I was just listening to "Take Five" by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, and I was marveling at the incredible dynamics with which jazz musicians play. This got me thinking about mastering and track compression, as it's something I've been reading about a bit on forums and in Sound On Sound (excellent magazine for anybody interested in audio.) So for fun, I thought I'd select a few tracks of varying dynamic content and throw them into my DAW to compare the waveforms.
I took a screenshot, because I thought this was really interesting. For anyone who hasn't given it much thought, you might be amazed at how much or how little dynamic content is really in the music you're listening to. And how something that might have been played with a delicate touch and a careful attention to minute playing details can be squashed to what is essentially an unrelenting wall of sound in the post-production phase, because the record label says it has to be LOUDER.
All tracks were ripped from original, commercially released CDs as MP3s at 320kb/s, except for "Diving In A Digital Sea" which is an original composition by yours truly which was mixed by yours truly and never mastered. I intentionally arranged these in an order to reflect the varying degrees of dynamics found in different types of music. The tracks are as follows from top to bottom:
1) 2005 - The first track is by acclaimed "post-rock" band A Silver Mt. Zion [Memorial Orchestra and Tra La La Band]. This is comparable to the kind of dynamic range you would see on classical records. I can imagine that most of this album was recorded as a live performance with minimal overdubs and post-production.
2) 2010 - This is a piece I did, with about 75% electronic sounds and 25% live instrumentation. I don't do much compression to anything when I mix, and I hasn't been mastered for any purpose yet so it's dynamics reflect the nature of the verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge structure I wrote out, with the electronic instruments keeping the level fairly constant within a given section.
3) 1959 - Dave Brubeck's famous "Take Five." You can see this track has more microdynamics and less change over the course of the song, as jazz of this style relies less on the common structures that a lot of modern pop and rock music hold on to. Because of it's age, you can see this has not been mastered for maximum loudness, even within its given dynamic range. The loudest parts are quieter than the quietest parts of any modern pop tune on the radio.
4) 2007 - "Reckoner" from Radiohead's (amazing) 7th studio album. Here we see the result of modern production aesthetics on commercialized music - even artists with unconventional style, broad influences, and perfectionist attention to detail have to have their stuff mastered to fit certain parameters so that it can hit the airwaves. To be loud is to be heard - so most anything remotely commercial has to be loud.
5) 2006 - "House of Wolves" from My Chemical Romance's hit concept album "The Black Parade." This album has a mix of Green Day's punk rock and Queen's flamboyant theatrics. Were it not for the mercilessly destructive mastering, I think this would really be an excellent album. Instead I find it hard to listen to in its entirety because the volume level is so unrelenting. I can assure you, there are "quiet" parts in this album but if you looked at the waveform you wouldn't know the difference. It looks almost like a flatline from start to finish.
Some people don't know the difference. Others, like most of the classical world, think the unnatural sound of processed audio is a bad thing. I fall somewhere in the middle. Radiohead's my favorite band, but I'd personally like to make music that has a little bit more "grit" and room for human error. While I love A Silver Mt. Zion's music, I do find it genuinely challenging to listen to, as I often have to turn the stereo up at the quietest parts to hear over ambient noise, and then turn it back down again before it gets so loud my ears blow out. I imagine that music is best-suited for a concert hall.
I would encourage you to listen to some music and try to be conscious of the actual dynamics in what you're hearing. Listen to a bunch of different styles and music from different time periods (avoid old albums that have been remastered) and then compare the waveforms. I hope this was of some interest to some of you, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject!
-Dan
I took a screenshot, because I thought this was really interesting. For anyone who hasn't given it much thought, you might be amazed at how much or how little dynamic content is really in the music you're listening to. And how something that might have been played with a delicate touch and a careful attention to minute playing details can be squashed to what is essentially an unrelenting wall of sound in the post-production phase, because the record label says it has to be LOUDER.
All tracks were ripped from original, commercially released CDs as MP3s at 320kb/s, except for "Diving In A Digital Sea" which is an original composition by yours truly which was mixed by yours truly and never mastered. I intentionally arranged these in an order to reflect the varying degrees of dynamics found in different types of music. The tracks are as follows from top to bottom:
1) 2005 - The first track is by acclaimed "post-rock" band A Silver Mt. Zion [Memorial Orchestra and Tra La La Band]. This is comparable to the kind of dynamic range you would see on classical records. I can imagine that most of this album was recorded as a live performance with minimal overdubs and post-production.
2) 2010 - This is a piece I did, with about 75% electronic sounds and 25% live instrumentation. I don't do much compression to anything when I mix, and I hasn't been mastered for any purpose yet so it's dynamics reflect the nature of the verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge structure I wrote out, with the electronic instruments keeping the level fairly constant within a given section.
3) 1959 - Dave Brubeck's famous "Take Five." You can see this track has more microdynamics and less change over the course of the song, as jazz of this style relies less on the common structures that a lot of modern pop and rock music hold on to. Because of it's age, you can see this has not been mastered for maximum loudness, even within its given dynamic range. The loudest parts are quieter than the quietest parts of any modern pop tune on the radio.
4) 2007 - "Reckoner" from Radiohead's (amazing) 7th studio album. Here we see the result of modern production aesthetics on commercialized music - even artists with unconventional style, broad influences, and perfectionist attention to detail have to have their stuff mastered to fit certain parameters so that it can hit the airwaves. To be loud is to be heard - so most anything remotely commercial has to be loud.
5) 2006 - "House of Wolves" from My Chemical Romance's hit concept album "The Black Parade." This album has a mix of Green Day's punk rock and Queen's flamboyant theatrics. Were it not for the mercilessly destructive mastering, I think this would really be an excellent album. Instead I find it hard to listen to in its entirety because the volume level is so unrelenting. I can assure you, there are "quiet" parts in this album but if you looked at the waveform you wouldn't know the difference. It looks almost like a flatline from start to finish.
Some people don't know the difference. Others, like most of the classical world, think the unnatural sound of processed audio is a bad thing. I fall somewhere in the middle. Radiohead's my favorite band, but I'd personally like to make music that has a little bit more "grit" and room for human error. While I love A Silver Mt. Zion's music, I do find it genuinely challenging to listen to, as I often have to turn the stereo up at the quietest parts to hear over ambient noise, and then turn it back down again before it gets so loud my ears blow out. I imagine that music is best-suited for a concert hall.
I would encourage you to listen to some music and try to be conscious of the actual dynamics in what you're hearing. Listen to a bunch of different styles and music from different time periods (avoid old albums that have been remastered) and then compare the waveforms. I hope this was of some interest to some of you, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject!
-Dan
