CD compression killing music

Grant dont be so negative.

 

whoops, wrong thread

 

There's nothing wrong with being negative. Hippity-hop!

 

Not exactly the vinyl vs. CD comparison you referenced, but close:

The Death of Dynamic Range: A Chronology of the Compact Disc Loudness Wars

Lots of waveform shots, close-ups that show smashed peaks & non-techie explanations.

 

I have the same misguided hope too, I still don't think I have heard a good sounding copy of Californication 7 years after release.

At least something happened at Warner Bros. for them to give the go ahead to this premium vinyl release. Perhaps it was Frusciante's insistance, considering it was an all analog recording and mix? Maybe he said "now it should be mastered on an analog format directly fromt the analog master tapes", and considering RHCP are a huge band, they were willing to make Frusciante happy? Perhaps Rick Rubin also was behind it, because apparently he has tried to have SACDs of some of his other productions, but the studios would not comply apparently due to the additional mastering and pressing expenses, without much hope to actually make a profit.

I do think that we at least have an opportunity to make a very clear comparison between the different masterings, and to ask Warner Bros. "why can't the CD sound as good as the LP?"

 

if your talking about kids..... I dont think it is so much that. I have asked a lot of young kids and they say they dont care, they just like the music. I think kids today just want quantity not quality. they are the generation of wanting it all NOW. satisfaction now. thing is along the way the education is what is ignored and in the end they really have not got it all, now.


did that make sense ?

 

I ask a lot of adults...baby-boomers like me, and they don't care,. either. They have no concept of what i'm talking about. To them, if they can hear it at all, it sounds good.

 

My mother is one of the baby boomers who has no concept of what I'm talking about and the same with most of the radio station programmers and their listeners.

 

So, it's not age. I wish people would quit blaming all bad things on teens.

 

Sorry; no. I intend to continue blaming EVERYTHING that's wrong with the world on teens. Mainly because they're all having so much sex and I'm jealous.

 

I ve been thinking about CD compression a lot. I hate to say it, but a lot of the old CDs....even though they werent compressed (low volume, higher dynamics), were actually VERY thin sounding with harsh, fake highs and plenty of other problems. I wonder if this compression stage we're in now is actually an attempt to WARM up and fill out the sound of CDs?

Everything is a compromise I guess...I actually do think some compressed CDs are warmer sounding than some of the old ones, though more dynamic. Is it possible that these trade-offs are just too much to make CD a realistic audiophile format?

Does much of the stereotypical CD's cold, harsh sound and Vinyl's warm smooth sound come from something other than just mastering? Are they somewhat innate qualities of digital/analog, or CD aluminum/Vinyl?

 

No Chili I disagree, there's a lot of good sounding early CDs.

 

Maybe there were a lot of both? I just know I have some pretty terrible sounding old ones...and this cant be blamed on compression... I'm just trying to ask questions here

 

I'm a huge fan of the CD format. I don't think the problem is with CD itself, it is with musicians and mastering engineers choosing not to make use of the capabilities of the format.

 

Compression isn't the only reason why a CD can sound terrible. Those old CDs you are referring to probably were mastered from inferior tapes and suffered from misguided equalization moves.

I see no connection between "warmth" and "fullness" on the one side and digital compression on the other side.

I take it that you haven't heard many CDs mastered by Steve?

Not in my opinion. Thinness or coldness of a master tape can be cured (to some degree) by the mastering. But both is not related to the CD format.

 

I don't buy this. The reasons for CDs in the 80's sounding poor don't exist so much any more. We now have improved 24 bit recording and mixing equipment and new dithering processes which make CDs sound far better than they ever could 20 years ago. The LOUDNESS race only started getting really bad in the late 90's by which time there was no excuse for a lousy sounding CD.

 

Plus, I'm not so sure that the early Sony PCM adapters were as bad as some people say they were. I've read that some mastering studios used the Sony 1610 adapters well into 1990s, because they were still considered good.

 

Just to be precise...

You guys are talking about 'maximization,' which is a lot like compression, admittedly. But compression is something that has been overused even before the cd age. Listen to almost any Who single mix and listen to the engineer riding the gain on the compression so that at the end Keith's cymbals sound like pure white noise!!!

The problem is compounded when these idiots today max the hell out of those recordings so that the flaws are even more in-your-face. Jon Astley, I'm looking at you!!!

I'm hoping that when we finally get beyond the 16-bit cd age, perhaps we'll see less tampering since the sound quality will take a great leap forward on it's own.

 

As I've said before, adding compression to an instrument creates a new instrument, that can be pleasant or unpleasant depending on the situation. Maximizing by compressing/limiting the whole mix creates a mess that vaguely resembles music. Two totally different things.

 

Surely maximizing is just making sure the musical peaks reach the top of the medium's dynamic range? You can maximize without compression, in fact it's best to do so!

 

Compression is not necessarily a bad thing. It's what's done with it that can be bad. Read the last few posts!!

Maximization does not have to be done so OTT!!! It can be done very well and you'd not notice it unless you looked at the wave shape. But it IS the lazy way of doing it. Ask Steve!!

In fact, I'll save you the trouble. A simple look at the wave shape of, say, Behind Blue Eyes on Steve's MCA Who's Next ( a must-own disc for anyone posting here!!!) shows clearly the incredible dynamic range that song has. The opening guitar is warm and quiet and the song itself build to an unbelievable peak culminating in Keith's big cymbal crashes at the finale. Those crashes are the loudest moments in Steve's version of the tune; they almost hit zero.

Now, look at Ghastly Astley's version --- no dynamic range whatsoever. The opening guitar is just as loud as the final cymbals. In short, it's rubbish!! And it's rubbish because of lazy mastering, using maximization with as a sledgehammer and bugger-all as common sense.

 

You can have sex too. Mustang Ranch!

 

Interesting observation. Compression does have the effect of making things sound full and large, even if, it too, is fake.

 

Surely the only time maximization is bad is when it goes into digital clipping territory?

 

There's a difference between maximizing a track so the peaks are as loud as they can be, and maximizing it so that everything in the track is as loud as it can be and there are no peaks or valleys.