In an age where we can pretty much download any song we want for free, are people really bitching about high/low frequencies like it’s that much of a big deal? There could be a stain in my toilet bowl that I can’t scrub off but that’s not going to stop me from pissing in it. Sorry for the gross analogy but that’s how ridiculous this all is. People should at least be thankful for getting any music at all with the quality it already possesses, which is why I’m still can’t believe people were so pissed about the Radiohead ‘In Rainbows’ 160kb thing. Hey, was the album good? Yes? And what did you pay for it? Next to nothing? I thought so- Stop your fucking whining. As for the dumbasses complaining about ear fatigue due to sonic compression, stereos and iPods have been utilizing a feature called a VOLUME KNOB. I suggest you look at your instruction manuals to learn how to operate it before you blast your shit loud enough to experience ear fatigue.

Carlos, Go F yourself after you actually read the article. Then maybe you can comment.

It’s just my opinion, jerk-off. Take it or leave it.

Well I have noticed that 128 mp3 are weaker than higher bitrates, but are there other alternatives that could be used to keep the sound intact?

Yes, its just a noise now.
Im a Flight Attendant and Im sure that when Im baling my ass out of a sinking or burning plane, there will be countless clueless passengers still sitting there listening to their tinny IPods. Maybe one or two of them might get a clue as the water rises to their chins or they feel the heat as they burn in their seats….then they might realise that there is more in life than having a noise in their ears 24/7.

If you can enjoy the pops and hisses of vinyl, anything’s a step up after that.
In fact, maybe going back to vinyl altogether would change the way the music’s made in general since people couldn’t all sound “so fresh and so clean”.
Good example of this is when Primus recorded “The Brown Album” in analog.

There’s so much to say here. Good, always, to shine some light onto this problem, and try to push back against the loudness war. However, I really wish the author had done a bit of homework. The characterization of what actually happens in Mp3 encoding is almost completely wrong, and so really fails to capture the true nature of the problem. Mp3’s sound ‘tinny’? Not in my experience. Are they a damaged format for critical listening? absolutely!

A great example of the problem with this article is with the comment below by “Carlos”. He, like many others I suspect, didn’t really get the gist of what the problem is, because it was reduced down to an over-simplified thing. Then again, he DOES end up at the right answer…but for the wrong reasons. I suppose beggars can’t be choosers, eh?

dwoz

re: Carlos | 12/27/2007, 3:34 pm EST

“In an age where we can pretty much download any song we want for free, are people really bitching about high/low frequencies like it’s that much of a big deal? There could be a stain in my toilet bowl that I can’t scrub off but that’s not going to stop me from pissing in it.”

. . . OH MY GOD!

George Martin just HANGED HIMSELF!!!

“I thought so- Stop your fucking whining. As for the dumbasses complaining about ear fatigue due to sonic compression, stereos and iPods have been utilizing a feature called a VOLUME KNOB. I suggest you look at your instruction manuals to learn how to operate it before you blast your shit loud enough to experience ear fatigue.”

Isn’t “Carlos” the name for the voice in President Bush’s head that he knows he should ignore, but he just can’t help but take advice from???

sound quality may suck, but the real story is how dumb the music biz is for catering to the masses. The masses don’t know what they want until it is given to them, so instead of bitching, why doesn’t the music industry MAKE BETTER QUALITY RECORDINGS. Whether people realize they have a better quality song is irrelevant.

Of course a higher quality costs the major labels money, so they won’t do it.

Every article on the music industry you read, the more obvious it is that they have their heads so far up their ass it isn’t funny. CD sales, illegal downloading, touring sales, and sound quality.

The industry has committed suicide. Disect it however you want (most likely by blaming the ignorant consumer), but the music industry has created all these problems THEMSELVES by not changing with the times. Screw all the dinosaurs.

i thought is was interesting that the “good” albums are from classic musicians who know what they are doing while the “bad” sounding albums are corporate music’s darlings.

Gives me even more ammo when I bad mouth corporate (i.e. most major label artists) music.

re: anonymous is right | 12/27/2007, 10:54 pm EST

“i thought is was interesting that the “good” albums are from classic musicians who know what they are doing while the “bad” sounding albums are corporate music’s darlings.”

“Gives me even more ammo when I bad mouth corporate (i.e. most major label artists) music”

“so instead of bitching, why doesn’t the music industry MAKE BETTER QUALITY RECORDINGS. Whether people realize”

What you’ve completely missed is that the producers ie Vig,Cavello, and Donald Fagan are NOT the music industry, they’re the producers.
(You’re not able to distinguish between the two)

What you’ve also missed is that the problem is NOT record production, it’s what happens to it digitally when it’s REPRODUCED.

Producers, believe it or not, are the lunchpail people, the ones that make the things that used to go into pretty little packages.

The problem is THE CORPORATE STRUTURE (that the producers are not a part of) who decide what packages the music goes into. They’re the ones responsible for the sound problems, not the guys who record and produce the record.

It’s fine when they’re done with it(usually). It’s what happens afterwards in reproduction!

So, you might want to put your gun away now because you’re aiming at the wrong people and you’re liable to shoot yourself in the foot (again)

Its a good article… I’ve been making this same argument for years and it annoys the hell out of me when I tell someone an album has no “fidelity” and they just give me that blank look….. “whats that?”

The way I see it, there are two problems:

1.) music production (or “reprodocution”, whatever you want to call it) is definitely to loud and oversampled. Its like the cars that pull up to an intersection with the bass thumping. Thats not music, its just noise.

2.) There’s a growing population of young people who have no ear for musical appreciation. Big business conglomerate labels are just giving the ignorant masses what they want. Cheap, bland music (cheap, bland food; cheap, bland wal-mart products,etc,etc)

I’d be willing to bet $100, if you filled an iPod with high-definition, high-sound-quality music from a variety of artists (Classical, Rock, Jazz, Instrumental, Ambient, Pop, Punk,etc).. and left it laying on the street – most people who found it would delete everything on it and reload it with lesser-quality mainstream produced crap.

