# The dynamic range wars



## jailhouse (Sep 2, 2016)

I was wondering what your guys thoughts are on the way recording engineers deal with dynamic range in classical music.

Now usually, I'm all for having a nice big sweeping dynamic range as long as its to the point where if you set it at a certain level you wont have to shift the volume around too much and it will sound like how you'd hear it at a concert hall and it wont be annoying.

but...I just had a experience of a perfect example of why NOT ALL CLASSICAL RECORDINGS should be treated the same way when it comes to DR..

I tried listening to a piece by György Kurtág called "Grabstein für Stephan". The recording was live by Abbado on an album released by DG along with stockhausen's gruppen. It nearly gave me a goddamned heart attack...The piece was like 10 dB for nearly 4 minutes to the point where I couldn't hear anything. So I had the volume up quite a bit, and then it suddenly becomes a tutti fortisisisimo (massively loud drums and cymbal strikes underneath a dissonant chord..the drum strike is so loud it audibly clips the microphones) at like 110 dB and i nearly broke my headphones shooting them off my head.

just listen to this if you dare: 




The ridiculous dynamic range shift occurs at 3:40. Obviously the composer is partly to blame for how uncomfortable a listening experience his piece is here, but I place a lot of blame on the engineers.


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## Bruckner Anton (Mar 10, 2016)

Poor OP, you shouldn't have tried that piece. Avoid other 'contemporary composers' like Ligeti or Penderecki if you dont get yourself prepared.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

_No criticizing_ but perhaps you get more result on this thread :

http://www.talkclassical.com/recorded-music-publications/


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## jailhouse (Sep 2, 2016)

Bruckner Anton said:


> Poor OP, you shouldn't have tried that piece. Avoid other 'contemporary composers' like Ligeti or Penderecki if you dont get yourself prepared.


No, I like these composers. I just dont like the way some of their pieces are recorded. If you have sudden shifts of 100dB in your raw waveform, its time for compression.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

jailhouse said:


> No, I like these composers. I just dont like the way some of their pieces are recorded. If you have sudden shifts of 100dB in your raw waveform, its time for compression.


Then I suggest that you don't go to concerts in halls with good acoustics ... or at least don't sit in the main floor sections. I thought that I knew Moussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain ... at least until I sat about 8 rows from the Chicago Symphony.


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## David OByrne (Dec 1, 2016)

I've experienced the same thing in my time with classical music so far


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I never listen to the Beethoven 9 Symphonies by the Minnesota Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä because of the ridiculous dynamic ranges of the recordings. To hear the softly played passages, you will be blasted by the loud passages. I can never adjust the sound properly.

Isn't there any quality control? Doesn't anybody actually listen to this stuff before releasing it to the public?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

That's kinda why CM was composed to be listened to in the concerthall, not through headphones.


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## Five and Dime (Jul 8, 2016)

I agree with the OP that excessive dynamic range is annoying. I shouldn't have to be constantly fiddling with the volume knob to compensate for excessive dynamic range.

In live performance situations, the brain can adjust to sudden changes in volume levels in ways that it cannot in typical playback situations – i.e. when listening to the same music at lower volumes in homes, apartments, and/or cars.

Therefore, if you accurately reproduce the dynamic range found in live performance situations, you create something which can be almost unlistenable under normal playback conditions. 

Sound engineers should take this into account and moderate the dynamic range a bit.

Unfortunately, some record companies (BIS!) treat "realistic" dynamic range as a marketing gimmick.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Five and Dime said:


> I agree with the OP that excessive dynamic range is annoying. I shouldn't have to be constantly fiddling with the volume knob to compensate for excessive dynamic range.
> 
> In live performance situations, the brain can adjust to sudden changes in volume levels in ways that it cannot in typical playback situations - i.e. when listening to the same music at lower volumes in homes, apartments, and/or cars.
> 
> ...


Dynamic range is dynamic range. If the same dynamic range is maintained in the recording as it was in the live performance then the effect on one's ears is going to depend on how one listens to the recording. Some sort of brain adjustment is not relative.

If the recording has a wide dynamic range with very soft and very loud passages then if one listens in a room with high-end speakers or, worse, over-ear high-end headphones then at certain volume levels the effect on one's ears/brain is going to be relatively greater because you are closer to the sound source. The equivalent in a live performance would be sitting in the middle of the orchestra within inches of the potentially ear-slitting sound from instruments such as the brass, not sitting several rows back in the concert hall.

The aim of recording sound engineers is to replicate the live performance. How can they determine or anticipate the final listening environments of the recording and 'moderate' the dynamic range accordingly? (Incidentally, limiting dynamic range _was_ part of the recording process back in the days of vinyl because of vinyl's limitations (relative to digital formats) in representing a wide dynamic range.)


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Bruckner Anton said:


> Poor OP, you shouldn't have tried that piece. Avoid other 'contemporary composers' like Ligeti or Penderecki if you dont get yourself prepared.


Not so contemporary either. I just got an excellent recording of Klauss Tennstedt conducting _Also sprach Zarathustra_, with the same dynamic range issues - and we all know how loud that piece can get!


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2017)

A lot of BIS SACDs have excessive dynamic range, especially the Shostakovich 11th Symphony. If you turn up the volume in order to hear the quiet parts, e.g. most of the first movement, then the loud parts will knock you out of the room.

I find the opposite to be true for a lot of metal bands--there is virtually no dynamic range! Everything is compressed in order to make the CD as "loud" as possible. One victim of that approach is the cymbals--they're often nearly inaudible!

Perhaps something in between would be nice.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I can't see how anyone who attends and enjoys live rock concerts can possibloy complain about too high a dynamic level in recorded CM. But then again, I never got how being able to hear a concert through the soles of your feet enhanced the listening experience.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Rock music is compressed. It's all closer to one volume - LOUD. It's the barely audible then suddenly too loud that drives me nuts too in classical recordings. We live in a louder world with far more ambient noise -- refrigerators, air conditioners, neighbors mowing the lawn. I need a little compression in my classical music. I don't give a biological process about authenticity if I can't hear part of it.


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