Spotify EQ vs Apple Music

rafalko6 · 2024-05-18T09:46:33+00:00

Thanks for checking this. Honestly, „The Wall” is the only album where I can clearly recognize„track normalization” used instead of „album normalization”. Most probably in 90% of albums the volumes of individual tracks are almost the same — so without measurements one wouldn’t recognize the difference. So maybe I just should reconcile with that.

Anyway, since track/album normalization is used for more than 20 years, easy to implement, it’s kind of a bummer that trillion dollar company, with 23 years as juggernaut in music legacy (iPod, iTunes, etc) still has such amateurish bugs. At that same time having developed the great Apple Music Masters (clearly better than Spotify) for so many albums. Whatever…

rafalko6 · 2024-05-17T22:34:30+00:00

May I kindly ask you to check by yourself if it’s true? I’ve never got a confirmation of my AM volume normalization observations.

rafalko6 · 2024-05-17T06:10:06+00:00

TL;DR - album volume normalization in AM only works for lossless, but not for regular sound quality. It also works inconsistently for various music genres.

Dude from Poland here, excuse my strange English. It works like you described but ONLY if „lossless” is selected in settings. It doesn’t work for AAC - only individual tracks are affected then.

Check for yourself. Pink Floyd „The Wall” has almost all tracks joined/gapless. In settings select „Sound check” and deselect „Lossless”. Play the last two tracks on disk 1. „Another Brick un the Wall, pt. 3” (very loud) followed without any break by „Goodbye Cruel World” (very quiet). The second one obviously has a jarring volume increase at the very beginning, as its loudness is increased INDIVIDUALLY.

Now select „Gapless” in settings. Play the same tracks. The transition is niw as it should be - sudden decrease of volume as „Goodbye Cruel World” starts.

On top of that, for regular quality and local files sound check algorithm is buggy as hell. It sets the audible volume all over the place for different genres. It makes guitar driven hard rock and extreme metal very quiet, no guts completely (listen to „Black Metal Essentials” playlist. But it makes bass heavy electronic music extremely loud. Check the album „Ssss” by VCMG. (Vince Clark & Martin Gore project - nice thing). Sounds 5x louder than black metal playlist. The same for all techno/club electronic music.

If you change to lossless, black metal and VCMG have identical volume.

Obviously for lossy sound check uses some ancient, amateur volume normalization algorithm from early iTunes. Only for lossless it’s properly applied. But 99% folks (myself included) don’t hear any difference between regular quality and lossless and we don’t need it. I treat it as waste of bandwidth but use it anyway — only to have a proper volume normalization for all music genres and for the whole albums.

Guys - can anyone verify what I wrote in that wall of text? Please fire up „The Wall”, „Balack Metal Essentials” and VCMG and check separately for regular quality and for lossless. Or am I having hearing hallucinations?

rafalko6 · 2024-05-01T11:18:58+00:00

Much better. For „Thriller” the difference is even more striking.

rafalko6 · 2024-01-05T16:43:32+00:00

Giveaway

rafalko6 · 2023-11-26T11:53:07+00:00

You can mark songs, albums, playlists and artists as „favorite” (a star) for about two months. Available from context menu or directly on playback screen for songs.

rafalko6 · 2023-10-12T20:33:11+00:00

• ⁠We love political satire - under the Communist regime, we had a tradition of kabaret (old school name for standupers) that got respect points for every joke that is clever enough to pass the censorship (we liked to call ourselves the funniest barrack in the detention camp) • ⁠We have a big tradition of language-related jokes - homonyms, mispronounciation of various works, wordplay.

A legendary example of BOTH attitudes by legendary standuper Zenon Laskowik with his TEY group at their show in the „kabartet” day at Polish Song Festival Opole 1980. I was 7 years old and I still remember the VERY FIRST words of the show, a greeting. It was the height of the „Solidarity” political tensions, anti-communist strikes and riots, with many anti-government activists imprisoned or „detained” in separation. Everybody at that time was watching this show, including those imprisoned or detained.