The “loudness” problem in the music industry is just a reflection of cultural erosion. How do we stop it?.. every high school should have a full length musical appreciation course where students are required to listen to a sampling of all musical styles and learn about the history of music.

And for the record.. I’m not “old” (I’m 34, thats not “old”).. and I have a huge music collection. Music is like food,.. if you eat the same thing all the time, it gets boring and you have no appreciation for other tastes. Force yourself to listen to something new every day, and you will discover whole new worlds of musical styles.

Overcompression (squashing) has been around for about 50 years, I think.
They used to employ it on Pop singles (45rpm records) especially.
Rock music would sound alot different without compression.
Every device in the audio chain, from the microphone to the speakers uses current-limiting devices in conjunction w/ amplification. Skipping the wiki-details: Radio station mixes and cheap playback gear aside, it was a matter of discretion and taste UNTIL digital took over.
Now, like most products, it’s “one size fits all”. Hopefully, better quality versions will always be available. And discerning customers will be willing to pay more -IF it’s reasonable. Meantime, vinyl is making a comeback, and I couldn’t be happier. (I also predict that The Beatles’ albums will be reissued on vinyl). Good topic.

I’ll skip the flame war over file formats and CD vs. vinyl to focus on the main point of the article — overcompression of the final mix of modern albums.

In the 60’s, when transistor radios were the rage, record labels cranked the volume up to “Level 11″ and it stayed there. DJs from that era can tell you that the Motown singles in particular practically caused the cartridge assemblies to explode. It sounded great for 3 minutes and 15 seconds. So the mode of listening affected the average volume on the records that were pressed. High volume overcame static, drove AM statins’ power levels higher (it does that), and forced the music out of the small speakers and into our heads. Eventually, we started to see “radio edits” and “LP versions” which actually worked nicely by offering broadcasters what they wanted — consistent catchy hooks throughout — while allowing the budding hi-fi enthusiasts to enjoy longer, quieter passages or extended multi-layered jams that didn’t work so well on top 40 radio.

FM, at first, offered the listeners more dynamic range. Broadcasters didn’t need to compress and wanted to show off the fidelity of the FM band. We started listening on better equipment in our homes and car audio also improved dramatically.

Take a listen (on CD) to some of the biggest FM albums of the era: Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty by the Grateful Dead, Sticky Fingers by the Stones, Who’s Next by the Who, What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye, Innervisions by Stevie Wonder and Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin. One can listen and enjoy the entire album without getting “tired” of the sound. The music rises and falls naturally, not as much as in a live performance but still in such a way that you get a sense of emotional peaks and valleys, and a clarity that adds power where the power is needed. Of course there’s some clipping but it’s never a monotone of sound that sucks up quiet passages to maintain a flat effect.

It’s not so much a question of digital vs. analog, although it’s fair to say that digital has removed the issues of noise reduction, headroom expansion and avoidance of dreaded saturation which stymied mixdown engineers in the master taping days. It’s the ABUSE of digital that has musicians, quality producers and many listeners so damn frustrated…

I recently bought the Flaming Lips’ “The Soft Bulletin” and while the album was okay for me, it was the permaloud volume of the disk that made me crazy. It just never got quiet. There were places where I thought a quieter emotion was trying to be expressed, but it didn’t work because again, the volume was always at “11″ and stayed there.

This adds nothing to the music, except a plasticky, artificial feel that imparts a sense of fatigue and boredom with the whole damn project. It never rocks not because the music doesn’t rock, but because it’s always so, well, rocking.

If this album were played in concert, my ears would just feel like they’d been sexually assaulted. On the PC or on my stereo, I just want to click out about midway through the third song. So much effort obviously went into this disk, so why did it have to come out sounding like a soundtrack to a video game?

As record labels and the industry at large engage in endless navel-gazing over the reasons for the sales slump, they need to go back to basics and pay attention to the quality of the product that’s being manufactured — and I use those terms intentionally. Sound and broadcast engineers call it “listener fatigue” for a reason. It’s tiresome and invites boredom and tune-out.

The problem begins with the entire mindset that people have a short attention span. Rather than address the problem with more compelling music, the corporate brass simply has exacerbated the problem by catering to the public’s seemingly interminable caprice with permanently loud, in your face, attention-grabbing booms and bombs that indeed sound like “static”, to borrow Dylan’s comment. Every release is like one long crescendo. Studio perfection has become studio stupefication and our sonic landscape is poorer for it.

Rock and roll isn’t dead, it’s just drowning in a sea of computer-generated noise, a permanent “wall of sound” that leaves me cold. The volume knob can’t correct the problem.

I’ve been reading RS since I can remember (back in the early ’70’s) and this was one of the most informative and interesting articles I’ve ever read, in any magazine. With over 6000 CD’s in my library and countless LP’s, I am going to do a face-to-face comparison and if what you wrote is true, I am going back to buying more LP’s,,,,,,,,,,,, if I can find them!

Dylan’s latest album “Modern Times” is cited twice in the article as being an example of a rare CD which is not hyper-compressed.

This must be based on the pre-release publicity version because the retail version is indeed hyper-compressed. Check it out.

