[MLA] Kevin, can you please correct some of the Wikipedia page on Loudness war.

Sun Feb 7 23:30:41 CET 2016

Hi, Kevin.

Please use this letter. I inadvertently hit send a moment ago before 
finishing:

It would be great if you can address just a few items in the Wikipedia page:

This sentence is asking for a citation:

The average level of the average rock song during most of the decade was 
around −18 dBFS.^[/citation needed 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed>/]

This is very ambiguous. It would require assessing the meaning of the 
word "average", the method of averaging and the statistical assessment 
and the name of the database. The best citation I can give you is going 
to require a rewrite:

You can cite Rudy Ortner's "The Evolution of Loud", masters thesis.

German title page:
Je lauter desto bumm! – The Evolution of Loud
Untersuchung zur Evolution der Lautheit und Klangcharakteristik in 60 
Jahren westlicher Popularmusik.

Master-These
Eingereicht am:
Department für Kunst- und Bildwissenschaften
Zentrum für Zeitgenössische Musik
Musikmanagement (MA)
an der Donau-Universität Krems
Betreuer:
Univ.-Ass. Mag.art. Mag.phil. Dr.phil. Werner Goebl
Institut für Wiener Klangstil
Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien
Von:
Rudolf Matthias Ortner
9709932
Abgabedatum:
11. September 2012

or use as a secondary reference my graphs which use Ortner's data, in 
Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science, Third Edition, Chapter 17.
Ortner's database used as a source for the choice of music: charting 
best-selling popular music from four major charts from U.S. , UK and 
Germany. He then purchased and obtained compact discs of all these 
charting albums.

The median loudness in LUFS in the three year period in the middle of 
the 1980 decade was -16.8 LUFS

See if you can live with just the median analysis of the three year 
period. Otherwise you'll have to ask Ortner to create a median measure 
for each decade from his existing spreadsheets.

---

Then, "not in citation given". The article writes:

In the early 1990s, CDs with louder music levels began to surface, and 
CD levels became more and more likely to bump up to the digital 
limit,^[note 1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war#cite_note-6> 
resulting in recordings where the peaks on an average rock or beat-heavy 
pop CD hovered near 0 dB,^[note 2] 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war#cite_note-7> but only 
occasionally reached it.^[ 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war#cite_note-Stylus-8>

You can ask Ortner for a very exact interpretation of the meaning of 
"only occasionally reached it". I tried to interpret that from his 
german spreadsheet but it's over my head. You can ask him at Rudolf 
Ortner <rudiortner at me.com>   He speaks perfect English. And he can tell 
you the exact number of samples out of how many samples actually reached 
0 dBFS sample peak during any period or decade!

---

Engineers, musicians, and labels each developed their own ideas of how 
CDs could be made louder.^[/citation needed 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed>/]          For 
citation, say that Milner's book, cited later in the article, makes this 
a central theme, in interviews with several Engineers and producers.

---

Analysis suggests that the loudness trend may have peaked around 2005 
and subsequently reduced, with a pronounced increase in overall and 
minimum album DR (crest factor 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crest_factor>) for albums since 
2005.^[29] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war#cite_note-31> 
^[30] 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war#cite_note-SOS_Dynamic_Range-32>

You can add that Ortner's statistical analysis shows the beginning of a 
flat line trend of lou dness beginning circa 2005. This may only be 
because the technical limitations of the processors have been reached or 
that there is a true very slight downward trend, or at least a leveling off.

---------

Loudness jumps between broadcast channels and between programmes within 
the same channel, and between programs and intervening adverts are a 
frequent source of audience complaints.^[/citation needed 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed>/]

I think Eelco has a reference for the above (source of audience complaints)

-------

Can we expand the article to include streaming as a growing concern?  
Cite statistics showing that downloads and sales have reduced and 
streaming has taken over as a prime method of consuming music, so 
loudness in streaming is the new area of concern not generally being 
normalized, with few exceptions.

For that citation you can quote Ralph Kessler's research "Audio Quality 
on the Internet" which investigates several streaming services and their 
targets:

http://www.masterpinguin.de/AUDIO_QUALITY_ON_THE%20INTERNET_2xA0.pdf

----

You wrote:

In September 2011, Emmanuel Deruty wrote in/Sound on Sound 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_on_Sound>/, a recording industry 
magazine, that the loudness war has not led to a decrease in dynamic 
variability in modern music, possibly because the original 
digitally-recorded source material of modern recordings is more dynamic 
thananalogue <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_signal>material.^[30] 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war#cite_note-SOS_Dynamic_Range-32>

Ortner's statistics also show that measured loudness range has not 
changed much between 1950 through 2011, On the other hand,  as you 
mention just below, LRA (statistical variation in loudness defined by 
ITU BS.1770-3 or by one of the EBU specs is not necessarily a judgment 
of sound quality. (You can cite Lund, Ludwig, Katz, Atkinson, Ortner, 
Rogers on this, not sure where to find this in print other than my 
book.... Ask Florian, Thomas others to give you printed citations).

You should add Thomas Lund's important research to that next paragraph, 
describing PLR. Please ask Thomas to give you a citation for a printed 
paper to add to the Katz and Shepherd citations already given.

Also You can cite http://dr.loudness-war.info/

But keep in mind that various, including Thomas, Florian, are 
discouraging the use of the ambiguous abbreviation "DR" and replace it 
with PLR.
-- 

If you want good sound on your album, come to Bob Katz 407-831-0233 
DIGITAL DOMAIN MASTERING STUDIO Author: *Mastering Audio *Digital Domain 
Website <http://www.digido.com/> No trees were killed in the sending of 
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