Music Into Noise: The Destructive Use Of Dynamic Range Compression part 2

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Read this and especially look at the pictures, which are very, er, illustrative:

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/files/8A133F52D0FD71AB86256C2E005DAF1C

(SFW)

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 14 March 2003 01:09 (10 years ago) Permalink

excellent article

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 14 March 2003 01:16 (10 years ago) Permalink

Is this why Neil Young uses that tiny amp instead of a row of stacks?

― David Beckhouse (David Beckhouse), Friday, 14 March 2003 01:18 (10 years ago) Permalink

for some reason the words "Lord Alge" kept going through my brain while reading this article

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 14 March 2003 01:29 (10 years ago) Permalink

Are there any other articles on the Internet regarding this phenomenon?

― Evan (Evan), Friday, 14 March 2003 01:33 (10 years ago) Permalink

I just glaced over it, I'll read it fully in a bit.
The Rush soundwaves are interesting.
Maxing out volume levels must make music into noise, because Merzbow does it.

― A Nairn (moretap), Friday, 14 March 2003 01:35 (10 years ago) Permalink

I think Douglas did something on it for last year's EMP conference but I'm not sure if it's on the Net or not

― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 14 March 2003 01:36 (10 years ago) Permalink

There is more on this subject on the "prosoundweb" boards. Where mixerman lives! Honestly after returning to records this year I really find myself never listening to cd's anymore. I turn them down skip tracks get bored or annoyed by something. I only listen to small bits for a short period of time. When I play records I can listen all day hours on end and never tire of the music.I enjoy the record. The cd I just analyse. I'm not a vinyl luddite I just think my boredom with current music lies in the medium of compact discs and radio not the bands and songs themselves

― girl scout heroin (iamamonkey), Friday, 14 March 2003 02:04 (10 years ago) Permalink

I did, and it's not... but yeah, it's a real issue.

― Douglas (Douglas), Friday, 14 March 2003 02:52 (10 years ago) Permalink

So I encourage you to write to your favorite bands and tell them that you will quit buying their CDs if they insist on trying to make them the loudest CDs you own.

DEAR MAINLINER

NAJO,DUDE YOU LIKE ROCK BUT COULD YOU LIKE TURN DOWN OR I"M NOT GOING TO BUY THE REISSUE OF MELLOW OUT.

LOVE
BRG30

― brg30 (brg30), Friday, 14 March 2003 03:44 (10 years ago) Permalink

an issue of EQ magazine (terrible magazine, i don't recommend it) a couple years ago had an interview with kid rock's producer or engineer or somebody who was boasting that they had made sure that the kid's last disc was hotter than anything else out there. making kid rock the hottest dude in the land, after a fashion.

it IS a problem, especially in more commersh type shit, but compression or even heavy compression is not inherently evil. actually, i find it equally annoying that i have to turn the volume up and down on a bedhead record, following the dynamic contour of the song.

― ben sterling (frozen in time), Friday, 14 March 2003 05:22 (10 years ago) Permalink

Did anyone here have this problem with the sound of Vapor Trails? Because I didn't really. I even kind of liked it. And I think 80s Rush usually sounds bad when I hear it. I totally don't buy that they've always been on the forefront of production.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Friday, 14 March 2003 08:44 (10 years ago) Permalink

that was interesing. I would like music mags (who ususally just do band interviews and rec reviews) to branch out a bit and kick off a debate abt this (I don't think it matters to me as I haven't bought much rock in years).

but yeah v informative.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 14 March 2003 11:42 (10 years ago) Permalink

This is something that I've been bothered with for a very long time, but I didn't know it had a name. To hear this... uhhh... "dynamic range compression" taken to its fullest extent, check out the 1991 CD pressing of Frank Zappa's Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar. An absolute abomination, and Frank himself oversaw the whole remastering job! Tosser!

― Evan (Evan), Friday, 14 March 2003 11:47 (10 years ago) Permalink

hehehe...I have the 2Cd guitar set and I was gonna get this one next. oh dear.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 14 March 2003 11:55 (10 years ago) Permalink

damn fine article. and a real eye-opener for engineering illiterates like me. you recording heads have gots to fight the power and proliferate sharp transients on the front of your kick drum waves man. you know it makes sense. even I know that.

