Why does this song sound so bad?
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You can comment on this video at YouTube
Sunday October 29, 2023
David Mellor
David Mellor is CEO and Course Director of Audio Masterclass. David has designed courses in audio education and training since 1986 and is the publisher and principal writer of Adventures In Audio.
@thejoaocouto: Eww that AI was awful, take it off, just get a human being to talk for godsake
@AudioMasterclass replies to @thejoaocouto: No thank you.
@thejoaocouto replies to @thejoaocouto: @@AudioMasterclass ok have fun in the uncanny valley I guess
@markronning7891: A couple of thoughts
1) I personally am curious if the over compression in the second half of the song came from a need to have entrance of the band feel exciting to the listener. Another song with a similar dynamic increase is Jubilee Street by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. There’s a great video on Mix with the Masters where Nick Launy, their producer, is frustrated at the need to overcompress the band at the end of the song since it starts so dynamically quiet. If it sounds squished and muddled to your ear, that’s understandable, but what about other rock songs that have similarly high LUFS and over compression in dynamically diverse ballads? I think this is what happens when a band sweeps from guitar/piano/vocal to a full arrangement with drums, strings, and overdriven guitar.
That said, the “loudness war” extends throughout rock and pop and hip-hop music across decades. I don’t love it either. In fact, one of the loudest mixers in the game, Andrew Scheps (who is known to overcompressing his mixes) has famously mixed Jay-Z, Adele, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and so many acts. I personally think that this arrangement necessitates over-compression more than some of Olivia’s other songs.
2) i see some comments that are referencing the target audience for this music as teens listening on phones and AirPods. I think that’s a bit reductive. I’m a musician and huge music fan, and the pressing of GUTS sounds great on my Zu Audio speakers. Do we see a young pop artist and automatically assume their audience is teen girls? If it’s not your thing, it’s not your thing. But I think those kinds of labels definitely carry an intent to reduce the quality of the music. Olivia Rodriguo’s songs are just as complex as many other pop rock acts. She uses great arrangements, cool harmonic substitutions, clever and witty lyrics. It’s great stuff. And just as complicated in arrangement and production as other high quality rock acts. Not a lot of pop stars are embracing rock and this shows how cool of an angle she approaches music from.
I totally understand being frustrated with over-compression in music, and I understand if Olivia Rodriguo is not your favorite artists. But I think some commenters on here are using “facts” about who the music is “for”, about how it’s mixed or produced, etc. to invalidate how strong of a songwriter she is and how great of a team her and Dan Nigro are. I’d encourage anyone who seeks to dismiss Olivia to ask themselves whether they are justifying their own feelings/taste with “facts” for making the music less significant.
At the end of the day, musical production is aesthetic. And pop sensibility exists throughout even the grittiest and dirtiest production decisions. If someone wraps that in a pop rock package versus something less radio-friendly, it does not invalidate or validate their capability more. GUTS is a testament to how clear and consistent Olivia Rodriguo’s voice and vision are. If you disagree, that’s okay. But I don’t think you can invalidate such a strong record through mixing and audience critiques. Try as you might, no package is ever validated or invalidated simply through the decisions within the musical aesthetic.
@anilchitnis4875: You old has been. No one cares what you think.
@kirtandreamrezzer: The record company may be pushing the "wall of sound" to impress the masses listening on cheap lousy earbuds, car speakers, or boom boxes.
@aishwaryasohanpal7734: Girl what?Bsfr, this song ,as well as, all the songs she's ever made or sung in is literal gold. She has raw talent, can't deny that.
@julianmorrisco: Audio Phil always makes me laugh!
@ferienambalkon: When working on songs for female artists I keep returning to Olivia's GUTS album again and again. Her vocal sound is so amazingly modern and refreshing and well-crrafted. I'm afraid you're getting old (I'm 56, btw, so I think I know what I'm talking about)
@urfavblondle11: This is song is very hard to sing and a very good song but when you sing it all together sometimes it can sound bad.I think this is because this song has minimal breaths and lost of high notes then fastly going into flat notes. It’s a good song just at the speed she sings it can make our ears hear it a little disorted.
