Loudness Wars discussed on Newstalk

counterpointaud

Good to hear this subject getting some airtime...hopefully this is a sign that public awareness is on the rise. They even referenced www.turnmeup.org.

Missed the start of it, so I don't know if they publicly named and shamed any particular albums or talked about broadcast radios role in the whole practice (I doubt it.)

Anyway good stuff Newstalk.

frobisher

Was listening to it and the wa back from Laois today. Great to hear that kind of stuff on radio. Even if it is a bit hypocritical for an FM station to giving out about slamming audio. Show us your limiter settings and we might have a chat :-)

smog

frobisher wrote: »

Was listening to it and the wa back from Laois today. Great to hear that kind of stuff on radio. Even if it is a bit hypocritical for an FM station to giving out about slamming audio. Show us your limiter settings and we might have a chat :-)

ha ha too true

TheBandit

frobisher wrote: »

Was listening to it and the wa back from Laois today. Great to hear that kind of stuff on radio. Even if it is a bit hypocritical for an FM station to giving out about slamming audio. Show us your limiter settings and we might have a chat :-)

They are news talk though, they don't play music

madtheory

A limiter is a necessary evil for FM radio. And in fairness, Today FM have the best sound. 2FM is the one that is seriously over compressed. Matt Cooper's show is great

teamdresch

No way - Phantom sounds worst by far.

11811

I really like the turn it up idea, a lot of stuff today,especially when played on the radio, does sound like mush, fair play to newstalk for bringing it up.

And have to agree Today Fm does always sound pretty good.

studiorat

teamdresch wrote: »

No way - Phantom sounds worst by far.

So true. I thought that was just me. Phantom's in bits, shocking considering they market themselves as a music lovers station.

As far as I know a limiter is necessary for any transmission FM, AM, de Telly etc. I suppose when you have a loud cd and then it goes through an Optimod it just adds to the squeeze!

Heard some funny stories about the transmission room in RTE. Like the recording engineer P.Begley ringing them up one morning and telling them they were transmitting in mono.
"No were not! Hold on! Oh Yeah!! Thanks! "

Or the guy who was talking to his mother on the phone from work. She says hold on I'll just turn the radio down. He replies "It's ok Mum, I'll get it from here"!!!

PaulBrewer

Could someone who heard this give us a quick synopsis ...?

studiorat

What show was it? Maybe it's up on the site.

dav nagle

There is a new loudness war campaign where by producers with permission of the artist have dropped the level of their recordings to retain the dynamics of the music. Apparently Jimmy Eadie is one of the producers who has been part of this new campaign. The artists release their album with a sign on the front cover of the album thats says something like ' say no to loudness' I **** you not, I am not joking, give Jimmy a shout, he'll explain all. I only heard this through Jimmy a few weeks ago and it sounds like a really cool idea.

PaulBrewer

dav nagle wrote: »

There is a new loudness war campaign where by producers with permission of the artist have dropped the level of their recordings to retain the dynamics of the music. Apparently Jimmy Eadie is one of the producers who has been part of this new campaign. The artists release their album with a sign on the front cover of the album thats says something like ' say no to loudness' I **** you not, I am not joking, give Jimmy a shout, he'll explain all. I only heard this through Jimmy a few weeks ago and it sounds like a really cool idea.

Stop messin' and turn it up ...

dav nagle

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Stop messin' and turn it up ...

I am not messing Paul. I knew I'd start getting this 'your only having us on nonsense' as I said call Jimmy and he will explain it better than me as he knows more about it than me I am only the bird on the shoulder, the mouse in the hole, the worm in the grass, the kiss on the cheek, the friend and nothing more, the ear in the wig.

madtheory

studiorat wrote: »

I suppose when you have a loud cd and then it goes through an Optimod it just adds to the squeeze!

Yes, although it's the phase rotator in the Optimod that causes problems with over limited music, not the Optimod's limiter.

PaulBrewer

madtheory wrote: »

Yes, although it's the phase rotator in the Optimod that causes problems with over limited music, not the Optimod's limiter.

What da feck is a Phase Rotator and what does it do???

frobisher

PaulBrewer wrote: »

What da feck is a Phase Rotator and what does it do???

Variable phase flip at a guess? I've always wondered about having something that could do that as opposed to just being 180 degrees.

jtsuited

studiorat wrote: »

So true. I thought that was just me. Phantom's in bits, shocking considering they market themselves as a music lovers station.

As far as I know a limiter is necessary for any transmission FM, AM, de Telly etc. I suppose when you have a loud cd and then it goes through an Optimod it just adds to the squeeze!

Heard some funny stories about the transmission room in RTE. Like the recording engineer P.Begley ringing them up one morning and telling them they were transmitting in mono.
"No were not! Hold on! Oh Yeah!! Thanks! "

Or the guy who was talking to his mother on the phone from work. She says hold on I'll just turn the radio down. He replies "It's ok Mum, I'll get it from here"!!!

you wanna funny story about radio transmission from the state broadcaster, i've got one:

doing a live broadcast on Lyric from the NCH .Lyric is actually one of the few stations that has a strict policy on smashing the signal.

However there is some fecked up rule about always having a silence detector working (for those that don't know - a silence detector when triggered will kick in some prerecorded music. it's to stop dead air).

Well lo and behold during a quiet pause in a well known symphony (embarassingly can't remember what symphony), in kicks the silence detector and starts knocking out the Indiana Jones score.

We only found out afterwards, but to show you the musical education of the Irish listenership, there were very few complaints. In fact there were more complaints about the audience coughing on air that evening.


Anywho, I find phantom unlistenable lately.

Btw, I found out a good bit about transmission processing after the incident mentioned above.
Apparently the BBC have different daytime and nighttime limiter settings (once again proving that people who are into music would be better off as nocturnal creatures).

madtheory

Good stories!

PaulBrewer wrote: »

What da feck is a Phase Rotator and what does it do???

It continuously adjusts phase so that the signal is always symmetrical around 0. Ever notice that the waveform of a voice recording is always biased towards the positive? This yoke makes the AC symmetrical so that you get maximum modulation power.

That's the simple explanation. Here's Orban's:
http://masterdigital.com/24bit/radioprocess.htm

PaulBrewer

Ah, interesting.

As always, everyday's a School Day!

120_Minutes

I used to work for newstalk and can honestly say i have no clue what happens to the signal after it leaves the desk. and i was running it!

scary huh?

madtheory

frobisher wrote: »

Variable phase flip at a guess? I've always wondered about having something that could do that as opposed to just being 180 degrees.

Get Tritone Digital Phasetone, it's free. Or LittleLabs IPB, not free.