Music with(out) dynamics

I sat down on my comfy chair and put on Ne Obliviscaris their Urn album. "Something is off with my speakers", I thought a few minutes in. I tried adjusting the settings on my amp. Looked at the speaker position in the room. Nothing was off, yet it didn't sound right.

The music stuck to the speakers. The double bass was overpowering the guitars. The vocals should stay the same volume, no matter the instrumentation underneath. Right?

It wasn't the first time I noticed instruments getting quieter as more were introduced. It was distracting and took away the enjoyment. Then, I switched to their Exul album. It sounded better.

The feeling of music lacking the depth it needed, led me to investigate the Loudness War. I was familiar, but now I was also actively experiencing the consequences.

Ever since the rise of FM radio, (and it became really bad when CDs were introduced) engineers have been mixing records louder and flatter. And this loudness obsession really started to affect my overall music appreciation. Maybe because I listen differently? Perhaps my ears got more sensitive to it. Anyhow, it is incredibly frustrating.

Here is my plea for more dynamic range. Especially in extreme metal.

Dynamic range

Dynamic range is a group of three measurements:

1. Absolute dynamic range is the difference between the loudest peak and the quietest sound.
2. The signal-to-noise ratio is how much louder a signal is to the background noise.
3. And a measure on how much the peaks (like drum hits) seperate from the average loudness of the track, the peak-to-loudness ratio.

When I write ‘dynamic range’, I refer to a combination of these three measurements. This is usually expressed in decibel, so 60db indicates that the loudest sound in the mix is 60 decibels louder than the quietest sound.

The medium is important

The dynamic range is limited by the medium. Most vinyl has a range between the loudest undistorted level and the noise floor (surface noise) between 55–65 decibels (some prestine grooves might have ~70dB).

In digital audio, like CDs and streaming, it depends on the file's bit depth.

These are the theoretical 'dynamics' a medium can hold. Not the actual recording and mastering of an individual record.

Interesting sidenote: Digital audio is technically superior to vinyl in every measurable way—more range, less noise, and less distortion. However, the theoretical advantages of digital audio don't always translate into a superior listening experience, and a surprising factor comes into play: the limitations of vinyl. Overly compressed masters simply can’t be cut to vinyl without consequences. The needle would jump because the grooves would be too extreme. So to make a vinyl record, you need more dynamic versions of the record.

We like it loud, unfortunately

Perhaps we are ourselves to blame. We like a louder recording (initially). Our ears become more sensitive to bass and treble at higher volumes, making it sound better. Engineers exploit this by raising the average volume, simulating energy that isn't actually in the performance. At first, the louder version of the same track feels more exciting–even if they're technically worse.

And so, the obsession on loudness became worse. With the introduction of CDs, engineers were able to push beyond vinyl's limitations. Shortly thereafter, digital limiters were introduced. These allowed engineers to chop off the peaks precisely. With the peaks removed and the extra headroom the CD gives, the whole track could be pushed even louder. This whole practice led to 'brickwalling', where engineers would push the audio signals so far they'd look like solid blocks.

What a win!

In the meantime, radio also had to compress everything because of its own limitations. Labels started to send in these already-loud masters. And because you can't follow an exciting (read: loud) song with a quiet song (it'd bad for business!) every record was mixed louder than the previous. Thus the loudness war started. And sadly, it never really stopped.

The Loudness War no longer makes sense. We still do it. But it's the result of incompetence. Streaming platforms normalize audio by turning down tracks exceeding their target loudness, resulting in a uniform perceived loudness across the library. But here we are. Decision makers still crush the masters keeping all its distortion but losing its loudness advantage.

What over-compression sounds like

In over-compression, the higher frequencies are the first to suffer. Cymbals lose detail and start sounding 'static' instead of sparkly. You'll also recognise the 'ducking' effect when guitars and vocals dip in volume in time with the rest of the instruments.

Most of all, the small volume differences between hits and intonation are erased. Everything becomes more uniform, lifeless, and mechanical.

Example: Green Day’s Holiday

One of the best examples I could find is Green Day their American Idiot album. Compare the heavy compression on the original 2004 release of Green Day's Holiday with the remastered Deluxe version. (Disable your service their normalization for the best effect.) It's unbelievable.

On the 2004 version, the snare hits sound slammed, where the remasters let them ring out longer. The original's distorted guitar chords blend with no separation; the remasters reveal space between notes. The vocals also stay unnaturally loud in the compressed version, with no contrast between the shouted parts and the spoken segments. Overall, it is fatiguing to listen to several heavily-compressed songs. But not to the ones with a larger dynamic range.

Dynamics aren't optional in extreme metal

What puzzles me the most is the decision to compete in the Loudness War in extreme metal. The consequences of this war are especially damaging to genres where intricate instrumentation and dramatic shifts in volume are crucial to the artistic expression.

Destroying dynamic range was a technical fix for a marketing problem. A problem that no longer exists, especially not for music that isn’t chasing radio play.

Without dynamic range, that beautifully written section with its great build-up and pay-off falls flat. The emotional arc collapses. And it is the intricacies of the songwriting and instrumentation, the feeling of power and satisfaction when a quiet section builds into a crescendo of virtiosity, is why I listen to extreme metal in the first place! Why take that away from us?