[MLA] Our Change.org petition

Kevin Gross kevin.gross at comcast.net
Tue Jan 5 19:05:54 CET 2016 

Hi Thomas,

Wikipedia prefers "secondary sources". Peer review is not required, just
needs to be a respected publication with "editorial controls". AES
preprints should qualify as do trade magazines.

Do you have copies of preprints 5019 and 5251? Do you have a magazine
clipping of a "Stop Squashing" article you can share?

On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 10:22 AM, Thomas Lund <thomas at lund.one> wrote:

> 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. In this source, Bob
> Katz uses 1980s material as a reference for unsquashed masters -
> 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. 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> 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> 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 < <thomas at lund.one>
>> 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 < <kevin.gross at comcast.net>
>>> 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 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 < <thomas at lund.one>
>>> 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 < <gatewaybob at mac.com>
>>>> 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”, 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 < <bobkatz at digido.com>
>>>> 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 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 thereforeDigital 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!*
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> MLA mailing list
>>>> <MLA at grimmaudio.nl>MLA at grimmaudio.nl
>>>> <http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl>
>>>> http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> MLA mailing list
>>>> <MLA at grimmaudio.nl>MLA at grimmaudio.nl
>>>> <http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl>
>>>> http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> MLA mailing list
>>>> <MLA at grimmaudio.nl>MLA at grimmaudio.nl
>>>> <http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl>
>>>> http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl
>>>>
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> MLA mailing list
>>> <MLA at grimmaudio.nl>MLA at grimmaudio.nl
>>> <http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl>
>>> http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> MLA mailing list
>>> MLA at grimmaudio.nl
>>> http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> MLA mailing list
>> MLA at grimmaudio.nl
>> http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> MLA mailing list
>> MLA at grimmaudio.nl
>> http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl
>>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MLA mailing listMLA at grimmaudio.nlhttp://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl
>
>
> --
>
>
> 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
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MLA mailing list
> MLA at grimmaudio.nl
> http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://grimmaudio.nl/pipermail/mla_grimmaudio.nl/attachments/20160105/244fd657/attachment-0001.html>

More information about the MLA mailing list