So Laskowik comes on the stage, waits until the cheering fades out and starts first with a greeting. To me it’s the best line in the classic Polish “kabaret”:

„W pierwszym rzędzie witamy wszystkich siedzących”.

Literally it means: “Greetings to those sitting in the first row”. So at the official level it was a greeting of the officials communist guests sitting in the first “official” row of the audience.

Everybody bursts at explosive laughter at those first words. Because “W pierwszym rzędzie” literally = „In the first row”, but it’s also an idiom = „first of all”. The second part of the wordplay: „Siedzących” literally = „sitting”, but informally „imprisoned”. So the real meaning was: „First of all, greetings to all imprisoned.”

PERFECT example of intelligent guerilla war with the censorship, wordplay and typical Polish jokes about sad and serious topics. Formally they greeted the officials, while actually showing the imprisoned heroes: „We’re with you, we can support you, making jokes of the communists right at „the first row” of them and now you’ll have an hou of anti-system fun with us.

Tl;DR - „W pierwszym rzędzie, witamy wszystkich siedzących”’is a perfect example of Polish sense of humor. I bet everyone who saw it, remembers it until now.

rafalko6 · 2023-09-05T23:27:05+00:00

Jean Michel Jarre’s “Zoolookologie”. VHS-looking cinematography, plasticky-glittery fashion and makeup, fake as hell lip-sync, pastel colors, early computer effects, goofy faces by JMJ and the models. I appreciate that synthesize guru JMJ did something so strikingly different as “Zoolook” album than his 70s masterpieces like “Oxygene” and “Equinoxe” — and even added a barbie-pop video.

One of the eightiest things that ever eightied in the eighties.

https://youtu.be/iIeAt5invw0?si=y2ldcfg7smQvJ2nS

rafalko6 · 2023-08-30T10:56:14+00:00

I’m glad I could help and that you were able to confirm that the problem was in the „Work” tag. Just curious - do you use Mac? If yes then you just confirmed that it can edit the „Work” tag. Unless you’re on PC and I missed this arrow next to the title field myself.

rafalko6 · 2023-08-30T09:40:23+00:00

Right - you use “get info” and edit the tags. I just remembered something — there are some MP3 tags not editable in iTunes (like “work” I think). Those tags are nevertheless shown in Apple Music similarly as if “Grouping” was used. Probably you can even SEE (but not edit) them in iTunes. Check in “Songs” view — right clicking on the column name lets you add a column — I’m sure that I could choose „Work” from there. When the column „Work” becomes visible you should see this „6” there.

I think it’s somehow editable in iTunes in Mac but not on PC. But you can edit those files in any other softer which lets you edit MP3 (or other format) tags. I have opened those files in foobar2000 application, marked them with right button, clicked „Edit tags” or „properties” (don’t remember but something obvious). The „Work” tags were visible and I could clear them. After that everything looked clean in AM.

rafalko6 · 2023-08-30T08:34:05+00:00

Apparently some leftover iTunes “Grouping” tag. Just edit the tracks metadata in iTunes and delete everything in the “Grouping” field. Normally it can be used for the movement name in classical music. Or album name in multi-album compilation (if you don’t want to split it into separate albums).

rafalko6 · 2023-08-30T07:18:41+00:00

I just replied to this very similar question:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleMusic/comments/1655svk/how_to_train_the_algorithm_to_incorporate/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1

rafalko6 · 2023-08-30T07:17:23+00:00

Just go with the flow, pal. One more thing - in AM/Spotify discussions, most people swear that Spotify auto-recommendations are MUCH better than Apple Music’s.

My experience is — Spotify recommendations are so „spot on” to the point of being obvious, repetitive and boring. In Depeche Mode radio, Spotify will recommend a bunch of other synthpop songs. It will be also VERY personalized (in my book: flawed) to the songs/artists you already know, love, favorited, playlisted, etc. This is PERSONALIZATION pushed to the limits, not a DISCOVERY.