I left the music industry in 1996 after spending approximately 2 decades immersed in the retail end of what sounds;good better best…It seems that no one cares what sounds good anymore, no one cares about the nuances b/w a six string guitar and a 12 string guitar or for that matter a “guitar hero” soundtrack laid down by the latest gaming software. Myself and my colleagues and customers used to spend hours trying to determine which speaker sounded more “real” and “live” and it seems that nowadays no one cares what real is as long as it’s neon or can hold 1000hours of songs or that it looks particularly cool. I’ll continue to listen to my old school equipment and searching out labels and artists that care about sonic purity. I still remember introducing my Aunt to “Hi fidelity”, she couldn’t believe that I, a mere college student would spend 800 dollars (1970’s $$$’s) for a pair of speakers…that was until I asked her what her favorite artist was, then sat her down and played it for her over my loudspeakers. An hour later she emerged from my room in tears, she bought a $1500 pair of speakers a week later.
Carlos, I pity you, just because the music is free doesn’t mean it’s good or sounds good. In the 1800’s the US government was passing out spoiled meat to the various Indian Nations and it was FREE…idiot, clean the stain off your toilet or go buy a new one, sorry man I AIN’T settling…Frank Zappa would wonder what planet you came from as would Von Karajan, Mahavishnu Orchestra or any other artist on the planet that cared what they were putting out and wanted you to hear what was playing from their heart or head. Wake up dude, climb out of your pod and hear some music.

Here’s another link that pertains to this issue:
http://www.audioholics .com/education/audio-formats-t echnology/cd-compression-depre ssion

Dan Banquer

Glad I never got rid of my LPs. The turntable is hard to get to, but it is achievable. Pity my friends who sold all of their LP,s because they had replaced it on CD.

I recently got “Quadropenia”, remastered by Bernie Grundman for Classic Records and its amazing. You can hear the cymbals clashing, the waves crashing, Its like being in the studio when The Who recorded this landmark album. The Zeppelin remasters that he has done are just as nice. You pick up so much more music that was not included the original LP productions. Music should be enjoyed. Digital music production has turned MP3 into the bigmac of music. Its digestable but not healthy for you.

It’s about time a mainstream article told it like it was!

With all this emphasis on HD, I’m amazed that .mp3s are so popular. Even more amazing is the number of those who don’t hear a difference.

Let me say this right now: If you have an HD player, don’t even bother playing .mp3s on it! It’s like sipping a fine wine though a straw from a crushed iced Slurpee cup! OK, that analogy might be reversed, but I think you get my point!

What this article fails to mention is FLAC, a LOSSLESS format used in many bit-torrent and online trading circles, as well as online pay sites by artists including Gov’t Mule (muletracks.com). Unlike mp3’s, FLAC preserves all the frequencies of the original source recording; and for all intents and purposes is your MASTER copy.

As somebody who owns high end audio, I did not invest in that geat to feed it with inferior formats. In a proper listening environment, it is easy to tell teh difference between a FLAC copy and an mp3 copy of a given recording, as many of the midrange frequencies are sacrificed, giving those recordings an empty, hollow feeling.

For anyone that cares about high quality fidelity and source recordings, take a look at etree.org and educate yourself on high fidelity lossless audio. Then take a look at a site like bt.etree.org and take a look at teh many recordings you can download in bit-torrent and in FLAC format. Once You Go FLAC, You Never Go Back!

In addition, what the article also fails to mention is DSD — Direct Stream Digital — a new format of digital recordings that capture the open nuances that you miss in some analog recordings. Every note and space is not just captured, but organized in layers to increase its already broad sonic scope.

High Fidelity is NOT dead! It’s just been ignored by record company pricks who got stuck on mp3s because of convenience, and sacrificing it over quality.

If today’s music industry had the balls to embrace FLAC or a universal lossless format, you would then continue the scientific evolution of sound, and mp3s would then be exposed as the 21st Century’s early version of 8-track tape cartridges. Instead, because of marketing to sheep who do not bother to research — and do not know better in general — you now have a consistently flawed format lacking in both quality and integrity.

Again…Once You Go FLAC, You Never Go Back!

Even the CD standard (44.1khz at 16bits wide) is a poor compromise, which was arrived at prematurely as a result of pressure from bring a product to market a.s.a.p. It was not the standard desired by engineers in those R&D departments; 44kHz sampling only delivers 2 samples per cycle at the top end of the human hearing range, and lowpass filters are required to “round off the signal” to avoid the harshness that results from such low resolution, which in turn cause severe phase errors, especially in the top -end. Since our ears get directional information from higher frequencies, these phase errors induce a confused sound stage, in which it is hard to accurately place instruments in a stereo image.

With MP3, it’s all downhill from here. All MP3 encoding is a “lossy” format; people with “attuned ears” can tell the difference between even the “better” forms of MP3 encoding and the real thing on a pair of the shittiest sounding built-in laptop speakers.

It is such a shame that recording studios are now using 192kHz sample rates at 24 bit resolution, and there are some extremely skilled engineers out there who can deliver sonic wonders, but the music and computer industries are denying audiences access to great sound by squashing music into a one-dimensional format, in order to cater to (a) delivery of music via the net, and (b) make it sound superficially decent (instant gratification) for the majority of listeners who play music of equipment that cannot deliver (ie most boomboxes, computers and car stereos.

People are missing out! There is a reason why audiophiles spend $$ on equipment: music deserves it!

Just about any effect in todays music is overkill.

Since my first home studio in 1980 until my mobile recording outfit in 2007, I have realized that most musicians are not audiophiles. Since I have always been a pioneer (not a famous one but do you know of any professional recording studios that have used PC’s to record since 1998?) I have discovered “live” again. I am recording live events and mixing without compression and on a high-fidelity stereo once again enjoying music as I had in the 70’s. Compression, in part, started becoming popular when cars had radios. Road noise is roughly about 60-80 db’s, quiet music is drowned out in all but the best luxury cars. MP3’s just furthered the experience.
Live recordings that I make with little more than balancing the sound between tracks is all that I do and I find that better than trying to be a perfectionist in tracking one instrument at a time.
21st Century recording is a whole new animal compared to the 60’s and 70’s.
Audiophiles still exist, as previous comments show, and ‘live’ recordings brings back feelings towards music I have not experienced in years!
The sad fact is the standard of living in the US and the Western world is in declining and people give up quality for convenience. And this shows in the market place, few can afford to be audiophiles now.
As an example, when I used to buy stereo components, RMS Wattage ratings were the first thing I would check. These days most systems make you look for that info, and how many people even know what RMS is?
No matter what your experience or knowledge, one thing is for sure, once exposed to a truly great sound system and environs, you naturally know the power of sound and music and gravitate to it.
Great record producers know this, look for more live recordings in the future and watch the passing fad known as MP3s go the way of AM radio. They are both first cousins to compression.