― mick hall (mick hall), Friday, 14 March 2003 12:01 (10 years ago) Permalink

I've been growing more and more militant over the non-abuse of dynamic range compression ever since my own band's album was mastered and they did all this trickery to make it sound "marketable", and when it's played on the radio (where even more compression is applied) it does this thing where the quiet parts are the exact same volume as the loud parts, so that when it's supposed to "kick" back in, it's way anti-climactic. Plus that whole instruments-disappearing-into-each-others'-signals thing, ugh.

Exactly why we're recording, mixing, and mastering our next CD ourselves.

If you really want to hear for yourself the difference, listen to first Coldplay's Rush of Blood... (in terms of levels and mix) and then listen to Sigur Ros' Agaetis Birjun (levels and mix) and you'll realize that Coldplay's album maintains a sort of "stasis", whereas the Sigur Ros album has a wide variety of different levels of tone and clarity. Even if you don't like Agaetis Birjun, I think it makes for quite an excellent example of using digital techniques but without over-compressing everything into one chunk of sound.

And my #1 problem with "nu-metal"-ish bands is that, thanks to overcompression (even moreso than stylistic similarities between bands) they sound IDENTICAL on record.

I miss quiet parts.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 14 March 2003 14:50 (10 years ago) Permalink

It can be done well. Theres a section "Windowlicker" by Aphex Twin is probably the best example of extreme compression I've heard, but it is done for effect.

Over-sqwozed tracks sound horrible. It works for some genre's (nu-metal, happy hardcore etc), but as a general rule it's a pile of poo.

If you're after a loud track without utterly raping your dynamics then I recommend the Waves L-1 or L-2 Ultramaximiser. It's the less noticable one I've found. It still takes time though, a lot of tracks are ruined not by compression, but when it's done lazily with no thought to what the track actually needs.

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Friday, 14 March 2003 15:03 (10 years ago) Permalink

Ooh yeah, sometimes overcompression can be used effectively with the proper intent. Alec Empire knows this like no one else.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 14 March 2003 15:04 (10 years ago) Permalink

Are there any other articles on the Internet regarding this phenomenon?
If you type "Dynamic Range Compression" into the google search box in the upper right hand corner, you'll see an earlier ILM thread where this was vehemently debated like, I dunno, six months ago. (Hence why this thread is called "part 2")
Also, there are a few others reachable via yer fave search engine.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 14 March 2003 15:27 (10 years ago) Permalink

actually, i find it equally annoying that i have to turn the volume up and down on a bedhead record, following the dynamic contour of the song.

Have you considered buying a compressor? (No, I'm not being a wiseass) Some people do like them for home listening, though I'm not really one of them.

listen to Sigur Ros' Agaetis Birjun (levels and mix) and you'll realize that[...]the Sigur Ros album has a wide variety of different levels of tone and clarity.

Heh, that's funny -- one of my biggest problems with A.B. (as I recall, anyway -- I haven't listened to it in a while) has always been that it sounded too compressed to me!

― Phil (phil), Friday, 14 March 2003 23:29 (10 years ago) Permalink

Hmmm. Y'know what. This would explain why the Beck mp3's (on my mp3 player at the moment) differ so much in sound quality.
"Loser" has crisp sound while
"Sexx Laws" has a faint buzz at the high end and a dull toothache muffling at the bottom end, and the opening horn blasts have crackles in them.
Is this the fault of a bad codec interpreteting ...or is it a perfectly healthy codec being befuddled by too much DRC on the original CD?

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 14 March 2003 23:55 (10 years ago) Permalink

Hmmm. Y'know what. This would explain why the Beck mp3's (on my mp3 player at the moment) differ so much in sound quality.
"Loser" has crisp sound while
"Sexx Laws" has a faint buzz at the high end and a dull toothache muffling at the bottom end, and the opening horn blasts have crackles in them.
Is this the fault of a faulty and crappy codec interpreteting perfectly good data incorrectly...or is it a perfectly healthy codec being befuddled by too much DRC on the original CD?

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 14 March 2003 23:55 (10 years ago) Permalink

showing the waves was a nice way of illustrating what's going on to those who wouldn't know...

i still say it's completely up to the artist as to how they handle all this...

it's a shame a band like rush would let people screw their sound up cause i imagine they would probably rather have their record sound undistorted as opposed to the opposite.

it's my opinion that some audiophiles care too much. no offense, but a little distortion and white noise doesn't turn my ears off. i find it a little ridiculous how annoyed this guy is. (and i constantly complain about how loud commercials are as opposed to television shows... so i maybe i can't talk.)

good production will never make a bad record good.

bad production doesn't always make a good record bad.
m.

