DR, Brickwalling, Fidelity, and Perceived Loudness

[paligap]

Does dynamic range equate to and/or result from "brickwalling"? If not, which might be more responsible for perceived loudness?

I played a CD the other day that has low DR numbers, and it was striking how loud it sounded. I had to turn the volume down quite a bit to get to my normal listening level. I haven't run it through Audacity to see its waveforms, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's brickwalled.

Is fidelity related to dynamic range or brickwalling in any way? I've listened to recordings that have been described as having wonderful fidelity, and my perception of loudness is the opposite: I can turn the volume much higher than my normal listening level and still carry a conversation.

 

[Marplot]

A lot going on in the question.
I am not a musical engineer so you will get better, more detailed responses from others.

DR is simply the range between the softest and loudest parts of a song.

For music that is well mastered there is a general hope/perception that 9s and better mean better sound and less ear fatigue if you listen to it at higher volumes.

The loudness is due to crap mastering decisions, compresion and brickwalling.

The majority of CDs released since the 90s has a high amount of compression applied leading to lower DRs.

Brickwalled is the worst of all because the signal raised to just under clipping and then compression applied.

There are certainly genres of music where lower DR do not equate to abusive compression but in general, if I have an album with a DR of 6 and an older release with DRs of 8-10, I am going to prefer the original.

 

[markshan]

Dynamic range is inversely proportional to brickwalling. Bricking is the act of squashing away all of the dynamic range so that everything sounds like it is the same volume. Bricking is an extreme form of compression/limiting.

Due to sometimes warranted but sometimes unnecessary flogging of compression by "audiophiles", compression has gotten a bad rap as of late. Lots of times fairly heavy compression is used to very musical ends. Ringo Starr's drum kit absolutely would not sound the way it does without copious use of compression. All the old Motown 45s were heavily limited to make them stand out on AM radio.

The difference is that in the analog realm you can only take it so far. Digital waveform manipulation allows for essentially "flat" waveforms, which sound very non-musical. If you've never watched this video, it explains it all in just a couple minutes so much better than I can.



All that said, I will add that the DR rating is one of the most abused tools around. Don't become "that guy" who thinks it is the end all in rating a particular mastering. Trust your ears. If it sounds good, it is. If it doesn't sound good, it isn't.

 

[EricKalet]

...Bricking is an extreme form of compression/limiting.

Due to sometimes warranted but sometimes unnecessary flogging of compression by "audiophiles", compression has gotten a bad rap as of late. Lots of times fairly heavy compression is used to very musical ends. Ringo Starr's drum kit absolutely would not sound the way it does without copious use of compression. All the old Motown 45s were heavily limited to make them stand out on AM radio.

Isn't compression that is being used while mixing/engineering music very different from the term "compression" that audiophiles use? I've always disliked the term "compression" in regards to playback of recorded music, shouldn't the terminology really be "clipping." I think most digital music that is brickwalled is done more so to limit the dynamic range and prevent clipping.

 

[par4ken]

Does dynamic range equate to and/or result from "brickwalling"? If not, which might be more responsible for perceived loudness?

I played a CD the other day that has low DR numbers, and it was striking how loud it sounded. I had to turn the volume down quite a bit to get to my normal listening level. I haven't run it through Audacity to see its waveforms, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's brickwalled.

Is fidelity related to dynamic range or brickwalling in any way? I've listened to recordings that have been described as having wonderful fidelity, and my perception of loudness is the opposite: I can turn the volume much higher than my normal listening level and still carry a conversation.

Brickwalling will squash the DR value and make the recording louder. Just like those loud TV commercials. In addition to making the recording sound lifeless digital brickwall compression imparts a harsh distortion to the sound. I think that some artists and producers were often were going for that particular sound in the nineties.

Every time that I run into a bad sounding recording I only have to check it's DR value or open it up in an audio editing program to see that it is in fact brickwalled. Low DR values and brick walling go hand in hand. Some recordings have a low DR value but still sound OK, they were done using analog compression. With analog compression there is still a bit of variation from loud to softer peaks but brickwalling makes everything above a pre-set level exactly the same, no way to undo it!

 

[par4ken]

Isn't compression that is being used while mixing/engineering music very different from the term "compression" that audiophiles use? I've always disliked the term "compression" in regards to playback of recorded music, shouldn't the terminology really be "clipping." I think most digital music that is brickwalled is done more so to limit the dynamic range and prevent clipping.

