Rise and Shine recording and writing a new song for Earth Hour - TODAY

Good news interactive music lovers - Rise and Shine is on-air today, composing a new song to support Earth Hour - with your help, if you'd like. The essence of the show is feedback from the viewers - suggest ideas, help write the lyrics, or just keep an eye on the fun.

I'll edit this post when the show is over - it will be running on and off throughout the day, so if you're reading this - click on the link below to join in via the live video stream and chat ! If there's nothing happening, Dean & Dan are probably having a cup of tea, so pop back later :-)

10 Rules For Achieving Outstanding Music Mixes

Some of you may be interested in my latest post over at the new Production Advice site:

10 Rules For Achieving Outstanding Music Mixes

Please head on over and take a look !

Ian

Do the kids prefer "mp3 sizzle" ? Bullshizzle !

In the last week there has been a lot of attention paid to an informal study made by Jonathan Berger of Stanford University, which he claims shows that some young people (a) prefer the sound of mp3s and (b) that this is becoming more true as time passes.

To be quite frank, Professor Berger should know better.

He says that he:

tests his incoming students each year in a similar way. He has them listen to a variety of recordings which use different formats from MP3 to ones of much higher quality. He described the results with some disappointment and frustration, as a music lover might, that each year the preference for music in MP3 format rises. In other words, students prefer the quality of that kind of sound over the sound of music of much higher quality. He said that they seemed to prefer "sizzle sounds" that MP3s bring to music. It is a sound they are familiar with.

Leaving aside all the reasons there are to doubt the testing methods and results of an "informal study" like this, even if it's true that more and more students are choosing the mp3s, that doesn't necessarily mean they prefer the sound overall, especially for longer-term listening.

Why not ? First, the short version:

MP3 encoders typically don't have enough headroom to handle the very high peak level of modern CDs, and so introduce extra clipping distortion as well as all the encoding artefacts - this is the so-called "sizzle".

In a short-term A/B test, I can believe people would respond positively to the extra high-frequency distortion, just as they do to small level increases and quantisation distortion.

But I want to hear long-term testing.

Play those same students the same music for 2 or 3 hours straight - in CD and in mp3. Then, don't ask them if they can hear a difference or which they prefer - ask them how they FEEL.

My prediction is that there will be more irritable, edgy people with headaches in the mp3 pool.

Just like over-compressed high-level music, typical mp3 encodes are fatiguing to listen too, less involving and sound less "real". 

So, even though Professor Berger has observed a short-term preference for mp3-encoded audio, I don't believe it's possible to conclude from this that they would genuinely choose to listen to mp3s rather than CDs - or lossless audio formats like FLAC, for example.

Now, a little more detail:

It's been known for many years that in short-term A/B comparisons of otherwise nearly identical audio, people will prefer the version which is a little louder and as a result seems to have a fraction more bass and treble. This is because of a psycho-acoustic effect known as the Fletcher–Munson or "Smile" Curve, and may be an evolutionary process to make us prioritise sounds which louder and therefore nearer - and might be a predator.

What does this have to do with mp3s ? In a nutshell - encoding an mp3 from a modern CD release which constantly "maxes out" the level results in an mp3 which is more distorted than the original.

This is a result of "intersample peaks" in the decoded digital signal adding extra clipping distortion in the mp3 encoder - and possibly even more being added by the player itself. Couple this with the swirling, squelchy high-frequency artefacts caused by the data-reduction process of mp3 encoding, and you have the "mp3 sizzle" Professor Berger is talking about.

So the students may well choose this slightly toppier, fizzier-sounding encoded version in a short-term A/B test, especially since modern mp3 encodes have fewer obvious artefacts than a few years ago.

But we shouldn't underestimate the acuity of the human ear and brain. A typical mp3 encode discards 90% of the original signal - and it's harder to listen to as a result. Even without intersample encoding distortion and obvious artefacts, mp3s don't sound as good as the originals in other, more subtle ways. There is a loss of "3D" stereo imaging, a blurring and flattening of the audio. Often mp3s sound as if they have less reverb than the original. Complex sounds lose their interest, the audio overall is less rich and involving - the result is harsher and more crude.

Especially with today's over-compressed, heavily processed music.

As a result, the brain has to work harder to "decode" the music. Listening to music in "real life" is an almost effortless process - listening to a CD requires a little more concentration. Right at the other end of the scale, listening to music squawking from the tiny speaker of a mobile phone, it's often a struggle to even pick out the tune. mp3s lie somewhere in the middle of this - thankfully, closer to CD than mobile !

Here's an experiment you can try yourself, though. Spend a day listening to your favourite radio station. Next day listen to the same station, but streamed on the internet. (The data-compression here will typically sound like an extreme version of mp3.)

How do you feel ?

Personally, listening to heavily data-compressed internet streams makes me feel nauseous. Literally - I don't mean that in some namby-pamby audiophile sense - an hour or two of internet radio and I start to feel slightly car-sick.

