Next Gen Audio Square-off, PS3 and 360. The quality of sound

[Cyan]

There has been a lot of silence about the sound in this forum, that continues to cast a shadow over us and keep us in the dark. But..., with games like the amazingly fun, incredible, perfect, terrifing, smashing, etc, Rock Band and Guitar Hero, sound quality has become more and more important these days.

In fact, some songs of these games can take up lots of space, 50 or more MBs worthy of data.

Moreover, the tracks (DLC or the ones included in the disc) have better quality than retail CDs!, with a far better dynamic range as Universal pointed out when the new album "Death Magnetic" from Metallica came out as DLC for Guitar Hero 3.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/sep/17/metallica.guitar.hero.loudness.war

Audiophile fans of Metallica shouldn't bother buying copies of their new album, Death Magnetic. According to one analyst, the record sounds better in the Guitar Hero video game.

"On purchasing our CD ... we gave the disc a spin and couldn't help wondering if our office headphones were faulty as the kick and snare drum seemed to be audibly clipping, along with some of the palm-muted guitar parts," wrote Chris Vinnecombe, guitar editor of music-making website MusicRadar.

The sound issues are a result of the "loudness war" - an ongoing industry effort to make recordings as loud as possible, so that on cursory listens tracks leap forcefully from the speakers. While any album can just have its volume turned up on your stereo, records like Death Magnetic have their audio compressed, making them inherently louder at the expense of dynamic range and sound quality.

The CD version of Death Magnetic takes this to an extreme, pushing the compression past the point of distortion. The version used on the Guitar Hero videogame, where players can solo along with James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett, has been mixed differently - with far better dynamic range. The videogame version of the record was made available last week, as an $18 (£9) download.

Mastering engineer Ian Shepherd's analysis of the two versions - shown as graphical waveforms - makes the CD version's hyper-compression acutely visible.

While there is no official response from the famously cantankerous Metallica camp, the engineer who mastered Death Magnetic is apparently as frustrated as the fans.

"I'm certainly sympathetic to your reaction," said Ted Jensen, head engineer at Sterling Sound, quoted on the Metallica forum. "I get to slam my head against that brick wall every day. In this case, the mixes were already brick-walled before they arrived at my place. Suffice to say I would never be pushed to overdrive things as far as they are here."

"Believe me I'm not proud to be associated with this one, and we can only hope that some good will come from this in some form of backlash against volume above all else."

Some guy which name is Alexander Brandon interviewed Gene Semel (audio director of SCEA) and Brian Schmidt (head of the Xbox audio team). It's a very interesting interview and seeing what both developers have to say about their respective systems is pretty enlightening.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3814/nextgen_audio_squareoff_.php

 

[archie4oz]

I'm not surprised that the DLC quality is better than CDs... CD's mastered these days sound like ASS... IMO CD's mastered in the 80's (unless it's classical or jazz) tend to sound far better than most CD's mastered nowadays...

 

[AlNom]

Why the poor mastering?

 

[Jedi2016]

It's not poor mastering, it's just the way it was mixed. There's a difference. And it's really up to preference. I listen to Death Magnetic in my car more than anywhere else, and it sounds perfectly fine.

What's interesting to see is everyone assuming that it was all a big mistake, and that Metallica didn't really mean for it to sound like that.

 

[obonicus]

Are the GH3 DLC tracks stereo?

 

[Skrying]

Mainstream music is always handled this way. It's mixed so it sounds better on crap systems. The process of making a track "hot" is not knew. It's just making the rounds again because it's easily comparable from two sources.

 

[rekator]

Why the poor mastering?

It's not really a poor mastering… They decide to have this sound… from that I listen some minutes, this new Metallica are not new, got the feeling they lost all creativity (but I have this feeling since the black album), so the only new element is this mastering… and is not a new type of mastering some underground groups (industrial metal) use this in the 90's, generally is for give a louder and grinding feeling…

And if they give a different mastering for the GH DLC, you have different options, public of guitare hero is not necessary a Metallica fan and more a "casual" Metallica so this louder and grinding sound is not really adapt to a casual audience.
Or they preferred to give the feeling of a "better" sound for the high price product and less copyable product. this last don't suprised me from Metallica… a group that in their debuts praise himself to have a lot of piracy copies of the others!

