situations he's an engineer who does what the producer/band wants.....

In reality we can't blame anyone,
it's their record not our record.

lololololol

They have the right to do whatever they want

ruffrecords said:

In the end I tried a simple limiter with the threshold set at about -6dBFS and a fairly short decay. I was astounded at the result.

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The problem is squeezing the last dB's after that. Law of diminishing returns. And some of the processing used to make the music sound loud (distortion, bit-crunching, clipping) is actually what makes it sound crap to us Neanderthals.

Whoops said:

Normally the Bands and musicians themselves are the ones that want to be Louder than anyone else, even when you clearly explain the harmful consequences they just don't care.
I never seen a producer, a mixing engineer or a mastering engineer saying "I want to have the loudest record around" but I have heard that countless of times from Bands, musicians and Record labels.

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I've found in many cases that cranking the volume of the monitors fulfills the desire of musicians.

Michael Tibes said:

Nevertheless, most often the most enjoyable moment for me is during the recordings, when the dynamics are still as intended during the performance.

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For me, it's when the mix is done and I put the finishing touch, and whatever EQ, compression and limitation lifts significantly the perceived level, and it sounds reminiscent of the music I heard when I was 15. It's all a matter of acquired taste. Young SE's want loudness, grit and outrageous sub-bass, because it's their everyday diet.

abbey road d enfer said:

I've found in many cases that cranking the volume of the monitors fulfills the desire of musicians.

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Not really, comparing volume in iTunes against other bands that they like or respect, or that sell more records is what fulfils the desire.

Anyone can crank the volume and be louder at that particular moment, the fact that people don't do that is what makes us having this discussion and what started the Loudness war many years ago when someone said "can you make it as loud as this "X" record

Whoops said:

Not really, comparing volume in iTunes against other bands that they like or respect, or that sell more records is what fulfils the desire.

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The musicians I know aren't just interested in that. Some producers, yes. Maybe I'm lucky...

abbey road d enfer said:

The musicians I know aren't just interested in that. Some producers, yes. Maybe I'm lucky...

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Yes you are definitely.

Normally the musicians are the first ones to put pressure for higher volume, even before the Producer or Record labels.

  Laugh at me, as a producer, telling the mastering guy, that we talked with the musician and we wanted it quieter (and with less high end)  ;D

  When listening HD audio in a decent rig I do like some loud and clear high end, but in most cases (like MP3 and a piezo tweeter) I rather have dull audio than those hurting spikes. And I rather live with a consistent result than the harshness of that last case most of the time, so I usually call for that. Then in the mastering studio I have to negotiate how much they add but we usually get to a convenient result for everybody.

  With loudness I do have a different posture for a similar reason. In general I do like as loud as it can be without noticeable distortion. Even if you lift the butt from the seat to get the remote to turn up the level to listen to it louder, there's only so much loud your media center can handle with it's 1500W (PMPO). If you keep cranking up the knob it starts to do whatever it can to make it louder, usually what it can isn't very good. If you let professionals squeeze some of that loudness for you, for the same level, the final distortion is much lower.

  Of course this isn't working so good for audiophiles but it's my opinion. I found the right  balance to be around there for most of my work.

JS

<Not really, comparing volume in iTunes against other bands that they like or respect, or that sell more records is what fulfils the desire>

I've found Soundcheck in the latest iOS is making this less of an issue. Stuff that is not totally squashed to death actually sounds louder in Soundcheck. I'm compressing and limiting less as a result. I'm hoping Soundcheck might get RMS vs peak levels back to musical ratios.

AusTex64 said:

<Not really, comparing volume in iTunes against other bands that they like or respect, or that sell more records is what fulfils the desire>

I've found Soundcheck in the latest iOS is making this less of an issue. Stuff that is not totally squashed to death actually sounds louder in Soundcheck. I'm compressing and limiting less as a result. I'm hoping Soundcheck might get RMS vs peak levels back to musical ratios.

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Thanks I will check that.