your post was expanding like Ashlee's guitars
― he carried yellow flowers (DJP), Tuesday, 25 October 2011 15:50 (twelve years ago) link
I think a lot of this comes down to how people use music, which we were discussing the other day on another thread (can't remember where, now). I don't need to use music on the tube (and if I did, I'd probably get isolating earphones again, like when I used to commute on a train); but I do like to sit on the sofa with big speakers and have music wash over / blast through me. You need very different types of music for those two uses. My problem comes when music I want to have wash over / blast through me is mastered for tube listening, which I generally think comes from an artist's desire to get on radio (and misunderstanding of what works on radio) (although it can't always come from that).
― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 25 October 2011 15:50 (twelve years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spjaA8rZEXM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCeZzW54a2o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMWeKEmuqU0
a couple of other guitar-based songs i've loved recently - non-pop - that i also love the production/sound of. and again, i can't tell whether they're over-compressed?
― lex pretend, Tuesday, 25 October 2011 15:57 (twelve years ago) link
compressed sounds evoke being outside
huh
― unorthodox economic revenge (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 25 October 2011 16:00 (twelve years ago) link
I wouldn't call that Santigold song "non-pop", personally.
― he carried yellow flowers (DJP), Tuesday, 25 October 2011 16:02 (twelve years ago) link
or that pistol annies tune! which is funny because it's evoking this rootsy, acoustic country sound with total pop mixing and mastering. the snare drum sound is hilarious in how huge it manages to make the brushes sound on the backbeat.
the first two sound fine to me for a pop approach, it's only the third one that sounds unpleasant to my ears, maybe because it's going for this epic chorus but the dynamics don't really go anywhere. there are also more instruments in the mix.
― hardcore oatmeal (Jordan), Tuesday, 25 October 2011 16:08 (twelve years ago) link
can't we just get Ashlee Simpson to play acoustic guitar and sing directly into a crackly old gramophone horn with no post-production whatsoever
― wrestlingisreal420 (crüt), Tuesday, 25 October 2011 16:28 (twelve years ago) link
Give it a few years.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 25 October 2011 16:28 (twelve years ago) link
actually banjo would be preferable
― wrestlingisreal420 (crüt), Tuesday, 25 October 2011 16:31 (twelve years ago) link
why would she be singing into a banjo
― he carried yellow flowers (DJP), Tuesday, 25 October 2011 16:31 (twelve years ago) link
you don't understand, banjo is my dog's name
― congratulations (n/a), Tuesday, 25 October 2011 16:35 (twelve years ago) link
b.a.n.j.o.
― Armand Schaubroeck Ratfucker, Tuesday, 25 October 2011 16:36 (twelve years ago) link
resonator chamber iirc. better than using the "inside of a banjo" reverb plugin setting.
― this is unusual for batman. (Jordan), Tuesday, 25 October 2011 16:38 (twelve years ago) link
i feel like this debate is turning into something no one on 'my side' intends it to be which is about whether or not ashlee simpsons music is good. you can love her music, even, and still hate that its horribly compressed. it would be more effective to her fans!! if it wasnt like this
― The boyboy young jess (D-40), Tuesday, 25 October 2011 19:45 (twelve years ago) link
i don't hate that it's compressed. i love how it sounds.
― lex pretend, Tuesday, 25 October 2011 21:18 (twelve years ago) link
I think we got that already.
― Chewshabadoo, Tuesday, 25 October 2011 21:50 (twelve years ago) link
lex is sort of the living embodiment of this principle that if you raise a child on a diet of shit, it will think that that's what food is supposed to taste like
― unorthodox economic revenge (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 25 October 2011 21:54 (twelve years ago) link
"what do you mean it's shit? tastes great to me! more please!"
