YouTube just Ended the Loudness War? Thoughts!

by Ian Shepherd

 

youtube-loudness

This is HUGE.

It may not look like much, but if you’re involved in music production, recording, mixing or mastering, this image could be the most important thing you’ll see all year.
 

What is it ?

It’s the loudness output of a YouTube playlist, as measured by the MeterPlugs LCast loudness meter.
 

So what ?

First – it’s quiet. The loudness levels are all quite low, especially by modern “loudness war” standards.

Second – it’s very consistent. More importantly than the low loudness, they’re almost all playing at the same loudness.
 

What does this mean ?

It means that YouTube have been using loudness normalisation on their music videos – and they’ve been doing it since December last year. Everything plays at a similar loudness, regardless of how it was mastered. And no-one has noticed.

Hear it for yourself – this playlist is composed almost entirely of current releases, with a wide variety of loudness on CD – and some of them are REALLY loud:
 

 
So for example, at the more dynamic end of the spectrum, Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars’ massive hit ”Uptown Funk” measures -12 LUFS (DR 8 on the TT Meter) on CD. Whereas “Love Me Like You Do” by Ellie Goulding is squashed up to -8 LUFS (DR 5) on CD, and later in the playlist, Madonna’s “Living For Love” clocks in at an eye-watering (and heavily distorted) -7 LUFS (DR 4!)

But on YouTube, all of them are being played back at a similar loudness of roughly -13 LUFS.

And that’s HUGE, because YouTube is the single largest online discovery source for music. More kids look for music on YouTube than on iTunes, TV or radio, or anywhere.

This is where they hear new music for the first time, decide if they like it, and whether to share it with their friends.

And YouTube just took “loudness” out of the equation.
 

Dynamic is the new Loud

It’s now irrelevant how high the mastering levels of your music are – as I’ve shown before, on iTunes Radio, on Spotify and now on YouTube, we have no control about how loud people hear it – just as it’s always been on FM radio.

In fact, heavily crushed, distorted “loudness war casualties” will often sound worse than more dynamic releases.

And if you ever wanted proof that the extra dynamics in “Uptown Funk” are a crucial part of it’s success, press Play above and see which song it it that gets your head nodding and foot tapping first…

This is the final nail in the coffin. The loudness war really is over – the only remaining question is, how long will it take for people take to notice ?
 

So why do people even bother with loudness any more ?

If you’re new to this issue, you’re probably asking, like everyone else – “why is music still being crushed like this ?”

If loudness is irrelevant on iTunes Radio, on Spotify, and now on YouTube – why bother ? You can read my answer here:

Learn the Loudness War’s dirty little secret

But we still haven’t heard the whole story, yet.
 

The plot is actually thicker…

This is such an important issue, I’ve glossed over a few interesting details in this post – and a big problem with YouTube’s loudness control.

The main point – YouTube is using loudness normalisation – still stands. But if you’ve been thinking ”Why are some of songs in that graph quieter or louder that -13 LUFS ?” – you’ve asked a good question.

If you’re wondering “How have YouTube implemented this ?” – you deserve a straight answer.

And if you’ve spotted the big problem with the way it works, you know it needs to be discussed.

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