[MLA] Loudness War in New York Times

Sun Feb 10 15:38:12 CET 2019

Doing mixes on spec is the worst kind of slave labor. You can spend a 
day or more on a good sounding single mix, especially if you don't lean 
on bus processing to mix it for you. :-)

I think that all the mixers should band together to stop this "spec mix 
competition" nonsense. It can't lead anywhere good. The A&R are loving 
it... they don't have to pay to get the workers to do their work for 
them. And the loudest mix wins?  Shit....  I feel nauseous.

Bob K.

On 2/9/19 1:30 PM, Robin Reumers wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I know I totally have no right to comment on this within the group, 
> but I would love to share my personal experience with this. Last year, 
> I got to do a spec mix for a well known Spanish artist. It got 5 Latin 
> Grammy nominations and 1 Grammy nomination. 3 mixers were asked to mix 
> 2 of the singles on the album and then the artist / A&R / producer 
> picked a winner. I ended up not making it, but then I heard the mix 
> that won and I really wanted to understand what they could have liked 
> better about it.
>
> One thing is that his mix that he sent to the client was about 6dBs 
> louder (mine was around -13 LUFS). Mine already had some bus 
> processing on it, to make it compete, but I didn’t want to deliver 
> something at say -7 LUFS. Then I heard that the way these mixes were 
> being listened to was a simple MP3 of each, sent via email. So the way 
> the artist / A&R compares these spec mixes, is typically not loudness 
> normalised. Which means as a mixer, if you want to be safe that your 
> mix gets chosen, it makes “sense" to make it louder.
>
> I know for example with the last John Mayer album, it was also spec 
> mixed by multiple mixing engineers. So is it possible that those 
> highly paid mixers chose to make it really loud, because it’s the 
> safest bet? Spec mixes seem to be very common nowadays.
>
> Just wanted to share my 2 cents.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Robin
>
>> On 9 Feb 2019, at 09:39, Robert Ludwig <gatewaybob at mac.com 
>> <mailto:gatewaybob at mac.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Kevin,
>> While there are exceptions, like the new Mark Knopfler album, some 
>> albums I work on are mixed louder than I have ever encountered, and 
>> louder than I would have ever considered to be a good final result.
>>
>> So it isn’t the mastering engineers always at fault, it is many of 
>> the very _highest paid_ mixers like Manny Marroquin, Shawn Everett, 
>> Tom Elmhurst etc. who think their work should be amazingly loud.
>>
>> They do their own pre-mastering to their flat mixes and send those 
>> highly compressed mixes to the client for their listening references. 
>>  Their clients don’t even get to HEAR the raw mixes which are 
>> typically 5-10 dB less compressed than the listening references.
>>
>> If you are used to looking at VU meters:  Our mastering rooms are 
>> calibrated so 1kHz @ -14dBFS = 0 VU on our consoles.  I remember when 
>> DATs were first being used in 1987 and mixes to DAT used to peak 
>> around +2 to +4 VU.  Today I _routinely_ get in listening mixes from 
>> the mix engineers that peak at +10 or even +12VU! I mean +14VU is 
>> _all that is possible_!  Distorted? Yes indeed!!  I guess it is part 
>> of the ethos of it now.
>>
>> The A&R people, the artists and certainly the mixers expect me to at 
>> LEAST match their listening reference level, a level I would normally 
>> never dream of going that high..
>>
>> I try to do what I can.  I tell clients about Spotify loudness 
>> normalization and how they can get a feel for that by comparing flat 
>> mixes vs. compressed mixes with Sound Check turned on in iTunes. When 
>> we start a project there is often a key song that they want mastered 
>> before the album comes out and I will send them both dynamic and hot 
>> versions and 90% of the time they pick the hot one.
>>
>> For me, 2 of my “Best Engineered” Grammy Awards are for records that 
>> are mixed and thus mastered _way too hot:_ the Beck “Morning Phase” 
>> and the Alabama Shakes album that is just _crazy_ loud.  Those 
>> nominations are chosen by _craft committees_ the Recording 
>> Academy puts together of the best mixers and well regarded mastering 
>> engineers.  I don’t understand it!
>>
>> Years ago when the mixers started doing this I would only be supplied 
>> with their low level original mixes (the ones the A&R people and the 
>> artist have _never_ heard!).  I would master the album to sound as 
>> good as possible and everyone would report back how small and wimpy 
>> it sounded… and how could someone like me even _submit_ something so 
>> bad?   We discovered this insane absurdity of them not supplying the 
>> mastering engineer with the very mixes everyone but us were listening 
>> to and USED TO! Once I heard what they were hearing everything was 
>> fine.   So in short order our front office now asks specifically to 
>> be supplied with the non-smashed mixes as well as the files everyone 
>> else has been hearing.  It has been one of the most unexpected and 
>> disappointing situations.
>>
>> All my best,
>> Bob Ludwig
>>
>>
>>> On Feb 9, 2019, at 10:25 AM, Kevin Gross <kevin.gross at avanw.com 
>>> <mailto:kevin.gross at avanw.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I was surprised to learn from Bob Ludwig's quotes that loudness 
>>> normalization has not been successful at stemming the loudness war. 
>>> Are others here in agreement with this assessment?
>>>
>>> Kevin Gross - AVA Networks
>>
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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 <https://www.digido.com/> No trees were killed in the sending of 
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