This is a tremendous article! I have been complaining about this “Loudness War” for years and as a music lover, it so sad for me that I literally can’t stand listening to many releases by many great artists including many of my most loved artists. “Mothership” is just the latest heart break. It’s disgusting. I wrote a scathing review of it on Amazon.

The one part of your article I don’t think was properly stated though, was the issue with Pro-Tools. As a semi-pro musician and engineer, there are so many more benefits to this technology than pitfalls and it really should not have been lumped in to this article about the rapid death of hi-fidelity. The Beatles, with 1966’s “Revolver”, and certainly 1967’s “Sgt. Pepper” were making records using magnetic tape that were attempting to be technically “perfect” and certainly beyond the limits of what those four humans could ever reproduce in a live setting. Certainly, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker (Steely Dan) WERE making technically perfect recordings in the 70’s using tape and one of the biggest knocks on those albums was that they were so perfect, that they were almost sterile. But, that’s subjective. All Pro-Tools does is allow you to make those kinds of tweaks much easier and faster. There are also the added benefits of repeated playback during a session without any degrading of the material. A magnetic tape is always being subjected to wear and tear as it passes over the heads, which does degrade the sound. Working in a program like Pro-Tools, also, allows you to make edits to something that are not permanent. You could make a change to something and the next day reverse the change. With tape, if you erase or edit something, it’s gone forever, usually. Another great benefit to Pro-Tools is the ability to really improve the sound of a historic recording without really changing the content.

For instance, let’s take “Sgt. Pepper’s”. The Beatles’ catalog has been overhauled and will be reissued soon and some of the recordings should sound drastically better than ever. In 1967 the Beatles were kind of “cheating” the tape technology of the day that just a couple of years down the road, bigger machines would eliminate that need to “cheat”. The studio where The Beatles recorded the majority of their output was Abbey Road. In 1967, Abbey Road had 4 track tape machines. Meaning you had 4 separate regions on a piece of tape that you could record individual elements on to either all at once or in separate takes. What the engineers would do is fill a 4 track tape with drum, bass guitar, piano, electric guitar for example. Then they would mix those four separate elements together and record that mix onto an open track on another 4 track machine. One of several problems crops up with this technique, however. The first and foremost is a loss of fidelity. Have you ever made a Xerox copy of something and then made a Xerox copy of the Xerox copy? That’s a visual representation of what happens to sound on a tape when it is copied from one tape to another. And once you commit to a mix of those original 4 elements, you cannot adjust those elements individually when you have finished adding all the other elements like voices, other guitars, violins, horns, and whatever else. So in other words you’re forced into finalizing one corner of the painting before you’ve even begun to draw the rest of the painting. The solution to that was to make tape machines that had more tracks! By 1968, Abbey Road had an 8 track machine. By 1970, Jimi Hendrix had a 12-track machine, and by the mid 70’s, 16 and 24 track machines were standard.

Now thank goodness, Abbey Road retained ALL of the original Beatles and source and session tapes. So with Pro-Tools, it has been possible to go to that very first tape, the one with the unmixed 1st generation recording of the drums, bass guitar, piano, electric guitar and bring that into Pro-Tools. Then go to the second tape and bring in the voice, a second guitar, and the violin and then go to the third tape and bring in the horn, another voice, and etc… Then all of those individual elements are then able to be aligned in a musical time line so they are all musically in sync and for the first time ever, we are hearing the 1st generation performances all at once. That would radically improve the fidelity of those recordings and make it possible for us all to hear those recordings much more closely as they were REALLY wanted and intended to be heard.

One just hopes against hope though, that Paul McCartney doesn’t force the mastering engineers to crush these new mixes with brick wall limiting the way he apparently instructed Bob Ludwig to master “Memory Almost Full” because if these potentially incredibly revealing mixes are crushed like that, I’ll be sticking by my 1980’s issued CD’s. The Beatles DO NOT have to compete with today’s music because there isn’t anyone out there writing anything that good. Now, 2000’s “Yellow Submarine” soundtrack re-issue is a pretty good job using the technology I described above and last year’s “Love”, especially the almost un-mashed-up “I Am The Walrus” (and how they managed to extract the King Lear broadcast that was flown in live into the final 1967 master as the master was being created is beyond me, but on “Love” it actually sounds as though it was a session tracked element) sounds really good, so I hold out hope.

David Duran
Milwaukee, WI

Nick Cage said it all in “The Rock” when he held up a Beatles LP and informed his girlfriend: “These sound better.”

Just like mahogany and calfskin and rounded bearing edges make better-sounding drums than maple and mylar and razor-sharp edges; it’s a question of the production of frequencies and timbres the body both lkes and needs for physical and emotional well-being, and is the reason there hasn’t been a REALLY successful drum solo since “Sing, Sing, Sing”.

But you just can’t reason with lemmings when they’re headin’ for that cliff …

Once upon a time music was made by artists called musicians, as artists they wanted to control how the audience perceived their works.

Now recordings are made by individuals or groups who are into it for money, all their decisions are centered on how to maximize financial returns.

In this environment sound quality becomes a distant third (Impact, sex, sound).

