What is Digg?115 Comments
- Stonedonkey, on 10/11/2007, -9/+97A concert.
- Niten, on 10/11/2007, -1/+68"I don't think I've heard a new artist in years that I would actually pay to listen to."
Then you aren't looking nearly hard enough. - ACrazyGerman, on 10/11/2007, -1/+65Wow thats a huge difference.
- StammesOpfer, on 10/11/2007, -7/+67Nice sarcasm but I find that a concert is actually worse for most modern music.
- elusive, on 10/11/2007, -7/+66The reason record companies push for dynamic range compression like this is because people rarely listen to music in quiet environments anymore. When you are listening to music in your car or out in public on your iPod you can't easily hear the subtle nuances.
Compressing the audio before pressing it to a CD is undesirable since you can't restore the actual levels if you wanted to, but CD players *can* easily compress the audio on the fly if the listener requires it. The "Loud" button on many car CD players does this type of compression, for example. - markthebum, on 10/11/2007, -2/+41Great point, I notice my music isn't as clear and exciting as it should be. Where is the best place to get the highest quality music?
- jivemasta, on 10/11/2007, -1/+33Congrats on being the first person to use Y2K in the past 7 years.
- StammesOpfer, on 10/11/2007, -0/+31This is actually very true look at most current recordings on a wave display and you will notice that there is relatively little difference across the entire track. This is actually the first thing in a long time that grabbed my attention enough to log-in to digg and leave anything behind... Great vid.
- pixelbasic, on 10/11/2007, -7/+37Garbage in garbage out.
- jivemasta, on 10/11/2007, -1/+30The title should say, music instead of CDs. I think people are getting the idea that this only happens on CDs and not on all recently recorded music. The digital download, no matter how good the quality is, will never sound as good as older analog recordings, as long as they mix the music using this method.
- xptical, on 10/11/2007, -4/+28While I see what he's getting at, I really hate when people ***** with my volume.
I'm sitting and watching TV. The dialog is at a nice level. Then, the director decides that he wants a "punch" in an explosion. Or they overlay a musical montage. The music and explosion is like 5 times as loud as the dialog.
Now, if you live in a house by yourself, this is nice. I'm sure. But when it's 10:30pm and the kids are asleep, it's annoying as hell.
Having "pops" outside the normal range are good for some applications. In others, they suck. - Kurisuku, on 10/11/2007, -1/+20Most people who listen to music don't love music. Most music you buy nowadays is made for people who hate music.
If they hear a loud track on the radio, and then it's followed by a quiet dynamic track, they'll miss the fact that it's dynamic. They'll just hear that it's quiet. "Oh, this sucks. What poor quality! I can't hear it well! Lo fi!" Meanwhile the next Linkin Park track will blare with all the peaks hard limited to max, and while the dynamics are gone, it sounds "Loud and hifi."
Most people who don't love music really do fall trap to the illusion that louder=higher quality. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+20This is called Dynamic Range lol.
some good articles
http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicrange.htm
http://www.mindspring.com/~mrichter/dynamics/dynamics.htm - letsnotlisten, on 10/11/2007, -4/+17a lot of modern vinyl records maintain that dynamic range that CDs don't provide if you want to check out that full spectrum of rock.
- HalFTW, on 10/11/2007, -1/+13Here is a screenshot of a track from a CD I bought recently (released end of last year). Is this a victim of this loudness war?
http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/8940/audiorapezq6.png - msgyrd, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12Another "loud" annoyance: TV stations that play shows at normal volume, but insist on playing commercials at twice that volume.
- OpCzar, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12Sometimes I want less dynamic range such as listening to an mp3 player in a loud environment or watching TV at night. But yeah, don't mess with the original content, use your audio equipment for that.
- doodlebumm, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12The Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City.
Yeah, right... Digg me down. I didn't say the Choir, but the Tabernacle itself is one of the best acoustical buildings in the world. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -3/+13"I got some AFI off of iTunes....Miss Murder and Kill Caustic are effectively unlistenable."
That's not compression buddy, that's just a ***** band. - muka3d, on 10/11/2007, -3/+13Listen to a Pink Floyd CD. Any Pink Floyd CD. They are mastered for perfection, and probably one of the few artists worth listening to that have remastered their albums to include every minute sound at amazing resolution, loud or quiet. You can hear pins drop.
- a2n3d7y, on 10/11/2007, -3/+12...yes they cut the peaks and compress the ***** out of everything to make it sound louder.
but thats not whats killing the industry. - OpCzar, on 10/11/2007, -4/+12Yeah, don't be a lurker. You're A Ok
- Niten, on 10/11/2007, -3/+11"a lot of modern vinyl records maintain that dynamic range that CDs don't provide if you want to check out that full spectrum of rock."
To whoever is digging letsnotlisten down about this: He's not claiming that vinyl provides better dynamic range than CDs are _capable_ of; just that, due to the poor engineering decisions that go into many modern CDs to make them sound loud on the radio, and due to the lack of similar pressure on the vinyl side of things (radio stations don't use records any more), often the vinyl version of an album will in some respects sound better than the digital version.
And that's been the case in my extremely limited and highly subjective experience. Not that I can, or have attempted to, scientifically verify any of this. - eschompthis, on 10/11/2007, -3/+10very nice video
- talledega500, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7absolutely. Modern "stereo" equipment is making this worse as well by being all highs all lows and no mids.
That track was juiced but Ive seen way worse. It depends on what the music was really - stinkypyper, on 10/11/2007, -4/+10I still like the sounds of records.
- Razster, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6You have to spend more money on Digital-Remastered CDs in order to have the original sound. It is how they make more money.
