HMX, Please Turn It Back Up To 11

[frisbeesteve]

I am absolutely stoked with the quality of 99.9% of HMX DLC and 90+% of RBN songs. I use an old (but very awesome) Onkyo receiver with two sets of speakers plus a sub, and I literally COULD NOT BE HAPPIER with the overwhelming majority of my 1430 songs! There are a couple here and there that don't sound as clean on RB as they do on CD for some reason (i.e. Constant Motion) and a couple of re-records that are less than stellar (Last Resort), but I don't even notice the overwhelming majority of volume differences because to me, it is just a fact of life. If I listen to the radio, I'm going to hear volume differences, if I put in a slew of CDs and shuffle them, I'll definitely hear volume differences. I do agree with an earlier poster that some of the RBN songs are extremely loud for some reason, especially the Children of Nova songs, but I have no complaints overall whatsoever in regards to the topic of this thread.

KEEP UP THE AWESOME DLC AND QUALITY HMX!!!

[HeyRiles]

You know what happens when you change the knob on your stereo? You change the volume of the track. That does not deter from the sound quality.
You know what happens when you check "sound check" on your iTunes? Same thing. No loss.

Making a track louder can be iffy, but can usually be done (within reason) without loss. The loss comes with the crackle which can either happen very close to the original volume or very far, depending on how the track was recorded, etc)
Making a track quieter only has problems when the fuzz comes in, which is usually pretty far down.

Here's the thing though: RB3 DLC has never been too loud. It's never been so loud that it has lost quality. Because of that, there is no reason why they would need to turn it down.

Noooooooooope. Song distortion happens at any change of volume from the original recording. Anything that is differed from the original recording is distorted. Vinyl has a much cleaner noise than CDs

Changing the original recording ends up magnifying the static/distortion/etc whenever you yourself mess with your audio controls

[atalkingfish]

Noooooooooope. Song distortion happens at any change of volume from the original recording. Anything that is differed from the original recording is distorted. Vinyl has a much cleaner noise than CDs

Changing the original recording ends up magnifying the static/distortion/etc whenever you yourself mess with your audio controls

You don't know how sound waves work, do you?

Anyways, even the infinitesimal modification in noise quality is all ignorable when you understand that Rock Band DLC is at about 1/10th bit rate quality of the CD versions.
Any lowering of quality is nothing compared to that.
And even that isn't that big of a deal because most people can listen to 192kbps and not really notice all that much difference.

In conclusion:
- There is no reason we have found that HMX should "need" to lower their standard volume
- Lowering the volume of a track from its original volume does not increase sound quality (as some people are, for some reason, thinking)
- HMX is not keeping the original volume of the songs' releases, as shown by some same-album songs being different volumes

Let me also conclude with saying that I really don't notice much of a volume difference, but that may be because all of my DLC is post-RB3

[powerofyates2]

Making a track louder can be iffy, but can usually be done (within reason) without loss. The loss comes with the crackle which can either happen very close to the original volume or very far, depending on how the track was recorded, etc)
Making a track quieter only has problems when the fuzz comes in, which is usually pretty far down.

Here's the thing though: RB3 DLC has never been too loud. It's never been so loud that it has lost quality. Because of that, there is no reason why they would need to turn it down.

There is definitely a loss before you hear "crackling". You are lowering the dynamic range of the audio. The difference between soft points in the song and loud points has been lowered. And with a lot of CDs that is done quite extensively. Much to the chagrin of audiophiles.

Rock Band music is quite interesting. With the instruments being separate files mixed in the PS3 during playback. That means a human isn't listening in on the final mix making sure everything is perfect. (Just an approximation of one, probably with default audio settings and maybe trying out a few other settings) And a compressor can't be run and checked on the final mix because there isn't one. A compressor could only be run on the separate stems, which could have different interactions during playback anyways. With different audio settings, instruments dropping out and returning, sound FX and audience being added depending on play, this creates a pretty random final mix. Keeping it quiet is one way of making sure the audio doesn't overload. Compressing the stems more would be another way, but to the detriment of the dynamic fidelity. I'm not necessarily saying the earlier songs had more of this compression (I'm too busy banging away on loud drums to pay much attention to that), but it's very possible.

Also keep in mind, Rock Band 3 added another instrument stem, which creates more potential randomness in the mix, and could be why a decision was made to bring down the volume a little.

And, we're talking about mixes being done by different people across a span of a few years. There's going to be level differences just because of that.

It'd be nice if in Rock Band 4, they added a little volume adjustment flag to each song to get them more even but I can live without.

EDIT TO ADD: Also, LOL at all this "changing the original volume" talk. A lot, if not most of the songs were recorded on analog. They went through a major format conversion from analog to digital. There is no changing or keeping the volume. There is only setting the volume somewhere on the new format. Now, Harmonix may not have been the ones who did the conversion: probably not actually, but that is irrelevant who did it. Original volume doesn't exist. And if you say, well, Harmonix should keep the digital volume that the studio gave them after converting it (if that is in fact the case), then prepare for far worse volume shifts.

