#tanit is a production manager and producer based in the us | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

streamsspotify-blog · 5 years

Text

Why Spotify Lowered the Volume of Songs and Ended Hegemonic Loudness

In the end of May, Spotify made an alteration to its own music documents that went undetected by virtually all the agency's listeners. What was obvious, but to sound engineers and studio wizards was that the volume was reduced on each Spotify-hosted track.

Using software called Dynameter, this assortment of audiophiles took dimensions of favorite playlists such as the Global Top 50 and records of genres which range from soul to alloy, also found the Spotify catalogue had become more silent.

We believe"loudness" to explain the individual perception of a sound that is rich. When you hear something, so, what really counts is your understanding of the noise, not the values which are enrolled on a decibel meter.

It was just in 2011 the European Broadcasting Union, one of the chief broadcasting associations in the world, based that a dimension unit of loudness using all the EBU-R128 benchmark , known as LUFS (acronym for Loudness Units comparative to Full Scale). It's, in actuality, a smarter component of measure compared to decibels for understanding human comprehension of quantity.

Contrary to RMS, yet another measure used to find out the typical quantity of audiovisual productions, LUFS dismisses low frequencies, rather focusing on high and average steps over 2 kHz--the most sensitive area to our ears. A shout, as an instance, conveys more quantity feeling than the usual double bass may, though RMS suggests higher amounts for the device (and basses weigh heavily with all the older measure). That is because the human voice is at the center area.

LUFS was made to approximate our hearing functions.

What engineers have started to see is that Spotify has decreased the LUFS indicator of everything on its own stage from -11 LUFS into -14 LUFS, some in accord with that of rival musical platforms such as YouTube (- 13 LUFS), Tidal (-14 LUFS), along with Apple Music (-16 LUFS). In practice, the quantity for human ears will probably be controlled, and you might not even see the change.

We achieved to Spotify for remark about the LUFS decrease:"Spotify is always testing new features to benefit its users. Recent changes in the playback experience are part of the aspects we are evaluating."

So why is this significant?

A much better audio

At first, the acceptance of this EBU-R128 standard wasn't aimed at streaming programs as well as the audio world. The aim was to normalize the audio patterns of content. You understand how some advertisements are far louder than others? Or the gap in the quantity involving a TV app and an advertisement? The target of the EBU-R128 benchmark was supposed to streamline those gaps and subtract the quantity of TV stations.

One of the principal methods for boosting the quantity perception of a tune is by way of compression. It may be carried out with particular hardware or applications throughout the mastering process. As its name suggests, the method compresses the sound wave. This puts a ceiling on the waves' peaks while promoting the gain in the lower parts. Imagine taking an electrocardiogram and tightening those gauges so that the higher and lower parts are more level.

"While attempting to raise the sound, they ended up forfeiting its quality."

"If you compress an orchestra, and the violinist is playing with a smooth violin by himself, then you are likely to hear it loudly," explains Pedro Luce, a Brazilian music producer. "When the remaining musicians come together with their tools, you are going to hear everything with the identical intensity." The compression intensifies the calmest, emptiest moments of the song.

You see the problem, right? A song is made of quieter and more agitated moments. In real life, a guitar alone doesn't have the same intensity as when the drums join in. When compression occurs in an exaggerated way, it makes everything louder, which ends up stealing the dynamics away from the music itself. It's like listening to that one loud friend of yours who always yells when they're drunk. In addition to being bothersome, it also becomes monotonous after awhile.

"In nationwide (Brazilian) manufacturing, you will find [musical fashions ] that misuse the usage of compression," producer Nando Costa told me. "In country music, including mainstream artists, there is many productions and combinations that are completely distorted. You listen to the sound of the muted voice. The drums look like the celebrity is playing a toothpick. This is a consequence of quite compressed and limited sound. While attempting to raise the noise, they wind up forfeiting its quality."

Even with this knowledge, producers, artists, and record companies prefer to bet on loud sound that's full of compression. Among other concerns, there's the thought that a sound stands out more in comparison with the work of other artists when it's louder. Sadly, for most untrained ears, loudness is mistaken for a sign of quality. The dispute to see which artists created the loudest songs initiated the "Loudness Wars."

The race for the highest volume started in tandem with the emergence of the digital age of music, back when CDs became the main form of sound distribution. Prior to that, when vinyl reigned, there were physical limitations that ensured the compression wouldn't become muddy; a record that produced loud enough sounds could make the needle jump, which would ruin the entire musical experience. Those limits ended with the dawn of the CD. It was as if a road with no speed limits had been paved, and compression gained even more traction.

