to many cooks

bikezappa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ




If you don't have quiet sound you can't have loud sound.

Is dynamic range in music in our future?

bikezappa

I wonder if the artists know what the engineers are doing to the music.

Do they can as long as the music sells?

All music is made up of different frequencies and different aplitude or loudness. Take away amplitude and all you have is frequncies.

engtaz

I have seen this posted on the forum before. The problem is they can do this to all media.

Yashu

Compression is good *sometimes* (I have made some music), but what passes for pop music these days goes waaaay overboard. It is so bad that I cannot listen to commercial radio. It's not the commercials that hurt my ears, its the TOTAL WALL OF DISTORTED NOISE that people call music. I don't see how people can listen to it. It is torture and it is infecting everything that becomes re-issued as well as new music.

I want to say this since I was going to say it in another forum but I will say it here instead since you guys might listen. It is a popular sentiment on another forum that it is the ipod and mp3 generation fueling this war... and this is simply NOT TRUE.

Lossy compression performs WORSE as you lose dynamic range. The more you compress, the higher the bitrate that you need to encode music without significant artifacting. This is A & R execs run wild, guys in boardrooms telling other guys that they want their new "hit" to be hotter than the last "hit". This is record companies seeing how well RHCPs Calfornication sold (very well) and assuming that it helps to have a white hot awful mix.

This hasn't bothered me too much in the past since the kind of music I like, is not the kind of **** they play on commercial radio... the artists that I listen to just weren't destroying their mixes so it can sound louder than the last **** song that was on... but now it is really bothering me. It feels like a slippery slope, because now it IS beginning to affect some of the music I listen to in the destroyed re-issues and "re-mastering". It is starting to affect some of the Jazz I listen to. It is starting to infect some of the post-rock that I listen to.

I really hope that this trend begins reversing itself as commercial radio becomes less and less important. The much loathed mp3 generation may be a saving grace, as their love for music developes into a love for the art of music and recording.

RuSsMaN

It doesn't say anything about remastering, and old recordings being ruined.

It's using a single peice of music to DEMONSTRATE what it MIGHT sound like, had it been recorded today. The clip, the debate, it's been around for a long time. Listen to a Dire Straits CD, and listen to a Linkin Park CD, that's all you need to know. Yesterday vs today (in general). Not 'old recordings being ruined'.

bikezappa

RuSsMaN wrote: »

It doesn't say anything about remastering, and old recordings being ruined.

It's using a single peice of music to DEMONSTRATE what it MIGHT sound like, had it been recorded today. The clip, the debate, it's been around for a long time. Listen to a Dire Straits CD, and listen to a Linkin Park CD, that's all you need to know. Yesterday vs today (in general). Not 'old recordings being ruined'.

I haven't compared new vs old recordings on CDs very much. However, I have listened to pop FM stations playing a fovorite Beatles tune. I turn it up and it sounds like ****. All or most all of the dynamic range is gone in the FM broadcast. I play the original Beatles CD and it sounds like I remember. There is dynamic range. I don't know if the FM station compressed it or if it was reissued with less dynamic range. I do know that compression sucks, plain and simple. It takes much of the emotion out of music for me. Certain music can't be played in a background that is noisy. I hope this type, jazz, caberet and classical music has a future without compression.

bikezappa

Lasareath wrote: »

I have a client who is very influential in the music industry. He talks to the guys in ACDC, Aerosmith, The rolling stones all the time. He showed me the other day a baseball pool that he's in with these guys, LOL, I'll forward this to him and see what he thinks.

Here's the email I just sent him:

Steve,

Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

It explains how some recording engineers are destroying music when old albums are being re-recording and put out on CD’s

Maybe you can forward it to some of yours pals and see if there is any truth to it.

I belong to a couple of Audiophile forums on the web and this came up. I figure if anybody had the ability to ask the right people (the artists) that you could.

Thanks,

Sal

I'd like to know what their response is. Great action Sal.

hypertone

bikezappa wrote: »

I haven't compared new vs old recordings on CDs very much. However, I have listened to pop FM stations playing a fovorite Beatles tune. I turn it up and it sounds like ****. All or most all of the dynamic range is gone in the FM broadcast. I play the original Beatles CD and it sounds like I remember. There is dynamic range. I don't know if the FM station compressed it or if it was reissued with less dynamic range. I do know that compression sucks, plain and simple. It takes much of the emotion out of music for me. Certain music can't be played in a background that is noisy. I hope this type, jazz, caberet and classical music has a future without compression.

FM stations use a limiter to decrease the dynamic range. Some use more than others. It helps to keep the music more audible over RF noise. When an already overcompressed recording goes through the limiter at the station it really sounds like ****.

Compression (dynamic) is not bad when used properly. John Bonham's drums would not have the same impact in "When the levee breaks" without some heavy compression. You can really make drums more punchy, bass less booomy or vocals more intimate; if you know what you're doing. But when you start using compression as a loudness competition that's a different story. I don't buy new CD's because of the poor sound quality.

jimmyzen

and i thought it was my hearing.....

Yashu

Yesterday vs today (in general). Not 'old recordings being ruined'.

Go read more about the "loudness war". Trust me, this has infected many a re-issue and it is starting to creep it's way into almost every genre. Audiophiles are beginning to look out for original CD releases over modern ones precisely for this reason.

It's also funny that someone here mentioned the Beatles... Phil Spector and his "wall of sound" recording methods are some of what started this crap.

But I digress, here is one example of what I was saying earlier, go to the section on remasters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war