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

"50's/60's/70's music also massively distorted in so many many ways, but the type of distortion that rockists approve of so it's ok"

uh huh whatever. anyway, i was talking about distortion that actually CHANGES the music. turns it into noise. there are poorly made records from the analog era that will do this too, but there are a LOT of digital recordings i've heard - local, big label, small label, pop, rock, rap, take your pick - that do this. and its because someone didn't take the time to do it right. you can make a cd loud as hell and still preserve the integrity of the recording. i thought this kinda thing was kinda funny and over the top ridiculous when i first heard a slipknot album - they are the new noise kings! - but then it just became normal. and it IS normal for a lot of people who grew up hearing music this way. which is why people like lex and others are acclimated to it. especially if they do a lot of listening with ear buds and computer speakers. shitty is the new normal. if every cd sounded as good as my kompakt and mego CDs i wouldn't even be on this thread. but they are exceptions, in my opinion. not the norm.

i also have no doubt that there are new pop CDs that the lex loves that sound amazing. CDs can sound amazing! but you have to know what you're doing and you have to take the time to do it right. a lot of people don't. digital recording is easier in a lot of ways, but the ease can lead to laziness.

i was listening to a remastered 70's-era record (u.k. copy of a thin lizzy record) on cd a while back and i was kinda blown away by how good it sounded. just a really good job of transferring tape onto disc and also highlighting the strengths of the digital medium/tech. so i went online and looked it up and it turned out that its a sought-after remaster. it's KNOWN as a great cd and a great remaster even though it came out years ago and people still look for this particular version online. and you can hear why. the engineer responsible took great care and time to make a great cd copy of an album recorded on tape. it really shines. in a good way. again, the exception. this is why people who love great sound seek out old out of print CDs that can be expensive and hard to find. not because they're crazy or rockist because its worth it to hear something in the best possible light. there are remastered CDs out now that are just...abysmal. the very word remaster has become a red flag. and again if you are listening on your phone who gives a shit? but i don't own a phone. things should sound sci-fi good by 2013 (and they can if you find the right stuff. i have new electro-acoustic experimental discs on dvd audio that will not your friggin' socks off they sound so insanely good) ! but people are paying a premium for CDs put out in 1989? its crazy.

The fact that some people are being so obstinate in the face of Scott's well-informed, well-researched, well-experienced, considered, obviously true posts here is kinda :-0 to me.

Over-compressed pop music is synonymous with dentist office waiting room music, or something that isn't an 80s hit when I'm shopping for groceries. Slick and flat and safe and restrained. That's the effect I hear and the association I have. The songs already have no substance and produced this way squanders any fury the performance of them may have had.

what nonsense

yeah, its silly. there are blanket statements on this thread that are all kinds of silly. and i probably made a few. i'm no expert. but i do love stuff that sounds good. TO ME. obviously. and i listen to thousands of recordings every year and i hear clunkers on vinyl all the time, so i'm no apologist. i actually just priced a classical record down from 5 bucks to 2 bucks a minute ago after putting it on for a minute or two. klaus tennstedt and the berlin phil doing mendelssohn and schumann. american angel digital pressings of the 80's not that hot and this was a record club american angel digital pressing which are even worse. klaus would not have approved if he had heard it.

its all worth it for me when i strike gold though. cd or vinyl. and it happens all the time cuz i play so much stuff. just this year alone i've heard 5 or 6 truly exceptional records. but i had to play hundreds to find them.

it's so cute when people actually drag words like "rockist" back out of mothballs

I'm talking about music with the #1 priority of being non-offensive enough to be relentlessly marketed to as many demographics as possible. Lifeless and disposable, with a process during production much like that of launching a new flavor of Oreo cookies or something. Isn't this the kind of music we're talking about?

Evan is a strawsock constructed by lex to further his position, I'm calling shenanigans

it's so cute when people actually drag words like "rockist" back out of mothballs

why would they ever do such a thing when there are so obviously no rockists left

Haha alright, never mind. I'll keep it to myself.