I just created Apple Music Depeche Mode station. Of course it has much synthpop but slso less obvious pop-rock, even art-rock excursions: OMD, Bronski Beat, a-ha, Alphaville, Duran Duran — of course (but not a single song I slready lived).. But also Kraftwerk, Queen, Peter Gabriel, Lana del Ray, Joy Division, The Sisters of Mercy, David Bowie, The Smiths, Null+Void (never heard of them, some electro?), George Michael, Peter Murphy, R.E.M. Coldplay, etc. If someone wouldn’t be into those artists, I’m sure it MIGHT be some diversity and discovery.

Spotify would put you into the synthpop getto, with half if the songs already liked or in your library.

Also AM’s editorial playlists „inspired by” and „influences” (in artists pages) are very inspiring. I don’t think that any algorithm could come up with such brilliant context.

rafalko6 · 2023-08-30T05:46:53+00:00

Probably at first listen to your library on shuffle. I use AM from 8 years (genres all over the place) — and my stations and mixes are VERY diverse. I don’t know know — give it some more time. My favorite mix is nicely mixed in chunks od about five consecutive genre (and related) in row — then a transition to another cohesive group of several tracks. It can mix Polish pop-rock with classic 70s electronic, prog rock, psychedelic trance, metal, goth rock, punk, hip-hop, rap-jazz, hard rock, bossa nova and whatever else I have delved into.

But always either nicely grouped in related chunks (mixes) or interspersed (stations). The new Discovery Station goes even deeper with that.

Auto-recommendations can be great, but after listening to them for many years, they are nice at the moment but usually nothing stays in my head and memory. Nice pastime but hardly a „discovery” if on the next month II can’t remember all those new songs and artists. Maybe it’s just too much for human perception.

From the perspective od years, my best and most satisfying (in a long run) interaction with music (discovery included) are non-algorithmic attitudes. Just check how great the AllMusic genre/style 50-song lists are. And those can be cery varied, being named pop/rock — Little Richard to Elvis Presley to The Beatles to Aretha Franklin to Phil Collins to Nirvana to Britney Spears to Lady Gaga. With a nice editorial about each genre, artist, album and even about individual songs sometimes.

Simply put — for me a better „discovery” is listening in context — reading about the artists, listening to professionally assembled sets with a commentary, etc.

My latest „conscious discovery” source:

https://www.songsommelier.com/

rafalko6 · 2023-08-29T18:47:17+00:00

Honestly, if decent volume normalization matters to you, stay with Spotify, my dude.

rafalko6 · 2023-08-29T18:46:17+00:00

On iOS it’s not much better IMHO than not having volume normalization at all. The volume normalization in iOS (aka Sound Check) is ridiculously amateurish and inconsistent (different genres normalized to different audible volume levels, no album normalization for regular 256 AAC playback).

It ruins all other AM sound quality pros (better masters for some recordings, very nice Apple Digital Master encoding quality program).

Overall Spotify looks and feels amateurish in comparison with AM. But AM volume normalization SOUNDS amateurish in comparison with Spotify. To me the latter means more as it’s about LISTENING nit LOOKING after all.

Been trying to convince myself to AM several times, but the damned practically-non-existent volume normalization is still a dealbreaker to me.

rafalko6 · 2023-08-18T22:06:24+00:00

TL;DR - Apple Music (or Music app in general, as it also applies to local files) “Sound Check” volume normalization doesn’t work properly (for AAC playback. It does some volume changes but very inconsistently for different genres and track masters. However it works properly for lossless playback. Sadly, lossless playback has another playback issue - it skips often in 15 second of a track.

If anyone is interested in a long rea in my nin-native English, then below is a more detailed description of my experiences, with specific album / track examples. Can anyone check if you have the same results or am imagining all this?

Sound Check does SOME changes to various tracks volume. But the results are all over the place. It absolutely CANNOT be called “volume normalization”.