@HeroesCinema9503: I think mixing and mastering engineering should start making songs sound good without waiting for volume to do so.
I mean, if you want an angry sound, do it without damaging the listeners ears.
Because am telling you, these people will have hearing problems when they get older
@AudioMasterclass replies to @HeroesCinema9503: Audiologists rejoice!
@fredashay: Pros: Regarding this particular song, I like the emotion she puts into the song. She's got pipes, I'll give her that.
Cons: When I load a song into Audacity to convert it from one format (such as OGG) to another (such as FLAC or WAV to put it on my Sony music player), I hate seeing a solid block of noise with no discernible waveform. That doesn't give my "de-clipper" and dynamic range expander plugins much to work with :-(
@rienpost: Remember when stereo mixes weren't taken too seriously by engineers because most people were listening on mono record players anyway? (Yes, I'm talking about the 1960s). This is similar. Why make a lovely transparent mix with lots of headroom when 80% of the listeners are using crappy pods anyway? Might as well mix for those. This is all about product. Not about art. Which is a shame, of course.
@anxiousappliance: I'd go after the producer if anyone is to be gone after - but I'll take aggressive in your face over clever gloss most days of the week. For all the commenters ready to write her off, maybe watch her Tiny Desk concert : She's got a great band, genuine charisma, and some good songs. Can't blame her for becoming a superstar: Sh*t happens.
@singactgiggle: This song actually gives credit to a viola/violin, electric guitar player, and pianist!
As for the quality of sound, I can hear the distortion quite plainly , however I think the way that it is executed works well for this particular song. I’m not sure I’d like it if it were done elsewhere though… I think it works artistically and it struck such a chord in me (pun not intended) that I’ve been trying to recreate the effects. I find the decisions made with the mixing to be creatively satisfying, but that’s just me! I can totally understand how it’s not for everyone.
@olinamoran5653: Stop being mean 🙄😡😡😡😡😡🤬🤬🤬
@myrongator: I am an old Fartvas well. I like a variety of music but not pop . A lot of it sounds the same and is really distorted. If I want distorted sound I'll listen to my cat.
@youngroyalty7991: The Fletcher-Munson graph in my brain says it sounds gooder louder.
@itsroobeats: I'm gonna put my neck on the line... I think it sounds good and choses to deliberately be distorted to portray the emotion and add to asethetic of the song.
I agree with the issue with the overall loudness, not need everything needs to be pushed. However, the mix engineer is pop music's greatest, Șerban Ghenea, and the mastering engineer, Randy Merrill, is very experienced and has mastered a lot of great pop songs. I think these people know what they are doing and every decision they make is to serve the song.
I understand the desire for super clean, perfect mixes and recording but sometimes thats boring and lacks emotion. Some of the best producers and mix engineers are in the neurofunk/ drum and bass scene. Their mixes are as close to perfect as you can get in modern production (noisia etc) but sometimes the tracks are just flat because they are just too clean.
P.S. the instruments are real, there are sampled drums but that is a choice for the song. Check out the production and session musician credits on the song: https://genius.com/Olivia-rodrigo-vampire-lyrics (scroll to the bottom)
@Tyco072: Really horrible mastering (and hilarious!), but nothing new. Fortunately I don't like the modern mainstream music. The first bad mastered CD that I encountered was "Whatever" by Oasis in 1994, CD single. It sounded immediately bad to me. When I opened it in a wave editor, some years later, I saw that brick wall for the first time, with even plenty of clipped peaks!! Clipping is unacceptable for any recording. I wanted bring the CD back to the store and ask for my money back (but it was too late). For me it was a faulty product, or a fraud product. Fortunately since then I bought only a bunch of CDs of modern music. Almost all were bad mastered.
The mastering of CDs never has been done properly, exploiting it correctly for its 100% quality. Almost all AAD CDs have a lot of tape hiss, low volume (they are recorded at only 60-70% of the 16 bit range) and have a less detailed sound, because of the multi generation copies. Then starting from the mid 1990's the loudness war came, and it destroyed the quality of almost all DDD and ADD CDs. Today the same happens with the download files directly sold by the non mainstream artists. Also they often pump the volume up, making their music sound worst. Not always and not always so bad, but often.