― msp, Saturday, 15 March 2003 00:04 (10 years ago) Permalink

After rereading the article I went back to Prosoundweb and found an article about an engineer who was bragging on how "hot" he could record. and compressing the drums to the point of distortion. He was so proud! the article was called "this man goes to eleven" It should be retitled "this man ruined your debut effort" .

― girl scout heroin (iamamonkey), Monday, 17 March 2003 15:56 (10 years ago) Permalink

4 months pass...

The Slashdot Crue finally gets wind of this...
Is Louder Better?

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Saturday, 2 August 2003 02:51 (9 years ago) Permalink

It's a huge relief to see that there's a change in the air about the excessive use of compression in mastering. Things were becoming ridiculous. I'm glad the author of this article has had both the guits and the expertise to nail this topic. It's a superb article.

You know, there are many decent albums that have been ruined by excessive compression. I would like to nominate The Prodigy's "The Fat of the Land". A friend commented, it's a great album to vacuum to" because you can set it at a suitable volume and depend on that volume never changing! And you know what I hate most? it's those albums which fool the quotidien critic. They go, 'hurgh hurgh, it's loud, it great', give it a good review, we go and buy it, and feel like fools because, like an excessively loud, obnoxious and stupid guest, an overly compressed record quickly outstays its welcome.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Saturday, 2 August 2003 03:56 (9 years ago) Permalink

like an excessively loud, obnoxious and stupid guest, an overly compressed record quickly outstays its welcome.
This fits both the band Prodigy and the record you mentioned.
It reminds me of a poem:

Never Take Maxim to elegant places
he lacks all the social graces
He'll dance on the table
Whenever he's able
and giggle at you, making faces.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Saturday, 2 August 2003 19:07 (9 years ago) Permalink

Wow! I knew shit all about this kind of stuff, I'm just a music fan, but now I do.

Will any death metal fans have any idea why this matters?

― sucka (sucka), Sunday, 3 August 2003 13:23 (9 years ago) Permalink

Yes...
before excessive Dynamic Range Compression, the vocalist sounded like David Lee Roth...
after excessive Dynamic Range Compression, the vocalist sounded like the cookie monster...
He didn't sound like that in the studio.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Sunday, 3 August 2003 15:48 (9 years ago) Permalink

Will any death metal fans have any idea why this matters?

Probably not many, but death metal is style where 'hot' mastering is very difficult to pull off, as the typically thick, full-bass-full-treble sound of the guitars is extremely hard to preserve when you use to much compression - which is why most nu-metal (= produced for radio/tv so lots of compression needed) uses those thin sounding, all-mid-range guitars instead.

― Siegbran (eofor), Sunday, 3 August 2003 22:41 (9 years ago) Permalink

2 years pass...

Bump, innit, and link - http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_article/imperfect-sound-forever.htm - too, because this is now one of the most-read weekly articles on Stylus bar year-end pieces.

Please please please read my piece and the Rip Rowan one and everything else I've linked, and talk about this phenomena everywhere and anywhere. Because it's fucking important.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 25 May 2006 13:55 (7 years ago) Permalink

Compression is like audio crack - sure it feels good but it can destroy your life. My favorite recent example of compression-killed-the-album is Broken Social Scene's last self-titled. It sounds really nice but taken as a whole it's just wearying to listen to.

Hopefully there won't be some crazy no-compression backlash. Compression + normalization are important - the problem is getting engineers and producers to use them with discretion in the right circumstances. By the time you hear the effects of compression, you've probably used too much. Not surprisingly Albini's had some choice words about this over the years.

Those wanting to delve in can get more info at the usual gearhead hangouts:
www.electrical.com
www.tapeop.com

― Edward III (edward iii), Thursday, 25 May 2006 17:22 (7 years ago) Permalink

Destroying audio w/ overcompression sounds great IMO!

― Chris Bee (Cee Bee), Thursday, 25 May 2006 18:10 (7 years ago) Permalink

Die die die.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 25 May 2006 18:31 (7 years ago) Permalink

the guy we mastered with was also complaining about "multi-band" compression, in which you can go through and compress different spectrums of the sound at different frequencies separately, apparently, this basically is used to get that sort of nu-metal "wall" where everything hits like a giant wall of sounds (not in the phil spector sense, but this same loud flatness that I think people are talking about in this thread)...he says it's a sometimes useful tool that was invented to clean up some errant bass freqencies but has now been perverted in the quest for more volume...

