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

nick as far as i know you don't listen to the artists i'm referring to anyway - how would you know whether erykah badu, maxwell, sade or any of the techno/dubstep/funky/bobbins i listen to are over-compressed?!

and yeah how would i know whether phoenix or whoever are over-compressed but i don't really give a shit about them so

Well I may not have listened to the latest badu, maxwell, or sade records, but I do listen to quite a bit of techno and have been known to dabble in dubstep a little; plus you said "this isn't widespread" not "badu, maxwell, and sade aren't overcompressed" so I assumed you were talking about a wider range of artists than that!

That waveform for the The-Dream track does look absolutely fine though.

well, do you think the techno/dubstep you listen to is overcompressed? b/c in the main, i don't, or at least i don't hear it in those genres, in the slightest, the way i do in eg an alexandra burke radio hit.

i basically mean "a large proportion of all the artists i listen to" and just gave those three as particularly well-known examples in lieu of actually going through my last.fm profile and listing everyone whose music i think doesn't sound overcompressed.

the more generally electronic (inc. rock guitar) the music/genre sonically the more likely it is to be overcompressed perhaps. i'd be surprised if hard dance music played in clubs was not also affected by this. more organic/trad productions are less likely to be affected.

I think a lot of electronic music that I've listened to since 2001, say, of all different stripes, from Burial to The Field to Nathan Fake (especially him) to Vitalic to The Knife to Lindstrom to Four Tet, even (many of these I absolutely adore) are all louder and less dynamic than they need to be, in pure absolutest terms. Some of the time this doesn't bother me that much (The Field), some times it means I get rid of records cos I can't stand them (Nathan Fake). I think the new Knife album is WAY better than Silent Shout, for instance (Fever ray is also way better than Silent Shout, though still a little too loud ion absolutist terms).

Tell you what isn't, though, and what I wish a lot of other electronic records sounded like in terms of mastering levels; the DJ Sprinkles album. Fucking amazing sounding record.

It's not that The Field is ruined by being overcompressed, for instance; just that I think it could be a LOT better.

the dj sprinkles record sounds really nice but i'm not hearing the "fucking amazing wow wow wow" compared with any other given deep house (either in terms of quality or sound tbh)

the knife's monochrome flatness is a kinda integral part of their aesthetic surely? can't imagine anything about their music isn't a deliberate decision.

listening to the field is like being smothered in cotton wool but i ascribe this to his limited sonic palette and apparent ignorance of this thing called bass.

everything i've heard by lindstrøm has been a+ and spot on when it comes to production.

I think the new Knife album is WAY better than Silent Shout, for instance (Fever ray is also way better than Silent Shout, though still a little too loud ion absolutist terms)

do you just mean from a loudness/compression pov? because the only reason i can think why they may have toned that down since Silent Shout is because they're less dance-orientated (which is interesting). haven't actually heard "Tomorrow, In A Year" yet tho

Lindstrom IS A+ spot-on with production, I don't dispute that, but mastering is a DIFFERENT thing, which is what I think a lot of people don't get.

Steve; yeah, pretty much just from a loudness/compression POV, but some of it might be down to aesthetic production choices. I dislike a lot of the drum sounds on SS for instance, yet on TIAY they're AMAZING; the reason they're not as nice (to me) on SS could be either mixing / production compression or mastering, it's difficult to tell. I just know I don't like it.

I think the loudest, most compressed records I have on my MP3 player are Justice - (Cross) and Times New Viking - Present the Paisley Reich. In both cases, it seems like a deliberate choice and I guess it suits the type of music. Usually jazz and vocals records have better dynamic range than rock/electronic/pop, in my experience.

I listened to Vapor Trails the other day and really noticed how disastrous the level of compression was. The guitars become a little less distinct every time the bass becomes more prominent etc.

DYNAMIC RANGE COMPRESSION IS MUSIC PRODUCTION'S EQUIVALENT OF CAPS LOCK!!!!!!!

fuck this shit,

good read

http://www.sfxmachine.com/docs/loudnesswar/loudness_war.pdf

"Lindstrom IS A+ spot-on with production, I don't dispute that, but mastering is a DIFFERENT thing, which is what I think a lot of people don't get."

yeah yeah but ime it isn't mastering engineers who are responsible for making everything louder, it's the artists/producers compressing the shit out of everything because in isolation it sounds great.

also, a lot of people don't "get" mastering because mastering isn't really a thing

you get quoted in that link above nick

Nick/Scik Mouthy of this very parish on dynamic range compression in 2011.

