[MLA] Loudness example with distortion on Sound Check

[Bob Katz]

In that case you are advocating a fixed attenuation (1 dB, 2 dB?) across 
the board. I would certainly accept that. I wonder if Spotify will?


Bob




On 10/14/18 10:09 PM, Kevin Gross wrote:
> To fix this all you need to do is attenuate the floating-point output 
> of the decoder by a couple or few dB before you convert to fixed. The 
> playback will be a little quieter but the listener can compensate by 
> adjusting the volume up. The same attenuation is applied to all 
> material at all times so there's no anticipation or other monkey 
> business. For efficiency, this adjustment can be combined with the 
> loudness normalization adjustment.
>
> Kevin Gross - AVA Networks
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 14, 2018 at 7:23 PM Bob Katz <bobkatz at digido.com 
> <mailto:bobkatz at digido.com>> wrote:
>
>     Dear Kevin: Admittedly, there is no one size fits all encoding
>     level. But if content producers (mastering engineers) shoot for
>     iTunes' MFIT (high bit rate) codec, the vast majority of clipping
>     in all streaming will be handled fairly well in my opinion. I
>     personally don't shiv a git if it's occasionally too hot for
>     Spotify if we cover MFIT in our coding of a master. Spotify
>     deserves what they get with such a low bit rate codec they use,
>     and that will improve in due time. As a mastering engineer I do
>     not want to shoot for lowest common denominator. And most of my
>     sensibly-mastered material will play fine on Spotify with possibly
>     only occasional one hit clips. As I've said before, it's
>     impractical to make and control too many masters. We're currently
>     lobbying for all distributors to send the 2444 MFIT master and
>     send it to all the streaming customers. We'd like to see the 1644
>     originally intended to send to CD die a quick death. That's often
>     a dB hotter than the MFIT master.
>
>     As for attacking both ends and dealing with clipping on the decode
>     side I'd like to hear an explanation as to how a streaming
>     service's player can deal with (anticipate) a clipping situation
>     and attenuate post decoder.... from a moving bitstream. Please
>     start by telling us how you would deal with a song that has a clip
>     two minutes after the song has already begun...
>
>
>     Best wishes,
>
>
>
>     Bob
>
>
>     On 10/14/18 6:54 PM, Kevin Gross wrote:
>>
>>     On Sun, Oct 14, 2018 at 8:32 AM Bob Katz <bobkatz at digido.com
>>     <mailto:bobkatz at digido.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>         In our recent conversations, I pointed out that it's totally
>>         impractical to expect or even talk about any streaming player
>>         applying attenuation to avoid overs just post the decode
>>         stage. Therefore even though the clipping is not baked into a
>>         well-made encoder, it has to be the responsibility of the
>>         mastering engineer to prevent decoder clipping by reducing
>>         the level that will be applied to the encoder if necessary.
>>         Mastering engineers have to bake that level into the fixed
>>         point file that we supply to the distributors.
>>
>>
>>     If you want to fix this pre-encoder, you're going to get content
>>     producers to comply with something like Spotify's -2 dBTP
>>     suggestion. That means bringing peaks down 4-6 dB compared to
>>     where they currently stand at 0 dBFS. I don't see mastering
>>     engineers getting behind this. I don't know if we even want to
>>     recommend it either because it will result in more squashing.
>>
>>     We should also be raising awareness of the potential for clipping
>>     post-encoder and advocating for more robustness in players in
>>     this regard. You're right, we're not going to be able to get all
>>     decoders fixed. We're also not going to be able to get all
>>     masters fixed. If we work both ends, we'll make the most
>>     meaningful progress.
>>
>>     Kevin
>
>     -- 
>
>     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.
>

-- 

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.

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