[MLA] Our Change.org petition

Thomas Lund thomas at lund.one
Tue Jan 5 18:22:14 CET 2016 

Hi everybody and happy New Year!

The first AES paper I know about these topics is from the same convention where Søren Nielsen and I gave “Level Control in Digital Mastering” (preprint 5019 and 5251) including measurements and listening examples. 

We wrote “Stop Squashing” and 0 dBFS+ articles for various magazines 1996-99, but they weren’t pier reviewed.

cheers,
Thomas


> On 05/01/2016, at 16.33, Bob Katz <bobkatz at digido.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 12/15/15 11:28 PM, Kevin Gross wrote:
>> Bob, is there any published article you're aware of where you described this experience?
>> 
> 
> Dear Kevin, it's Bob K replying, not Bob L :-).
> 
> Probably, I'll think about it. But you can cite a talk I gave at the 107th AES Convention in New York, where I cited and described these experiences. And gave demonstrations of currently smashed material and compared it with "the oldies". 
> 
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> 
> 
> Bob
> 
>> The 1980s section in the Wikipedia article definitely needs more sources to support assertions made there. This source describes the 1980s as an audio utopia of sorts -  <http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicdeath.htm>http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicdeath.htm <http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicdeath.htm>. In this source, Bob Katz uses 1980s material as a reference for unsquashed masters - http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb14/articles/loudness-war.htm <http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb14/articles/loudness-war.htm>.
>> 
>> I found a reference for the 3 consecutive over criteria and could incorporate this into the Wikipedia article but             this would support the existing audio utopia in the 1980s narrative - http://www.recordingmag.com/resources/resourceDetail/246.html <http://www.recordingmag.com/resources/resourceDetail/246.html>. Your objection to this section is that this narrative does not match your experience - the CD was not audio utopia in the early to mid 1980s. Lots of releases were clipped in a way that circumvented QC at the plants. The examples from the 1980s we're using to support the utopia narrative are cherrypicked.
>> 
>> 
>> On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 4:49 PM, Robert Ludwig <gatewaybob at mac.com <mailto:gatewaybob at mac.com>> wrote:
>> Hi Kevin,
>> Yes, let’s wait to hear back from Bob K et al.
>> 
>> Kevin, I’m very grateful that someone as knowledgable as you is a Wikipedia editor, thank you for that.
>> I just re-read the Loudness War article and saw there have been 15 edits in the last month and the “talk” page is pretty wicked and nasty.
>> 
>> From my point of view, the only statement I would question is: 
>> "Since CDs were not the primary medium for popular music until the late 1980s, there was little motivation for competitive loudness practices then. CD players were also very expensive and thus commonly exclusive to high-end systems that would show the shortcomings of higher recording levels.”  
>> 
>> Early on, the record companies and CD plants established a rule that they would reject CD masters that had 3 consecutive over-levels.  Even before the invention of the “look-ahead” brick-wall limiters, my clients almost always wanted me to use every last bit of dynamic range. Some, like the composer John Zorn, discovered that sometimes even heavy clipping was not so audible, so he had me master,  blasting his music into the red and then make a copy at -0.2dB (the resolution of the Sony digital editor) so it would pass the CD plant OVER test!  
>> 
>> All my best,
>> Bob L.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Dec 7, 2015, at 3:15 PM, Kevin Gross <kevin.gross at comcast.net <mailto:kevin.gross at comcast.net>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> These are going to be significant changes.
>>> 
>>> Does the subcommittee of three want to consider the other options mentioned in this thread before I go to the trouble of proposing specific revisions?
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 11:55 AM, Thomas Lund < <mailto:thomas at lund.one>thomas at lund.one <mailto:thomas at lund.one>> wrote:
>>> Hello Kevin,
>>> 
>>> I agree about education vs. promotion, so please go ahead and suggest improvements with the cause rather than us in focus.
>>> 
>>> cheers,
>>> Thomas
>>> 
