Album production, overall sound - loudness war?

Invisible

Invisible

Invader
I got the WavPack version of The Final Frontier CD last night, 1441 kbps zero compression. Call me a pirate, of course I'll have the actual CD tomorrow!

My first and impression was that the mix puts a lot of pressure to the ears. Everything sounds so bold all the time. It does help with the overall impact, but when you come to think of it, it may be missing a bit of individual texture to the instruments, accentuation, a more natural pulse. It's all cranked up all the time, the typical fashion of today's industry.

I know many of you already got the CD so, what are your thoughts on the production and is TFF a victim of the loudness war?
 
TFF is most certainly NOT a victim of the loudness war.

I am an audio engineer who is currently producing my own band's first album. I've been through the mixing and mastering stages, and especially mastering is the point at which you have to decide how loud you want your album to be, because it's inheritly "quiet" after mixing. If you look at bands like Saxon, they make their recent albums extremely loud, going well over the possible dynamic spectrum using brickwall limiting to an extreme. At first it sounds punchy as hell, but after I noticed how little room for dynamics they left and how much distortion there is, I couldn't really enjoy the songs anymore. And I won't mention Metallica's last effort; that is the perfect example of what NOT to do.

A great video illustrating this loudness problem is here.

When El Dorado was released, I noticed that while I was taking care not to distort my band's sound while mastering (effectively running a compromise between loudness and clarity), the volume was approximately the same as Maiden's newest offering, which surprised me because every major rock band's albums were louder and I couldn't get there. However, Maiden have always been in the more dynamic department, even with recent albums. If you look at AMOLAD especially, the songs have been mastered with actually 1 or 2 dB headroom for the occasional spike that rarely happens. The album is therefore "quieter" than most current records. Being only slightly louder than AMOLAD, TFF seems to run the same compromise between loudness/fatness and dynamics that I strive for with my own band's sound.

A song can still sound fat and "in your face" while not being pumped up to the max by the mastering engineer, if the mix was done right (something I still have to learn). Naturally it requires you to turn up the volume a lot more when you listen! If you want to judge whether TFF is "loud" or not, just sit down with the speakers WAY up and give it a spin for at least ten minutes, then try to figure out how you feel - do you want to turn the volume down because it's "so f*cking loud" or does it feel more like "great, let's make it just a bit louder"? For me it has felt more like the latter. I started very loud to "celebrate" the album's arrival, then I noticed how I got accustomed to the volume and it sounded great, not unnerving! Do that with a Metallica or Saxon record. You'll want to turn it down after a few minutes because it strains your ears.

A great example of how much dynamic range Maiden left in TFF is The Talisman with the acoustic intro. Listen to that on comfortably loud volume and then be surprised how much of a bang the actual song will make when it starts!

Congrats Maiden on an album that sounds good in these very "loud" times! :ok:
 
I agree that TFF is not pumped up as Metallica's DM, not even close! Yet I still feel it lacks some dynamics - that's the word I was looking for. The explosion on "Talisman" is a great moment, huge contrast with the quiet section, but I don't think it can be taken as reference. It's just a volume change from one section to another, while this is about how it sounds when all 6 band members are running on full capacity. And that's when I think everything is a bit over the top. GNR's Chinese Democracy is an example of minor compression these days, and to me TFF sounds more overwhelming than that in terms of the overall sound.

As far as the 10-minute spin test, with the volume cranked up, I'm not sure if that's valid to determine if this is a loudness war mix. I think a lot of people would feel discomfort after 10 minutes of Metallica's DM real loud. That totally depends on how you feel about the band. When you ask yourself "do I want to turn it up or down", it's a personal feeling, it's not objective at all. And man, being a sound engineer yourself, is the Internet-released 192kbps El Dorado worth of any conclusions?

Perhaps I'll take the time to do some graphic comparison and sort this out. I'm glad you took the time to debate this, MadMax. Thanks for the video too, very straight-forward demonstration of the trouble with loudness.
 
MadMax said:
A song can still sound fat and "in your face" while not being pumped up to the max by the mastering engineer, if the mix was done right (something I still have to learn). Naturally it requires you to turn up the volume a lot more when you listen! If you want to judge whether TFF is "loud" or not, just sit down with the speakers WAY up and give it a spin for at least ten minutes, then try to figure out how you feel - do you want to turn the volume down because it's "so f*cking loud" or does it feel more like "great, let's make it just a bit louder"? For me it has felt more like the latter. I started very loud to "celebrate" the album's arrival, then I noticed how I got accustomed to the volume and it sounded great, not unnerving! Do that with a Metallica or Saxon record. You'll want to turn it down after a few minutes because it strains your ears.
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I don't know how valid  this is, and I'll take your word for it as a professional, but this rings true for me also.  I turn this sucker as loud as I can take, and I always feel I can turn it up to eleven... just a little higher.
 