I know I'm blanketing but I never hear this production style unless the $$$ factor is at the top.

the thing is that there is nothing inherently "rockist" in talking about sound construction and reception. it's a neutral field. people attempting to tether it to their musical aesthetics are silly people indeed.

I know I'm blanketing but I never hear this production style unless the $$$ factor is at the top

UGH THE DOLLAR FACTOR HAS BEEN AT THE TOP SINCE AT LEAST THE 17TH CENTURY this is a non-issue here

its almost like things are the exact opposite now to how they once were. in the analog era the big companies broke ground and made jaws drop and now it seems like the tiniest labels are the ones revolutionizing digital. the experimental/mod classical/electronic niche labels. i wish michael mayer produced death metal.

No, obviously, caring about, thinking about, and talking about sound quality is somehow antithetical to the idea of beautiful pop music flowing thick, golden and democratic from cheap sound sources clutched by beaming children. Every time you complain about a squashed transient, an innocent pop listener feels a chill from your creeping decrepitude. Stop hurting people.

i wish michael mayer produced death metal.

the decline of death metal production and the effect of range compression* on the genre is the saddest thing. finding a band whose production and mastering hasn't ironed out all the air is like finding a needle in a haystack.

*would people please note: this is not the same thing as "compression." Compression is awesome! Tape compression is hugely important in the history of pop music! "Dynamic Range Compression" is a discreet phenomenon, different deal.

Aero, Scott: I would LOVE some recommendations on beautifully recorded death metal records.

yeah, its rough. and i lied before because i DO hold on to metal CDs that sound terrible because i like the bands and music.

and yeah compression was a 70's rocker's best friend. need to make the distinction.

x-post

UGH THE DOLLAR FACTOR HAS BEEN AT THE TOP SINCE AT LEAST THE 17TH CENTURY this is a non-issue here

― available for sporting events (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, February 26, 2013 10:17 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is there no distinguishing factor between the core motivations of artists and labels in the pop landscape?

skot/smithy what other metal genres do you think are shitty recorded now? (or indeed well recorded)

I think doom bands are the ones paying the closest attention to sound. then USBM bands, which makes me wish I gave a shit about USBM. European black metal is stuck in if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it mode, which is fine I guess, it's just impossible to stay interested. Ride for Revenge records sound awesome though. However from your classic clarity-of-sound standpoint they sound like absolute shit.

I'm listening to a new record recorded at albini's and dmm at abbey road, so good, so rocking

Kurt Ballou has a rep for basically doing one thing, but he does it really well. Also, Zeuss mixed the new Suffocation record and it sounds terrific - much better than their previous album.

yeah i was gonna say doom too. maybe they are more old school in general.

i'd still say if you were gonna record a death metal album save your pennies and head to sweden. or finland. or somewhere else cold. they just seem more sympatico there. there are people there who only do metal. or do lots of metal anyway.

I love the way Embrace the Emptiness by Evoken sounds. I just picked it up on vinyl recently... Lots of space, clarity, but still thick.

i was a big fan of kurt's early non-converge stuff. kinda lost touch with newer stuff he's recorded. he knows how to do loud well.

yeah Evoken records sound fucking badass, agreed.

france too. you could go to france. some great metal production from there. its harder and harder to find actual LABELS that consistently care about how their releases sound. again, the smaller the better. the truly tiny forest/folk/acoustic/doom labels. people with some sort of aesthetic that includes sound as well as design. its a big reason why Utech is my favorite american record label of the last 5 years or so. great music first, but also great unifying design and sound aesthetic.

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.

Metal needs a Blue Note/RVG

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.

Obliteration's Nekropsalms is a beautifully recorded death metal album

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

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

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.

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).

its pretty demented, sound-wise.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Interesting list of 'worst offenders' here:

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

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

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.

cuz that album rules.

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.

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