- superfrodies, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8great presentation. but this is not why the music biz is dying. it has a lot to do with ***** music, ***** radio stations (clear channel), and p2p sharing. There are still producers and engineers out there that are making great sounding records.
- Steelback, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8Listen to a pink floyd album on CD (or any other older CD or classical music), then listen to any modern pop song on a CD.
That should be enough. - awfulgrace, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6That is exactly it. I do alot of recording and mixing work, and most non-technical people are always asking me to make it louder and stronger. After years of listening to over produced music, they are searching for that super compressed sound.
Also - the radio stations then recompress the heck out of the songs again. I honestly can't listen to the radio because of the compression applied. From years of mixing my ears are very sensitive to it, and all I hear is the drums whoosing and breathing across the track. - awfulgrace, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7They do.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6not much headroom left but looks fine by me.
- obliviousfool, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6To quote Ben Folds "some producer with computers fixes all my ***** tracks."
- BigglesPiP, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7A well presented demo, but a lot of the music i listen to is performed by people who understand this enough to hopefully refuse it. It's just the mass produced pop that suffers.
- davewho, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Further reading:
Some technical analysis and a lot of examples of albums that have been mastered this way
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=27691
and more discussion on "Brickwall limiting"
http://www.eqmag.com/story.asp?storyCode=16969 - relaxarchie, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6any major label release is pretty much like that.
- theblooms, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5"Where is the best place to get the highest quality music?"
There is a company called Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs that takes original Masters and presses them to CD like no other. The difference really is noticeable. IF you have good enough speakers, and an amp with enough headroom. They cater to the audiophile.
If you can pick up a oop Ultradisk copy of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, you WILL be blown away. There's actually a couple copies on eBay right now, but most are already $50 + shipping. They often go over $100. My copy got stolen years ago, and I miss it. Badly. - BZKyle, on 10/11/2007, -3/+8Let me show you my pokemons
My pokemons, let me show you them. - radial, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4If your local symphony (and i mean like your state symphony or something, not a little high school one) has a performance hall it's most likely engineered for about the best possible sound you can imagine. It probably doesnt even use mics or a pa system at all.
Here's my local performance hall:
http://www.progressenergycenter.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=userpage&file=content&page_id=89 - arkanebeats, on 10/11/2007, -5/+9why are people digging elusive down? He's right.
- toekneebullard, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5As a sound engineer, I hate this problem. But as a guy in a band, I don't want some kid to put my music is his iPod, and skip it because it's harder to hear than all the rest of his music.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. - TritonX, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4When using a compressor and a Gate, you are not fixing a bad recording, if you are, maybe you need to start over, a gate and a compressor deserve to be in the studio. Things is some abuse them. Final mastering is usually done with a Multiband compressor, thats where the damage is done because they push it too hard.
- Kurisuku, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Yeah, but the music is hitting your ears like this:
KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHCCCCCCCCCCSH.
It's a big brick of sound instead of hi-quality sound where everything is defined.
Think of it this way: When you watch HDTV, you're getting your money's worth since it's more detailed, right? Then why is it 'modern' to listen to tracks that are less defined due to hard limited the sound into an undetailed brick? Having more digital range -- I.e. "non-modern" -- is actually more "hi def" than the modern techniques. They had it right years ago. Nowadays it's just a war to trick the consumer. The average consumer doesn't listen to audio. They just know "quiet" and "loud". :( - Xorp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Even better theblooms: http://www.mininova.org/tor/539563
That's right, lossless from the master tapes. - alski707, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4I have allways said that Dark Side of the Moon is the probaley *The* best produced album ever made, everything from the playing of the instruments, the (groundbreaking) sequencer work, its absoluteley *Massive* dynamic range, the sheer quality of the recording - and it was made in the early 70's and recorded pureley on tape, no digital recording whatsoever back then.
Just for fun, go down your local fancy hi-fi shop, and blag the manager to let you audition £10k worth's of excessiveley expensive hi-fi kit playing dark side of the moon at high volume, trust me it'll be worth it! - obliviousfool, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3You can prove this to yourself with nearly any wav editor. Rip a variety of CDs to wav files then look at the shapes of the samples. Nearly all modern recordings look like one long "caterpillar", while older recordings will make pretty peaks and valleys. It is very prevalent. Even artists you'd think would be "above" that sort of thing have done it.
- Urusai, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4It's just an example of the general contempt that business has for the consumer. Look at all this "I gaw to da cluuub / Baw me sum Cristal / Bitches up on shorty" *****, it makes me nostalgic for gangsta rap.
- relaxarchie, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5its sooo sad.... I was just having a conversation about this with a co-worker after complaining everything post Y2K I couldn't use the EQ settings on my ipod cause you could hear clipping... Very disappointing.... the music industry is going to the dogs.
- kaffein, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Any respectable mastering engineer will not want to squash a recording more than the mix down allows to make, unless asked...
It is the responsibility of the artist to let the mastering engineer know they don't need it to be excessively hotter than it needs to be.
If the artist doesn't make this call, then someone on their artist team makes the call. (e.g. Label, Investors, etc..)
-15 to -13dB RMS (average) for the loudest PARTS of a song is acceptable for modern pop music, IMHO.
-12 to -10dB RMS (average) for the loudest PARTS of a song is acceptable for modern music that is not so dynamic, IMHO. (e.g. Metal, Hard Rock, Dance) - davidrools, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3The first half looks good. If it's from the same record, I say no, they're not using too much compression/expansion. For some content, you do want that almost all-maxed-out level you see in the second half.
This whole loudness war stuff is really only applicable to tracks where you really want to have certain portions or instruments stand out far above the rest of the mix. -
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