American Idiot

In 2012, veteran mastering engineer Ted Jensen, who was responsible for the original 2004 CD version of Green Day's American Idiot and the original 2009 version of 21st Century Breakdown, remastered those albums from analog for the HDTracks music service. The remastered versions feature less compression than the originals, meaning clearer audio, more separation, and punchier drums due to greater dynamic range. The guitar is also no longer distorted from the audio processing procedures. These are the definitive version of the two albums, and it attests to the fact that proper, non-compressed mastering results in better-sounding audio. While these albums were released in 24-bit with higher sampling rates than CD audio, allow me to clarify that the format is far less important than the mastering process. More important than the audio format is the actual remaster, the process of preparing the audio for release. What counts is the mastering process, much more so than the format. We could have far better-sounding music at the native resolution of CDs, 16 bit 44.1khz. That means CDs and digital downloads should, as a whole, sound far better if mixed and mastered properly! This is what we should have gotten in the first place in 2004 and 2009, respectively. Many will debate whether one can even hear the difference between 16-bit 44.1khz audio and any higher resolution. Mastering is what matters.

Mastering engineer and anti-loudness war advocate Ian Shepherd examines this, making the point that even heavy rock sounds good with more dynamics. Everything sounds better with greater dynamics. He analyzes the new remaster of "American Idiot" here.

For those who are familiar with the albums, you've never heard them like this before. To be played on YouTube, they needed to be downsampled to 16 bits, 44.1 khz audio (Redbook PCM standard (used for CDs)). YouTube then converts everything down to AAC audio. That said, they are completely new remasters, and the source audio (the FLAC files) sounds far better than the original CDs. Their dynamic range doubles that of the originals, going from a DR5 rating to a DR10 on the Dynamic Range Database scale. You will hear the difference.

Dynamic range compression (or "limiting") is used to increase the loudness of audio, although there is a threshold to the loudness of an audio waveform, and you can only push the loudness to a certain point before it distorts (known as "clipping"). The industry has an obsession with presenting audio to consumers at the loudest possible volume to the point where they will significantly compromise sound quality. In order to prevent the loudest parts from distorting, they are reduced in volume while the rest of the parts are pushed up to the brink of that threshold, and thus the volume throughout a track's elements are made very uniform in volume and the audio loses its dynamics. A waveform with good dynamic range will have peaks and valleys; a waveform that looks like a tube (with relatively flat top and bottom) is brickwalled (limited to the point of having all of its dynamics sucked out). Compression reduces the difference between the loudest sounds and the quietest in any given sample. A little bit of compression can be used when mixing so that some very quiet instruments can be heard, but compression is being abused and misused; in sonic terms, a waveform is supposed to have lots of space between its median volume and the threshold so that the peaks have plenty of room (headspace). The median volume has, during the loudness war, been increased, however, so that there is very little headroom and the dynamics are reduced. The drums become quiet (flat) and the sounds muffle and/or blend up into something that's harsh to the ears because of all of the competing sounds. Many modern albums suffer from processing that results in brickwalled audio.

Good, dynamic waveforms look like this:

Those spikes frequently represent the big sounds in a recording like the drums. The music is far more nuanced. When the waveforms are compressed, the volume is stretched and the dynamics disappear. The waveforms of most loudness war affected music look like this:

Almost all albums pre-loudness war feature very good dynamics with DR scores starting from 12 and going up, frequently averaging 15 or 16. That's what music should be; the loudness war is killing music, regardless of genre.

Here's a list of the most recent DR logs posted to the Dynamic Range Database. Almost all new albums have a DR of 4 to 6.

Here's the Dire Straits self-titled audiophile remaster posted below. It has a very healthy DR of 15!

The original Chicago 17 had a DR of 13. The reissue label Rhino, in the commercial remastering process for worldwide re-release in 2010, squashed it down to a DR of 8!

Phil Collins' Face Value, which has some analog compression done to certain parts of the music and features a drum machine on some songs, has an average DR of 14, with Track 11 having a DR of 19! Compression is not abused here.

The original CD of The Cars' Heartbeat City and the audiophile remaster have DR scores of 13. The loudness war commercial remaster has a DR of 8.

The original Rebel Yell album and audiophile remaster are scored DR 12. The loudness war remaster is DR 7.

These less DR compressed versions of "American Idiot" and "21st Century Breakdown" have received stellar reviews from those who have heard them, thus confirming that less compression means better-sounding music.

I also want to stress that not everything on HDTracks is remastered. HDTracks mostly reissues previous masterings in an upsampled format. There are audiophile labels such as Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Audio Fidelity and Universal Music Japan (only the Platinum SHM-CD series from 2012 to present) that also remaster for sound quality. Do research for every album that you're interested in; consult the Dynamic Range Database and check the Steve Hoffman Forums.

The point is that we shouldn't have to wait for remasters in order to experience the quality that the music deserves. They should be the original releases. There are a lot of albums that can sound better, and there are still many, many albums being released to this day that are being compressed to death. It needs to stop.

An easy way to compare is to listen to other versions of the album on YouTube. Everything on YouTube has been encoded down to 320 kbps AAC audio. You're essentially listening to an MP3 on YouTube. This version stands out amongst all versions of the album on YouTube. The fact that it sounds better than the CD in this form is already a testament to the greater dynamic range and thus the greater sound quality. The lossless FLAC audio will sound even better. You'll undoubtedly find that it's superior to the original 2004 CD. The dynamic range is double that of the original CD. You will hear the difference right away.