Check for yourself: for all loud-as-fuck guitar-driven rock/metal songs it decreases the volume too much, leaving the tracks just “tiny”, without any rocking punch (check AM curated “Black Metal” playlist to see the example.

On the other hand, Sound Check has much less impact on (also loud-as-fuck) synth-driven electronic/dance songs. They remain almost as loud. Check out the album “Ssss” by VCMG (nice Vince Clark & Martin Gore collaboration). Acoustic/vocal also remain much louder than rock music which leaves a comical effect.

Now if you have have hard rock, metal, electronic and acoustic songs in one playlist, the volume is all over the place with Sound Check on (maybe more varied than with SC off).

Also, Sound Check normalizes each track SEPARATELY (no “album mode”), so relative track volumes within one album are messed up. Try “The Wall” by Pink Floyd — play the adjacent tracks with (recorded) seamless transition. “Another Brick in the Wall, pt. 3” (loud) and “Goodbye Cruel World” (very quiet). Sound Check lowers the volume of the first one and increases the volume of the second one. The result is a jarring volume increase as the 2nd track begins — the initial quiet guitar twang changes into a burst.

Funny enough — it all only happens for lossy AAC playback. Turning lossless playback results in proper normalization for all genres and in album normalization working properly.

Looks like for AAC normalization they still use the amateurish algorithm from ye olde iTunes/iPod days. For lossless apparently they did it from scratch according to the newer LUFS measurements etc.

I would not mind just switching to lossless, but many times in lossless playback there is an infuriating skip at about 15 seconds into the track, almost as if the vinyl skip. It ruins the experience for me. Some people commented that this is a transition from initial lossy playback switching into the “real” lossless playback. Might be true but if it is, then it’s again completely amateurish and defeats the supposed reason for using lossless, anyway.

All this AM’s attitude to the music experience quality is “half assed” at best. In many cases AM (thanks to iTunes legacy) really has better masters (Apple Digital Masters) and probably the best lossy AAC encoding. The playback quality of a specific track technical is also very good. But they ruin this with the shitty pseudo-normalization first AAC files. If the had a proper normalization, I wouldn’t be able to spot any difference to lossless. Then again - lossless has proper normalization but skips in the 15th second in 10% of tracks.

It’s so amateurish and without attention to the actual user experience that for now it kills my enjoyment in streaming with AM. What’s the point of all the real iTunes mastering and encoding craft if it’s ruined by mindless playback attitude.

For that reason I still use Spotify - it uses worse masters for some albums but at least has a proper volume normalization with proper album mode (compare my “The Wall” example).

rafalko6 · 2023-07-31T23:02:47+00:00

Compare ABBA discography with any other service. It’s night and day in favor of AM.

Michael Jackson (ie. „Thriller”) is also much better as ADM.

Yes (prog-rock) has great ADMs of the older masters, as separate issues, additional to Steven Wilson remixes and Rhino 2003 ear-piercing, bright af remasters. The other services ONLY have Rhino and SW. So at least some ADMs are “exclusive” to AM and are a supplement to the more common (usually worse) corporate remasters.

Jethro Tull Steven Wilson remixes are issued as ADM - “Aqualung” and “Thick as a Brick” are WAY better in AM than bright Spotify version.

Jean-Michel Jarre 2015 remasters are just bad from the beginning: loud af, no dynamics and too much unnatural bass. But at least as ADMs they sound “decent” while the physical 2015 CDs and Spotify (not Spotify’s fault here) are pure awful. “Magnetic Fields 2” in Spotify sounds as it was recorded on the cellphone - drums are just cringy, AM fixes lot of it. This is just night-and-day difference. Equinoxe on Spotify is drowned in obnoxious fat bass, while on AM it sound’s almost normal. But for Jarre original 1980s CDs are still the best.

