<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Hi All,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div>One more twist in the Apple / normalization story - out of curiosity I was monitoring the radio “stations” in iTunes the other day, and this is what I found:<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><img apple-inline="yes" id="A5692D19-B4C5-4AA3-B765-DFE66DAC7E9B" height="493" width="744" apple-width="yes" apple-height="yes" src="cid:B82663D0-ADA0-4217-ACC9-87C23A859B19" class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The first section is two “stations”, playing best-of and new material. The louder section in the middle is Beats 1 - which <b class="">all</b> sounded pretty squashed, I wonder if they’re putting it through an FM processor ?! And the final section is a Metal “station", including some seriously aggressive stuff.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">This makes me think:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">- Apple Radio is being normalized somehow (even though I had Sound Check off)</div><div class="">- Beats 1 is louder than other “stations”</div><div class="">- Different stations / genres have different normalization levels, presumably depending on the typical content</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">It would be great to find out more about this Eelco, if Buddy is willing to talk about it !</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Looking forward to meeting everyone on Thursday evening !</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Cheers,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Ian</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 16 Oct 2017, at 15:11, Bob Katz <<a href="mailto:bobkatz24bit@gmail.com" class="">bobkatz24bit@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
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<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class=""><p class="">Great. I am still organizing my schedule. I may get to it by
today or I may work on it on my flight. Organizing my calendar is
the last thing I like to do :-(</p><p class=""><br class="">
</p><p class="">So stand by on that answer,</p><p class=""><br class="">
</p><p class=""><br class="">
</p><p class="">Bob</p><p class=""><br class="">
</p>
<br class="">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/16/17 7:22 AM, Grimm | Eelco
wrote:<br class="">
</div>
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<div class="">Hi Bob,</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">No worries, I am totally aware of the potential threat of
this switching problem - that's why I shared it with MLA.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">I meet with Buddy Wednesday evening for dinner. Can you and
Thomas find a gap in your schedule either before the Keynote
(12:30) or between 15:30 and 17:30?</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">All the best,</div>
<div class="">Eelco</div>
<br class="">
<div class="">
<div class="">On 16 okt. 2017, at 12:54, Bob Katz <<a href="mailto:bobkatz24bit@gmail.com" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">bobkatz24bit@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:</div>
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<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class=""><p class="">Dear Eelco: Be VERY Careful about this topic of switching
loudness normalization in ---- with Buddy. I do know he
has thought about it already as I've had some brief
conversations with him about this already. HOWEVER, we do
not want to postpone Apple normalization by giving him the
wrong ideas. And so we must discuss this BEFORE you talk
to Buddy.<br class="">
</p><p class="">Below I repeat my post of 10/15 as points of discussion
among US first, BEFORE you talk to Buddy. And in fact I
urge a discussion with you, me, Thomas and the rest BEFORE
you talk to Buddy. We can meet together at the show if you
wish.</p><p class="">If Buddy had not suggested talking to you alone for sure
more of us would have been in that conversation with him.
We have to be on the same page first. Fortunately, Buddy
is a level-headed person and a good executive so he will
take some things into account. <br class="">
</p><p class="">The main point I want to make is that you are worried too
much about a "frictionless transition". Making any
mitigation to try to avoid user complaints is a very
dangerous and complicated adjustment that could just as
easily backfire! It's better that Apple prepare for
possible user complaints, but do not make any attempts to
mitigate loudness changes when normalization kicks in.
It's safer and better to just suck your gut in, make the
change and look out for user complaints. If you want to be
real safe, you do a beta test on any mitigation proposal.
I would participate in any Apple Beta test of this issue.<br class="">
</p><p class="">Keep in mind: Most listeners just adjust their volume
controls and go on. They're used to adjusting volume. It's
really not such a big deal! Do you think the switch to
EBU-R128 was a big problem? No.... listeners just made a
volume control adjustment and it was done. After
normalization comes in they'll discover they're moving
their volume controls much less, so that's exactly the
point! Kevin, I think you're worried about a non-problem.
<br class="">
</p><p class="">For a mitigation approach you would have to do a survey
of what kinds of listeners there are and the average
impact of a switch to normalization. You cannot assume.
And then beta test!<br class="">
</p><p class="">There are some other considerations I repeat below. <br class="">
</p>
<br class="">
<br class="">
Best wishes,<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
Bob K.<br class="">
<br class="">
Below is a repeat of my previous post:<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/14/17 1:36 PM, Kevin
Gross wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<br class="">
<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CALw1_Q03JA+dgi3qPHpv93v4B5Pxz6T_sWVJSK1oB-MioJfBVA@mail.gmail.com" class="">
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<div class="gmail_extra">
<div class="gmail_quote">The question is, is there a
way that the OS can mitigate the difference between
normalization on and off?<br class="">
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<br class="">
<br class="">
That is a VERY difficult question that we've all been
wrestling with for years. I predict that only a small
percentage of users will complain. Most of them will just
turn their volume controls up a little and cruise. So I
would not suggest any kind of complex modification that
could become a real software nightmare --- and postpone the
introduction of normalization, which we do not want. <br class="">
<br class="">
There are three classes of listeners who may complain after
the switch:<br class="">
<br class="">
1) Listeners who've been listening to soft material on
European-weakened mobile devices. Hopefully the -14 loudest
song target for the loudest song in album norm will give
sufficient volume-control-room on mobile devices. Thomas was
the one to suggest the -14 target for album norm and I bet
he already thinks it would work for current European devices
or he would have put his foot down by now :-) Thomas? <br class="">
<br class="">
2) Deaf listeners who like to listen to hard rock LOUD.
Things will come down a bit. But my experience with the
iPhone at least shows there's tons of room on the volume
control on the American device. <br class="">
<br class="">
So I think Tidal should stress the positive, as has been
noted already in this thread. They can say, "if you notice
the volume has come down a bit after this change, just turn
your volume control up a bit and your experience will be
even better than before normalization."<br class="">
<br class="">
3) <b class="">Attention Eelco: </b>Listeners who like to listen
softly to background music rather than foreground music, at
low levels. They're looking for a "processed,
broadcast-style radio sound". THIS GROUP OF LISTENERS IS THE
REAL GOTCHA. That's because track normalization is a form of
upward compression: Soft songs are played louder than they
are intended to be. So it forms a kind of free compressor
for people who are playing music softly and not attentively.
The only solution I think is to provide a track
normalization option for those listeners or a compression
option. Eelco, I think you should mentally prepare Tidal for
this kind of listener. But honestly, I don't think the kind
of listener who gravitates to Tidal is a background music
listener so this may be more of a problem for Spotify and
Prodigy.... Tidal is a quality-oriented service. <br class="">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/15/17 3:57 PM, Grimm |
Eelco wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CA071DB2-C68A-486E-A5FF-8B43FCA6FE10@grimmaudio.com" class="">
<pre wrap="" class="">Hi Kevin,
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<pre wrap="" class="">As you said originally, doing a frictionless UX transition to normalization always-on or on-by-default is an interesting problem. I think Buddy would be interested in this problem and might throw out some important information we don't know about iTunes or iOS if you got him to do some brainstorming on it.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="" class="">Very good suggestion. I have put it on my agenda to discuss with Buddy.
Cheers,
Eelco
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If you want good sound on your album, come to
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