"American Idiot"

"21st Century Breakdown"

You'll notice that these versions destroy all other versions of the albums on YouTube. That's proof that a well-mastered source will sound better when encoded down to MP3 than a poorly-mastered source. MP3s DO NOT sound better with DR compression! The better the input, the better the output.

Let me quickly say that some people will use the term "compress" to refer to the process of encoding a file to make it smaller (i.e. WAV to MP3 or WAV to FLAC). Consider data "compression" to be unrelated to dynamic range compression; data "compression" is really data "reorganization" through encoding algorithms; lossy algorithms effectively delete frequency data to shrink file sizes, an irreversible process. Lossless algorithms do not delete data and are reversible. FLAC has rendered MP3 obsolete. This is not "compression" in a way that is in any way related to actual audio waveform compression, where the audio signal is actually compressed in sonic terms.

Better mastering practices mean clearer audio and better overall sound.

Beck's 2002 album Sea Change recently received the audiophile treatment. The original release of the album had a DR of 8, not bad relative to the pitiful loudness war standards, but still not particularly good. The 2012 remaster managed to bump the DR up to 12, and the album sounds clear and open. The music is so much more natural sounding. This is the best-sounding version of the album, mastered by Mobile Fidelity for CD release. All other versions, including hi-res versions, pale in comparison.

"Sea Change"

There are two separate issues with regards to the mastering of albums: tape generation loss (for analog-recorded albums) and brickwall mastering (which affects many albums that are mastered for digital release).

The first, which has to do with albums recorded on analog tape, is the problem of generation loss. Older music (analog recorded) used to suffer from the problem of using high-generation copy tapes for the CD mastering process. Look up tape generation loss for the problem -- you lose fidelity with each copy that is made, so when the copy-from-a-copy-from-a-copy tapes were used for the mastering of many of the CD releases, the clarity and detail were gone. In recent years, reissue labels have looked for tapes that are closer to the original source, but in the process of remastering digitally for CD they've decided to apply limiting to those albums. Rhino's remastering of the Chicago catalog is a prime example. For older analog-mixed music, get the mixdown tapes and do a minimalistic transfer. Preserve as much as you can of the original mixdown tape's audio, what people were supposed to hear. Tape generation loss is not as much of an issue now as it was before; many CDs from the 1980s and 1990s suffer from this. Record labels are more keen now to dig up the original mixdown tapes, although they frequently cut corners still. Finding the original tapes is a process in and of itself, but it pays off in the end.

Here's Eric Clapton's 1998 album, Pilgrim. The original sounded muddy; the 2014 audiophile remaster sounds so much clearer, so much more musical, so much livelier.

"Pilgrim"

Less compression means lifelike audio, livelier audio. Audiophile labels prefer to do minimalistic transfers from the original master tapes for analog-recorded music, resulting in incredible clarity and life in the music -- the way the music was meant to be heard.

Have a listen to these. These are remastered versions of albums from other genres, all released in CD format (16-bit 44.1 khz Redbook PCM) originally for audiophile labels. They all possess high dynamic range scores. It's the mastering that counts.

Carpenters, "The Singles, 1969-1973"

Eric Burdon & War, "Spill The Wine"

Nat King Cole, "Unforgettable"

The Alan Parsons Project, "Fall Of The House Of Usher IV. Pavane"

Billy Idol, "Eyes Without A Face"

America, "A Horse With No Name"

Earth, Wind & Fire, "Africano"

Dire Straits, "Dire Straits" ("Sultans of Swing" is on this album; check out "In The Gallery")

Roxy Music, "Avalon" (listen to Track 2, "The Space Between"; it boasts a DR of 15)

Phil Collins, "Hand In Hand"

For digitally-recorded music (and digital remasters, aka anything that has been converted to data for CD or any other digital format), it's important not to suck the life out of them through compression in mixing and mastering. Once in digital form, engineers can simply use filters, presets and waveform modifying tools to compress and alter the audio. Digital audio itself is not the problem -- the problem is in the way the engineers use their tools. Digital audio can have great dynamic range, but engineers frequently compress albums, flattening and distorting the sound because it's been the norm for about 15 years and it's far too easy to abuse their tool sets. Compression/limiting can occur in BOTH the mixing AND mastering stages. Through compression, the drums are flattened and the music loses clarity, to the point of it sometimes being distorted. Imagine Dragons' Night Visions has a measly DR of 4! When you listen to it, it sounds as flat as a pancake. The drums have no life, the instruments have no definition. It's even distorted. It's incredibly ironic because the process used to achieve the album's loudness to "make the album sound bigger" actually flattens the music and makes it sound weak, blended up, and harsh/distorted. When people hear a more dynamic version of an album at the same volume level as a crushed version, the more dynamic version is punchier, bigger sounding, livelier, more natural. The industry has its philosophy backwards. There needs to be a wake-up call.

New music should be getting proper mastering right from the start, and mixing should be about sound quality and dynamics, not compression and destructive processes.

It's important that people know that loudness and compression don't improve music and will always make it sound worse. Let's talk about the improvement in quality due to the lack of compression in the mixing + mastering process, and the need for better mixing and mastering practices to ensure that we preserve the dynamic range and sound quality that music should have.

We want better sound quality across the board, regardless of genre or artist. These are just a few examples of the differences that a reconfiguration of priorities in the music industry would make. It's time now for us to demand that the loudness wars end and that the industry stop taking the sound quality out of music.

Check back next Friday (April 17th, 2015) for something new.

Feels odd to celebrate an album's birthday, but for something so good and so influential it would also seem odd to not do it.