But why when normalizing (without clipping!) a low track, does it sound somewhat more distorted? Only the amplitude level of the samples are changed, not the frequency or the harmonic content. Why does it happen?
@lights80088: Sounds aututuned to me. I hate that. All these young girl singers sound the same. Yes, autotuned for sure. I really dislike that song.
@edwarddodge7937: You’re right. It’s simply terrible. My guess: the audio engineer was high. Everything was mixed and mastered to go well with cannabis.
@MapleAudio: I came to this video because I also thought the song was extremely badly recorded, mixed and mastered. But the fact that songs like this are completely limited and compressed I just accepted.
My main complaint is that the high-end is pushed, limited and distorted so much that I can hear very high noise especially in the quiet parts probably above 12kHz. Not only sibilances and all that.
I know that not everybody is able to hear this especially older people but it is so extremely annoying. Play this song to some teenagers on some good equipment and they will tell you the same.
I think we need some kind of young ears safety plugin for sound engineers that cannot hear this. Or just always slap a low pass filter and a negative high shelf on the song to the point that the sound doesn't get affected.
@artysanmobile: Old fart notwithstanding, the sound of Olivia’s production is horrendous. I produce pop singles occasionally, when I find a piece I really believe in. I have released some heavily compressed music in my day but nothing even close to this atrocity. It has become a science experiment, lacking any emotional impact the song might have otherwise had.
@metronomeblues1028: Phil, remember what most people are listening to this stuff on. You (and I) have nice monitors so the extreme limiting is exaggerated, but most people today listen on Smart phones and laptop speakers, so the compression helps it sound more present. Plus, since people have playlists, the tracks level has to compete with everything else. It's a shame.
@DougHanson2769: I’m trying to like it.
But I can’t. It Sounds the same. 😮
😡
@donk1822: I hate Sweet **** Caroline, drives me up the wall :).
@nadtz: I wouldn't have known how to describe what I was hearing with this song and to be honest it doesn't sound 'bad' exactly to me but I did think something was weird. Before going into the whole video I stopped and listened to the song a few times (first on youtube then on amazon music), the music isn't exactly my thing but I like her voice so once I understood what I was finding weird I'm unsure what to think.
@sword-and-shield: No individual vocal character, its all the same. But hey everyone can be a singer now huh. I want the real vocal character that let you know who the singer was.
@RoyaltyInTraining.: I wish mastering engineers would stop adding distortion to songs that are already intense. I listen to a lot of metal, and even if the music itself is good, the harsh limiting and clipping just removes everything that would make it exceptional. What I find interesting is that when a band releases instrumental mixes, they often sound a lot cleaner in the parts where there used to be vocals. It's like a glimpse of how amazing the songs could have been.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @RoyaltyInTraining.: My feeling is that creative distortion should be in the individual tracks, not in the mastering.
@egilsandnes9637: So profanity is a problem, but creepy AI dolls are ok?
You're weird man.
@egilsandnes9637: plucker?
@francaogbulu: We still love vampire
@Synthematix: Modern music from the past 15 years has been completely strangled by all the compression and limiting, but to be fair very few modern songs are worth listening to anyway.
@sunnyinvladivostok: The song is made "loud" to get more views, in very much the same way youtube videos have inflammatory or overly reductive titles like "Why does this song sound so bad?" to get more views.
@mattlm64: I think people must like it. Why else would record companies and producers continue with it for so long? I only wish they would release two versions of each album/single: The "loud" version and the "good" version.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @mattlm64: I concur.
@dopiaza2006 replies to @mattlm64: Young listeners know no better
@kennethvalbjoern: This track is technically a disaster. When I listen to the part with drums, that is the worst, I can't help to think: All this terrible effects and dynamics treatment is only there to mask a bad and lifeless production...
@yvesfrancoisritmo: I do agree that it is an awful sonic picture - I abhor that over production and high levels of saturation. I prefer less production. I think you hit why i generally prefer most music recorded decades ago over the 1990's onwards push for over modulation (classical music exempted of course, as are some jazz and world music). I can get into 70's and too many channels in jazz recording (the string bass ending up spunding like a rubber band - yikes)
Thank you
@donalddeorio2237: Please just poke out my ear drums and put me out of my misery
@daddymulk: No, your so right' it would of definitely benefited more quality orchestral sound but there only catering for teens with this music and casual older listeners. More of its programming minds than love of music
@daddymulk: Mark Devlin is great source of info on these bands and music
@MichelBertrand: Every excerpt of this song hurt my ears; also, she has no voice.