 

[AntShaw]

As the others are saying, it was a decision by someone. Although it most likely WAS done in the mastering phase and not the mixing phase. If it was done in the mixing phase it would be in all the releases (most likely.) In this instance, they mastered a compressed version for the CD release to give it that punchiness and loudness. Where as in the GH release, its not there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cd_loudness_trend-something.gif

That describes what you are seeing with the CD release. Same song, different masters, each time they used higher compression.

 

[legendCNCD]

In the case of Metallicas newest, the mix was already brickwalled when it came to mastering engineer. It sounds awful from anything "hi-fi". So said the mastering engineer.

 

[Gubbi]

In the case of Metallicas newest, the mix was already brickwalled when it came to mastering engineer. It sounds awful from anything "hi-fi". So said the mastering engineer.

Yup

Damn shame.

GH is uncompressed because they have access to the original individual (per instrument) tracks.

Cheers

 

[emacs]

IMO CD's mastered in the 80's (unless it's classical or jazz) tend to sound far better than most CD's mastered nowadays...

i recall reading an article in Rolling Stone that stated many CDs mastered from the late 90s onward were overtly loud to the point of drowning out nuances of played instruments and singers' voices.

 

[Gubbi]

i recall reading an article in Rolling Stone that stated many CDs mastered from the late 90s onward were overtly loud to the point of drowning out nuances of played instruments and singers' voices.

The primary problem with volume compression is that it kills dynamic range.

Music without crescendos is boring.

Cheers

 

[Iron Tiger]

I love the way Highway Star sounds on Rock Band, but I downloaded the song to play on my iPhone, and the album version sounds like it was recorded in a garage over a telephone. The Rock Band version sounds like front row at a live concert.

 

[Cyan]

It's not really a poor mastering… They decide to have this sound… from that I listen some minutes, this new Metallica are not new, got the feeling they lost all creativity (but I have this feeling since the black album), so the only new element is this mastering… and is not a new type of mastering some underground groups (industrial metal) use this in the 90's, generally is for give a louder and grinding feeling…

And if they give a different mastering for the GH DLC, you have different options, public of guitare hero is not necessary a Metallica fan and more a "casual" Metallica so this louder and grinding sound is not really adapt to a casual audience.
Or they preferred to give the feeling of a "better" sound for the high price product and less copyable product. this last don't suprised me from Metallica… a group that in their debuts praise himself to have a lot of piracy copies of the others!

Seems to me the heyday of these once defiant musicians who ruled the metal is long gone. I was hyped and I bought the whole new album "Death Magnetic" from Xbox Live and when I tried to play the songs I didn't find one I'd say I enjoyed.

Well, actually, I enjoyed about 1, can't remember the title...., and I spent 1600MS which would be way better spent on worthwhile songs from my favourite game ever, Rock Band.

Back on the main subject, I don't know if it's just me but my stereo Samsung HDTV sounds way better via HDMI than Component, I don't know why, it's just a lot better!

I was used to Component and the sound was great for me but once I've bought the HDMI cable I found a lot of new sound details I've never heard before.

I.e, the subtle sound of the wind of a game which a relative of mine likes to play a lot, (in fact it's the only game he plays)

One day while he was playing and I was just watching, he told me: "Did you hear that sound?" "What sound? (I knew what he was trying to tell me) Do you mean the sound of the wind?" :smile: We were both quite surprised.

I've been playing over Component almost everyday for the last 3 weeks but yesterday I went back to the HDMI -long story- cable and the difference is huge.

Rock Band sounds great regardless the cable but yesterday I switched back to HDMI and the sound from the Component is somewhat dull in comparison.

As Iron Tiger would say, the audio through HDMI in Rock Band is like listening a Live concert from the front row and Component would be like listening to it somewhere at the middle row, in my opinion.

 

[zawarudo]

What about Optical ToSLink though?

 

[Cyan]

What about Optical ToSLink though?

I have the official HDMI cable for the 360 and it has an Optical adapter but I don't have the fancy equipment to use it.

That's because me, my clothes, books and my other possessions are constantly competing for prime space in my room everyday, and adding Dolby 5.1 equipment isn't a good idea.

I've read somewhere, time ago, that the optical cable is the only possibility for the 360 to output actual 5.1 sound, because the RCA cables can't. I don't know if this is factual, though

 

[zawarudo]

Oh, I thought you had an amplifier + speakers anyway. Must have overread that. Yes, I can confirm that HDMI audio sounds better than Component when it's the HDTV itself that outputs it. The HDMI audio bitrate is just much higher or at least possible to be a lot higher than the analog Component.