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 25 May 2006 18:49 (7 years ago) Permalink

If I can pay devil's advocate for a moment, one place where I'm glad to have a "hot", ultra-compressed album is in the car. On albums with too much dynamic range, the quiet parts get lost in the road noise, and if you turn it up enough to hear them, your ears get pulverized when the loud parts come in.

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 25 May 2006 18:52 (7 years ago) Permalink

~~devil's~~ driver's advocate

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 25 May 2006 18:55 (7 years ago) Permalink

I don't think anyone here is disputing that in moderation compression is a good thing. It simply makes recordings sound better - more presence, more detail, more clarity, better balance. The problem is when it's taken too far. I think that lately there have been more albums that suffer from a flat over-compressed sound, but there are also lots of older albums that would sound better with more compression. I think that when you compress the dynamic range, the ear naturally becomes more attuned to subtle differences in volume, so you don't need as big a change in volume to communicate a dynamic shift. Albums with too big a dynamic range can also be fatiguing to listen to.

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 25 May 2006 19:06 (7 years ago) Permalink

I've been bitching about this for awhile. I think there's a noticeable difference between The Decemberists Her Majesty and Picaresque, and the former sounds way better.

Not to mention weezer. The blue album is really compressed, but I don't think it can hold a candle to The Green album and onwards.

the guy we mastered with was also complaining about "multi-band" compression, in which you can go through and compress different spectrums of the sound at different frequencies separately

Yeah, that's what they do. They can be quite handy, though. I recorded this really cheap toy glockenspiel once, and the high frequencies were painful to listen to. Slapped a compressor on just the highs, and bam, it sounded pleasant.

― Steve Goldberg (Steve Goldberg), Thursday, 25 May 2006 19:07 (7 years ago) Permalink

yeah, he definitely uses it, and actually used it on one of our songs that had a deep dub bass thing going on that was sort of problematic, but I think he was just saying that it's become sort of a crutch for some people.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 25 May 2006 19:09 (7 years ago) Permalink

I recorded this really cheap toy glockenspiel once, and the high frequencies were painful to listen to. Slapped a compressor on just the highs, and bam, it sounded pleasant.

Isn't that what EQ is for?

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 25 May 2006 19:30 (7 years ago) Permalink

Isn't that what EQ is for?

No; EQ will cut or boost a frequency range by a fixed amount. A multi-band compressor will compress a frequency range by a given ratio.

It amounts to the difference between simply turning down the volume, which keeps the shape of the waveform intact, and compression, which squshes the waveform.

― Steve Goldberg (Steve Goldberg), Thursday, 25 May 2006 19:43 (7 years ago) Permalink

Squashes, that is. Anyway, does that make sense? The EQ will affect the frequency the same way at all times, whereas the compressor only kicks in when a certain threshold is hit and then compresses a different amount depending on the setting.

― Steve Goldberg (Steve Goldberg), Thursday, 25 May 2006 19:45 (7 years ago) Permalink

Yes, is cool.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 25 May 2006 20:00 (7 years ago) Permalink

So how is compression on new vinyl records any better?

― Lee is Free (Lee is Free), Thursday, 25 May 2006 20:48 (7 years ago) Permalink

i've had friends that have released vinyl versions of their CDs, and they had to do a totally different mastering job, it actually has to be mastered for vinyl separately....

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 25 May 2006 20:54 (7 years ago) Permalink

― electric sound of jim (and why not) (electricsound), Friday, 26 May 2006 01:32 (7 years ago) Permalink

So, somebody upthread mentioned knowing people who listened at home on compressors. Is this really feasible? Are they hard to adjust, how much do they cost, etc.?

― don, Friday, 26 May 2006 02:53 (7 years ago) Permalink

don - it's been a long time since i used Cubase, but iirc you can add effects to whatever comes from line-in in real time, and there is a whole bunch of free VST compressors out there, so it's certainly feasible. However quality might not be as good as with the hardware compressors.

― scnnr drkly (scnnr drkly), Friday, 26 May 2006 14:14 (7 years ago) Permalink

Skipping 629 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

My problem with a lot of the old-school DM I've been getting into is that it sounds TOO thick. I want a little more sharpness and nimble-ness in the sound.

