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About Dynamic Processing in Mainstream Music

2014; Audio Engineering Society; Volume: 62; Issue: 1/2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.17743/jaes.2014.0001

1549-4950

Emmanuel Deruty, Damien Tardieu,

Neuroscience and Music Perception

In this article, we study the evolution of music level and music level variation between 1967 and 2011. To do so, we suggest a set of signal features, and examine the impact of limiters and compressors on a corpus of music tracks. As a result, we find that some of the dynamic processes used during music production may be retrieved from the signal. Then, we examine the evolution of studio practices in relation to dynamic processing during the past five decades, as well as the evolution of the relevant signal features. In particular, this results in a characterization of the loudness war. We find for instance that it may have peaked in 2004, resulted in reduction of peak salience, but did not result in any reduction of long-term musical dynamics.