If you want to hear what no compression can do for music look for
Flim & the BB’s tricycle
and then put it on a kids ipod, and ask them how that sounds!
from softest to loudest will blow you away , without compression

One solution to this would be for artists to always produce “audiophile” mixes of their music – which would be available from their web site and cost a little extra.

Ideally, they should do this soon rather than waiting for a 10 year anniversary to do a remix.

I used to be a director of a company that compiled music video for night clubs, restaurants etc. This was up till ‘95 and the preferrd format was 1″ tape (at 10.5 inces per second). These uasually came of digital formats with DAT audio tracks (though a few were very wobbly). Many times the record company would supply the CD single in the packaging. We used to re-master from that if it was a poor master. What suprised me was the sonic differece with the good ones, between the recording intended for “Professional” use and the domestic CD single. Sometimes the video came as 2 versions on the spot reel as compressed and un-compressed. I always went with the un-compressed version, as they always sounded better. In a couple of clubs that had decent quality PA’S AND 10,000 Watts RMS, there is no such thing as “the quiet bits” anyway.The club versions were on VHS Hi-Fi, but we went to a lot of trouble to make that as close (in sound at least) to the 1″ masters.
I always wondered why people were not allowed to hear what could have been.Peter Gabriel’s “Us” was a glaring example, with the video’s sounding superbly nuanced and the album sounding very flat and muddy. I’ve heard it’s been re-mastered, but why not just release the sound they had?
I must be nerdy though, as I’m writing using Ubuntu.

Going back to only two mikes and two track tape in each studio would solve two problems with modern recordings.
Musicians would have to learn how to play in a band and control their own volume and dynamics, perhaps before showing up in a studio. And secondly, the engineers would have to actually think about microphone placement in the room before recording. Somehow we have let technology substitute for skill in recording. OK, I’m showing my age, maybe two mikes and a digital recorder along with some old Tannoy’s and some tube macs for power.

1) Most people are too stupid to really care about how good or bad a recording sounds. Carlos (read above) pretty much summed it up…for most people, convenience outweighs quality.

2) Even though most people are stupid enough to buy into this, it still doesn’t make it right. It’s up to audiophiles (or who some people might call “snobs”) to keep applying pressure on the record companies to release CD’s in the bst audio quality possible.

If you look at the sales figures, remastered CD’s almost always sell very well. There are still plenty of people out there for whom “quality” still matters.

I think that the industry messed up several years ago with thier own format wars. The industry should have switched to either SACD or DVD-Audio and made one of those the new standard format. People would have had higher quality audio, and the studios would have had thier DRM in-place (you can’t copy an SACD digitally). But then again, the music industry has never had many people with that kind of vision…except for the artist themselves.

OK, in 1962 dollars my dad bought a $500. RCA Superhet console stereo w/ 5 speakers. 5?? Yes, it had an 18 inch sub-woofer in the center of the other 4. It had built in filters that would specifically filter the high freq to the tweeters; mid freq to the mid-range 5X7’s, and the lows just to that big woofer. We’re only talking here about 15watts or so going to each speaker. But the speakers were “matched” to the power and freq. ranges assigned. Yes it had tubes.
It also had a Hammond Organ Reverb behind the woofer to feedback acoustically from the woofer.
What a sound! With only 15 watts
to that 18″ woofer it would shake the room with a rich deep bass
contrasted by high highs for cymbals, triangles,etc. You could here everything! On vinyl!!
With this wattage, I recorded a
93 DBa loudness from a meter 20ft
away with the stereo turned up almost full. You Don’t need 500 watts to do the same thing!

Stereo receivers progressed past “tube” sets in the 70’s to now of course if you know what to look for.

Bottom line: But with ipods, We have gone back to the old 1915 quality stage when midrange loudness of input to the medium (bakelite) meant better overall playback on those 78’s played on acoustical vibration pick-ups on “victrolas”.

I’ve heard them and I am still amazed at the midrange-only loudness of pure mechanical play-back through tubing, on an acoustical machine with a big horn. It sounds like an ipod.

According to these comments, we’ve engineered ourselves back to the stone age but with a lot of sophisticated high end technology. Amazing.

Carlos, I guess you never had a chance to hear music when its recorded so you have no idea of how it might sound and what you are missing. So, put your head back in the toilet.

Thank you…I’ve been dropping money into audio equipment all my life.Recently I’ve been convinced I’m going deaf.Thank god it’s the rest of the world at fault.
Now,how do we fix it?

couldnt agree more. our mastering engineer asked us if we wanted our music to sound “good”, or “sounds better on the ‘net and radio”. we went for “good”.
i agree that it sucks when you host a party and your itunes mix isnt consistent over the night, it really sucks – but prioritising ‘convenience’ over ‘experience’?
how lazy are people getting? – its called the volume knob, and you dont need a manual to figure out how to use that one.
…and ‘in rainbows’ is sounding brilliant on CD, and aven better on vinyl…

if you think pitch correction on records is scary, they’re making boxes to use ‘live’ on stage now… :/

whatever happened to subjectivity? i for one am fed up with the supercilious arguments posted by those that can supposedly hear a dog fart from a mile away – both the high and low end.

arguments aplenty to the contrary all over google if you care to research (i.e. http://www.lincomatic.com/mp3/ mp3quality.html – the first search result for “cd vs mp3″). blind listening tests show that experts (viz. “audiophiles”) cannot (very) often differentiate between a cd and mp3s at 192kbps. ah, those preconceived notions….

as to the argument of the purity of vinyl, the comparison is overwhelmingly specious at best. can you honestly tell me that vinyl records are inherently better than cds or mp3s, just because they are on vinyl? yes, i have a lot of vinyl i enjoy, more so than a cd, but is the argument so black and white? there are cds that have been (re) mastered that sound incredibly better than the original vinyl (jesus, listen to any beatles records and tell me that their digital re-mastering on cd is markedly better. that’s for snobs.)

