Music Into Noise: The Destructive Use Of Dynamic Range Compression

I do wish that more bands would take an interest in how their records are mastered. Brick-wall compression can be a valid aesthetic choice (for instance on Velocity of Sound Apples in Stereo went with an ultra-hot compressed sound which suited well the distorted fuzz-pop sound they were going for) but too often it seems to be just the default choice, and it doesn't always serve the music well. Music with very little variation in volume can be nice for listening in the car or on an Ipod - to cut through ambient noise - but it comes out sounding flat and monochromatic on a nice stereo at home when you're listening for detail and nuance. The emotion communicated by the sound can be stifled.

I heard ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man" on the radio this morning. HAW HAW

Remasterers can also be guilty of this. For instance, I was surprised how different my old vinyl copy of Steely Dan's Can't Buy a Thrill sounded from the recent CD remaster version. Besides punching up the bass end and making the drums louder, they have flattened out the dynamics a bit. On the one hand, the new remaster sounds less dated, on the other, it lacks that airy, open, early-'70s sound of the vinyl.

I sometimes wish the discourse about this phenomenon used the term "limiting" more in place of "compression."

From one of the Mondeo Pop threads:

Gonna get all Sick Mouthy here but was Mondeo Pop the first casualty of Dynamic Range Compression? Mondeo Pop was on the whole rather light but when you compress that sort of sound it doesn't quite work. Way back in 2002 a woman who I knew who had produced records for 911 (?!) pointed out to me that the acoustics guitars on contempoary records by Mark Owen and Darius had been compressed to such a degree you couldn't hear the actual strumming. I guess it just took a few years to filter into mainstream rock by which point it had taken it's first scalp with Mondeo Pop.

-- acrobat, Wednesday, 5 September 2007 15:28 (37 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

If you compress an acoustic guitar the right way it can enhance the sound of the strumming.

see T Rex

it's all the iPod's fault (again) !

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118953936892024096.html

St3ve Go1db3rg are you familar with the Darius ouvre?

I spent last night with my mate and his band at a studio in Newton Abbott where M@lcolm T0ft, who engineered Hey Jude and Space Oddity and stuff, was mixing their record. It was very interesting hearing a compressor being applied to just one instrument (the bass) as the guys and the engineer debated which was better. They went without the compressor in the end; it sounded more like someone playing an actual bass guitar, whereas with the compressor on it just sounded like a low bass emission, with no sense of fingers on strings, or of Dan (my mate) playing harder into the bridge and drum breakdown. Very interesting.

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/616MZB1YE5L._SS500_.jpg

too hot mastering, as 'artistic statement'.

re: compression in clubs, the thing i have experienced has generally been a nauseating use of over-compression, but this has stemmed from running the signal from the source into the red on the mixer, before sending to the power amps, which results in a harsh and unlistenable sound that would be so much easier to listen to if they'd just take it out of the red before sending to the PA, and just turning the PA up a little.

i have heard that this is a more british club thing than a US one--US clubs apparently largely do the latter.

one exception was the bongo club (?) in edinburgh, which had one of the nicest sounding setups i've heard for a long time--the ability to actually make out the nuance of the songs i was dancing along to increased the enjoyment of said songs one hundred fold.

That is a very different thing, Nick, and not something I have a problem with. Either way it's an aesthetic choice and depends on a lot ofthings - how the bass was originally played, amplified, mic-ed up, eq-ed and so on - as well as the desired end result. Generally, a little bit of compression makes it sound tighter. Obviusly it also depends massively on the compressor, whether it's hardware or a software one lovingly simulating some ancient thing.

I think you're getting dangerously close to the reductive version of high fidelity that sees the whole recording and reproduction process as just aiming for the exact sound of an acoustic instrument.

I totally agree with your general point, though.

Tissp - go to Plastic People near Old Street in London - best-sounding club I've ever been to. I couldn't agree more, though. Your ears just get tired and you can't hear anything any more after a while.

Jamie OTM - I think worrying about the use of compression at the individual instrument level isn't really what you should be worried about. Use of compression at the gross level in the mix is what you're quibbling with, surely?

I use moderate compression on the guitar quite a lot, both live and in the studio. I just think of it as an effect that I choose to modify the sound of the guitar (more focused/more sustain on some guitars/increased volume of single note work when mixed in with chords) and which has no real knock-on effect in the mix.

individual track compression is u&k for decent mixes; over-compressing the master bus is the big evil here

Oh I'm not positing it as the same thing, although obv. it's related - this thread just got an oddly timely revive and I thought it was an interesting observation, is all. John Bonham wouldn't be as revered as he is without a compressor, I'm fully aware.

too hot mastering, as 'artistic statement'.

OTM. What could have been their best album was ruined by the mastering. No dynamic range whatsoever. None of the, ahem, drama I've been craving.