@SimonLloydGuitar: It's the compression, distortion and sibilance...oh and lack of dynamics. The semi muttered vocals are so stylised and dated in my view, plus it has a 'tyranny of 4' chord progression.
@kto-totam: Compression, distortion and autotune... sounds terrible.
@christianduval8374: Oh ! The very 1st melody reminds me of the 1981 song "être une femme" by Michel Sardou !
@peterthompson9854: I don't understand your very short point at the beginning about gender swapping the lyrics. I've read them through and there is a fair amount of venom there, is it that?
@jasongodwin1319: The song works for me. It does get distorted past the halfway point but I think that's an artistic choice to show her emotional state. I f you think of it as a play or avant garde instead of traditional pop music it works as a performance piece. I think all sound is valid, even sounds I hate. It all has a place.
@gavinrfuller replies to @jasongodwin1319: 100% agree with you, I am not a fan of the distortion at times in the song, but it works for this song.
@Declan4253 replies to @jasongodwin1319: Great comment. Very true. It is art after all, not a competition for best sounding audio. I love the audio analysis that Audio Masterclass provides. Takes listening to another critical level.
@permanenceinchange2326: It's really simple: louder is better! A loud song attracts more attention on a listener's playlist. Since it's in the top charts, I guess the marketing guys did their job well by pushing the audio engineers to make it LOUD.
@ckturvey: Unfortunately, this is not a new problem. I was listening to "Backfield in Motion" by Mel and Tim. It was a Top 10 hit in 1969. The recording of the single is so distorted and compressed, that, for me, makes it hard to appreciate the all the football (and a few baseball) metaphors in the song. Pop producers have always pushed the audio technology of the time to ( and beyond) the limit in order to capitalize from the psychoacoustic phenomenon of "louder is better". I hope that LUFS will help make recorded music more dynamic and not just merely loud. Enjoyed the video.
@virgogreg: Would love to hear the pre-master copy to hear who is to blame. the singer is most proberbly oblivious
@anonamouse5917: Yep. It's distorted shit.
@jaaasgoed: Isn't this done so that you get high enough volume on phone speakers and other crap bluetooth reproducers that are nowadays sold as "HiFi"? All this compression is needed just to get some volume out of these systems, but it absolutely does away with sound quality and dynamic range. This means that on any "normal" sound system this stuff just sounds terrible while it probably really shouldn't have to if it was mastered those systems.
@the_snackbar: This is a little bit of "old man yells at cloud"
@cubemerula5264: I can't stand the way she sings and not for the effects.
@MrAntrax667: Hello there. The thing is... can She Sing it live with a band and sound good and close to the recording? A bunch of "singers" these days cannot Sing if their lives depended on it.
@isuru221: Oh, i dont listen to overly dramatic modern music anyway.....
@keithbroughton4476: There is no excuse for the bad sound of that track in the modern recording environment!
@swinde: Could we just have the recordings done correctly and let those that want to compress songs to death buy the hardware to do this on their playback systems?
@Flowerbranche: You give a very good explanation (although I don't really understand LUFS levels) to why I can't stand most of modern music, and it's not necessarily about the songs itself but the recording (or mixing, mastering) quality. I really hate the way modern pop tracks sound! Imagine this song being recorded in the 70's or 80's - it would have sounded much better! There is a reason I prefer CDs released in the 80's and early 90's to later remastered editions.
@paulijokinen94: Your videos have been greatly educating!!! I was enjoying POP music with my Hifi alike minded friend at his house, enjoying his equipment as well, then we started playing 70-80s Disco, what a difference in recordings! Clear pure sound vs. later era POP music! YOU ARE ACTUALLY EDUCATING WHAT I AM HEARING with my wanna be audiophile ears 👍 And keeping that audiophile trait with necessary mockery in proper check too... 😃
@Boleskinebeatz: I like your channel only came across it recently, but I think you’re missing the point ..there’s energy and excitement that jumps out of the speakers when this song comes on any kind of a home device.