there is more music out there today than people know what to do with. what bands can afford to present THEIR art as hifi recordings? am transistor radios and radio shack all-in-one turntable/stereos did not stop us from ENJOYING music. cut this “ear fatigue” crap. if you’re going to stick earbud headphones into your ears for an hour or so, damn right it’ll be uncomfortable. use the same headphones on your NASA-developed soundsystem and you’ll scream for mercy. mp3 players have made music wonderfully portable, and the “mp3″ format is still in its infancy. as for vinyl, the mastering improved. there is no doubt that so will the digital format.

all hail ALL MUSIC!!

we were asked by the mastering engineer if we would like our humbly-mixed (ie, home studio, by budget not preference) EP to sound “better on the ‘net and radio” … or “good”. we opted for good. and like an old zep record, you really have to turn the thing up to get it going. its a shame that those with a budget that allow for really nice gear opt instead for ‘impact homogeneity’.
im all for ‘convenience’ – but at the expense of ‘experience’? isnt that what music is, after all?

re: “CARLOS”

“I thought so- Stop your fucking whining. As for the dumbasses complaining about ear fatigue due to sonic compression, stereos and iPods have been utilizing a feature called a VOLUME KNOB. I suggest you look at your instruction manuals to learn how to operate it before you blast your shit loud enough to experience ear fatigue.”

Isn’t “Carlos” the little voice in his head that President Bush credits as his source of WISDOM?

I like that you picked Californication as one of the worst. I haven’t been able to listen to that one for years since it sounds so shrill. There’s obvious digital clipping all over the place!

Yeah, Californication is bad. One Hot Minute, however, is one of the best sounding CD’s of the 90’s, along with Story of the Ghost.

I think it is the car. Just try listening to a good rip of Beethoven in the car. You will have to turn up the volume for quiet parts if you have a good setting for the loud parts. Likewise the reverse if tuned for the quiet sections.

This dynamic compression sounds exactly like gamma correction in photo editing software. It can make every detail bright, but the already bright areas get washed out.

It there more technicality to it? If not, it should be left optional, so a music player could adjust it on-the-fly if preferred.

And I’ve wondered why I get a headache after listening to mp3s for an hour or so…

The article was fascinating. I first became aware of the compression nonsense with Californication. I saw folk saying how bad it was and I’ve noticed.

However, I MUST take issue with the elitists getting on their high horse in here who are referring to MP3 consumers as “sheep” and ignorant. I’ve been using MP3 for ten years now. I am fully aware of how MP3 works, and have been for the entire time I’ve used it. I knew the technical details a fair while before a lot of people probably even knew what MP3 was.

However, the fact is right now, MP3 is the ONLY sensible format for portable audio. It’s all very well decrying MP3, but there is no decent alternative for being able to take so much music with you in such a small device. I just received an iPod Touch for Christmas. It’s the fifth MP3 player I’ve owned. The first iPod. And I have say, as portable audio devices to go, it’s light years ahead of my previous devices. MP3 is a GREAT format. It’s convenient, and the fact is at higher bitrates on average equipment, you’d be hard pressed to notice the difference between 320kbps and an audio CD. I can notice them, but it doesn’t concern me, because the difference is nothing like the difference from VHS and DVD. It’s like DVD to HD. Unless you spend a fortune on equipment, you’re not going to really notice any difference.

The other problem is fewer and fewer people these days can afford decent quality stereo systems. As the number of purchasers drop, the price goes UP, exacerbating the situation.

I used to have a really good stereo system. But since acquiring kids, a vicious DVD addiction etc… There is now more stuff competing for my entertainment dollars and a $500 stereo is a luxury I can no longer justify. MP3 makes my life simpler and easier. The trade off of quality is more than worth the benefits. (Small storage area, very easy to find a specific track out of 1000’s etc…)

MP3 is not the problem. The studios pandering too it is the problem.

As for “In Rainbows”, I paid $3 for it. Given the labels only given between 70 cents to maybe $2 to the artist per sale, Radiohead made a back MORE from me than they would if I bought the CD. (Which I wouldn’t have, as I don’t like Radiohead enough to pay $15 for an album.)

While the article was interesting, the comments here are largely filled with the usual elitist sound junkies, who are some of the funniest people I’ve ever met. I known a couple in the past, and they make trainspotters seem uber cool.

I noticed that the examples of “good” were all folk, jazz, easy listening stuff. The “bad” are all rock and roll acts. The audience for the former are older and want better sound most likely. Plus the material is less electric.

its like everything else….you find information to ONLY prove your point!!!

i say WHO CARES…only the dinosaurs do!!! CAN’T change….CAN’T CAN’T CAN”T

i can hear it now…
“you can’t hear the nuance in my paradiddle”

this sounds like my mother when i was listening to deep purple…

“can you turn THAT down!!!”

we live in an age where anything can and will happen

who cars when the music is free!!!

The pretentious, ignorant, self-involved idiots who whine about .mp3 clearly don’t have a single clue what they’re talking about, yet insist on acting as though they did. .mp3 is a format, nothing more. It can contain as much or as little of the original digital information as the person encoding it desires. Yet everywhere you look in so-called “music circles”, you see people who obviously don’t know Jack about .mp3 whining about how “bad” the format sounds. The truth is that the average .mp3 is encoded at 128kbps because that’s the threshold beyond which 99% of the population can no longer hear any significant difference in quality. These ‘.mp3 is BAD’ dorks are the same morons that claimed Compact Disks were ruining music forever. They’re the same Luddite turds that tried to convince everyone that .jpg would ruin the printing industry.

RE: Maven (128bitrates)

128 Bitrate is popular because: 1.) its the default export setting on most ripping software and 2.) most people are ignorant and never change that setting.

