Loudness Wars article

heiney9
heiney9 Posts: 25,163
edited January 2008 in The Clubhouse
Maybe they are getting the idea that recordings of today are very undesirable. Only time will tell.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-loudness_mastersonjan01,0,7547276.story

H9
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  • markmarc
    markmarc Posts: 2,309
    edited January 2008
    H9:
    Another fine article pointing out the crap that the RIAA is putting out. If you haven't seen it, Rolling Stone online has a terrific piece on the subject, with a tremendous amount of links. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity/print

    There is some hope, a group of recording engineers wants to create a stamp for albums that avoid the loudness war.
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  • F1nut
    F1nut Posts: 50,444
    edited January 2008
    records today are 6 to 8 decibels louder than they were 15 years ago, the equivalent of about a quarter turn of a volume knob. Katz said some music that is heavily compressed has gone up almost 20 decibels in 20 years.

    Advances in recording technology have allowed sound engineers and producers to raise recordings' overall volume by compressing the dynamics of the audio during the mixing process. The compression technique removes the peaks and valleys, making all parts of a song equally loud.
    And making them sound like crap, IMO.

    I never have understood the thinking behind this, because it's loud it will get more attention. In fact, it defies logic. Take the TV commericals. Before the advent of level sound, TV commericals were always louder than the show. What's the first reaction to a loud commerical? You reach for the remote to turn DOWN or MUTE the volume. In affect, your reaction is completely opposite of what they want and yet the bozo's don't get it. CD's that are mastered hot get the same reaction from me, all I want to do is push eject. In the case of one recent CD I purchased, it's so hot and bright that I'll never listen to it again. The fact that I wasted $20.00 because some putz decided it sounded better that way pisses me off, big time. I'd really like to shove the CD up his arse, but then I'd probably end up behind bars.

    Anyway, it's about time they woke up! Perhaps there is hope for the future of recorded music.
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