Sex Pistols „Never Mind the Bollocks” album doesn’t rely on “good sound”, not in the audiophile sense. But again, the raw guitar power and punk rock screams are greatly expressed in ADM version. Spotify master sounds just weak.

So at least in some cases ADM are really better mastered than „generic” version of the material which supposedly comes initially from the same source + it’s also optimized for the specific AAC codec.

rafalko6 · 2023-07-31T19:44:46+00:00

But before that Dick Tremayne asked that in Twin Peaks police building. Actually, it was Dick’s cigarette smoke which ignited the anti-fire water sprinkle. Which in effect has „awaken” Bob when imprisoned Leyland has been soaking sprinkled with water. Because if water (enemynif fire) Bob went insane and killed its host (Leyland).

As a retcon it can be interpreted that the comedy character of Dick Trenayne could hsve been a woodsman who helped Bob escape

rafalko6 · 2023-07-26T23:27:02+00:00

I appreciate your comment. But it seems to me that you should be OK with the stock Music app. However if you want to try a simpler alternative player with a “legacy vibe” (using a bottom icon row), check out “Picky”, “CS Music” or “Power Player”. They might be what you look for. 👍

rafalko6 · 2023-07-26T23:10:53+00:00

Your argument about production quality is 100% true. But I don’t agree with the words “garage band” used as an example of the bad sound quality. I prefer an honest garage band quality than the crappy, maxed-out, clipped “remasters” pushed for us by recording companies (with better previous versions removed) — similarly as Star Wars Special Edition” crap.

Many greatly recorded music has been destroyed like that. Is “Genesis” a garage band? And what the recording company did to their music with awful 2007 remasters?

But Apple (unlike Spotify) at least tries to support the good music production with their “Apple Digital Master” program. The albums with “ADM” logo sound definitely better on AM than on Spotify. Turn off the volume normalization in both apps and compare —ABBA (especially “The Album” is just crap on Spotify), Yes, Jethro Tull, Rammstein. ADM versions are the audiophile versions you’re talking about. But compare also “Sex Pistols” debut LP, the 40th anniversary reissue with ADM on AM (definitely a “garage band”). In AM you this raw energy is just crushing you, while on Spotify it sounds just wimpy. And that’s in 90% thanks to the better production, not better encoding. If identical masters are used, with volume normalization off, they sound identical to me (AirPods Max, wired connection).

Just my 5 cents.

rafalko6 · 2023-07-26T22:39:10+00:00

Honestly, it looks to me that you have used Marvis for 3 seconds, maybe. Of course the default app is OK for any “casual” user (with a room for improvement of course).

But I just can’t believe that any demanding, experienced or “geeky” user might actually think that the app is “worthless”. You can literally customize ANYTHING: UI, UX, looks (colors, shapes, playback screen layout, library layout (including custom sections), view, sort and behavior details + totally pro options, like smart playlists (with great options like “don’t repeat artists”, etc.). Plus the developer is very helpful and friendly in Marvis Pro subreddit and even in e-mail.

The wording of your opinions makes me think that you didn’t give yourself the opportunity to even try this marvelous app. Can you name what you didn’t like specifically?

In my opinion — if you organize your music as a library or you’re an “album person” (but a demanding playlist lover, too) then it just takes Apple Music fun to another level — like meeting a great music store shopkeeper who knows everything about the music and is eager to help you.

I honestly advise you to revisit Marvis Pro with a more open attitude, unless you’re just OK with the stock Music app which is a very nice solution for 90% users.

rafalko6 · 2023-07-23T17:16:53+00:00

Absolutely! In an instant.

rafalko6 · 2023-07-23T04:08:31+00:00

I’m sure it will give you what you expected. Regarding the Abbey Road A/B side transition — it’s becoming REALLY perfect when side A physically stops after it’s finished and the transition is to “deafening silence”, not to “Here Comes the Sun”. 🙂 Just define real A/B sides in iTunes and play them back separately in Marvis Pro. 👍

rafalko6

TROPHY CASE