Here’s something you might not expect to hear from me:
The Loudness War is your friend
Why ? Because it offers an easy opportunity to let your music stand out from the crowd.
Here’s how
I’ve set up a very simple Spotify playlist.
It features only two songs, both by U2. The first is “City Of Blinding Lights” from “How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb” from 2004 – the other is “Bullet The Blue Sky” from the Joshua Tree, from 1987.
First, make sure that Spotify’s “Enable Volume Normalisation” function is ON, in the preferences – this just means that all the tunes will be played at a similar average level, so you don’t have to keep adjusting your volume control when you’re listening on shuffle. It’s on by default, so you’ll probably already know if you’ve changed it.
Next, take a listen to the playlist, by clicking this link.
Notice anything ?
If you’re like me, “Bullet The Blue Sky” sounds WAY more exciting – just listen to the the weight and punch of those drums at the start, listen to the bite in the searing guitar solo. In contrast, by the end of “City Of Blinding Lights” it all just sounds distorted, mushy and weak by comparison.
So, what’s the difference ?
The Loudness Wars are the difference – over the 20 years or so between those two recordings, the average levels on CDs have been pushed higher and higher against the “brick wall” ceiling that all digital recording formats share.
The only way to achieve this was to squash the music into a smaller and smaller “dynamic range” – roughly speaking, the difference between the loudest and softest parts of the sound.
As a result, “The Joshua Tree” has a very healthy dynamic range of 10dB – whereas “How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb” has only half that – it measures only DR5.
(To get an idea of how those numbers stack up, click to check out this infographic. To find out how to measure the dynamic range of your own music, click here.)
But what does that mean ?
It means “City Of Blinding Lights” has only half the sonic potential of “Bullet The Blue Sky”. Only half the space for the drums to thump, for the guitars to bite, for the vocals to lift.
But wait – it’s louder, right ? Didn’t I say the levels were being pushed up ?
Well yes – but Spotify’s “normalise” function evens those levels out. So does the radio – more on that in a later post – and so do we, when we listen.
The first thing you do when you put a CD on is adjust the level, right ? Or even more likely, your mp3 player does it without you realising.
So why are people pushing the levels up ?
Good question. Maybe it’s label managers and A&R people’s fear of not being “competitive”, maybe it’s the eternal desire to “go up to 11“,or maybe it’s just a simple pissing match – “my CD must be higher level than so-and-so’s”.
Whatever the reasons, I’ve got news for you – they’re all bullshit.
How do I know ?
Well for one thing, there’s research to support it.
But also, just in the last few days, I saw an article in the excellent “Sound On Sound” magazine testing exactly this question. You should read the article for yourself, but here’s a summary.
SOS took three songs, and made three versions of each. One “full level”, one 3dB quieter and another 6dB quieter. No other changes – they all had the same degree of Loudness War “squash” as the originals, the only difference was the overall volume.
They then submitted the songs to SoundOut and asked people to review the tracks – blind, amongst a host of other songs, and in random order. You can read the full details in the original article, but here’s the headline:
The “Overall Track Ratings” calculated by SoundOut were the same at all levels
(Strictly speaking, there was no statistically significant difference.)
That means – listeners didn’t care that some versions of the tunes were nearly half the apparent level of the others !
Other ratings did come up with statistically significant results, but they varied by genre, and were very unexpected.
For example, the highest-level version of the jazz tune got a higher rating for “Market Potential”, but in the electronica genre, the lowest level (-6dB) track came out with a massive 13% lead !
What does that tell us ?
Listeners don’t care about “loudness”
Either they don’t notice the level differences at all, or even when they do they don’t necessarily prefer the highest levels – in fact in some cases they like the quieter ones !
And this flies completely in the face of the “perceived wisdom”.
(Although it matches that research I mentioned very closely)
I can’t wait for Sound On Sound to do a similar test, but next time allowing extra dynamics for the lower-level songs. Based on the U2 songs in that playlist at the start of this post, I think we can all predict which version people will prefer…
So, where’s the opportunity ?
Remember how much better “Bullet The Blue Sky” sounded ?
You can have that advantage for your music, too. Just let some dynamics back in !
Ease off the compression and limiting, reduce the level a little, and allow your music the same room to punch, thump, lift and breathe. In every situation the extra dynamics will give your music’s sound a competitive advantage. It’ll sound better in Spotify, it’ll sound better on the radio and it’ll sound better on your mp3 player.
Everyone else is chasing shadows, believing the hype, and holding their music back, for the sake of an urban myth. Listeners don’t prefer loud music at all – but they will notice that dynamic music sounds better, just like you did.
So learn to love the Loudness Wars, and use them to your music’s advantage !
Oh, and – tell your friends.