Also, there’s an integrity to what she’s singing. It’s not just something made up by a committee of songwriters, and if it was to too well produced it could all go a bit Céline Dion, anyway that’s my take on what they’re aiming for.
Like you I’ve been at Sound Engineer for over four decades, so I’ve heard mixes every which way I just think this one is okay just the way it is!
@danender5555: You laughed at analog recordings so much and so long as you finally got proper digital applause.
@johnholmes912: It would not be worth listening to with good sound
@dennisgunn468: I am sure you are absolutely right about how overdone and compressed it is, and yes I am 64 years old so I do remember when actual dynamics were a thing but honestly the mastering decisions do not really bother me. I like the performance and the song and if you did not point out the problems they would never enter my consciousness.
@ooooswain: I love Olivias voice but got outraged at how bad this recording is and googled "Olivia vampire sounds like sht" and found this video lol. I thought these people were supposed to be professionals. I could have done a better job in garage band. How tf they think it's okay to have this buzzing all through her vocals. Great song, one of the worst recording I've ever heard. Olivia deserves better. Her voice is actually wonderful.
@Level42Man: Maybe she was in severe pain and discomfort when recording this 🙅♂️👉🏼😖👈🏻
@Flenz: if you compare this for example to the beatles twist and shout vocals, it sounds rather clean to be honest. As i recently watched Warren Huarts latest Video about EMI/Abbey Road in particular always tried to push the envelope in terms of sound. In popular music it has ever been and continues to be a race between different labels/producers/artists to come up with the most "exciting" sound. it is what it is... unless the music industry settles on some loudness standards as in TV & Film or Broadcast.
@joeldoxtator9804: Mastering techniques are being tuned for low quality equipment, plain and simple.
This has been mastered for phone speakers which have abysmal high frequency resolution and low frequency response.
This is the basics of it.
A typical cell phone speaker will play 500hz to 3.5Khz VERY loud and anything outside this range is basically not played.
To avoid just general low volume complaints on these devices, audio engineers are compressing everything to be represented in these ranges.
This leads to everything being audible on a cheap cell phone speaker, but makes the listening experience on a system that actually has sub 500Hz and post 3.5Khz ranges unbearable.
As with much these days, you have the cheapening of standards of the general population to blame.
@nathanhomeier7501: Nothing special about anything in that song.
@paulphilippart7395: As usual a great song ruined and mastered by a muppet.
@armandocamorra2488: You hear the Bruno Mars's song "Marry you" from YouTube music and it's so distorted when you compare with the videoclip from YouTube app. Why ?
@armandocamorra2488: I hate distorsion
@armandocamorra2488: This type of recording was made for being played in speaker's phone
@relip7802: Really enjoyed your video. Can we have a longer video where go through the top ten songs 😃
@chrisbartram3034: I guess it's engineered for phone speakers and/or Alexa, and to stand out over those. Shame.
@johnmcquay82: If you're an old fart, that makes two of us. I find a lot of modern recordings are mastered in this way, I really don't like the modern mush that's often released. Good songs being ruined by awful mastering; it's why I seldom buy older albums that have been digitally remastered, invariably they have been digitally destroyed.
@nitromcclean: I completely agree with the point you make in this video. 'Vampire' by Olivia Rodrigo sounds terrible and especially the last part of the song is very tiring to listen to. I know that the term "unpleasant noise" is a personal experience. For one person the same sound can be an annoying noise and for another the same sound can be pleasant to listen to. The sound of 'Vampire' by Olivia Rodrigo sounds like very annoying noise to me. For me that is completely separate from the music. I think it's a very nice song.
