[MLA] Spotify’s plans

[Bob Katz]

Well, "a reduction on material that's >-11 LUFS" improves encoding 
quality (subtly) for that material, but there's plenty of lower material 
whose peak level would overshoot the codec whose LUFS falls between 
about -11 and -16 and occasionally below -16 so there's not enough 
forethought going on here. If you're going to attenuate before encoding 
in order to prevent encoder clipping then do it right.

I suspect the reason they want to follow this approach is they still 
want to keep their "loud" target" and are reluctant to raise material 
that they have already lowered if they dropped material, more sensibly, 
to, say, -14 LUFS. Eelco has not responded to this thread in a while and 
I'm getting concerned.


Bob K.

On 10/28/19 5:53 PM, Ian Shepherd wrote:
>
> Ah wait, maybe I misunderstood.
>
> I thought they would store 3 separate copies, each hard-normalised to 
> Loud, Medium or Soft, and then streamed directly.
>
> But actually you’re saying they are just considering a reduction on 
> material > -11 LUFS to improve encoding quality and provide the 
> loudest copy (presumably also with higher quality limiting baked-in 
> for quieter songs ? Or will they stop turning things up ?) but then 
> other reference levels will be achieved in software.
>
> Is that right ?
>
> Ian
>
>
> PS. Understood about keeping this to ourselves
>
>
>
>> On 28 Oct 2019, at 18:18, Kevin Gross <kevin.gross at avanw.com 
>> <mailto:kevin.gross at avanw.com>> wrote:
>>
>> I think it means what it says, normalize PCM audio to -11 LUFS. From 
>> which I assume, stuff that is louder than -11 LUFS gets digitally 
>> attenuated. Stuff quieter is untouched before normalization. Loudness 
>> metadata is stored as usual so that playback target can be adjusted.
>>
>> Kevin Gross - AVA Networks
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 10:20 AM Bob Katz <bobkatz at digido.com 
>> <mailto:bobkatz at digido.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     On 10/28/19 9:49 AM, Grimm | Eelco wrote:
>>>     Hi Ian,
>>>
>>>>     I heard from somewhere rumours that in future Spotify will be normalising before encoding.
>>>>
>>>>     (I can’t remember where this info came from, or whether it was on the record, which is why I’m mentioning it here first rather than in one of the AES groups)
>>>     Yes, we should keep this ‘under the hat’ for a while. I can confirm it is an idea that Spotify is considering. I have shared the idea with people from the target level group since I believe it should be part of our recommendation. I also mentioned that Spotify is considering it but that it was not final and should be treated as confidential info.
>>>
>>>>     Ultimately I think this is a good idea, since it will reduce the chances of decoder clipping, and also give better encoding results in general.
>>>     That is exactly why I told Spotify it is a good idea.
>>>
>>>>     However it’s also concerning if they choose (for example) -14 LUFS as a reference level. There will be a huge investment of time and processing in re-encoding their entire library, and I  imagine this would make them highly resistant to future changes - for example, to a reference level of -18 LUFS, as the AES are discussing.
>>>     No, it will always be a hybrid solution, which means: 1. attenuate PCM audio to -11 LUFS before encoding (the loudest target). 2. add metadata.
>>
>>
>>     Please clarify what this means! There must be some clauses
>>     missing in the above. Or maybe you mean "attenuate PCM audio by
>>     11 dB before encoding, and add metadata".
>>
>>
>>
>>>>     Did this info come from anyone in this group ? If so, do we need to start a conversation about it, or are Spotify already waiting to see what the AES recommend ?
>>>     They absolutely do. One more reason to keep moving forward.
>>>
>>>>     If we don’t know, do you think it’s OK for me to post the same question in the AES groups ?!
>>>     No, we should not post our knowledge about Spotify’s plans to the larger AES group. We can post the idea of attenuating to -11 LUFS before encoding, but I rather first discuss it in the target group.
>>
>>
>>     Please discuss it here first. Explain to me what this means.... 
>>     Did you really mean to say, "attenuate by 11 dB first"?  Which
>>     might make sense. But honestly, only 2 or 3 dB of attenuation
>>     would do the job for everything.
>>
>>
>>
>>     Bob
>>
>>
>>>     Cheers,
>>>     Eelco
>>>
>>>
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>>     -- 
>>
>>     If you want good sound on your album, come to Bob Katz
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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 
this message. However a large number of electrons were terribly 
inconvenienced.

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