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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/14/17 1:33 AM, Thomas Lund wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:7B4D6682-9C42-45EB-A36C-8479ADC007B9@lund.one">
<pre wrap="">Hi Ian,
You don’t know the per-track normalisation factor before an album is completed; and the factor changes if the same track, without remastering, becomes part of a new album.
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<br>
Here I have to disagree. On the basis of center-of-gravity over here
as a mastering engineer, I can cite and even give examples of why it
is possible to know with a great deal of certainty, how a given
track will work, within 1 or 2 dB I wager, in a new album. I've been
working with a fairly fixed monitor gain in the same room for many
years now, and it works, it works real well. I'm not saying that is
a solution to mastering a given album in its own context, I'm simply
pointing out that center-of gravity works and it is very possible to
predict an approximate gain for any track or production you are
working on BEFORE THE ALBUM OR PRODUCTION IS COMPLETED. <br>
<br>
Use your ears, and calibrated monitoring. 24-bit and especially
32-bit float allows this to be done without penalty. If you are
working on a section of a radio production and it is the dialogue
and you know it is going to be integrated with music later, then
turn it down to what sounds natural to you in a calibrated room.
Don't send it to the next stage of production at full level, it's
going to be turned down.<br>
<br>
As a mastering engineer I encounter this problem all the time. Mix
engineers work on a ballad, peaked to full scale. They work on a
rock number of the same album, peaked to full scale. In 10 seconds
of audition, as an experienced mastering engineer, I know I have to
turn down the ballad. There's a lot to be learned from this concept,
and it can be passed on to broadcast and other production
institutions. In the old days, often there were guidelines in radio
production environments, to set the announcer to a certain VU level
and the music to a certain higher level. It was a primitive attempt
to help pre-process the material, and to be honest, even that is far
more effective than sending the dialogue along at ridiculous full
scale to the next stage in the production prodcess. <br>
<br>
This concept has nothing to do with genre, guys. It has to do with a
better and more holistic approach to production practices.<br>
<br>
<br>
Let's look at an interesting issue: A two album set, one with mostly
ballads and one with mostly rock numbers by the same singer. The
mastering engineer mastered them in context, and thus users can
shuffle the two albums interchangeably. If disc #2 contains all
ballads, however, it will come out too loud in an album-normalized
stream. However, if disc #2 contains even one rocker and the rest
ballads, then the two albums can be ingested and sound perfectly
together in an album normalized stream. AND, come out well against
all the other albums in the stream. It is only singles releases of
ballads that will sound wrong in that stream.<br>
<br>
And again, I'm not talking about genre. This has nothing to do with
genre, it has to do with human perception. We tend to listen to
material at its performance loudness. Has nothing to do with genre.
<br>
<br>
<br>
BK<br>
<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:7B4D6682-9C42-45EB-A36C-8479ADC007B9@lund.one">
<pre wrap="">
“Hard-fought” was in relation to keeping a genre-neutral metrik at the center of all loudness measurement. Dolby wanted speech normalisation, and one-eyed Album is almost equally bad.
Satisfy Program Loudness normalisation first, then consider custom tunings such as Speech or Album.
cheers,
Thomas
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<pre wrap="">On 14 Dec 2017, at 02.14, Ian Shepherd <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ian@mastering-media.co.uk"><ian@mastering-media.co.uk></a> wrote:
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for the extra details. Just to clarify:
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<pre wrap="">b) Album reduces production transparency, a hard-fought feature of BS.1770
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<pre wrap="">
Do you mean you’re concerned people won’t be able to predict the final playback loudness because it depends on the context within an album ? I’m not sure why this would be the case, since surely people will always know which other songs will be grouped together in an “album”, and so can calculate the offset themselves ?
Sorry if I’m missing something,
Ian
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<pre wrap="">
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