On extremely high volume I think TFF isn't as good as AMOLAD.
I have to take the actual CD to make sure but till now when I turn my stereo really high it doesn't sound as clean.Reminds me a bit of the DOD sound but certainly nowhere near as bad as Death Magnetic.
 
Funny, the three albums Steve had the most to do with from a mastering sense are the ones that seem the worst. Sorry, Steve...you don't master as poorly as you edit, but damn.

BNW doesn't *seem* that full.
 
LooseCannon said:
Funny, the three albums Steve had the most to do with from a mastering sense are the ones that seem the worst. Sorry, Steve...you don't master as poorly as you edit, but damn.

BNW doesn't *seem* that full.
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I've just completed my degree in Broadcasting, and one of my final projects to was to talk about the principles of editing. Half of my compare and contrast was just showing the cuts from the Rock in Rio 2001 DVD vs. Flight 666 performances.

I got an A :P
 
Cap Maronis said:
I've just completed my degree in Broadcasting, and one of my final projects to was to talk about the principles of editing. Half of my compare and contrast was just showing the cuts from the Rock in Rio 2001 DVD vs. Flight 666 performances.

I got an A :P
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I'm nearly done my film degree and would be interested in hearing more about what you had to say about the two.
 
Oh it wasn't exactly that in-depth of project, more like one of my final regular assignments. Nothing you guys here wouldn't really know already, but I'll give you a brief rundown.


It breaks down to the fact that Steve Harris operates a switchboard in post-production like he's doing A/V for a live show's jumbo-screen. It's not like the shots are ever framed poorly (though I seem to remember a couple of suspect ones that came up during Death on the Road, but nothing worse than any standard fare live concert). Also, that when you edit, you're just as much a part of telling a story as the writers, the directors, or the performers. Harris's edits, are indicative of a band with a ton of energy, and that would be fine if quick cuts like that were made in moderation, like say during The Trooper or something. Sam Dunn's team has a much better story-telling approach to the visual aspect of the DVD by applying things like incidental location shots, time lapse of the stadiums filling with the fans, etc.

Steve Harris is amazing, and a hero and everything, but there's a reason why he is at the helm of Maiden and isn't a professional film editor.
 
mozzle said:
I find this really interesting.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMNJEC1G-fE&feature=related

Virtual XI and DOD = OUCH
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Ugh, watching that video is always heartbreaking. Up until Final Frontier, Brave New World was my favorite album, but it always gave me a headache. Same with DoD and VXI.

If any albums in Maidens back-catalog ever get complete remixes and remasters, these three are the absolute top candidates.
 
Yeah, that video would explain why I used to get headaches while listening to BNW. But actually, I do not recall such problems with VXI or DOD. Maybe the video is lying? :-)

Well regarding The Final Frontier, my head started to ache after a long listen, but in this case I attribute it to my shitty headphones which are uncomfortable to wear :-) I have not looked at the waveform of tracks of this album, I'll do it maybe :-)
 
being a sound engineer yourself, is the Internet-released 192kbps El Dorado worth of any conclusions?
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For one thing, my view on this has not changed with the CD version. And then... I don't get why people keep bringing up 192 kbit/s as an excuse for "bad sound" or "muddiness" or say, "I'll wait until I get the CD". Being a sound engineer myself, I can tell you. There is practically *zero* difference between a well-coded (!) 192 kbit/s MP3 and uncompressed audio. Well yeah, there is technically, but what you hear is the same. The SAME.
It's different below that rate. 128 kbit/s can sound very convincing but mostly it doesn't; depends on the kind of music and the encoder. But really. Citing the data rate of an MP3 file to say that the sound is inferior is the wrong approach unless it's something like 64 kbit/s. If the sound was mixed well, it will sound good, not bad, even on lower data rates. And again, 192 kbit/s is practically indistinguishable from CD audio. If people don't want to believe that, just take a CD track and an MP3 and compare them not knowing which is which. Good luck guessing. (Plus, many consumers don't really have the hardware required to hear the difference. Studio monitors or headphones, for example.)