St3ve Go1db3rg are you familar with the Darius ouvre?

Nope. Fill me in?

I think worrying about the use of compression at the individual instrument level isn't really what you should be worried about.

Well, bad things can certainly happen there, too. But also good things. There are many variables which interact with compression (all of the compressor settings, i.e. attack, release, ratio, threshold; the specific compressor's characteristics; the attributes of the track being processed), and sometimes it gets even more complex with parallel compression (mixing a compressed an an uncompressed version of a track) or serial compression (using multiple compressors on a track). Lots of things can happen. Some of them are sounds we know and love, some of them are more unfortunate.

If i have my ipod on shuffle and a Sleater Kinney track plays, a little bit of wee comes out of me

I kind of wish that someone with audiophile-ish tendencies would write regularly about new releases with an eye for this kind of stuff. It seems like the kind of thing a normal reviewer wouldn't want to mess with unless it seemed glaringly important, but I find it interesting enough that I'd read something focused on it.

merely beam the shadow of a waveform into the night sky above Exeter, and the SCIKMOBILE will fly to your aid

There have been several times where I've wanted to comment on this in reviews, but it's still not entirely possible -- you can't waste your word count explaining the issue, and anyway I'm pretty sure my editor would send back an email that said "OKAY, SOUTHALL."

But you can still get it in there: plenty of reviews will point out that something's "very dense" or "blaring" or "tiring" or whatever, which is a perfectly everyday way of pointing out the issue. And you can go into it directly with re-issues, obviously: I've put short paragraphs in reissue reviews basically saying "they've had to raise the levels to modern standards, and it's made this sound (a lot worse) / (not too much worse) / (just fine)."

bob weston from volcano suns/shellac has opened a new mastering studio in chicago...this thing from their website gives people that don't want to read this whole big thread a good summary of the whole debate:

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

If i have my ipod on shuffle and a Sleater Kinney track plays, a little bit of wee comes out of me

I agree with the idea that iPods, car stereos and such should just have built-in compressors. But I do sometimes like the sheer (well, apparent) bigness of that compressed sound; a lot of the time I probably miss the special frequencies, the sense of air, etc. on a well-mastered CD. While from an audiophile perspective something like ZE's Mutant Disco reissue is probably way over-compressed, I prefer its sound to the more modest remastering of the Kid Creole and the Coconuts reissues (the Universal ones).

On the other hand: the reissue of Laurie Anderson's Big Science seems inappropriately loud to me — not that it has no dynamics at all, but recalling the vinyl version it seems like it was, for the most part, a relatively quiet record; there was something modest about its electronics, which now seem in-your face. Maybe the older CD is really better.

The fact that I got acquainted with Big Science on vinyl and Mutant Disco on CD probably has something to do with these perceptions, of course.

Tissp - go to Plastic People near Old Street in London - best-sounding club I've ever been to.

Better than Room 1 in Fabric?

My ears are usually in better condition when I'm there.

I've never been blown away by the sound at Fabric, but I've usually been somewhere else first, and I always seem to end up in room 3 anyway 'cos I can't take the crowds after a while.

I'll have to go entirely sober one time, and check it out properly.

Well, bad things can certainly happen there, too. But also good things. There are many variables which interact with compression (all of the compressor settings, i.e. attack, release, ratio, threshold; the specific compressor's characteristics; the attributes of the track being processed), and sometimes it gets even more complex with parallel compression (mixing a compressed an an uncompressed version of a track) or serial compression (using multiple compressors on a track). Lots of things can happen

Yes, obv there are all the variables you mentioned. But, why are any choices 'good' or 'bad' if they give you a sound that you want (for that individual instrument).

Vinyl to make a comeback and kill the CD?

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/commentary/listeningpost/2007/10/listeningpost_1029

Oh, it's on Slashdot too. Sorry about that.

Another reason for vinyl's sonic superiority is that no matter how high a sampling rate is, it can never contain all of the data present in an analog groove, Nyquist's theorem to the contrary.

Aaargh. Still this nonsense persists. That's not why vinyl sounds different/better!

exactly. vinyl is lowpassed weeeeeell below 22k

high a sampling rate is, it can never contain all of the data present

Yeah, how is this even possible if the sound was recorded digitally initially?

Before or since, labels will slow down their tendency to use compression.

But then, first of all, portable CD producers need to stop "protecting" the customers hearing and let them pump up the volume again.

And those who prefer vinyl does so because it does not sound perfect. They are usually the same people who tend to favour live music instead of studio recorded music, and prefer "soulful" playing ahead of more skilled playing.

Master digital recordings often use a faster bit rate and higher-precision resolution than the cd redbook standard.

xxp

sampling rate, i mean

All Scandinavians are baby-raping fascists.

Oops, did I make a gross and unfounded generalisation there?

Master digital recordings often use a faster bit rate and higher-precision resolution than the cd redbook standard.