The same applies to mp3s, to a lesser extent. 

Now obviously not all mp3s are that bad. And some data-compressed audio sounds pretty good - the Ogg Vorbis streams from Spotify, for example, or Apple's AAC codec . (Ironic that everyone blames the iPod for mp3's ills, even though the iPod's own compression codec sounds substantially better than straight mp3)

But just as mp3 lies somewhere between CD hi-fi and a mobile phone, it also lies somewhere between 24/96 PCM and 64 kbps internet radio - however in this case, closer to the bad end of the scale.

To summarise:

In a short-term test, the distortion/artefact "sizzle" may be appealing to some people, but give them the chance to use a lossless codec like FLAC for long-term listening, and I'm confident they will settle for the better quality.

The great news is that even of I'm wrong, mp3 is already on the way out - it won't be long now before player drive space and internet bandwidth make the requirement for data-compression a thing of the past, and we can all get back to appreciating good audio again.

I mean - does anyone remember how "great" AM radio sounded ?!?

Production Advice Launched

OK ! As promised, I'm posting this here first - I'm delighted to announce the launch of my new website - Production Advice. It's live now, please head over and take a look.

The idea is to offer anyone access to the opinions of professional producers - to give expert, impartial advice on recording, mixing and production issues to anyone who needs it, via a brand new blog, carefully selected resources and a unique package of affordable services.

I think many Mastering Media readers will find it interesting - I'm going to relish the opportunity to talk about a much wider range of subjects than I do here, and I'd love to hear from you, too - please give me your feedback in the blog comments, or come and say Hello on Twitter.

This doesn't mean the end of the Mastering Media blog though - I'll still be posting regularly here on mastering-focused subjects. I see the two sites as complementing each other, and I hope you agree.

So, please take a look and let me know what you think - sign up to the RSS feed and if you're recording or mixing yourself, maybe even give the free trial a shot. And please pass the word to other people who you think might be interested.

See you at Production Advice !

Ian

Video interview for The Manchester College

Today I was interviewed by Pete Whitfield from The Manchester College, via iChat. We talked mainly about mastering - what it is, how I got started and what gear I use, and what skills are necessary, but also a little about music and social media - blogging, Twitter etc. 

I will also be answering questions (if there are any!) from students at the college all this week on their forum. Thanks to Pete for inviting me.

 

 

Does Rick Rubin Deserve the "Producer Of The Year" Grammy Award ?

It just had to happen.

I knew it would happen.

And then it happened, about an hour ago, right there in my Twitter stream:

What may surprise you, though, is that I'm perfectly happy with this decision. 

Even though Rubin produced Metallica's "Death Magnetic" - arguably one of the worst-sounding records ever made.

Even though some may use this as evidence to say he was right to do so, or that "Death Magnetic" actually sounds OK (It doesn't).

And even though he also produced albums for Weezer and Ours, both also pointlessly loud and crushed, in the mistaken belief that this sounds better on iPod headphones, in cars or on computers. (It doesn't)

Why ? Because being a Producer is much more than deciding how an album sounds.

A producer also works with the band on:

• Composition
• Performance
• Arrangement
• Subject, Feel, Mood, Motivation, Pace, Atmosphere...

- and many many other, less tangible aspects of the recording process. 

I'll be talking about issues like this in much greater depth on my new site (coming soon !) but as far as this particular producer is concerned, it's also worth saying that Rubin is not an engineer. It has often been commented that his input into a record is much more about things like those in the list above, than how the record actually sounds. (In fact, the engineer responsible for actually pushing "Death Magnetic" into the red is Greg Fidelman, chosen by the band, not Rubin.)

On these musical terms, fans and critics alike are unanimous that "Death Magnetic" is a huge success. Rubin coaxed some of the best songs and performances in years from Metallica, making it a true return to form, and a huge commercial success for them as a result. In this sense his award is fully deserved.

And clearly he knows Good Sound when he hears it - he is a self-professed audiophile who listens to a startlingly wide range of music. Just take a listen to two other albums he produced in 2008 - Neil Diamond's "Home Before Dark" and Jakob Dylan's "Seeing Things". Both sound fantastic (not at all distorted!) and are also highly acclaimed - along with a string of other albums through a long and very successful career.

So I would like to take the opportunity to be one of the first to congratulate Rick Rubin on his Grammy, and to say again that I fully support the decision to award it to him.

I just hope his next album doesn't sound like "Death Magnetic".

Edit to add - I just noticed that Nigel Godrich was also up for this award, for his work on "In Rainbows". Did Rubin deserve to win over and above Nigel ? Hm...

The Ten Most Distorted Tunes In Music History

Distortion is the Jekyll and Hyde of recorded music. Strictly speaking it's a fault, but the terrible truth is - we love it.

Don't believe me ? Open your ears and listen around - the evidence is everywhere.

