Faces of The Loudness War

I wonder how long they listened to the music they tested. They should have showed how compression affects music. The test should have allowed the listeners to hear the same music at equal volumes. The results probably would have been different.

 

Hehe - Is that what it looked like when someone was standing on your chest for extra compression?

 

I for one! I even have the vinyl and is sound soooo much better than the CD.
I just compared it to a Flac of the CD and the CD cannot hold a candle to the vinyl. I think you can see it also (both normalised to max -3db):





I don't think I need to tell which is which

The vinyl has sst in the dead wax, who is cutting that? SST is a record coampany (black flag, Dead kennedys, etc) also.

 

this is "Love Hurts" from Sinead O'Connor's She Who Dwells double CD:

 

here's another metal release rendered unlistenable, this a song from black metal/prog band Enslaved's Mardraum. by the way, metalheads, Enslaved is a great band, check out Frost and Eld (their two best releases and the CDs are definitely NOT brickwalled like their more recent output)!

 

It`s like in the sixties rock musicians would get the distorsion from playing their amps real loud. Now that they have pedals to make the guitars distort, they have suddenly discovered they can go one step further into distorted oblivion by also distorting the mastering.

Fortunately there is not much of this punishment that the vinyl format can take before the needle starts jumping all over the place. I suspect this is why vinyls are usually more 'held back' and, in the process, listenable.

 

If you like them, you have to get a turntable...sooon. I have over the last 2 weeks compared 20-25 metal albums, mostly trash, death metal, and ALL have sounded worse on CD over the vinyl!

So for good sound, go vinyl

 

I suspect that the distortion is intentional. Intended by Rick Rubin, I mean. The rest of the album, although compressed, does not have distortion like that - and it's not all maximised either, consider the beginning and ending of track 1 "The Man Comes Around" for example. YVMV.

 

I hope you're doing well now

He's the guy who will have to work with those bean-counters though, and still needs a positive working relationship. That said, I wasn't aware of or didn't recall this:

So Rick's a Dynagrove man eh?

Well maybe you're all right and I shouldn't be putting a line in to his point of view; it's no secret I despise "smashed" or otherwise crap mastering. When I pay for a CD or LP etc I do think I ought to be getting quality craftsmanship and art. When it comes to doing his part in making the music happen, Rick is among the best there is. I know what we would want him to do about the mastering stage, which involves running contrary to industry practice these days, but what we can or should expect out of him is still another matter...

Folks blame Paul McCartney for not stopping EMI's likely use of NoNoise etc. Folks imply the Beatles weren't concerned about the sound of their earlier records or stereo or what have you because they weren't at all the mixing sessions. I think both points come down to the same point of view; Paul and the Beatles thought (and Paul still thinks) that sound recording was what the sound recording professionals were there for. The Beatles seem to have involved themselves in sound to a degree when they started wanting specific sounds, insofar as it was artistically relevant. Paul might have liked more bass but he never usurped the cutter's job and cut an LP. He still seems to be leaving the sound to the EMI engineering staff, and just says "it sounds great" diplomatically. I'm not sure I can blame Paul if the pros at EMI use NoNoise and tell him it's good, they're the ones that ought to know better. Might it be that somebody gets more dough for using it? Wouldn't they be to blame for fostering the perception of its desirability?

Likewise Rick Rubin never mastered a CD but did he force Vlado Meller to make a CD too loud or use 2 million-dollar equipment? It would seem to me that Vlado Meller (and possibly the sellers of his 2 million-dollar equipment among others) have no small role in this and in Rick Rubin's perspective on mastering. They look to him for orders, yes, and he looks to them for what's what about mastering. Further still, it can be a real problem when an artist or producer gets involved in the sound. So do we really want Rick or Paul or whomever to take a hand in sound or not? Maybe they can't hear worth a darn anymore anyway.

I realize this argues both sides a bit but the situation is complex, with no easy answers. I'm not really sure how much I can spot Rick on it. The industry seems to be having a particularly severe rash of professional and artistic ignorance, not helped by long standing politicism by other interests. Can one person, especially Rick Rubin, be expected to see things differently and make a huge change like that? Will the industry do any better without a huge influx of personnel with wiser sensibilities? It's pretty frustrating.

I know the loudness myth is madness. It seems to go something like: "Our unfair tests polling subjects who don't know anything about sound recording and playback indicate that degraded sound seems to be better received when played though a cell phone or a Bose car radio from Taiwan in a Honda when played in city traffic on the freeway with the windows down and the kid in the back seat watching a DVD at the same time. Therefore we'll distort all of our products for people who don't care if we do or not and ignore those who don't want it like this because there seem to be less of them."

Yes it does appear they could. But even Steve's had his great work rejected in favor of junk. Professional wisdom is a richly fruitful but rare, slow-growing garden that requires vigilant nurturing, and is quickly supplanted by weeds of ignorance. And all that sort of thing.

So does listening to her record, from the looks of that. What, does she dwell in an aquarium?

 

Looks like they failed.

 

This is a textbook threadcrap. Please do not do this again.

 

Hi apileocole,

I would imagine the bean counters need RR more than he needs them. His records sell and that is all they are concerned with.

The producer as well as the artist should recognize a squashed or otherwise distorted record. I consider this part of their job. Their names are on the record I'm being sold. It is true producers and artists look to the engineers for technical information but in the end, the artist, the producer, every involved must put the record in a player and listen to it. One doesn't need an engineer to recognize the sonic damage done to most records nowadays... just a set of loudspeakers.

Some of my favorite bands are putting out wonderful music in horrendous sound. I expect them to take some responsibility for what they put their names on and what they want me to pay for.

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

There may even be people here on SH who listen to Amy Grant

 

I think you are refering to the interview here

On Page 4 there is this exchange (RR = Rick Rubin)

 

Exactly. This is what people's varied tastes are about.

 

Rick rubin IS right. In car stereos, boomboxes etc, a compressed version will be better.

 

Well said, Barry.

 

Rick Rubin is right (within the context of the industry), it's just that the whole of the industry is wrong and, you know what? They are starting to pay for it in less sales.

 

Sorry - I completely disagree.

 

And I disagree with you. The reasons that these compressed CD's sound good in the car is because with all the extrenuous noise in the cabin the lack of dynamics helps your brain THINK that it sounds better, because you can hear everything loud and clear. Vapor Trails sounds bitchin in my car, and sounds like pea soup on my main system.

 

I have a pretty nice car stereo with lots of dynamics. I play it at a good volume and I hear everything. Compressed CDs distort and clip, just like they do on my home stereo.

 

Doonie, and I don't agree. Most car stereos and boomboxes sound not really good at all. That plus the surroundings they are in, make compressed music a better choice. In the home and good stereo, I agree that is not the case.

 

I have listened to highly compressed and slightly compressed (retains dynamic range) versions of the same song in my car (stock premium Ford system) and prefer the slightly compressed. I think the extra volume fools the uneducated ear into thinking it sounds better. I used to think that in the mid nineties when cds started getting loud.

 

Hi nin,

On the cheesiest systems I can find, including the car, with the windows open at highway speeds, the compressed version sounds compressed.

Whether that is "better" is up to the listener.
For me, "compressed" equals "lifeless" and "painful".

In any event, the compression should be a button on the car stereo. I do not at all agree with making production decisions based on a lowest common denominator playback system. This only ensures the record will sound like I'm in the car (only louder), even when played back in the studio.

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com