Recording - April 2010 - 64

In this issue on mastering, we will close with a quick discussion of how mastering practice in the real world has led to fundamental changes in how we work, not only at present but in years to come. There’s hasn’t been a lot of news lately about the new Audio Performance and Recording Industry Levels legislation currently in final committee discussion in Congress, but we think we’ll be hearing a lot about it in upcoming months and we thought we’d tip you off to some of the big changes ahead. how loud is too loud. In the past, dynamic range has been a pesky thorn in the side of these studies, as it becomes possible to dramatically skew results with the changes from loud to soft passages of music. With the removal of dynamic range from modern music, however, a completely controllable SPL environment has come into view, and the technology now exists to legislate sound levels more precisely. With the passage of the bill, Congress will dictate the placement of software chips inside all audio recording and playback gear that will automatically adjust levels to a preset standard named by the scientific oversight committee, thereby negating the need for adjustment by the user. In practical terms, this will allow items like Volume pots to be removed from recorders, mixers, audio interfaces, and perhaps eventually even PA systems and live sound gear; with the proper levels having been placed and controlled by the chips’ limiting algorithms, such “legacy” dynamic range alteration devices as pots and knobs and faders will not only be extraneous but someday possibly actionably illegal. As is always the case when the government attempts to enact sweeping change in this manner, groups of naysayers have cropped up. Some appeal to emotional arguments like the perceived value of vintage gear and the psychological importance of being able to reach for a fader, but others have raised truly substantive technical objections. One such group is a research think tank called Friends Of Our Levels, which has gathered together computer experts and information technology professionals to point up the problems with this arrangement not to stop it, but to make sure that when it gets enacted into law at the start of the second quarter of 2012, its current shortcomings will have been dealt with. Editorial by Mike Metlay Loudness—It’s The Law! Mastering engineers have two primary considerations in their work: one is giving the music the absolute best treatment at their disposal and the other is pleasing the client. If they’re very lucky, the two go together, but in situations where the client wants a particular process that the engineer doesn’t agree with, the engineer faces a tough choice— stick with his principles and possibly lose the gig if he can’t educate the client, or go with the flow, make the client happy, and do the best he can with the results. This has been most apparent in the gradual reduction of dynamic range in recordings over the years; sometimes the mastering engineer is presented with mixes that already have no dynamic range to speak of, other times he gets tracks that sound great but “just aren’t loud enough”, and the end result is a mastered product that rides the edge of distortion and provides the absolute loudest listening experience. The Congressional bill currently under consideration is a spinoff of legislation from past decades concerning safe audio levels at concerts, in workspaces, and so forth, in which scientific studies have established how loud is loud enough andRECORDING APRIL 2010 One such objection is that research similar to that done in the USA has been carried out by independent laboratories in the European Union (most notably at the Hayden Finch Institute in London) and in Japan, and both bodies have arrived at results that differ substantially from the American ones, leading to a marked discrepancy in final listening levels. This will likely be resolved by region coding on audio gear and software similar to that currently present on DVD releases; industry objections that this will result in European microphones and Japanese keyboards no longer being usable in American studios need to be addressed or worked around. Another major issue is the People’s Republic of China, which has stated its refusal to abide by the new legislation when it is enacted. While Chinese subcontractors will adhere to the instructions of their foreign clients when manufacturing gear for export, it is believed that China’s own brands will flood the world market with audio gear that still has volume controls, leading to a potentially sticky situation with law enforcement agencies and customs officials. Actually making faders illegal is a step neither the US Congress nor the EU wants to take just yet, although Japan is considering the matter seriously. We look forward to seeing how these technical objections will be resolved in the coming months. But in the meantime we will allow ourselves a momentary daydream of the bright future ahead of us, where the Fletcher-Munson curves will have been rendered obsolete, the world of audio gear will have finally placed hard limits (please excuse the expression) on the persistent and aggravating problem of level control, and the whole world will be listening to audio the way it’s supposed to— on the level. Really. Mike Metlay (mike@recordingmag.com) is Associate Editor of Recording.
Recording - April 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - April 2010