― unorthodox economic revenge (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 25 October 2011 21:55 (twelve years ago) link
Dynamic compression is clearly the slow road to fascism.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Tuesday, 25 October 2011 23:25 (twelve years ago) link
Constant volume was pretty standard with, say, Spector, classic Motown, etc. Dynamic range becomes more of a preference in the later '60s and into '70s. Given that I like Spector and Motown, I don't think a two-to-three minute pop song necessitates dynamic range or that the lack of it necessarily means that fatigue is going to be an issue. Over an album, probably, but not over a single.
The question for me is more to do with whether it's being done well or whether modern records are just taking a post-'70s style of arrangements and divorcing it of some of its nuance so that it can be loud.
― timellison, Wednesday, 26 October 2011 00:31 (twelve years ago) link
I hate to be the only person talking about how awesome the ITU-R 1770-2 measurement algorithm is on this thread, but it is definitely going to impact this conversation by early next year in the broadcasting field:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Advertisement_Loudness_Mitigation_Act
Once it passes there, anyone mastering CDs with a dynamic range of 1-3 dB simply in order to compete in the broadcast arena are going to be wasting their time. Anything that goes out with an average energy level of -16 dB LUFS is simply going to be turned down anyway. It's going to help people take a deep breath and stop feeling like they need to be crushed just in order to compete.
― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 26 October 2011 01:07 (twelve years ago) link
sorry rephrase:
Anything that goes out above an average energy level of -16 dB LUFS is simply going to be turned down anyway.
Cross your fingers with me
― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 26 October 2011 01:09 (twelve years ago) link
I can only hope that this has a knock-on affect in the uk.
― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, 26 October 2011 05:10 (twelve years ago) link
The thing is, that is "designed" contant volume, so that different sections will sound like a similar volume. But, you still have comparatively very full dynamics on instruments. However with brick-wall limiting, the volume of sound changes from micro-second to micro-second - this is what causes the fatigue, rather than a lack of quiet sections.
― Chewshabadoo, Wednesday, 26 October 2011 11:13 (twelve years ago) link
^^^
― this is unusual for batman. (Jordan), Wednesday, 26 October 2011 14:17 (twelve years ago) link
Well, let me ask this. The objection, then, if I have what you're saying right, is to the volume of individual tracks or instruments constantly going up or down throughout a given piece of music in order to keep the overall mix within its dynamic limits?
Isn't this done already in the mixing process, though? Even in the old days, engineers would ride faders during a mixdown. Nowadays with software, you can specify increasing and decreasing volume levels for every track throughout a given piece of music. In my own experience, it often behooves you to do so because it can just improve the mix - bring things out where you need them or push them back.
I understand that the volume of individual instruments or tracks might be going up or down more randomly, however, when limiting is applied to an overall mix. Is this the problem?
― timellison, Wednesday, 26 October 2011 22:09 (twelve years ago) link
the problem as I see it is a very broad, general "pop music folks don't know how to mix/master anything that comes from a live instrument and not a synthesizer"
― wrestlingisreal420 (crüt), Wednesday, 26 October 2011 23:18 (twelve years ago) link
yeah but you're just going to say this no matter what at this point in the argument; your heels are dug in. it's been pointed out to you that you might hear more of what you like if compression hadn't flattened the dynamic range, but you seem to think that admitting that would be betraying ashlee simpson or something, so you just say "I like this sound." but the sound you like is allowed less space to play in because of range compression. however, in the end I am with you in that I cannot & will not betray ashlee simpson.
― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, 26 October 2011 23:41 (twelve years ago) link
She's a hoe
― the 500 gats of bartholomew thuggins (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 27 October 2011 01:26 (twelve years ago) link
i don't know, several people in this thread have also said that they can't hear it/it doesn't bother them, and the fact remains that i can't tell if something's compressed if it's not pointed out (is the katy b album compressed? beyoncé? pj harvey? WHO KNOWS)
― lex pretend, Thursday, 27 October 2011 08:29 (twelve years ago) link
i assume live performances aren't compressed? but often i enjoy the sound LESS there, because venue soundsystems are so often shit
― lex pretend, Thursday, 27 October 2011 08:30 (twelve years ago) link
EVERYTHING is compressed (effectively, in the realm of pop/rock/dance/hiphop/r'n'b), it's just a question of how much.
― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 27 October 2011 09:56 (twelve years ago) link
There will be lots of compression used in live-shows, pretty much anything going into the mixing-desk, and then there will be some sort of compression between the mixer and pa, if only to kick-in to protect the equipment. Also, a lot of venues will also have some kind of volume limiting, to stop them breaking any local sound restrictions.
There's nothing wrong with the right amount of compression to fit the sound you're after, and most modern genres wouldn't sound 'right' without it. Indiscriminate 'hot' mastering to make the sound give (and if ever there was a correct time to use the phrase) 110% on everything is what this thread is talking about.
― Chewshabadoo, Thursday, 27 October 2011 10:51 (twelve years ago) link
OTM.
― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 27 October 2011 12:40 (twelve years ago) link
if i turn up the volume on a cd to hear how it sounds loud (you know, a reasonably loud level that my speakers and receiver have no problem handling) and it distorts then i never play that cd again. to me, its a faulty product.
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 October 2011 12:42 (twelve years ago) link
i've heard so many horrible examples, i kinda wonder how people even know which "remastered/expanded/remixed" CDs to buy. "remastered" on the cover of a new version of an old album almost seems like a red flag NOT to buy it.
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 October 2011 12:44 (twelve years ago) link
"remastered" on the cover of a new version of an old album almost seems like a red flag NOT to buy it.
unless you can find evidence to the contrary, that's a safe bet.
― skip, Thursday, 27 October 2011 12:47 (twelve years ago) link
Unfortunately that is true. Just recently I ripped my fancy Virgin Prunes remaster/reissues on Mute, and I thought I'd clean up a track or two in my wave editor. Everything was overmodulated, and there were 1-2 second spots all over that were total squarewave crushed misery. What a disgrace. My vinyl rips sound way better.
Also see New Order, where the "remasters" were sourced from bad vinyl at first.
― sleeve, Thursday, 27 October 2011 15:26 (twelve years ago) link
This is a long, long thread. Is there a post somewhere on here (or elsewhere) that lists recent albums that do not have destructive range compression on them?
― rustic italian flatbread, Thursday, 27 October 2011 15:36 (twelve years ago) link
Here it is:
•
― Chewshabadoo, Thursday, 27 October 2011 15:44 (twelve years ago) link
then how come i enjoy the sound of music just as much as i always have done? i'm even more inclined to say this is nonsense now
― lex pretend, Thursday, 27 October 2011 15:49 (twelve years ago) link
or at least if it exists it doesn't MATTER because it's impossible to notice
― lex pretend, Thursday, 27 October 2011 15:50 (twelve years ago) link
or, you know, you can carry on shaking sticks at clouds and i'll carry on enjoying modern music
"enjoying"
― sleeve, Thursday, 27 October 2011 15:51 (twelve years ago) link
lol
― Y Kant Lou Reed (Le Bateau Ivre), Thursday, 27 October 2011 15:54 (twelve years ago) link
well isn't that the crux of this entire argument? you lot contend that no one's really enjoying modern music, and you get to tell us this because you're ~better listeners~. bullllllshiiiiiiiiit.
― lex pretend, Thursday, 27 October 2011 15:54 (twelve years ago) link
Ah, I found one myself
http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?sort=year&order=desc&page=1
― rustic italian flatbread, Thursday, 27 October 2011 15:56 (twelve years ago) link
no, it's that people are enjoying good music in spite of some harsh audio treatment, and that if it was mastered better they would enjoy certain kinds of music, in certain contexts, more, and for a longer time.
xp
― this is unusual for batman. (Jordan), Thursday, 27 October 2011 15:59 (twelve years ago) link
~better listeners~. bullllllshiiiiiiiiit.
― rustic italian flatbread, Thursday, 27 October 2011 16:00 (twelve years ago) link
lex's argument is like some climate change denier weirdness
― unorthodox economic revenge (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 October 2011 16:06 (twelve years ago) link