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Thread: The Loudness War

  1. The Loudness War

    http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/33549

    Never mind that today's factory-produced starlets and mini-clones just don't have the practiced chops of the supergroups of yesteryear, pop in a new CD and you might notice that the quality of the music itself—maybe something as simple as a snare drum hit—just doesn't sound as crisp and as clear as you're used to. Why is that?

    It's part of the music industry's quest to make music louder and louder, and it's been going on for decades, at least since the birth of the compact disc. Click the link for a nice little video, a mere 2 minutes long, which explains it in detail, with audio cues that you'll be able to hear in crisp detail.

    The key to the problem is that, in making the soft parts of a track louder (in the process making the entire track loud), you lose detail in the song: The difference between what's supposed to be loud and what's supposed to be soft becomes less and less. The result is that, sure, the soft parts of a song are nice and loud, but big noises like drum beats become muffled and fuzzy. But consumers often subconsciously equate loudness with quality, and thus, record producers pump up the volume. Anything to make a buck.

    The bigger problem is that this is all unnecessary. Stereo equipment is more powerful today than ever, and last time I checked, every piece of music hardware had a volume knob.

    Don't take my word for it: Pop in the first CD you bought and play it at the same volume level as the most recent one you bought. You might be shocked by what you hear.

    Anyone still wondering why the music business is suffering?

  2. I finally bought into the whole MP3 thing and was reading/complaining about this earlier last week when sync all my CD's.
    "Question the world man... I know the meaning of everything right now... it's like I can touch god." - bbobb the ggreatt

  3. They mix everything to the lowest common denominator, aka iPod earbuds

  4. Get yourself some vinyls, shun. Problem solved.

  5. I can't stand vinyl.
    Boo, Hiss.

  6. Quote Originally Posted by icarusfall View Post
    I can't stand vinyl.
    They're kind of a pain in the ass, but the sound is a lot better than CD's.

  7. The difference mentioned here really has nothing to do with digital vs. analog sound, it's just pointing out how details in any type of sound source can (and often do) get cut off and lost whenever a track's volume is carelessly amplified.

  8. Quote Originally Posted by wEEman33 View Post
    The difference mentioned here really has nothing to do with digital vs. analog sound, it's just pointing out how details in any type of sound source can (and often do) get cut off and lost whenever a track's volume is carelessly amplified.
    Here's the problem:

    Your ear will trick you into thinking that anything that a louder sound is better. This has been proven over and over again. To lazy to link source so STFU. When CD changers came out, record companies didn't want to be the "quiet" disc in the carousel because consumers would think it sounded worse.

    The main problem here is that all of the above is true. Consumers would think it would sound worse.

    But the stupid thing is consumers also imediatly adjust the volume knob to where they want it. So in the end the loud stuff isn't really louder, it is just dynamically abused. But for the split second before the volume is adjusted, the loud is percieved as better and the judgement has been made.


    I hate the whole mess myself. I positively can't stand the sound of modern music, even when I love the song itself. I throw in something like "Nevermind" or "Siamese Dream" and I'm all like "holy crap! The drum hits actually hit! The quiet parts are actually quiet! This thing has BALLS!"

    Then I put in something like "Absolution" by Muse. I love that album to death. Every song is gold. But it sounds like absolute dog shit. A snare drum hit is litterally the exact same volume as an accoustic piano. Doh!



    I'm hopping metadata will solve the whole mess by encoding a value for the song's mean peak value and letting the software player turn it down accoridingly without resulting to dynamic limiting.

    But until CDs are dropped, that's not happening.

  9. Quote Originally Posted by Cheebs View Post

    I hate the whole mess myself. I positively can't stand the sound of modern music, even when I love the song itself. I throw in something like "Nevermind" or "Siamese Dream" and I'm all like "holy crap! The drum hits actually hit! The quiet parts are actually quiet! This thing has BALLS!"

    Then I put in something like "Absolution" by Muse. I love that album to death. Every song is gold. But it sounds like absolute dog shit. A snare drum hit is litterally the exact same volume as an accoustic piano. Doh!
    Genres like rock and metal that thrive off energy and dynamics in sound have really suffered for the last decade or so because of this; it's the main reason why I try to buy non-remastered versions of albums whenever possible.

    Also, more so than any other instrument, the drums really get the shaft as a result of this process. The heightened rate of tacky drum-triggering in modern rock/metal doesn't help things either, but even triggered drums can sound good if the job is done well and the drum sound is being used in a proper context.

    Frankly, I can't think of a single post-1996 album in my collection that sounds as alive as most of the classics in my collection from the late 1980s - mid 1990s.
    Last edited by jyoung; 10 Jul 2007 at 06:52 PM.

  10. Quote Originally Posted by wEEman33 View Post
    Genres like rock and metal that thrive off energy and dynamics in sound have really suffered for the last decade or so because of this; it's the main reason why I try to buy non-remastered versions of albums whenever possible.
    Amen! Amazon Marketplace ftw. It's always original release for me.

    Also, more so than any other instrument, the drums really get the shaft as a result of this process. The heightened rate of tacky drum-triggering in modern rock/metal doesn't help things either, but even triggered drums can sound good if the job is done well and the drum sound is being used in a proper context.
    Lol. My buds got signed and recorded in Avatar Studios in NYC. The drum room there is world famous for it's sound. Hit a drum in there and be amazed.

    Anyway, by the time the album was done of course the drums were replaced by samples and then squashed into oblivion. Good going!


    Frankly, I can't think of a single post-1996 album in my collection that sounds as alive as most of the classics in my collection from the late 1980s - mid 1990s.
    I think "Story of the Ghost" came out in '98 and that sounds fantastic. But you're right.

    Whenever I want to really see the damage the past decade has done, I A/B "Dookie" and "American Idiot". The nose-dive the sound took is retarded.

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