Yes, and you can noise-shape and dither down to 16/44.1k and preserve much of the extra detail where the ear can actually perceive it.

I love vinyl but I get a bit miffed when the old audiophile mantra about "sampling missing stuff out" gets bandied about as fact and an underlying reason for vinyl's apparently unquestioned superiority. I think it's more to do with vinyl's shortcomings in a fidelity (or information) sense and how those technical failings manifest themselves (mostly) euphonically that explains a lot of the medium's sonic specialness. Not all of it, but a lot of it.

I've probably said this before but I absolutely adore the way ATRAC (minidisc) compression makes things sound. It's like everything's been slightly brightened, thickened, and then coated in a barely visible translucent candy shell. Vinyl recorded to minidisc is my favorite sound.

(Unless it's a Sean Kingston 12" of course)

I'm not sure anyone completely understands how the senses and the brain process sound. Signal processing theory is a useful starting point, but only gets you so far. It could certainly be true that the problem with digital is information overload. My experience argues otherwise -- my limited exposure to SACDs, which contain more info, has been positive, and mp3s, which have less info, sound like crap. Admittedly that's all anecdotal. It's hard to understand , though, why sound engineers would go to the bother of improving on 16/44.1k if all that extra information makes for a less enjoyable listening experience.

Haha they cited Shakey Mo.

i have a flying saucer attack cd single where he apologises that it isn't available on vinyl because they physically couldn't cut it due to some problem with the bass frequencies. take that vinyl lovers, up yours nyquist... 8)

It's hard to understand , though, why sound engineers would go to the bother of improving on 16/44.1k if all that extra information makes for a less enjoyable listening experience.

Who says it does? As you say, it's not just about data volume but many things intrinsic to the replay/coding process; vinyl has this warm, front-to-back depth thing going on (that CD can actually emulate, if tailored to do so), SACD's smoothness and openness could well be down to its lack of decimation filter (it's high-speed 1-bit delta-sigma rather than pulse-code modulation), CD's oft-cited coldness and sterility may down to filter ringing or just the lack of analogue euphonics that a certain listener may expect. I certainly don't have a problem with CD "sound"; I don't think there really is a CD sound, which could be the problem for some people.

I've always felt there's slightly more going on with vinyl - not necessarily "content", but some confluence of ever-present background noise and the physicality of the playback ritual. Neil Young once said something about (paraphrasing from memory) "you play a CD, you hear everything - you have no reason to go back to it; with vinyl you keep hearing new things". Which is a bit fanciful and not really my experience but could be literally true (vinyl deteriorates with each play, things are masked and unmasked).

Koogs: yeah, most vinyl is summed to mono below about 80Hz and then rolled off pretty sharpish below that; if you get out-of-phase low frequency content, then you can't guarantee keeping the needle in the groove. You do hear stories of d'n'b producers insisting that cutting engineers bypass the filters to get that sub-bass down, risking their £20k Neumann lathes in the process. I think of Scotty in Star Trek for some reason.

I'm v hazy on the technicalities, but isn't there, in least in theory, detail missing at 16 bits that you could get with analogue?

So if you mix digitally at 24 bits and then cut to vinyl you will preserve more information than if you put it on a 16-bit CD?

(In addition to the "warm" way in which you lose some of the information.)

We're off-topic, but also what about upsampling CD players, that go back to 24 bit - is that just snake oil?

A friend has one and claims that although he sees the absurdity (you can't bring that information back) it means that the digital-analogue converters can do their stuff better. I'm sceptical.

Well, first of all, you wouldn't simply truncate from 24-bit to 16-bit - you'd use noise-shaped dither and actually retain a lot of that additional info so it's perceptible below the regular -96dB noisefloor of redbook CD. (Sounds a bit counterintuitive and I'm not the best at explaining it - have a Google!)

If you were going to a theoretically perfect analogue medium then, yes, you're obviously retaining more info than if you dumb down to a shallower bit depth/lower sampling rate. But you're not - you're going to a medium which has its own physical limitations on just how much master-derived info it can bear. In vinyl's case, the theoretical 24-bit dynamic range of 140dB+ is crammed into about 65-70dB (at best) and a 96k master's flat 48kHz bandwidth is rolled off at both ends so that we're left with, perhaps, 60-15k. In pure data terms, that's like a 12-bit/32k digital system.

Before anyone jumps down my throat, I KNOW there's more to it than that but Jamie did say "in theory".

xpost - upsampling, in information theory terms, is related to sampling rate and has nothing to do with bit-depth; CD players using 24-bit chipsets are not unusual and it's just a case of doing the maths with more headroom.

Filter ringing -- I sometimes wonder if maybe that's what's going on, that some of that filtered data is folding back into some maybe not precisely audible but still somehow perceptible zone and causing the much-cited listening "fatigue."