However, nothing could convince me yet that HDMI is superior to Optical Digital. It's a digital vs. digital signal and although HDMI again has the higher bitrate, they both always sounded crystal clear to me.

 

[Cyan]

Oh, I thought you had an amplifier + speakers anyway. Must have overread that. Yes, I can confirm that HDMI audio sounds better than Component when it's the HDTV itself that outputs it. The HDMI audio bitrate is just much higher or at least possible to be a lot higher than the analog Component.

However, nothing could convince me yet that HDMI is superior to Optical Digital. It's a digital vs. digital signal and although HDMI again has the higher bitrate, they both always sounded crystal clear to me.

Okay, thank you very much, mate! Accidentally or not you explained if perfectly and now it's obvious to me why my ears didn't lie when after 3 weeks of "suffering" -it was fine, actually- Component audio output everything sounded much much better once I switched back to the HDMI cable.

Cheers

 

[TheWretched]

Oh, I thought you had an amplifier + speakers anyway. Must have overread that. Yes, I can confirm that HDMI audio sounds better than Component when it's the HDTV itself that outputs it. The HDMI audio bitrate is just much higher or at least possible to be a lot higher than the analog Component.

However, nothing could convince me yet that HDMI is superior to Optical Digital. It's a digital vs. digital signal and although HDMI again has the higher bitrate, they both always sounded crystal clear to me.

Well, TOSlink cannot process anything higher than stereo when using uncompressed audio, whereas HDMI can do it. Games like Uncharted can use DTS as their compression technique, which is arguably better than AC3, but still not as good as uncompressed audio.

But not many gamers do use high end equipment to process uncompressed audio, AND most audio clips used in game are compressed anyway, so using uncompressed audio in the end won't let you benefit from clearer sounds(only the recompression from after the mixing stage will be a differentiating factor, the rest is likely to be exactly the same).

 

[Cyan]

Well, TOSlink cannot process anything higher than stereo when using uncompressed audio, whereas HDMI can do it. Games like Uncharted can use DTS as their compression technique, which is arguably better than AC3, but still not as good as uncompressed audio.

But not many gamers do use high end equipment to process uncompressed audio, AND most audio clips used in game are compressed anyway, so using uncompressed audio in the end won't let you benefit from clearer sounds(only the recompression from after the mixing stage will be a differentiating factor, the rest is likely to be exactly the same).

Well, I did some tests.

I've been playing over VGA everyday for the last week, RB2 basically and, thank god, yesterday I went back to HDMI.

I tried the 16:10 resolutions over VGA and I have an old Hi-Fi music centre (a decent one) so I connected the RCA cables to it.

The power of my HDTV speakers is 3W but they sound great, especially with SRS Surround on.

I know it's not the same as actual 5.1 but well.... for whatever reason I like the sound of my TV.

Here are the results of my tests, after a week of playing music on the Hi-Fi system and going back to HDMI, adding to that I've been playing over HDMI for about 2 months now.

(both tested using DD on the 360 and Rock Band 2 as well as Stereo Sound via System Settings)

RCA + Hi-Fi music centre advantages

- Bass notes sound softer and more audible, drums also sound softened and somewhat more audible.

- E-Pro by Beck sounds fine while on my HDTV you can hear some bass distortion in a particular section, although everything else have a better sound on the TV

That's it, most songs lost the fierceness and the truer sound they had over HDMI.


HDMI + HDTV

- Guitar Riffs and solos are 400x times better, more contundent, rotund, and 100x times clearer. Boston songs are a clear example, as many many others.

- Songs like Moving in Stereo by The Cars sounds amazing, especially some kind of bell which creates a true surround effect on the HDTV.

With the Hi-Fi music center it sounded like a regular bell, nothing special. If you have that song and RB1 or 2, you can test this out to.

- In Metallica songs like Blackened, you can hear the guitars buzzing a little, which is an incredible effect that gives me shivers. On the Hi-Fi system I lost that sensation, completely.

Again, test this out if you can....

- Mid-ranges and tweeters are much crisper.

Thankfully, I got back to HDMI and it'd be nice to know it there's a HDTV with 5.1 speakers built in because it'd be the best solution I can think of.

SRS Surround, while not being the same as true 5.1, works fine. The Cars' song is a great example of this.

This is a basic comparison, that's to say, I have to trust all my senses (if they're believable ) but there're overt and palpable similarities between some human beings so I'm pretty sure I'm not alone here.