― Clarke B., Tuesday, 26 February 2013 15:59 (3 months ago) Permalink

Metal needs a Blue Note/RVG

― Vote in the ILM 70s poll please! (Algerian Goalkeeper), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 16:05 (3 months ago) Permalink

i think it would be cool if more bands found people who could do nice well-balanced analog recordings and then just transfer that to cd. or just find studios/engineers who are more well-rounded.

there's a guy i know near me who does great analog and digital recording. he's equally adept at both but i love his analog atuff that i've heard. he's recorded friends of mine - bunwinkies and fat worm of error - and he gets a great sound. he does all of dinosaur's stuff and the witch stuff. and i think he did the new thurston album. anyway, there are people out there who do great stuff people just need to think outside the box. he's not a "metal" engineer or producer but i bet he could do an amazing job with a metal band.

― scott seward, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 16:05 (3 months ago) Permalink

Obliteration's Nekropsalms is a beautifully recorded death metal album

― available for sporting events (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 16:08 (3 months ago) Permalink

we're scaring lex and the others out of the thread by talking about metal

― Vote in the ILM 70s poll please! (Algerian Goalkeeper), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 16:10 (3 months ago) Permalink

That Fat Worm record sounds amazing. Main problem with analog, especially for bands at that level, is the cost. Tape is pretty pricey.

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 16:11 (3 months ago) Permalink

oh and tarfumes before i forget i have it right here: the who disc is from 1996 and the reissue was produced by jon astley, remixed by andy macpherson and jon astley, and remastered by bob ludwig.

― scott seward, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 16:25 (3 months ago) Permalink

Yep, that's the one a lot of people can't stand. I kept my copy for the handful of additional Moon bits the remix revealed (a cymbal tinkle in "Acid Queen," a tympani fill in "Overture"), but the sound, ugh. I think the 1989 remaster is supposed to be good, though (single disc, faces in the artwork).

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 16:42 (3 months ago) Permalink

its pretty demented, sound-wise.

― scott seward, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 16:45 (3 months ago) Permalink

but, you know, if that's the only one you've ever heard/owned it doesn't matter, i guess. that's what the album is to you. that's how it has always sounded.

― scott seward, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 16:46 (3 months ago) Permalink

Hm, I definitely would not say that "Penny Lane" has flat dynamics on the 2009 stereo remaster of MMT.

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Monday, February 25, 2013 9:49 PM

Listening to the mono mix, I just don't hear a lot of change in the overall track volume level despite constant changes in the instrumentation.

As to the "Da Doo Ron Ron" waveform not being just a big rectangle: Yeah, but the volume peaks are weird. Like the bass drum that's really loud or some vocal peaks or something. Basic backing track is pretty much a sound mash imo.

― timellison, Wednesday, 27 February 2013 02:41 (3 months ago) Permalink

Re: that chicago mastering article above (which is very good), I took a look at a MP3 of that Radiohead song in Audacity, and my version shows a lot of clipping. I ripped it from the CD ages ago, not sure which program I used (I no longer have the CD). Can an encoding to MP3 introduce distortion?

― Johnny Hotcox, Thursday, 28 February 2013 18:41 (3 months ago) Permalink

Pop, rock, and dance music, even some jazz, doesn't need to have dynamics to rival classical music. That's not the point, and I don't think anyone's arguing about it. My main issue is the way that impaired sound quality - through clipping and muddy, over-stuffed mixing and general lack of clarity - is often a side-effect of things being very flat and loud. I'm a lot less militant about it now that I was six years ago, partly cos my tastes have changed slightly and I'm listening to less stuff that's really impaired, and partly cos I think a lot of people have realised they don't like this. But I still think that a lot of modern records sound very, very samey and boring, because they're so loud; things like Aerial and The Drift just sound absolutely bizarre and brilliant and avant-garde to me, and that's wonderful.

― they all are afflicted with a sickness of existence (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 28 February 2013 19:00 (3 months ago) Permalink

Interesting list of 'worst offenders' here:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LoudnessWar

― Johnny Hotcox, Thursday, 28 February 2013 19:23 (3 months ago) Permalink

the ability to have infinite tracks of overdubs is by far the worst thing about digital recording

― in a chef-driven ambulance (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 28 February 2013 19:24 (3 months ago) Permalink

then again on the first cars album they used like 5000 vocal tracks for the harmonies so maybe people should only use 5000 tracks per song.