Just came here to do that myself...

from apple: "Any boosts in playback volume are designed to be protected against clipping by iTunes' build-in limiter."

If only there had been a clear definition of who got to do the limiting at the very beginning between Mastering Engineers, radio stations and the system you're currently using.

My ears are fatigued.

thought that the Kanye album was an accidentally shipped set of demos or something. Gash. Can't listen to the thing.

I am getting the impression with the music I like best that this was worse a few years ago than it is today. A lot of American indie acts (and probably also hip-hop/R&B although that is not really my cup of tea) need to cut down the compression and volume considerably though.

The Beatles remasters were just perfect. Far from clipping or anything, but at the same time (unlike a lot of 80s/early 90s masters) loud enough not to sound tame on modern phones, iPods or portable CD players.

Hey nick thanks for writing about this stuff, its really important.

I'm glad you brought up games in the end. Working in that industry I think its ludicrous how music is the only industry that'd turned its back on fidelity

I'm no tech head but I think this article at RA may be a nice supplement - use of VU meters, also (especially!?) to monitor digital recordings.

ctrl f - bob katz 'mastering audio'

Not sure if this has ever been linked to, but it's also a good read:

http://www.chicagomasteringservice.com/loudness.html

(Chicago Mastering Service is co-owned by Bob Weston from Shellac)

How long will it take for people's computer hardware (including smartphones) to be of such a quality that Spotify may become all lossless? It would be a very important change because it would mean the kids would get used to more dynamic sound again.

YOU'RE STILL DERANGED

yeah, you can losslessly hear how the recordings sound like ass soup.

i always forget that this is a thing that's meant to exist until these threads are bumped

have never noticed it while actually listening to music

How does lossless/lossy encoding make sound more or less dynamic?

it doesn't

You mean Geir might be wrong sometimes?

What's your usual listening setup lex?

tbh given what lex listens to, it's probably the audio equivalent of those fish that live at the bottom of the sea and can thrive under thousands of pounds of pressure

have never noticed it while actually listening to music

― lex pretend, Wednesday, October 12, 2011 10:27 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wake up sheeple.
shit is hella obvious

what is the singular of sheeple?

sheeperson?

what, ewe don't know?

How does lossless/lossy encoding make sound more or less dynamic?

The more compressed, the less difference between the loudest and most silent parts. Because the most silent parts become less silent. Extensive use of dynamic range compression is just like USING CAPS LOCK ALL THE TIME.

data compression is not the same as audio compression

It has much of the same effect on the audio. Today's recordings are being compressed because the kids are used to hearing badly compressed mp3s and expect music to sound that way.

you do not know what you are talking about

Geir, you're confusing low-bitrate-encoded files with brickwall-mastered audio.

They can both sound bad, but neither necessarily so. There's some truth to the idea that kids are being trained to accept poor fidelity by both low bitrates and extreme (distortingly so) audio compression, but this may only be a passing phase in the grand scheme of things. Data compression is just the natural result of low bandwidth and storage limitations, but those are receding by the month. And audio compression has, in part, come from the fact that everybody listens to music through chintzy headphones with high impedances that require a high average level (the "RMS") to give a listenable level. Which should change, too, if more slowly.

Things that are well mastered can still sound pretty good even at 128kbps. Depends on the music involved. And many things sound fantastic when the audio/dynamic range is seriously compressed. There's no single rule to cover this. I'd say that more important than data or audio compression is EQ—whether the piece in question is well balanced across frequencies. If it is, it can be pushed pretty hard, just as a well balanced car can be driven harder than one that's off kilter.

Of course, a lot of music these days is marred by both too much data and audio compression.

What's your usual listening setup lex?

at home, mp3s through laptop plugged into this stereo system (sony ss-cpx333)

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS7iBmSTn8Dx2qEY2BvOSit-Fp2BSoIIdNHp1rgj_TnCq3MHSZODiQpYmPQ

while out and about, ipod with these headphones (sennheiser px100)

http://www.dansdata.com/images/3senns/px100640.jpg

tbh given what lex listens to, it's probably the audio equivalent of those fish that live at the bottom of the sea and can thrive under thousands of pounds of pressure

what are you saying about sade??

i love how deej can come out with "it's obvious" despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary

no, audio compression is entirely audible. download the greatest hits version of sugar ray's 'every morning' from amazon, then download the album version. they remastered for the greatest hits. the difference is entirely noticeable