This is exactly why I HATE newer music, I can't stand what they are doing to it. I actualy noticed it a long time ago, I can hear the distortion and I have to play with my EQ alot to get some songs to even sound bearable, they still arn't right.
Thats why I prefer all my old rock, my original Black Album sounds better than my friends re-print, which made me instantly turn it off and go home to get mine.
Indeed, no amount. of fiddling with EQ can remove digital distortion introduced at the mastering stage. A well recorded, mixed and mastered album shouldn't need any EQ at all.
Yup, that's another of these horrible trends... A large amount of re-released remastered albums involve nothing more than getting the original and pushing it up to,and over the limit, in an attempt to make it sound more "punchy and lively" It's utter bullshit.
The loudness wars drive me mad too... I mostly listen to pre 1995 CDs these days.
But with all this talk of Death Metallic, I thought I should mention how well Chinese Democracy was mastered. Apparently the mastering engineer produced 3 versions with different levels of compression, gave them to Axl Rose and he chose the quietest one!
why did you skip over what i said? i said clearly that the music i listen to (and play) is all flat out balls to the wall. you can understand from that, that it doesn't have any dynamics to speak of. (and there have been other examples of music, in the past, with no significant dynamics)
do you still think "i don't get it" ? are you sure you got what i am talking about and why i said what i said?
Hate it, and it's a shame some bands give into it because it really ruins an album.
EDIT:
Going by what you say I'd say the "music" you listen to and play doesn't really qualify as "music" then. In which case it, indeed, makes no difference. You got me curious, though, as to which genre it is that you listen to. If you say "metal" I'm gonna stab you in the face.
how about an electric engineer with years of experience in signal analysis?
yeah a classic example of how a compressed number wont tell you the whole story
just from looking at the wavefrom you can easily tell that the 3db (im guessing hes using db) is the (pathetic) dynamic range of the actual music while the 12db comes from some spikes added to the waveform by the drums
however all these spike are at about the same level so they dont have any dynamic range themself either
adding 2 tracks at different levels and calling it an enhancment of dynamic range is missing the point of the loudness war entirely
again judging by the waveform the only instrument that is actually clipped is the drums
its not like every album comes out in another mix that you can play side by side to make a good example
As a headphone users, I really dislike this "loudness". It makes music experience very dull and in some case exhausting as volume stays at the same level nonstop without any variations. Without even realising it, I've started to move towards older music and those in general have very rich sound.
Here's an old song that has been remastered the right way:
Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms (from 2002 compilation cd)
Well, the final mix has fairly good dynamic range if you look at the numbers, but the individual tracks are still compressed all to hell. There's little that can be done in mastering if the damage is already done earlier in the process.
The drums are very important in metal though, so the increased clarity the remixes have in that area certainly increases my enjoyment of the album. It's an area where added dynamic range is very noticeable. It still nowhere near what I'd call "good" though. Metallica's black album for instance is worlds better, but then that was recorded in the early nineties, before the music industry went completely mad.
Loud sells to joe schmoe ipod listener, and boardroom logic dictates you provide to the lowest common denominator, regardless of how it affects the true quality of your product. This shouldn't surprise anyone. It's very sad, but not surprising.
It would be nice if current music was easily available in a "special high dynamic range" format (i.e. not compressed or otherwise ****ed with) for those who appriciate it, alongside the loud versions for the majority who don't care.
Makes sense to me, it also seems that modern albums have a lot of high frequency and not a lot of bass, which makes painful listening.
Things were probrably best in the 70s, especially groups like Steely Dan, everything is so clean, not horrible and mushy with no bass at all.
Oasis have got to be the worst, by the time they recorded Be Here Now, Noel Gallagher was putting something like 30 identical guitar tracks into a song for loudness, listen to any song on that album at high volume and it feels like a spike is being rammed into your head.
I'd even pay more for a album with proper and correct dynamics. I know they should already sell their songs with proper dynamics, but we can't do anything if they don't, can we? Paying more for a version with dynamics would be, let's say, the fastest way to get out of the trouble of the loudness war.
What is your take on this? Don't care? Loathe it to death?
I hate this, seemingly no-ending "trend", of pumping AND ruining the music. As many said before me it's sad thing to see label "remastered" on old stuff, which in most cases equals to destroyed music.
Do you notice the difference in sound "quality"?
Sadly i do.
Do you know songs that actually don't have this "loudness"?
Every Dire Straits studio album Luckily for me as i'm big fan of the band.
Their second album Communique as a great example, because it features some songs which require a lot of dynamic range, for example "Where do you think you're going".
Does it change the way you buy/listen to songs?
Totally. If there is a overdone loudness in it, i listen to it once, and wish to do so never again.
The example of something which could turn out to be fantastic addon for the collection is this one, but they overdone the compression on there... It still features some dynamic range. But only "some". Too bad.
)then so was my response.