The big question for me now is, why is so much music still mastered this way? A few years ago we had the loudness wars. This meant that most modern music on media with the technically highest dynamic range actually has the lowest dynamic range in practice. LUFS was invented to do something about this. When I search for LUFS on the internet I find that LUFS has put an end to the loudness wars. Then I get confused. Why do these articles explaining LUFS say this? In my experience, most modern music is still mastered in the same way as during the loudness wars. And I don't understand why this still happens. Due to the "normalize volume" of Spotify, such a master does not sound louder at all, but it does sound with a greatly reduced dynamic range. To me it sounds more like noise than pleasant listening music. So why is music mastered this way? Are there really any listeners who would rather hear music with a greatly reduced dynamic range where everything is compressed into a lump of sound instead of music with a "native" dynamic range where you can hear all the instruments and vocals clearly?
I think you should make a follow-up to this video, explaining why LUFS was created and how exactly it works. You can also conclude that the whole idea behind LUFS does not work (yet) because a lot of music is still compressed flat. I'm very curious whether there are people who really like this sound, whether there are people who also find it ugly or people who are not aware of this at all.
@DWHarper62: I am a producer presently preparing music for Spotify and other streamers... I generally master the tracks to about -12dB Lufs, definitely leaving dynamics and never crushing the mainly acoustic music... That being said, my music is definitely alot quieter than most other "record label" tracks as the directive from the labels is to get the music as loud as possible, going to the -8dB avg with peaking right to 0dB... In some cases, the artist does not have a choice, the label will give the music to the mastering engineer with the loudness directive to compete with all the other music that they are crushing... Thankfully, Spotify is set by default to the limiting of all music to -14dB, so most consumers hear all music at about the same level, albeit much of it still crushed. But if the consumer turns off the limiting, the music I release will be definitely quieter...
@trottophone: "One difficulty these days is that much popular music has no real-life existence - it is created entirely for electronic consumption.
To be successful in juke-boxes, for instance, 'pop' records must have a dynamic range not greater than 10dB and if possible as little as 6dB,
otherwise the quiet passages are drowned in the clatter of café crockery or pin-table mechanisms.
It is now accepted in recording circles that the narrower the dynamic range on a record the greater the chance of it joining the Top Twenty.
Perhaps this doesn't matter much, but in the meantime a generation is being conditioned to expect six decibels from popular music
while the concert hall still provides a glorious sixty for those who care to attend.
We must hope that practices evolved for 'pop' entertainment are not allowed to infiltrate other fields -
if they do, hi-fi would indeed be on its last lap."
An excerpt from Miles Henslow's editorial, 'Hi-Fi News', February 1965.
@Phil_f8andbethere: Sounds like more talentless garbage put out by the industry. Number 1 doesn't surprise me, because played on radio or on cheap portable headphones it probably doesn't sound quite as bad, but will sound worse on a resolving system. Whoever, invented, and those still practicing, loudness war style production, should be locked in an echo chamber and forced to listen to their own productions at full volume for 3 months solid.
@rollandjoeseph: Wtf? An AI assistant? Sorry I can't watch
@HieronymousCheese: "Yes. Well it started badly, it tailed off a little in the middle & the less said about the end the better! But apart from that, excellent!" (Blackadder Goes Forth).
@mcpribs: I can only assume that folks who enjoy “that sound” will say they do so, because if feels like more energy. I might buy that argument, but I don’t have to enjoy the result of losing it.
@davedunham605: ...and to think how much money we spend on audio gear only to listen to this?
@Seiskid: Its hideous. The audible distortion is unbelievable. I can't believe that's a professional track. When you distort this badly you inevitably get higher (non musical) harmonics (tones that clash with the fundamental note frequency) and intermodulation distortion (sum and difference frequencies). The first is usually what makes distortion audible. The second always sounds horrific. They must surely do some digital filtering of these artifacts, but if I can hear the distortion its clearly not enough. As to the compression. Its almost like a gate. Very hard to listen to. My only question to all this is - why???
@randalb7930: There is a new exploration going on in the pop music industry, where elements of electronic music is seeping into hip hop and pop. You can find creative uses of pushing a track way past it’s usual enjoyable level, where distortions can sound interesting in there brokenness, in the track Lalala Phonk by Bgnzinho. This was explored first in Baile Funk and some Japanese versions of hip hop sampling styled electronic music. These producers on this track simply miss the target. It sounds not artistic nor interesting. Garage Inc-ish, anyone?
@jamieirwin6333: It sounds absolutely dreadful, such a shame because it could’ve been something special.