>>> PS. Even my kids know not to trust or to quote from Wikipedia, which is generally a dynamic pile of last-man-on-the-keyboard-self-promotion, so I wouldn't stand behind an initiative referring to that. From an academic point of view, the loudness war article is useless, but it might not be worse than Wikipedia pages in general.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On 07/12/2015, at 18.34, Kevin Gross < <mailto:kevin.gross at comcast.net>kevin.gross at comcast.net <mailto:kevin.gross at comcast.net>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> MLA was founded as a technical expert group. Our work so far has been in education and engineering on loudness topics and normalization systems. The petition is a piece of non-technical advocacy and I don't know if I'm fully comfortable with that. It is possible my concern could be addressed through editing to remove some of the stridency. I would be happy to propose some changes if you're interested. But I respect comments from Thomas and Bob Ludwig and would like to see those addressed too.
>>>> 
>>>> Incidentally, I am one of the editors of the  <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war> article. If there is a specific objection to something in that article, I would be happy to try and revise it.
>>>> 
>>>> On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 9:19 AM, Thomas Lund < <mailto:thomas at lund.one>thomas at lund.one <mailto:thomas at lund.one>> wrote:
>>>> Hi Bob L and all,
>>>> 
>>>> I second that. It was also not easy to defend the time spent and the potential customer annoyance caused by engaging in this topic for >15 years at TC, so kindly understand the tact and requirements needed for steaming ahead as a group.
>>>> 
>>>> best regards,
>>>> Thomas
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On 07/12/2015, at 16.52, Robert Ludwig < <mailto:gatewaybob at mac.com>gatewaybob at mac.com <mailto:gatewaybob at mac.com>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> HI Bob K.
>>>>> 
>>>>> First, clearly I support this initiative, that is never in doubt.  
>>>>> 
>>>>> I re-read your original email where you wrote: "My proposal is that the MLA become the named organization behind the promulgation of this petition.”
>>>>> 
>>>>> Being that some of our members are in the trenches fighting the Loudness battle in world-class situations, and being that our names are NOT being signed on the petition, perhaps the MLA should NOT be the “named organization” but “turnmeup.org <http://turnmeup.org/>”, your own Digido.com <http://digido.com/> site or other.  It won’t change the impact of the petition, in fact perhaps there is more engineer community awareness of those sites than ours.
>>>>> 
>>>>> What does the group think?
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Bob L.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Dec 7, 2015, at 9:42 AM, Bob Katz < <mailto:bobkatz at digido.com>bobkatz at digido.com <mailto:bobkatz at digido.com>> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Guys, Thanks for your thoughts.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> We'll look at some of your thoughts and see at least if we can improve the links.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> As far as the title goes. We are activists, passionate about our position. This is a petition written by activists, designed to be put on Change.org <http://change.org/> to get action. It's designed to attract people to sign it. "Say No To A Streaming Loudness War" attracts attention, gets the message across well and is in tune with the idea of what a petition is supposed to do. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Do you want this to languish in "We're not activists, we're just apathetic engineers, so sign our                                                           petition if you care, but anyway, have a nice day."
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Be an activist. Support an activist title for this petition!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Bob K.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>> Bob Katz 407-831-0233 <tel:407-831-0233> DIGITAL DOMAIN | "There are two kinds of fools,
>>>>>> Recording, Mastering, Manufacturing  | One says-this is old and therefore good.
>>>>>> Author: Mastering Audio              | The other says-this is new and therefore
>>>>>> Digital Domain Website <http://www.digido.com/>               | better."
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However a large number
>>>>>> of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
>>>>>> No more Plaxo, Linked-In, or any of the other time-suckers. Please contact me by regular email. Yes, we have a facebook page and a You-Tube site!
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> 
> -- 
> 
> 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 this message. However a large number
> of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
> No more Plaxo, Linked-In, or any of the other time-suckers.
> Please contact me by regular email. Yes, we have a facebook page and a You-Tube site!
> _______________________________________________
> MLA mailing list
> MLA at grimmaudio.nl
> http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl

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