Bob Katz - music mastering and loudness Part 1

Top mastering engineer Bob Katz talks about the consequences of the past decades' unnecessary war of loudness, and illustrates how today's extremely high mastering levels degrade the quality of popular data-reduced formats, such as mp3. The session took place at DR Denmarks Radio, fall 2009. Enjoy these two educational videos!

[@ModernMixing]

Always great to hear Bob speak. He's one of the greats when it comes to the mysterious art of mastering.

[@countorringtonludlow5211]

haha I love how this is really Bob showing off how pissed he is that someone remastered something he worked on and made it stupid loud.

[@676bun]

One new artist CD I recently was listening had her music so over compressed that when I was listening to her disc at medium volume, the overload protection circuit kicked in on my stereo. I cant even listen to the whole CD without getting a headache, and this is a soft pop artist.

[@misteradilost]

This guy is a genius when it comes to Mastering Audio. I wish i had all of his knowledge! Bobby Katz Rules! :)

[@SPINNINGMYWHEELS777]

I read all the papers TC had up on the site a few years back. I learned so much from them, that made intuitive sense. This is a companion talk to those papers. For those that want ultra detail about a whole host of digital mastering problems/solutions, go to the tc electronic website. Lots of PDF's to read. (at least last time I was there) TC used to make SPARK which I still use today.

[@BdogMusic]

Yes Sir, that is what is going on. Dynamics should be a way of musical life. Thank you for sharing this with us.

[@charles43110]

One of the nicest ppl I have ever met is Bob Katz

[@RedMastering]

thank you Bob Katz, it should be more videos like this, great explanation, Loudness War is killing audio engineering!

[@Duendito]

Definitely a case of "you had to be there", when it comes to how many changes the audio has gone through on its way to KZbin.

[@estudiomonteverdi]

thanks for posting

[@jsquie]

WOW this guy is amazing. Really knows his shit.

[@nickpelkey]

i like looking at the waves and having it not look like a big sausage.

[@AgentHomer]

@cursedlemon Of course, you're right. I made a mistake. I should have said "no extra voltage than unity/operating level". then again, operating level in some cases is 1.24v, instead of 0.775v.

[@nickpelkey]

one pita is setting up sound reinforcement. even old cds and new cds from the same artist or similar artists require a bunch of adjustment in the car when swapping disc to disc.

[@DidierEuzetComposer]

Nice work !

[@Zeemanuk]

Nuff Love 2 Bob

[@MikeRojo]

@joseggf1 beacuse it has nothing to do with musical gender, it has to do with Loudness... you can pick any early Beatles song and compare it with any recent Paul Mcartney's material and it still explains the point. ;)

[@junglist32]

Did he just phase invert the Wav file and add/mix it with the Mp3 in order to hear the difference? I've been researching this method if so and there seems to be mixed opinions on whether or not it is relevant to hear what the perceptual encoding has added or subtracted from the music because of the way it subtracts masked frequencies we can't hear anyway. I am very interested in finding out what sort of mastering techniques might be applicable to a mixing for MP3

[@sorstudios]

@cursedlemon Mr. Katz stated (20db over 20 years) Comparing analog to digital. We don't mix analog anymore, Or do we? We only take in analog and then converted to digital....... So take DAC

[@barnabass1990]

he is one? he is the greatest!

[@Raydensheraj]

I learned a lot from Mr.Katz but what is he thinking? When Audio Interfaces changed to 24Bit/96khz ( and more ) the dynamic range-game changed. The Digital World took over - were not in an Analog only World anymore. Some Music calls for Loudness ( Drum & Bass,Techno,Hip Hop/Rap etc ) - I think its more important to produce better Music then to waste time like this here.

[@CursedLemon]

@sorstudios You realize the difference between 0 dB analog level, and 0 dB full-scale, right? Or exactly WHY levels had to be kept low in the vinyl years?

[@MyPassionsss]

What can be next regarding the loudness war if we now hit (or even overload) the top of the scale? A new scale?:) I hope that current audio engineers realize, that we must go back to the times when everything was just right! Or maybe they know it already but they can't do anything because of the final customer who just love the loudest possible and distorted s...it coming out of his crappy speakers. It's sad!

[@CursedLemon]

@junglist32 Trying a null test with an MP3 vs. a wave file is ridiculous anyhow, because MP3s drift off-tempo ever so slightly.

[@TheDesertRoseRanch]

Artists need to demand quality over quantity.

[@Vinsanity12207]

What are some dvds that shows us how to master music ?

[@CursedLemon]

@AgentHomer Ummm...0 dBu is .775 volts.

[@ricemilk3185]

i have recently brought a new mobile phone and have loaded new electronic music on it +some old Joni Mitchell stuff & i know for a fact the Joni stuff is quieter but more pleasing and calming to my ears yes people who live in the headphone world the loudness is damaging out ears TURN IT DOWN!!!!!!!!!!

[@Duendito]

A 128Kb mp3 removes about 90% of the data contained in a 16-bit digital audio file. That's the cusp of total crap sounding audio, i.e. any bitrates below 128KB/sec. When working with mp3 files I save them at 320Kb, respectably not killing off too much of the original data, though for sure it still is.

[@ovohm]

is there anyone in that class? Im proud to have private tutoring,

[@toohardtohandle]

Is he talking about the difference being included and exaggerated by the MP3, or is he saying that the difference is what is removed when compressing to MP3? Surely it should be the latter, but it sounds like he means the former?

[@CursedLemon]

@Raydensheraj Erm, sample rate and bit depth have absolutely nothing to do with the loudness wars...

[@eavesDropSound]

I wish he would've mastered the same song so that I could determine the differences easier...

[@joseggf1]

why he compares salsa with ballad????????????

[@timurnugumanov8164]

Ok, but why is it recorded so bad?

[@CursedLemon]

@YungStatik I couldn't say, I'm no math whiz. ;x

[@sorstudios]

20db over 20 years Hummmmmm......ever consider that old analog VU meters did peak at +6,10,and even 20db? Just an observation.

[@amadeus23]

estuuupidoooo!!! ilogicooo!!!!! Bob's face!! very funny :)

[@willmattwood]

This isn't really all that illuminating of a comparison given that his master is on completely different program material.

Damn a Salsa group paid for Bob Katz?

[@firubbi]

soon your i-phone will have multiband compressor for **** everything up.

[@overdriveukuk]

anyone else think its ironic how bad the audio on this is ?

[@UrbanMuzikVEVO]

Real bad reality of our recent technology! too many mastering tools ! ahahaha

[@byizzle4shizzle]

You gonna cry, bro??

[@firubbi]

there is no reason to do loud master. it kills the song.... a good sound system will do the rest loudness.

[@BizzyMo]

hahaha stupido :D bob is cool!

[@InvestorLifestyle]

a friend of mine mixed and mastered his CD with bob, and it sounded like shit. Good tips here tho