Great channel by the way , I’ve learned a lot about sound and recorded music!
@RandyNyberg-ni7rw: Why don’t you try listening to Olivia’s performance of this tune with just a grand piano and her voice. Which you can find on YouTube. Or maybe try going to a live concert. Anyone with any common sense understands that a record recording is is going to be different than a live performance vs a studio rendition -HELLO!!! I find your opinion/evaluation to be “RUBBISH!” I suggest you go back to listening to symphony recordings. I say this as someone your age with a music degree. Simply stated, find something else to comment on, or should I say to waste your
time on…… Good riddance.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @RandyNyberg-ni7rw: You seem a rather unpleasant person. I shall be glad you won't be watching my channel in future. DM
@nomis4913: Why is it that just about every mainstream artist is happy for their music to be processed to within an inch of its life? Don't they care about how it sounds, or do they really believe their music sounds better after this sort of processing compared to a straight mix? I get that many of today's artists who aren't the best singers or the best musicians or the best songwriters might want to hide behind an over-produced mix, but what's the excuse for those who can sing and play and write? What are they afraid of? It's ironic that the closer we get to being able to make the perfect recording the worse popular music becomes. I've never understood the mentality of mixing a track to sound good on an AM radio or through earbuds. Mix it to sound as authentic as possible; if it sounds crap through a smartphone speaker that's the listener's problem.
@markcarrington8565: In my yoof I bought records. As my system improved, my taste in music broadened to encompass many genres. Life was good.
With children taking more room in my life and house, the stereo system was culled of the record playing elements as I switched to CDs. At this point, a strange thing happened. My taste gradually became more “audiophile”. Jazz was becoming more prominent, as was classical. I sought out specialist labels and stopped playing my old prog rock albums. The sound quality of the CDs I did play was excellent, however, I played fewer of them.
In my next adventure, I heard about Tidal and I started using it via a dongle DAC on my iPad to sample new music. Having found an album I liked, I purchased the CD. Many times, the CD came across as harsh and aggressive and in the worst instances, unplayable. Florence and The Machine, Lana Del Ray and Keane, all artists I can’t listen too on CD.
My solution was to buy a dedicated streamer and decent DAC and try the albums through my system before shelling out for the physical media. Result, I don’t buy any new mainstream CDs any more.
Children now grown, I have returned to vinyl records and lo and behold, I love prog rock once again. And all the other music I’ve listened to over the years. I deliberately buy music on vinyl knowing the levels of compression will almost certainly be reduced in the vinyl mastering compared with the digital version.
I can’t think of another industry where the quality of the output is designed to be bad. It’s like making a Rolls Royce with the smoothest and quietest engine then taking two of the spark plugs out and fitting straight through exhausts.
@nitromcclean: To make a long story short, the s sounds are terrible and almost everything in the track is compressed like hell. In this track it is very clear to hear, but most modern tracks in the hit charts are mixed and mastered like this. The big question is, WHY? Are the record company's who ask the mixing and mastering engineers to make it sound like this completely mad? I would think so. I don't really know (but I definitely like to know for sure) but I think most listeners on Spotify have "normalize volume" set to on, because this is the default setting. If "normalize volume" is set to on, songs like 'Vampire' by Olivia Rodrig wont sound louder then other songs without any compression. The big difference, songs without any compression sound decent to me and songs like 'Vampire' by Olivia Rodrig sound terrible. Imagine you just have spend a fortune for your new hifi setup and this terrible noise comes out of your speakers! Because most modern hit charts songs sound like this, you even might think there is something terrible wrong with your new hifi setup.
It would be great if a lot of hifi enthousiast start complaining to record company's about destroying sound quality of their new releases. Maybe this can end this stupid loudness war which is still going on. And really, in a time where everybody was listening to cd's, I could see the point (I still hated it) but with most people on Spotify listening with "normalize volume" set to on (I think) it does not make any sense.
There would be a chance this all can change for the future. If a band releases their own music on Spotify without a record company (which is possible nowadays) and asks the mixing and mastering engineer not to compress their music, and this band becomes one of the most popular bands in the world, record company's may want to start believing this sound is the new big thing and they would ask their mixing and mastering engineers to do the same. I am asked to mix and master an album for a new band who release their music on Spotify without a record company. They have asked me to compress their music as little as possible. We all now are praying that they will be a great success.