If you truly believe that most people cant tell the difference between 128bitrate and something better, then you need to get your ears checked. (or get new speakers/headset)

I absolutely guarantee you if you take a good quality original master recording and rip it to 128, and also rip it to 320,….you’d be able to close your eyes and tell which one is 320.

The problem is 1.) most people dont care and 2.) the popularity of portable audio players and crappy headphones means audio fidelity is not as important as portability.

Here’s an idea that might make everyone happy:

Release two different versions of an album.

One version would be compressed and EQ’d for “the masses”. The other would be an audiophile version with full dynamic range and bass.

The record companies would be happy because they could stagger the releases and sometimes sell two copies of the same album – much like they do today with “remasters”. The audiophile version would follow the standard release by say, two months. Rabid fans would buy the standard release as soon as it was released. Then they would buy the audiophile version just to keep their collection complete. The record companies could rely on some of their old tricks to get people to buy both versions like adding bonus tracks or CDROM content.

Consumer electronics companies would be happy because people would listen to the audiophile version and realize the deficiencies in their electronics. They could come to the rescue with $100 headphones and $1000 speakers. They could sell new and more expensive stuff without resorting to a format war.

Even folks like THX and Dolby could get in to the game by certifying audio equipment as being badass enough to handle the audiophile releases.

Record companies, electronics manufacturers, and certification houses make more money. Audiophiles rejoice. Those who don’t care can continue to listen to Britney Spears through their laptop computer speakers.

Folks are missing the point of the article:

You can have overly compressed digital OR analog music. Today, most all music is end-to-end digital. And today, most of that is overly compressed.

This has nothing to do with MP3, FLAC, and bit rate compression. This article is about dynamic range compression. And it’s not clipping either. The waveforms, although heavily compressed, are not clipped.

Compressors have existed forever. There’s no reason an album from the 70’s couldn’t have been also heavily compressed. Indeed, most all albums see saw about 1 to 1.5:1 compression before going onto vinyl. Today, however, it’s not uncommon to see 5 or even 10:1 compression on a final mix.

re: Captainsmackdown | 12/29/2007, 1:31 am EST

its like everything else….you find information to ONLY prove your point!!!

i say WHO CARES…only the dinosaurs do!!! CAN’T change….CAN’T CAN’T CAN”T

i can hear it now…
“you can’t hear the nuance in my paradiddle”

this sounds like my mother when i was listening to deep purple…

“can you turn THAT down!!!”

we live in an age where anything can and will happen

who cars when the music is free!!!

Dear Capt.,

What in the FUCK are you talking about???

Interestingly, this phenomenon seems limited to CDs. Or at least that’s my experience. When comparing Icky Thump by The White Stripes on CD and on vinyl, the CD version is artificially loudened to the point that it looses all of its finesse and fidelity. However, the vinyl version does not have the artificial mastering and sounds far superior.

Just another reason to rock it old school on a turntable at home when MP3 players are quickly overtaking portable CD players in popularity.

Carlos obviously doesn’t understand the intricacies of perceived loudness, the logarithmic properties of sound pressure, and the differences between analog and digital audio dynamic ranges. I’ll at least give him the benefit of that.

Carlos:
Why pay any money for tasty food when You can eat as much shit as You like for free!? Seriously, there is always a limit how bad it may get until You doesn´t care for it any longer, even if it is for free. It is also clear that when reproduction quality drops it prevents more and more music from beeing enjoyed because there is not enough information left for the listerner to be able to really hear what the artist meant for the listener to hear.

You seem to have missed the fact that the over-use of compression makes the use of the volme knob less effective as the music tend to sound the same (somwhat distorted) irrespective of the setting of the vlume knob. the only way of getting the distorion down to zero is to turn the volume knob to zero (i.e. off).

Its true that this fenomenon is more applicable for CD:s then for vinyl. That is because it is impossible to crank up the mean level on vinyl disc in the way it is possible to on a CD thus the vinyl medium has a built in fool-pretection for such stupid behaviour.

A simple solution to the problem woul be that both a well mastered version (CD-format) and a compressed MP3 version were supplied with each CD so that people who would like to take the music to a portable device could do so with acceptable results while the original music would sound as it should on a domestic system.

I think something that has contributed to rampant overcompression is the rise electronic music (techno, MPC-based hiphop, etc.). Originally intended for giant nightclub PAs brickwall mastering makes sense, these tracks migrated to radio and started a “perceived loudness arms race” that I agree as reached an absurd extreme.

The fact that radio stations add their own layers of compression during broadcast just exacerbates the problem.

One thing – mp3 has nothing to do with it. You can have perfectly good dynamic range using the mp3 format, it’s orthogonal to the amount of (audio) compression present.

Finally – a partial solution might be to add mastering quality compression to consumer hardware (e.g., iPods and car stereos). Let peope who want it enable “brickwall” mode, and maybe mastering engineers wouldn’t have to push things so hard.

But yeah, things have reached a weird place =]

(BTW, I love electonic music – don’t get me wrong…)

This article makes it sound like MP3s are to blame for the loudness war. They are not. The loudness war was already blossoming before MP3s were widely known about and used. The loudness war is simply about being loud.

The article also sort of villainizes the iPod as some sort of crappy musical device that is forcing artists to produce bad sounding music. This is not true; remember the walkman and cassette tapes? Cassette tapes, IMO, sounded worse than most 128kbps MP3s, yet nobody was off blaming them for ruining musical production standards.

It’s also important to note that “dynamic range compression” is very different than the type of “compression” that makes MP3 files small.

MP3 compression removes detail from loud sections of the music — where the detail cannot be heard as well.

“Dynamic range compression” removes detail from quiet sections of the music — where they could have been enjoyed properly.

The problems that the loudness war is causing is very real.

The only problem with MP3s is that most people still compress them at 128kbps.

The MP3 codec is based on decades of solid scientific research.

The loudness war is based on marketing monkeys trying every gimmick to get your money, no matter the cost.