― scott seward, Thursday, 28 February 2013 19:28 (3 months ago) Permalink

cuz that album rules.

― scott seward, Thursday, 28 February 2013 19:28 (3 months ago) Permalink

the ability to have infinite tracks of overdubs is by far the worst thing about digital recording

otm. I feel like digital compression is used most commonly as a way to glue meticulously separated digital sounds together.

that vs. something like "Da Doo Ron Ron," where the wall of sound (iirc) comes from all instruments being played into the same room simultaneously. the "compression" is partially shaped by a real acoustic space.

― :C (crüt), Thursday, 28 February 2013 19:35 (3 months ago) Permalink

I guess, whatever they did, I think of the Cars as the opposite of a cluttered band. I'm more talking about the generation of kids who got convinced they were studio auteurs by The Soft Bulletin, ”kitchen sink” indie

― in a chef-driven ambulance (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 28 February 2013 19:49 (3 months ago) Permalink

this is for tarfumes. sweet early german pressing! yes i know my camera isn't very hi-fi.

― scott seward, Thursday, 28 February 2013 21:40 (3 months ago) Permalink

Beautiful! Thanks, Scott! I have a later German pressing (from the Phases box) that sounds pretty good; I'll have to dig it out.

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Thursday, 28 February 2013 21:44 (3 months ago) Permalink

3 weeks pass...

happy Dynamic Range Day, folks! be sure to celebrate this awesome Day by letting your friends know how music is too loud. It used to be quieter, now it is too loud.

― sleepingbag, Friday, 22 March 2013 07:19 (2 months ago) Permalink

LOL at that "worst offenders" list linked upthread. Somehow a guy named Kevin Gray has finally done justice to Iggy Pop and David Bowie's work. I guess no-one would've ever heard of Raw Power until he decided to turn up the guitar slightly.

― everything, Friday, 22 March 2013 08:29 (2 months ago) Permalink

3 weeks pass...

Giorgio Moroder weighs in.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 18 April 2013 20:13 (2 months ago) Permalink

"My son helped me to get the screenshots in Audacity" - sounds weird coming from Moroder. You'd've thought he'd be good at computers.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 18 April 2013 20:24 (2 months ago) Permalink

I dunno, I wouldn't expect that necessarily.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 18 April 2013 20:25 (2 months ago) Permalink

Maybe. It's just funny, a rubbing-together of eras.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 18 April 2013 20:30 (2 months ago) Permalink

An addendum

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 18 April 2013 21:35 (2 months ago) Permalink

Whatevs. These don't demonstrate anything. You need to be able to compare apples with apples. What are these songs? How long are these waveforms? Only the "Get Lucky" waveform shows the tracklength. 30 secs on Audacity could make the 1977 one look like the 2013 one. Also, the Get Lucky one is too weak. If you put that in a mix you'd have to boost it up. If that's really the unadjusted waveform of the new song then they fucked up.

― everything, Thursday, 18 April 2013 22:14 (2 months ago) Permalink

Also, I have worked with thousands of commercially released songs in Audacity and you rarely, if ever, see something like the 2013 thing (unless you specifically want it to look like that).

― everything, Thursday, 18 April 2013 22:16 (2 months ago) Permalink

you're talking out your arse

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 18 April 2013 22:23 (2 months ago) Permalink

No, I'm not.

― everything, Thursday, 18 April 2013 22:27 (2 months ago) Permalink

I guarantee that that will not be the waveform for Get Lucky.

― everything, Thursday, 18 April 2013 22:28 (2 months ago) Permalink

you better check again man, cos you're showing all the signs

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 18 April 2013 22:28 (2 months ago) Permalink

Here’s a wavefrom I just made from the mp3 that is going around, seems pretty similar to me:

― Chewshabadoo, Thursday, 18 April 2013 22:41 (2 months ago) Permalink

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fga0lyjjnophl0w/Screen%20Shot%202013-04-18%20at%2023.39.57.png

― Chewshabadoo, Thursday, 18 April 2013 22:42 (2 months ago) Permalink

Well, I can't argue with that but sheesh, that is fucking weak. Only thing I can think of is that sometimes leaked versions have the volumes deliberately lowered in order that people still might want to pay for a proper version.

