YouTube and "compression" revisited

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ZEN Amps

ZEN Amps

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EDIT 2025: I was thinking about starting a new post but this older one pretty much covers it, although I've added some stuff below that may shed some further light.

The bottom line is that I still frequently hear complaints about Youtube compressing or messing up the audio. It really doesn't, unless something has gone very wrong somewhere.

Youtube uses data compression to transcode the audio in a video to a 128kbps AAC stream (as Spotify generally uses). This may sound low quality, but it's considerably better than an mp3 of the same bitrate, and sounds very close to the original HQ audio for most listeners in most environments. This has nothing to do with audio compression, although it seems many folks conflate the two distinct processes.

The talk of the sound being squished / lacking dynamics / not like the original recording is just not a thing. E.g. the audio in this video sounds just fine and the specs are as stated above. If your uploaded tones aren't as good as Jerry's (and who's are?) then there's fifty things to explore your end before blaming the tone-sucking philistines at Google.

Note - the 'Stable Volume' option in the YT player settings menu must be disabled. Depending on the content this new 'feature' can affect dynamic range, as does playback on a phone or tablet of course. Playback devices often apply heavy compression or EQ - this is not a YT issue.



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OLD POST:

A public stoning may be coming my way - but YouTube doesn't really mess up your audio. Unless you're doing it very, very wrong.

This misconception has been around for so long I had verify it for myself. I'm going GuitarJon style on this - a blind test! One of the clips is the original audio, the other is the audio ripped off the uploaded, then downloaded video. Amp is a Wizard MCII, guitar is a Les Paul custom with Duncan custom shop Adam Jones pickup.

Close mic'd with a touch of room mic, so the phone clip guys may want to look away before the horror begins.





Maybe YouTube audio used to be bad, but these virtually phase cancel.
 
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Smashedguitarist said:
sounds really good. Wasn't expecting that song to be playing when i clicked on it.
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Thanks man, hard to make that riff sound bad!

I'm also interested to hear opinions on this type of recording. Is this blend of a close mic and a little bit of room a good compromise for online clips? The debate has been raised a number of times about studio miking vs room recordings, with passionate supporters of both.

I just can't get into the room only thing, so curious if this is the best way forward as we're currently putting together some YouTube content.
 
I agree with you on room only sounding like dog shit. I have been blending a little lately, and i feel like it can sound massive.
 
They sound the same on my phone and slightly different on my monitors, but not to a huge noticeable extent. There's stuff going on in the upper midrange. It isn't hugely noticeable though, especially in a full band mix it wouldnt be.
 
I discovered long ago that I like doing a combination a close dynamic with a condenser about 6 feet back aimed directly at a speaker. Not so much for the room, more for the cabinet itself. To me it's a truer representation of the sound of my amp and cabinet. Just using a close condenser doesn't really bring the cabinet into the tone. Whenever I work on a project and the engineer doesn't do a condenser away from the cabinet I request it.
 
I bought amps based on both iPhone clips and “real” clips, but yeah some people get really opinionated on demos lol
 
Billelzebub said:
I discovered long ago that I like doing a combination a close dynamic with a condenser about 6 feet back aimed directly at a speaker. Not so much for the room, more for the cabinet itself. To me it's a truer representation of the sound of my amp and cabinet. Just using a close condenser doesn't really bring the cabinet into the tone. Whenever I work on a project and the engineer doesn't do a condenser away from the cabinet I request it.
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Yeah there's a tonne of ways to capture an amp and they all have their pros and cons.

RaceU4her said:
I bought amps based on both iPhone clips and “real” clips, but yeah some people get really opinionated on demos lol
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That they do. I can't tell anything about an amp from a non-close miked recording, other than how much gain is available.

However the problem with traditional close miking is how often it's done horribly wrong - no shortage of examples of that. It can also seem stark and dry to those who aren't used to it. I think another factor may be listening to isolated close miked clips on headphones, that's an unnatural way to listen to any amp.

Here's a tip that sounds kinda dumb but actually works - next time you hear a well recorded close miked clip and want more of a 'in the room' experience - turn up your monitors loud and listen from 5m away. Boom, instant room tone. It doesn't sound like the amp's actually in the room with the you, but it's a whole lot better than an iphone recording.
 
Now it may be harder to tell on phone audio, the inherent limitations already imposed by the phone microphone etc, but I haven’t heard a real difference in what Ive uploaded vs what was recorded on the phone in recent memory.
 
Not for nothing but the whole youtube compresses everything to hell claim is thrown around when considering a full band mix with bass and drums, not isolated guitars.
 
skoora said:
Now it may be harder to tell on phone audio, the inherent limitations already imposed by the phone microphone etc, but I haven’t heard a real difference in what Ive uploaded vs what was recorded on the phone in recent memory.
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I noticed the same and after reading a 1000 times that YT screws your audio I thought I'd actually check, and yeah it's fine. It may depend on the format of the video you upload and other factors, but for an mp4 done to the published specs it seems fine.

Thread title updated btw to make it less click-baity.

Metalhex said:
Not for nothing but the whole youtube compresses everything to hell claim is thrown around when considering a full band mix with bass and drums, not isolated guitars.
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I tested on a few sources including a mix, not surprisingly it's the same result. Now listening devices is another matter - consumer stuff often smashes the audio with compression and EQ upon playback, yuck.

The whole online clip is all pretty bizarre when you think about it. Even though people post tones that are very close to what you'd hear on an album, there's complaints they don't sound right. I'm not sure many are used to a single bare guitar, so it's interesting when it's double-tracked how familiar it becomes, and that starkness starts to disappear.

 
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ZEN Amps said:
I tested on a few sources including a mix, not surprisingly it's the same result. Now listening devices is another matter - consumer stuff often smashes the audio with compression and EQ upon playback, yuck.
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I remember hearing people complain about YouTube making music sound worse back when it first came out. And I never really understood it because even if it does make songs sound a little worse, it still gives a pretty accurate representation of the sound on a cd player for example.
 
Metalhex said:
I remember hearing people complain about YouTube making music sound worse back when it first came out. And I never really understood it because even if it does make songs sound a little worse, it still gives a pretty accurate representation of the sound on a cd player for example.
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Maybe it used to be bad, hard to say. I do know that listening devices are usually the culprit when it comes to poor audio reproduction, it's insane how bad most of those things are.
 
ZEN Amps said:
That they do. I can't tell anything about an amp from a non-close miked recording, other than
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I listen for gain structure in phone clips. I never heard a “real” Cameron clip till I recorded mine, it was most all iPhone clips but I could tell something special was going on. To me everyone on this board by now in 2022 should at least have a set of monitors, an interface and a 57 but that’s a different topic altogether
 
Sounds very close but i'm going to guess A is the original.

Great tone too mate!
 
Both sound good. B sounds a bit more...crisp? Just a little more high end emphasis. But I couldn't say which is original.

What did you mic it with?
 
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