Oh, and maybe it would be a good idea to make a video about loudness units relative to full scale.
@scottjanssens9978: Audiophile Phil is frickin' hilarious.
@ChristopherOrth: The sound processing isn't the only thing I don't like. Any mush-mouthed "singing" is always junk to me.
@AbsoluteFidelity: I listened to the song on my phove via earbuds last night. It was alright although a little too sibilant. I can still accept such sibilance. Today I played this track on my KEFs and Focals, and man oh man, her vocals got to the point of being metallic and distorted. Some notes are very glassy and brittle, almost like a female robot trying to scream through a straw. And it doesnt only happen at high volumes, that distortion is present even at 60db from my MLP. I again went to my 4x4 and listened on it's stock system, not as bad but I cant unhear it now.
@keithandrewneal: My God, what an awful recording. I listen using good headphones and right from the start it is annoying. Sibilent and later on just a overly distorted mush of sound. Shame really as it would have been a great record. I suppose most listeners using their I phone and crap in the ear phones would think it's amazing. When young listeners hear my hi fi for the first time, usually they are open mouthed at the sound quality. Hearing things in recordings they have never heard before.
@ENZEEVIDS: it doesn't have to sound good because
A shes hot and
B most people who listen to it don't have a fucki$$ clue
😉
@DisectUK: All LUFS and no action. Seems the trend of if it's loud it must be good has taken off again.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @DisectUK: 'All LUFS and no action". You might hear those words again in a future video. DM
@CarGift-videos: Well done! Cant be more accurate than that! IMO they started all wrong, the voice was raised in a way that brought out the s sounds and there on as the intensity was rising, everything needed to came up again… could be a rookie mistake or a bold move since most of the people tend to think that sound only gets loud when it gets distorted (😂) and they needed this overdrive so that the listener would feel the rage, the passion, that Olivia was trying to transmite. I think the success came to this part and it’s the transmission of the felling and if it was the porpoise of the artist, it was well done. distorted? Yes… Good or bad? Depends on the listener. I liked the concept (if it was intended like I think it was) if not… a lucky success based on someone 😱 out loud. Your video was brilliant!
@ronaldmcdonald2456: Exposure. All of us have missed being exposed to one thing or another during our lives. So, in various categories we accept the pedestrian and the mundane because we haven't been exposed, and therefore, don't know that there is something different or better. I grew up around radio stations, and live, impromptu performances. As a teenie I was introduced to the Muscle Shoals Sound---a recording studio a couple of hundred miles up the road from my hometown. My older brother even had demos from the place. I went on to work in radio all of my life, and to be exposed to all sorts of sounds. I listen intently. To everything. NOBODY ELSE IN MY ORBIT GIVES A DAMN. And they wish I'd just shut the hell up and let them listen in peace to what, to them, sounds just great.
@pablov1973: And you have to read mastering engineers telling us that -8 LUFS is a really good compromise between the music expression and the habits of listening of the youngest generations that almost never have a proper set-up at home and the best scenario is that they listen with in-ear headphones on the streets. I'm 50 and listening to music was always something to do at home. I really can't accept -8 LUFS as a good loudness approach, I grow up on an era when almost all records were mastered between -16 LUF and -11 LUFS the most loud of them, but more important, where nobody would have the idea of truncate the differences between 4 different consecutive drum hits. Yes, they were evened a little bit, but since they used to use tube analogue compression each hit preserve it own characteristics.
@stevengagnon4777: I believe the audience (a commodity) is being manipulated into believe that they are being entertained by the "artists" (another commodity) and now a product has been achieved in the market... by the way I checked out the entire video and felt that normal reasoning was being broken down and I was fighting for my will rather than being entertained. I immediately went and listened to a couple of Starcrawler videos and was actually entertained...they have been working hard and it's paid off ❤. The recording and production has been going too, well in my opinion. My phone with an Altoids peppermint box for a 🎧 amp and my ATH M-50x's at full tilt it sounds pretty good. Anyway have a good day.