Brickwalling is done simply to make the recording sound louder. There is no need for it at all with Hi-Rez or CD digital audio. When CD's first came out we were promised recordings with greater dynamic range than was possible with vinyl. Instead we over time got remastered recordings that became louder and louder and sounded worse and worse, with very little DR left.

Compression can be used in the recording studio to prevent clipping as you say and that is OK. Brickwalling is not OK!!!

 

[jimfisheye]

There's this trick mastering engineers hate to have you know about.
The volume control!

That would be the clickbait version, right?

Hard limiting compression reduces peaks and thus lets you then boost the level of the audio in the file without actual clipping distortion. Anything past 4db or so with this and the audio audibly suffers. (Volume war mastered CDs go as much as 20db with this! Yeah...)

The other thing people discovered is that goosing the treble up to 11 increases perceived loudness. Again at significant harm to the audio. (Heard plenty of examples of 20db high end boost territory here as well.)

Both at the same time is your average volume war CD.

Us silly humans hear loud and bright and it sounds better than dull and quiet.
Match the volume between those examples and you suddenly hear how much damage the volume war CD has suffered.

I recommend grabbing multiple released copies of your favorite albums and taking inventory. Line them up in tracks in your favorite DAW app. Normalize the volumes between them - turning the louder ones down to match the quietest one. NOW start A/B comparing them! You'll hear some examples that you just can't believe were allowed to be released!

The DR numbers do follow this. Yes, you can be cagey and skew this just like the people making commercials do. It's better now with LUFS metering. Put a stop to gross example of that. It's still all relative at the end of the day. You might hear a volume war CD that still sounds pretty darn good and in fact better than some undamaged mix that's just not as good of a mix. Usually doing that trick of actually turning a volume control with your hand leads to the best results.

Ultra shitty portable devices like phones, shitbars, and Bose earbuds might just go blown out trying to turn them up. The volume war hash squeaks out just a little louder from this stuff so the kids love it.

 

[ar surround]

Dynamic range is inversely proportional to brickwalling. Bricking is the act of squashing away all of the dynamic range so that everything sounds like it is the same volume. Bricking is an extreme form of compression/limiting.

Due to sometimes warranted but sometimes unnecessary flogging of compression by "audiophiles", compression has gotten a bad rap as of late. Lots of times fairly heavy compression is used to very musical ends. Ringo Starr's drum kit absolutely would not sound the way it does without copious use of compression. All the old Motown 45s were heavily limited to make them stand out on AM radio.

The difference is that in the analog realm you can only take it so far. Digital waveform manipulation allows for essentially "flat" waveforms, which sound very non-musical. If you've never watched this video, it explains it all in just a couple minutes so much better than I can.



All that said, I will add that the DR rating is one of the most abused tools around. Don't become "that guy" who thinks it is the end all in rating a particular mastering. Trust your ears. If it sounds good, it is. If it doesn't sound good, it isn't.

Thanks for posting this, Mark. Even on low end, built-in desktop computer speakers the difference is brutally obvious.

 

[markshan]

Isn't compression that is being used while mixing/engineering music very different from the term "compression" that audiophiles use? I've always disliked the term "compression" in regards to playback of recorded music, shouldn't the terminology really be "clipping." I think most digital music that is brickwalled is done more so to limit the dynamic range and prevent clipping.

No, it's the same thing, just applied in different stages.

What may be confusing is that sample rate compression is a different thing than dynamic range compression. SRC is the kind of compression they use to drop information from digital files to create a lossy file such as an MP3. That is a completely different entity from DRC. Hopefully I explained that adequately, please let me know if that answer is unclear.

 

[markshan]

Brickwalling is done simply to make the recording sound louder. There is no need for it at all with Hi-Rez or CD digital audio.

I don't understand the correlation between your first sentence and your second. Did you watch the video I linked?

 

[markshan]

Compression can be used in the recording studio to prevent clipping as you say and that is OK. Brickwalling is not OK!!!

Compression can be used for much more than simply peak limiting (preventing clipping). Compression can and has been used as an artistic tool for almost a century. People don't spend all of that money on a Fairchild 670 or a UREI 1176 just for peak limiting. They use them because when used skillfully they have the ability to make music sound great.

 

[markshan]

I think most digital music that is brickwalled is done more so to limit the dynamic range and prevent clipping.