[atalkingfish]

There is definitely a loss before you hear "crackling". You are lowering the dynamic range of the audio. The difference between soft points in the song and loud points has been lowered. And with a lot of CDs that is done quite extensively. Much to the chagrin of audiophiles.

Rock Band music is quite interesting. With the instruments being separate files mixed in the PS3 during playback. That means a human isn't listening in on the final mix making sure everything is perfect. (Just an approximation of one, probably with default audio settings and maybe trying out a few other settings) And a compressor can't be run and checked on the final mix because there isn't one. A compressor could only be run on the separate stems, which could have different interactions during playback anyways. With different audio settings, instruments dropping out and returning, sound FX and audience being added depending on play, this creates a pretty random final mix. Keeping it quiet is one way of making sure the audio doesn't overload. Compressing the stems more would be another way, but to the detriment of the dynamic fidelity. I'm not necessarily saying the earlier songs had more of this compression (I'm too busy banging away on loud drums to pay much attention to that), but it's very possible.

Also keep in mind, Rock Band 3 added another instrument stem, which creates more potential randomness in the mix, and could be why a decision was made to bring down the volume a little.

And, we're talking about mixes being done by different people across a span of a few years. There's going to be level differences just because of that.

It'd be nice if in Rock Band 4, they added a little volume adjustment flag to each song to get them more even but I can live without.

EDIT TO ADD: Also, LOL at all this "changing the original volume" talk. A lot, if not most of the songs were recorded on analog. They went through a major format conversion from analog to digital. There is no changing or keeping the volume. There is only setting the volume somewhere on the new format. Now, Harmonix may not have been the ones who did the conversion: probably not actually, but that is irrelevant who did it. Original volume doesn't exist. And if you say, well, Harmonix should keep the digital volume that the studio gave them after converting it (if that is in fact the case), then prepare for far worse volume shifts.

I think you're forgetting that:
1) The mixing is done BEFORE being sent to HMX
2) The 5th stem doesn't add any sound because it's still the same number of instruments as a legacy version would have, just split up into more stems
3) Any "overload" would have happened in the original mix (HMX doesn't turn each stem up to comfortable hearing levels)
4) HMX wasn't overloading anything in the first place

All I am saying is HMX should find a standard volume and stick with it.
There is no evidence to point towards the fact that their original standard volume was too high.

[jeccaneko]

I do wonder something... is there a bigger difference between volume depending on if you have Dolby Digital on or off? Dolby Digital tends to do a little bit of volume normalization, so I wonder if some of the people who don't notice it as much have Dolby Digital on, and the people who notice it the most have it off?

[powerofyates2]

1)What? Harmonix has to mix the stems to get them to approximate the original song. Or change it to suit their needs of bringing out certain instruments. There is most certainly a good amount of mixing or "audio work" if you don't want to call it mixing.

2)The fifth stem doesn't add sound, but it creates more randomness in the final mix, which is the enemy here in avoiding an overload.

3)Harmonix isn't working with the "original mix". They are working with the stems, which combined (especially in odd, unintended ways) could overload.

4)But it is possible they were compressing more.

I do wonder something... is there a bigger difference between volume depending on if you have Dolby Digital on or off? Dolby Digital tends to do a little bit of volume normalization, so I wonder if some of the people who don't notice it as much have Dolby Digital on, and the people who notice it the most have it off?

That's an interesting thought, but I doubt it. The dialogue normalization function is barely ever used by anyone in its intended fashion. But it would be sweet if Harmonix were using it.

[KMO_2000]

atalkingfish, you really are mind-boggingly confused. You've got the concepts of digital compression and level compression muddled. Indeed, you seem not even to believe in level compression, given that you think the first artifact of increasing the level will be digital clipping. And you don't even realise that Rock Band uses multitracks which are mixed in the game.

Might I suggest you take your expertise to another thread where it will be more suited?

[atalkingfish]

I think that, given the fact that we have no reason to believe that HMX was tampering with the volume of the tracks before the volume change, we can assume that their reason for doing so (if there is one) has nothing to do with compression-related sound loss.

And it's definitely worth the time to let HMX know that we notice and that it is inconveniencing (some of) us.

[powerofyates2]

1) No, they often do a lot more work then that. If they just did what you say, the songs would sound even further away from the originals than they do now, and people complain as is. When final mixes are made, adjustments are made. Also, sometimes Harmonix purposefully changes things to bring out instruments.

2&3) Yes, randomness, the final mix isn't heard until played back on your system and it changes every time. You are able to make certain instruments louder or softer than others, even dropping out, missed note clack sounds added and audience added. So the mix isn't being carefully controlled and monitored. A final mix on a CD, by comparison, is scrutinized, made as loud as possible before overloading, and carefully checked. Why? Because it's always exactly the same and can be made to the mixers exact standards.

4) I said compression is possible; not overloading. (Although I guess overloading is possible, but it's not what I said). It's POSSIBLE more compression was added.

EDIT TO ADD: Atalkingfish edited his post. My post is referring to he pre-edit number by number rebuttal.

Also, Atalkingfish, no, we cannot assume any of what you just said. Sorry. As I stated before there is no "original volume" to tamper with. There is only a volume that makes sense for the game.