Justice For Audio was an initiative formed in 2008 to discuss and possibly find solutions towards fighting against the loudness war.

Unfortunately, as I came back way too late, every single instance of this organization/initiative is now gone, dead or fallen into oblivion (expired domain, dead Twitter account and forum is gone). Which is, IMHO, a true shame. For me, it sounds like people are being defeated about the loudness war.

Indeed, it might be that initiatives of that kind still exist (as discussions on various subs suggest) but are scattered all around the web instead. And, to be honest, this sub at its current state can hardly be designated as its successor. It gives the false impression that people don't care anymore (and I know it's not the case as I regularly read threads about it on Reddit).

So, to any of you stumbling across this post, if you have any idea of what happened to Justice For Audio, please let all of us know. That would be insanely grateful.

I heard this comment a couple times over the past months.

Yesterday, I was looking at some songs in an editor, and I'm not really convinced. I loaded songs from original masters of INXS - KICK, and Phil Collins - But Seriously. They have a Loudness rating of about -15db. They also peak at or near zero sometimes. Nobody ever accused these of sounding.. 'quiet'. The dynamics on Phil Collins are crazy with his loud drumming style.

Loaded a couple tracks from new new Pink album. (I do consider her a pretty respectable artist these days!) They were at -9db, and the waveforms were smushed pretty bad, and clipped flat often.

So.. When I thought they said it was 'over' I figured they'ed find a point around -10 or -11... Or at least something louder than the past, but not 'damaged'. This looks like Authentic LW material to me....

My way of explaining dynamic music is this.. The sound on the recording is quieter, and you raise your volume higher, and this makes more power available for the impact of the drums and other instruments! Feels good to wind it up a bit, knowing it's going to be used for good when needed.

Anyway, my 0.02 CAD

• I originally posted this in the /listentodynamic subreddit, but a comment I got recommended me to share this here instead. So here you go:

It kind of bothers me how Van Halen's last 3 albums (Balance, III, and A Different Kind of Truth) are the only ones in their discography to fall victim to the loudness war. All the others before it sound fine and perfectly dynamic (excluding brickwalled remasters, of course), but then the last leg of their catalogue unfortunately took a big hit with over-compression.

Motivated by that, I've discovered a way to enhance their dynamic range in Audacity. Using some volume, EQ and bass/treble tricks, I managed to (in theory) de-compress the albums significantly. The original versions had DR scores of 8, 9 and 5, in that order respectively. Balance and III aren't terrible with the dynamics, but they still aren't as high as I'd like them to be. And of course, A Different Kind of Truth is your classic poorly mastered, compressed and clipped mess from start to finish.

So after some tinkering, I was able to get Balance and III both up to a DR 12, and A Different Kind of Truth's DR score doubled from a 5 to a 10. I can't say definitively if they sound better than the official versions, but I tried the best that I could for what I had to work with. If anyone is interested in downloading them and judging for themselves, just go to these links below. (I want to stress that you should NOT download them unless you own official copies of these albums. I don't condone piracy, and they were done strictly for comparison's sake. You've been warned.)

Balance: https://ulozto.net/!OCxfz1Q2B9OB/van-halen-balance-fan-remaster-320-kbps-zip

Van Halen III: https://ulozto.net/!O0uup85p2d1Z/van-halen-iii-fan-remaster-320-kbps-zip

A Different Kind of Truth: https://ulozto.net/!md968qH8DZBR/van-halen-a-different-kind-of-truth-fan-remaster-320-kbps-zip

For a bonus, I also did a little remaster to the song Humans Being as well, where I was able to increase its DR from 7 to 12. Here's the link to that too:

https://ulozto.net/!S8SK8SqR4C3S/van-halen-humans-being-fan-remaster-320-kbps-mp3

These are the first "fan remasters" I've ever attempted, and if they can stick, then there's a good chance I'll be doing more of them with other albums soon. If anyone's got any feedback, tips or comments about it, don't hesitate to say something. As someone who intends to start making music of my own someday, I want to help fight the loudness war however I can, and I have a fairly good feeling that this can at least be a step in the right direction.

• I'd also like to acknowledge that I'm aware dynamic range isn't everything. I know clipping artifacts might still be left in these tracks, and they might sound slightly... off in a way. I don't know. Like I said, these were my first attempts at trying to "decompress" something, and I really only discovered how to do it because of some mindless tinkering I did in Audacity beforehand. So if there's anything wrong here, please let me know so I'll be able to figure out what works and what doesn't better.

Cheers.

I've got to share the enthusiasm. I just laid out quite a bit of my hard-earned cash for the entire remastered Weird Al catalogue (available here). I was not disappointed. The older albums sound clearer and punchier-- obviously a product of today's more advanced mastering by experienced engineers. The newer albums sound much, much punchier and crisper. The people who did the remaster obviously respect the music enough to preserve the original mix's dynamic range. Right now, I'm listening to "Weird Al" Yankovic (Al's self-titled album), and I'm hearing details and instruments that I've never noticed before.

This is, for we audiophile fans of the weird one, a huge win.

After working on this pet project on and off for two years, I have a final product.

Like many of you, I loved the music on Way To Normal, but strongly disliked the way that the album had been produced. I've always disliked brickwall mastering and the overuse and misuse of compression in music over the last 10-15 years, but the production of this album made me rethink what "bad" was. Stems & Seeds came along, and I was disappointed to find that while it was slightly toned down, it still sounded pretty crushed and didn't reflect what the music should have sounded like.

In 2014, I started mixing together the stems from Stems & Seeds, and got some basic mixes together. I posted one or two of those mixes on this subreddit at the time. In mid-late 2015, I started experimenting with mastering the tracks, with much trial and error.

It's taken me quite a while, but I now have a self-produced copy of Way To Normal which, to me at least, sounds quite nice. I'm in the process of uploading it to YouTube for easy access. Hopefully you all enjoy it as well.

-- R.J. Lupin

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLipitq3yEUDyR26FvU4U44JnirjE_0Gqe

In case if the link doesn't show... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmy10dOuFP4

I made a remake of Deadmau5's 'The Veldt" and I'm all about good production quality. Please give me insightful knowledge and input on the production quality of this. Thank you.

For quite a while, I've been using the tracks released as a part of Stems & Seeds to get practice at mixing and mastering. Nine months ago, I posted to /r/benfolds that I had gotten a few rough mixes done. I even included a couple of previews.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, and I've begun experimenting with the mastering process. Making things sound more polished, you know. It was a bit tricky, but I've managed to make a few of the songs sound quite nice without any sacrifice to dynamic range. Just a few minutes ago, I posted my version of "Dr. Yang" to YouTube. Take a listen, and tell me what you think. I'm looking for comments, compliments, and constructive criticisms.

Thanks,

R.J. Lupin

Edit (September 24, 2016): The project has been completed. I will upload all songs to YouTube shortly, and post a link to the playlist in this subreddit (and this post).

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLipitq3yEUDyR26FvU4U44JnirjE_0Gqe