Here's a list of ten highly distorted songs -

 some sound great, some don't. Some are deliberate, some may not be. What is certain is that not everybody will agree about which is which...

Where possible I've linked to online previews of each song, so you can hear them for yourself.

The Beatles "Revolution" - The Beatles didn't invent distortion, but they sure as hell brought it to the masses, most famously in this scorching track from the White Album. Instead of mic-ing up an amp as they usually did, in this case George's guitar was plugged straight into the desk - a technique now commonly known as direct injection, or DI-ing. However it overloaded the sensitive input and distorted wildly. This fantastic, powerful sound combined with Ringo's heavily compressed and limited drums, drives the song along at a frantic rate. Listening to it, it's hard to believe that the same band had released "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yesterday" only two years before.

Oasis - "Some Might Say" - From their massively successful album "What's The Story Morning Glory", which is one of the first heavyweight casualties of the modern so-called Loudness Wars - in fact, some might say (hah!) it was the tipping point at which the trend for loudness at the expense of audio quality began to accelerate out of control. Ironically, even though at times it is just as loud as Metallica's "Death Magnetic" - arguably the current benchmark of crap sound on CD - it often sounds less blatantly distorted.

Primal Scream "Accelerator" from "Xtrmntr". This is the most distorted song I know. If you know better, please tell me ! It's incredibly, unbelievably, fantastically, extraordinarily distorted. And it's great. It's a deliberate, inspired artistic choice, (as you can tell from the relatively clean vocals) and the way it actually gets even more distorted as the song progresses. Many will find this unlistenable - it just makes me giggle.

Iggy & The Stooges "Search and Destroy" - from 1973's "Raw Power". Often cited as the loudest CD ever made, the 1997 re-master of this classic album divides opinion - Iggy was unhappy with the sound of the original 1989 release and supervised this one himself; critics say it's worse than the original. What's certain is - it's very loud and VERY distorted.

John Mayal & The Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton - "Key To Love" from "Bluesbreakers". This album is often cited as the first time anyone heard what has now become an "industry standard" guitar sound - a Gibson Les Paul, heavily overdriven through a Marshall amp. In fact we are so used to the sound of distorted electric guitars these days that many people simply don't realise the sound is distorted at all - but the beautiful crunchy, warm valve amp sound is unmistakable, and still impossible to emulate by other means, even today.

The Wildhearts "Why You Lie" from "Endless Nameless" - Legendarily nasty-sounding, the reasons for this album's distinctive sound are unclear. Every interview with the band seems to bring a different explanation, ranging from claiming it was "the sound of drugs [and] frustration at how dysfunctional our band was", through through stories that it was deliberate sabotage as revenge on their record company, to a simple "we were sick of hearing limp-wristed rock albums, and ...we went completely over the top". Certainly it's true that they "destroyed a few when mixing, and usually used the f**ked up tracks "...

Underworld "Rez" (Single) It was only when I heard the rendition of this track on the live DVD "Everything Everything" that it hit me - the signature lead synth sound of this track, the thing that makes it what it is - is pure distortion. Right at the end of the live version, the amazing, fuzzy, glittering sound gradually softens, smooths and clears into a pure, soft, flute-like synth sound, bearing no relation whatever to the rest of the track. They've turned it down, so it stops distorting. Without distortion, this tune would be nothing.

Metallica "The Day That Never Comes" from "Death Magnetic" What, you thought I wouldn't mention it ?! I've already written and said far to much about this album and it's heavily distorted sound - suffice to say it's not big, not clever, and sounds rubbish, in many people's opinion. Moving swiftly on...

Take That "Patience" from "Beautiful World". Pointless. Just ridiculous. "Death Magnetic" was a production decision, and in my opinion a bad one. I've no idea where the level was pushed too far on this album, but it's just inexplicable. Take That make polite, well-crafted, clean, classic pop tunes. So why does this album sound thick, fuzzy, and smushed ? [Shakes head]

The Beatles "I Am The Walrus" From the frankly ridiculous back to the simply sublime, and also where we started; with the band whose output almost forms a textbook of production techniques and creative recording for modern music, and another example of how distortion can be exactly what a song needs. As Ian MacDonald describes in his outstanding book "Revolution in the Head", this apparently playful nonsense song can actually be seen as desperate, defensive satire, and the distorted lead vocal fits this perfectly - even though it is probably mic distortion and so may have been a mistake. But there is other distortion here, notably on the electric piano at the start, backing vocals later and finally the gorgeous, quintessentially analogue detuning fizz and sweep of the live radio overdubs during the outro...

Distortion can literally make or break a track, but in the right hands it can be a delicate, beautiful thing. What songs are are your favourite distorted tracks, and why ?

( Thanks to the people who helped with suggestions and info for this post way back in November - Simon, @robgoldie, @fakesensations, @solarosa, @dperis, @ihatemornings and others. If I've forgotten you, remind me ! )