― everything, Thursday, 18 April 2013 22:58 (2 months ago) Permalink

I mean, it's basically unbroadcastable if you left it at that volume.

― everything, Thursday, 18 April 2013 23:00 (2 months ago) Permalink

some more advanced audio systems allow users the ability to control the volume at which they wish to listen, or broadcast

― I have many lovely lacy nightgowns (contenderizer), Thursday, 18 April 2013 23:41 (2 months ago) Permalink

seriously i don't understand some aspects of the loudness war pushback; that waveform has nothing at all to lose by being brought up 6 or 7 db because it's already v flat dynamically, as it is it doesn't take up the full dynamic range and can even be considered lower fidelity than another track that does - only by a bit (maybe literally, as each bits in yr 16-bits of cd quality represents a certain amount of dynamic headroom and leaving that much unused space at the top is akin to only using 14 or 15 bits)... but still. the way that song is mastered it looks and is quieter but doesn't seem to have any more dynamics than yer average brickwalled whatever. i understand not wanting to change the sound of a song in mastering with hard limiting, but that doesn't mean you have to make a song much quieter than allotted, and it doesn't mean it'll sound any better if you do.

iow, i feel these waveform comparisons are often misleading!

― sleepingbag, Friday, 19 April 2013 00:27 (2 months ago) Permalink

lol contendo

― sandra dayo connor (The Reverend), Friday, 19 April 2013 00:38 (2 months ago) Permalink

that waveform has nothing at all to lose by being brought up 6 or 7 db because it's already v flat dynamically, as it is it doesn't take up the full dynamic range and can even be considered lower fidelity than another track that does - only by a bit ... but still. the way that song is mastered it looks and is quieter but doesn't seem to have any more dynamics than yer average brickwalled whatever.

sleepingbag otm, was thinking the same thing. nice that it's not completely brickwalled, but it does look p heavily compressed, and if you're gonna do that, there's no reason to limit the available dynamic range by reducing the volume overall.

― I have many lovely lacy nightgowns (contenderizer), Friday, 19 April 2013 00:52 (2 months ago) Permalink

except, you know, to make a point

― I have many lovely lacy nightgowns (contenderizer), Friday, 19 April 2013 00:53 (2 months ago) Permalink

It’s already at roughly -1.5db. Just turn it up, I guarantee it will sound better. Radio stations will brickwall it themselves anyway.

The track itself is another matter, love the guitar playing but the rest isn’t doing much for me.

― Chewshabadoo, Friday, 19 April 2013 00:56 (2 months ago) Permalink

Interesting though that Daft Punk are taking this stance after how much they have abused compression in the past.

― Chewshabadoo, Friday, 19 April 2013 01:00 (2 months ago) Permalink

I agree that it's an extreme statement, but yes zoomed out to four minutes, waveform comparisons are misleading.

When I import the mp3 and zoom in to the loudest transient I can find, it peaks at -1.7 dB under. It's not impossible there's a slightly louder one in there somewhere if I had the time to crawl for it. So it's basically a zero compromise master; even though most of the drum hits are down around -3.0, they left about one full dB of headroom louder than the loudest ones, so that not even one single drum hit had to be sawed off for the sake of bringing up the overall volume.

I'm for it!

― Milton Parker, Friday, 19 April 2013 01:03 (2 months ago) Permalink

xpost yes this is one of the bands I always used as a counter-example to the more rabid 'compression is evil' arguments, so it's interesting that one of the main bands that mainstreamed the creative use of sidechain compression is throwing down this gauntlet

― Milton Parker, Friday, 19 April 2013 01:05 (2 months ago) Permalink

consistent w the perversity of their stance on edm i guess

― I have many lovely lacy nightgowns (contenderizer), Friday, 19 April 2013 01:15 (2 months ago) Permalink

just played it back while watching on a loudness meter. levels safely average around -3, leaving safe room for a handful of drum transients to spike, usually around -2.5, though a couple go louder, and the loudest one is that one hit at -1.7

they did not normalize the track

totally conventional cd mastering practice, circa 1985

― Milton Parker, Friday, 19 April 2013 01:29 (2 months ago) Permalink

I was thinking the reason for the headroom would be that so louder tracks on the album could be louder, but being that this is a single edit, that doesn't stand up to reason

― sandra dayo connor (The Reverend), Friday, 19 April 2013 02:03 (2 months ago) Permalink

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.