Moreover, in the vinyl era, it was normal to listen to an entire album by the same artist. The immediate comparison between works from different records and different artists did not exist, so there was no need to make one track stand out from the other by volume. This practice began to fade with the introduction of the CD, which made it easier to change the disc on the stereo, and went even further with MP3 players, which introduced the option to play songs on shuffle. Nowadays, in the era of playlists, it's difficult to find people who listen to two songs by the same artist back to back. As a result, produced music has become compressed and louder. Check out a chart generated by the site Sample Magic.

To make matters worse, lack of momentum isn't the only side effect of excessive compression. When you enforce boundaries on a sound wave, you create distortions in the actual waves, which can create distortions in the music. "The longer the compressor functions, the longer it will lead to distortion in the audio," explains Costa.

One of the records that symbolizes just how far a band will go to boost compression in order to gain volume is Metallica's Death Magnetic. At the time of its release in 2008, many fans complained about the sound madness found on the disc: There were no auditory dynamics and many moments of pure distortion. Months later, the band released the game Guitar Hero: Metallica, which featured remastered, quieter versions of the same songs which, within the game, had to compete with other Metallica songs from other albums.

Researchers at the University Hospital of Copenhagen, the Technical University of Denmark, and the University of Aalborg published a study comparing the two versions of the album. Below, you can see the comparison of a 30-second stretch of the song "My Apocalypse." Notice how the band managed to achieve the so-called "brick wall compression," a track of sound with no dynamics whatsoever.

By reducing the LUFS index, Spotify is telling the music industry that there's no use in trying to sound louder than everyone else. Everything that comes into the platform will sound and be on the same level. Even if something is mastered very loudly, the volume will be automatically reduced. Of course, this serves to standardize the streaming service as TV channels previously had done with their commercials, but apart from benefiting the service itself, Spotify will force the industry to work differently. The songs will have to draw attention to other aspects that go beyond the volume. The door to more dynamic sounds is wide open.

"If you've got a extremely compressed sound, it is going to get smaller due to the absence of dynamics," explains Costa. "When you reduce the loudness of the noise, you've got the impression that it plays considerably lower"

In other words, the songs with loudness above -14 LUFS sounds lower on Spotify compared to those that have been compressed below the magic number. Nando Costa makes this comparison in the video below: A national artist mastered around -13 LUFS and a Metallica song from Death Magnetic(watch from 40:30). At the time of the video, Spotify's standardization standard was still -11 LUFS and the music had not been mastered specifically for the platform, however, the result of the national artist was much better than that of the elderly metalheads.

On this site, you can graphically see what happens when a very loud song has its volume reduced when entering Spotify.

"Sometimes the music isn't bad simply due to the composition, but from how it's introduced," says Costa. Thus, Spotify may help bring an end to Loudness Wars, which should generate better quality music in general, with more dynamics and cleaner audio.

But that's not the only result of Spotify's new volume regulation.

Protect Your Ears

Are you familiar with the sense of relief that sometimes comes when we stop listening to music and indulge in peace and silence? It happens even to people who can't get enough of their music, and it's associated with a phenomenon called "listener fatigue" (or ear fatigue).

"The ramifications of [listener] exhaustion are well understood, though people don't always associate these consequences together with the term tiredness," said Dr. Tanit Ganz Sanchez, an associate professor at the School of Medicine at the University of São Paulo (FMUSP) and founder of the Ganz Sanches Institute, a facility that specializes in hearing treatment.

Symptoms include actual fatigue, irritability, and insomnia.

Sanchez explains that we have a small muscle whose function is to protect our hearing, called the stapedius. The function of this organ is to bar the entrance of very aggressive sounds in our ears. It tightens the eardrum and functions as a filter so that the sounds get softer before they're perceived by the middle ear, a portion of the auditory system that leads the sound to the inner ear, where we actually hear. The problem is that prolonged exposures to intense volumes can cause fatigue in this muscle.

"I'm comparing the stapedius muscle together with all the arm muscle," she explains. "Let's say that you invest 30 minutes pumping iron at the gym. Sooner or later, that muscle will state' Enough, no more.' The ear muscle also has this contraction, but we don't have any power above it. It is involuntary and occurs whenever you listen to a louder noise. Should you hear loud music frequently, that muscle will end up wearier."

The only difference between the stapedius and the bicep is that we rarely actually feel any pain in the ear, like the pain caused by a day of over-lifting in the gym.

In this way, by putting a ceiling on the LUFS, Spotify is contributing to the health of its customers' ears. It is well worth mentioning that Apple has been sued by men and women who lost their hearing after extreme listening to the iPod.

0 notes