It has nothing to do with clipping. Millions of recordings have tons of dynamic range and aren't clipped. It is to increase "perceived loudness" for the listener. Watch that video again and really look at the waveforms as you listen.

 

[jimfisheye]

There are 3 main tools on every channel of a mixing board:
Volume control
EQ
Compression

These are the main "meat and potatoes" tools.
Compression is an automated "turn the volume down" control. Compression is also the most complex tool and has the widest range of sound altering ability. You set a volume level where you want it to start turning down the volume: threshold. That's simple enough. You also tell it how fast to start turning down: attack. And then how long before it stops turning the volume down: release. How much it turns the volume down when it hits the threshold: ratio.

Ever heard someone say something like "boost the volume with compression" or "fatten something up with compression"? How the hell do you do that with a "turn the volume down" autopilot?! Right? Workflow: Set to compress the "peaky" content. Now turn the volume up on the whole track. Those comments are more about describing workflow using a compressor.

The usual advice:
Being that we humans like loud and bright as mentioned, it's a good idea to normalize the volume after the compressor with the pre volume to compare and see if your compression result is really what you wanted vs. inadvertently just turning the volume up.

 

[par4ken]

Compression can be used for much more than simply peak limiting (preventing clipping). Compression can and has been used as an artistic tool for almost a century. People don't spend all of that money on a Fairchild 670 or a UREI 1176 just for peak limiting. They use them because when used skillfully they have the ability to make music sound great.

Yes but not brickwalling. Compression was necessary in the analogue days but music always sounded better without it. I used to love hearing live bands playing in small clubs or bars, if they weren't excessively loud.
DBX built dynamic range expanders to allow people to get some of that live feel of dynamics back found with live music compared to canned music. Sadly they can do nothing with a brick walled source!

Many years ago I made some basement tapes with a local band. The first session used no compression and even when downmixed to cassette sounded great. At a latter date we did some more recording using a compressor and it gave the music a smother sound like more commercial releases and FM radio. Compression was a helpful with vocals as moving the mic just a bit drastically changes the level. The first session was instrumental only. Sadly I used a back coated tape that no longer plays properly, it squeals loudly and I had recorded over those original tracks anyway.

 

[par4ken]

It has nothing to do with clipping. Millions of recordings have tons of dynamic range and aren't clipped. It is to increase "perceived loudness" for the listener. Watch that video again and really look at the waveforms as you listen.

STOP THE LOUDNESS WARS, sorry I'm shouting. OK not sorry!

 

[markshan]

Compression was necessary in the analogue days but music always sounded better without it.

No, it didn't. Compression OFTEN makes music sound better. Again, I'll refer you to Ringo's drum kit.

 

[markshan]

STOP THE LOUDNESS WARS, sorry I'm shouting. OK not sorry!

I agree with you about the loudness wars. Some of those CDs sound horrible. Metallica fans were ripping Death Magnetic from a video game because it sounded better than the official release.

Trying to explain the artistic utility of compression is NOT the same thing as defending brickwalling. It seems that you are struggling to sort that out. It's like saying "I don't like hammers" because somebody threw one through your windshield. That doesn't mean that hammers aren't useful for framing work.

 

[sjcorne]

The use of compression on individual elements such as vocals or drums at the mixing stage is absolutely valid, and usually necessary to give the impression of 'weight' or 'punch'. I'm not sure why you'd want to put a compressor on your master bus though.

 

[par4ken]

I agree with you about the loudness wars. Some of those CDs sound horrible. Metallica fans were ripping Death Magnetic from a video game because it sounded better than the official release.

Trying to explain the artistic utility of compression is NOT the same thing as defending brickwalling. It seems that you are struggling to sort that out. It's like saying "I don't like hammers" because somebody threw one through your windshield. That doesn't mean that hammers aren't useful for framing work.

I strongly disagree that compression makes music sound better. I agree that sometimes it's necessary.

 

[markshan]

The use of compression on individual elements such as vocals or drums at the mixing stage is absolutely valid, and usually necessary to give the impression of 'weight' or 'punch'. I'm not sure why you'd want to put a compressor on your master bus though.

That would be the Motown 45s. It's more of a "house sound" than an "audiophile" one, but lots of people like it and it certainly sold records.

Spector's Wall of Sound is another one that used a lot of compression when mixing to the mono master.