As for the comments on the instruments "fighting" for space in the audio, there may be some truth to that. There have been much more transparent mixes than TFF, which sounds a little filled, yes. But the reason why this is not the case on the (louder!) BNW is because they really took great care editing and mixing a very clean, typically overdubbed sound, whereas AMOLAD and TFF were recorded live (except vocals), which does add some musical muddiness, as good as they may be live. And the editing is much more subtle this time, preserving the natural feel. And that does feel a little "dirtier" in the sound, which I personally like a lot. The clean sound of BNW doesn't have half the character.

Still, "loudness war" is a term for the attempt of the music industry to make a record as loud as possible. Maiden don't do that. Phatness in the sound or a "busy sound" has nothing to do with the mastering, it's the mixing that did that.
 
It's funny how that video seemed to tell things pretty much as I have percepted them, with the exception that I'd never had guessed that BNW was that loud. Also I wat to applaud madmax a little *claps*
 
Well that video and these posts helped me realize how little I know about production... Dance of death and the final frontier sound equally good to me, while the self titled album sounds absolutely horrible to me, which is a shame cuz the music is fantastic.  :blink:
 
MadMax said:
For one thing, my view on this has not changed with the CD version. And then... I don't get why people keep bringing up 192 kbit/s as an excuse for "bad sound" or "muddiness" or say, "I'll wait until I get the CD". Being a sound engineer myself, I can tell you. There is practically *zero* difference between a well-coded (!) 192 kbit/s MP3 and uncompressed audio. Well yeah, there is technically, but what you hear is the same. The SAME.
It's different below that rate. 128 kbit/s can sound very convincing but mostly it doesn't; depends on the kind of music and the encoder. But really. Citing the data rate of an MP3 file to say that the sound is inferior is the wrong approach unless it's something like 64 kbit/s. If the sound was mixed well, it will sound good, not bad, even on lower data rates. And again, 192 kbit/s is practically indistinguishable from CD audio. If people don't want to believe that, just take a CD track and an MP3 and compare them not knowing which is which. Good luck guessing. (Plus, many consumers don't really have the hardware required to hear the difference. Studio monitors or headphones, for example.)

As for the comments on the instruments "fighting" for space in the audio, there may be some truth to that. There have been much more transparent mixes than TFF, which sounds a little filled, yes. But the reason why this is not the case on the (louder!) BNW is because they really took great care editing and mixing a very clean, typically overdubbed sound, whereas AMOLAD and TFF were recorded live (except vocals), which does add some musical muddiness, as good as they may be live. And the editing is much more subtle this time, preserving the natural feel. And that does feel a little "dirtier" in the sound, which I personally like a lot. The clean sound of BNW doesn't have half the character.

Still, "loudness war" is a term for the attempt of the music industry to make a record as loud as possible. Maiden don't do that. Phatness in the sound or a "busy sound" has nothing to do with the mastering, it's the mixing that did that.
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I don't know anything about this technical stuff but i found a huge difference between the cd sound and even the 320 kbps mp3s. This was quite unusual i admit.

Anyway TFF has my favourite sound of any Shirley-produced Maiden cd. It's heavier and has a much "Fatter" sound than the previous albums. It is a bit muddy but nowhere as much as DOD . It's way more dynamic than AMOLAD and has a much richer sound than BNW..
 
Finally got the CD and was able to visualize the waveform. Here's The Alchemist:

TA.jpg


A few other songs for comparison:

BBS%20CD.jpg
 
TWAT%20CD.jpg

                  Metallica - Broken, Beat & Scarred (Death Magnetic - 2008)                                Guns N' Roses - There Was a Time (Chinese Democracy -2008)


AOI.jpg
 
PODO.jpg

                  Iron Maiden - Age of Innocence (Dance of Death - 2003)                                        Iron Maiden - Phantom of the Opera (Iron Maiden - 1980)     


In my view, TFF is not as artificially loud as DoD or Metallica 's DM, but clearly more pumped up than GNR's mildly compressed Chinese Democracy or the CD version of Maiden's 1980 debut.
It's not beyond extreme, but pretty close to the limit. It simply matches today's standards of compression towards loudness, which makes it sound extra powerful, while suppressing a good measure of dynamics and pulse in the process.
 
Hi,

after reading this thread I started listentng to The Mercenary from BNW and The Alchemist from TFF one after the other and my first impression is: The Alchemist and so I think does the whole Album sounds warmer, the guitars are more laid back and don't hit you in face so much. I find it quite nice and I have problems listening to BNW and DOD because they're hurting my ears after  a few songs.
 
Honestly, I think this loudness war issue gets taken too far sometimes.

In some cases, like in the case of Death Magnetic, there's a very valid point. In others however, it borders on nitpicking.

In most modern albums I hear, including this one, it really doesn't bother me at all.
 
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