Why do certain songs sound louder than others even when they’re played at the same volume?
In: Technology
An IT guy at work explained this to me last week! Basically the volume at which they are recorded/how they are mixed are different, so if you have your volume at 10 for song A, song B will sound louder/quieter because they were recorded different.
There are a few factors:
Frequency/special content plays a role. We don’t perceive all frequencies the same in terms of loudness (see equal loudness curves). So one song might be perceptibly louder because of its heavier in frequencies you are more sensitive to.
Dynamics. No song is exactly the same volume for its entire length. The relationship between the quiet and older parts, or the instantaneous peaks versus the sustain portions can have an impact in how you perceive loudness. Also, longer sounds sound louder than short ones at the same volume.
The mix can impact our perception. For example a song whose vocal level is much louder than the instruments versus one where the vocal is quieter might be perceived differently. This is also related to dynamics. Similarly, if one song has a lot of reverb and another is one dry, your perception of loudness might change due to the difference in spatial perception.
Also because of this, is can also be hard to actually set to songs to be “The same volume” without an accurate LUFS meter to do so.
(I’m an audio engineer).
Think about recording into your phone, you can record a soft whisper or record yourself yelling. The yelling will be louder. The same can happen to music.
Okay, so one, keep in mind the difference between loudness and volume. Loudness describes the objective amplitude of a sound wave. Volume describes the relative loudness of a sound coming from a speaker. Loudness is measured in decibels, which are units on a logarithmic scale that describes the loudness of a sound based on its energy. Volume is measured, typically, as a percent or a linear value. The loudness of a sound that’s recorded can be, say, 12dB (dB is short for decibels). If recorded on a microphone capable of perfectly capturing the sound, and then played back on a speaker with the same power output at 100% volume, then the playback will also be 12dB.
Second, keep in mind that not all speakers are created equal. The power of a speaker’s driver, the magnet and coil transducer that converts the electrical signal sent to the speaker into sound, varies based on size and specifications. The size and specifications affect that frequencies it can reproduce, as well as how loudly those frequencies can be reproduced. Some speakers will recreate the exact loudness of a sound at 100% volume, but others can only output less and will never reach the same loudness while yet others can max out at much higher values, and require a low volume setting to get the same output.
Thirdly, keep in mind that there is no standard to how loud sounds in music can be when mastered, though there is a physical and digital limit, based on the speakers reproducing the sounds and the hardware the music is mastered on. As well, an amplifier (which is any hardware or software capable of boosting specific or general frequencies of sound) can take a 12dB sound and multiplying it at any factor, resulting in the output sound as much, much louder or softer.
So, to boil it down. Volume is like a multiplier scaling from 0 to 1, that modifies how loud a given sound plays. Low sounds are not suddenly boosted to the same loudness as loud ones just because the volume is 50%. Rather, they’re both half as loud as they could be if it were on 100%. Speakers of different types can result in different loudnesses at the same input volume, since it’s a factor of their maximum power output. And lastly, in general there’s no standard or rule that says sounds have to be within a certain range when recording, mixing, and mastering music.
As a result, there’s a thing people refer to as the “loudness war”. Where commercials have progressively gotten louder and louder especially compared to the program they air with, since the businesses making them want to try to ensure they get the viewer’s attention. Some places have debated and passed bills stopping this practice.
Most of these other comments are focusing on actual loudness differences. But perceived loudness can be a psychological thing too. For example, I make a lot of rap beats. If I want the instruments to seem really loud, I might add a crash cymbal at relatively low volume. Your brain notices the crash cymbal in the mix and knows that crash cymbals in real life are loud. Since the other instruments are loud relative to the crash cymbal, your brain decides that these other instruments must be super loud too.
There’s a lot of answers on here about modern mixing/mastering, overuse of compression for publication, and all that stuff is accurate. But at the heart of the question, if you really do play two distinct songs (or sounds) at the same exact volume, you will hear certain frequencies clearer than others.
This is described by what’s called the Fletcher Munson curve, and is important for any audio engineer to understand: https://ehomerecordingstudio.com/fletcher-munson-curve/
Basically our ears are tuned to hear the frequencies around the human voice the clearest, and even if there are lower/higher frequency sounds at the same volume, you’ll hear the midrange vocal frequencies the clearest. This is used to certain ends in audio mixing, like electric guitar frequently has a big midrange spike so that it “cuts through the mix”
Music naturally has quiet bits and loud bits. If you strum a guitar chord, it starts off loud and then gets quieter as the notes die away.
Now imagine if you had your hand on the volume control, and you turned up the volume as soon as the chord started to fade out. It would make the chord sound louder for longer, which would make the whole thing sound a lot louder.
Music producers have access to computer software (and hardware devices too) that will perform this process automatically. They can tune this software to either have a big impact, or a subtle impact, and this will affect whether the end result sounds louder or not.
A culture obsessed with over-compressing music to make it louder and shittier. Listening to mixes/masters from the 90s is a world apart from more contemporary stuff.
Dynamic audio compression.
It levels the audio throughout the track, so that every sound is equally load, and then amplified it to the max.
If you search for it on YouTube you’ll see some informational videos.
Equalizers in the 2000s made voice as loud as the music to give the impression they are more powerful
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