MP3 may have its flaws, but do not villainize the two equally.

Just looking at some videos on youtube about this and saw that one thing said that Elephunk by Black Eyed Peas was the worst offender. Granted that “Lets get retarded” is bad I just decided to look at “The Apl song” and it suprisingly doesnt offend at all!

Another contributing factor is the rise of the strong bass-line in music in recent times. Every track peaks out with the big bass-line to grab your attention and keep you listening.

Example: Stronger – Kanye West

When hard drives became larger than 100 gigabytes, there no longer any reason to rip music at less than 320KPS!

I agree with (almost) all of the article. However, I do think that mastering CDs so that the peak volume is near the limit is sensible, provided that there is no compression applied. This doesn’t harm the music at all; in fact, it should improve the CD recording, by not wasting “headroom”, so that you get more information into your 16-bit signal, and the quantisation is smaller. Normalising the CD does help with Mp3s too.

Personally, I rip to 256kbit ogg vorbis, since the quality is better, and it doesn’t have the gapless playback bug. I use a RioKarma, or Rockbox software on an ipod, both of which support ogg.

However, I also have a script which synchronises the 256kbit oggs, with 128k mp3, for those occasions when I need smaller sizes.

Lastly, why is it that virtually no portable players have a compression setting? If I’m listening to classical music on an aircraft, dynamic range is a bad thing!

Well engineered music through reference quality stereo speakers properly placed in a tuned room, powered by high-end equipment can produce an amazing D sound-stage, which must be experienced to be believed. When these conditions are meet there is no need for 5.1 surround. Until one has listened to music in this way they will never be able to understand the true potential of high-fidelity.

I saw a comment about lossless music archiving (example FLAC) and quality. Indeeed FLAC is excellent (Les Claypool uses it as well).

The thing is you can get 24bit 96khz+ FLAC downloads right now from some of the more innovative Record Labels (Linn, etc…). You get the master tape quality at a reduced space cost (Usually only a gig or two an album). This is excellent for record labels who care about sound quality and musicians who do the same.

I have spent substantial amounts of hard work and money on the digital setup in my stereo to support this high quality lossless file type. I have to say once you hear 24bit 96khz+ FLAC files and compare them to yes even CD you have no reason to ever listen to CD or MP3 again.

And bandwidth is not an issue, I’m using a 60mbps connection here in New York thanks to Verizon. Space is not an issue either. I am sure if people care they’ll download the larger files and then possibly have the software transcode it to popular mp3 or what have you for their portable use.

I believe Quality is the ONLY reason the majors are doing so poorly.

The original CD standard was based around a much lower digital level (to allow for the greater dynamics of the medium) so that the digital to analogue converters did not distort the output of the CD player.Today a loud CD will cause distortion on ALL CD players (no matter the price range. Indeed this distortion contributes in making the CD sound louder, but also makes it very tiring on the ears. All professional producers/engineers know this, but when it comes to setting the mastering levels, pressure from the record companies/artist makes us throw in the towel most of the time, and join the crowd.

I don’t know if this has been mentioned, but a very good compressed data format DOES exist that is NOT lossy:

FLAC
Free Lossless Audio Codec

Please check this out for more information…it has been popular in trading circles for years:

http://flac.sourcefo rge.net/

Let’s send MP3’s where they belong…not just in the trash, but in the grave. No more MP3’s!!!

These atrocities are even more egregious when you compare them to an uncompressed master tape. Of course, those kinds of dynamics are impossible to reproduce on earbud speakers, iPods, 99% of car stereos, most home stereos, etc… A certain amount of compression is a good thing for the average listener. When vinyl quality was really bad, you had to compress classical recordings, or the soft passages would be lost in the rumble, hiss, snap, crackles and pops. These days, vinyl quality is as good as it’s ever been, so it’s not the limitation it once was. However, there’s no excuse to record and entire CD at 0 dBu. People should have some integrity and taste. One assumption that I had, that was proved wrong to me, was that CD digital had a lot of harmonic distortion. I thought that it did until I heard a reference quality DAC. Most CD players (sound cards, car stereos, etc …) don’t have the capability to play back at 0 dBu without gross harmonic distortion. The DAC is telling the analog output section to play at full blast. The result, with most consumer equipment, is awful. When I listened on a really expensive DAC with balanced outputs, and something like 10 volts output capability, the harmonic distortion was gone. What was there in its place was a relentless, unfriendly, in-your-face sound that gave me listener’s fatigue in 10-20 minutes, even with the volume turned down. That DAC used 12AX7 and 12AU7 tubes in push-pull. I suppose that a transistor design would be less forgiving that the tube design.
Phillip Holmes

Only those who understand the physical laws of audio and how our ears work, are able to understand the point of this great article. My personal view is that dynamics is one of the most important elements in music, but the loudness war started when the FM radio stations (in the early 70’s) began to push their levels up in order to sound more cool. Tests showed that many listeners tended to stop on the loud stations when searching for music on the radio. When the record labels understood this, they began to push the audio levels on their recordings to be sure (!) that their records would stand out from the competition. Well, how much are some people willing to sacrifice in order to earn more money? Anything. And as long as most artists don’t understand the physics of audio either, they just had to accept that their music was partly ruined. – Today, with digital distrubution, the loudness war has become even worse. My only hope is that after this ongoing loudness war has pushed everybody’s levels up to the roof and beyond, and we begin to wonder why digital music gives us headache, we start asking for audio quality again. It’s the same with video. The first web site that is able to offer high quality HD video and present the same content as YouTube, will make us appreciate quality again (and YouTube will be out of business, unless they adjust to our needs, of course).

Listen:

On a pair of consumer-grade headphones or consumer stereo, I dare any pair of human ears to tell the difference between playing a CD through iTunes and listening to a 192kbps VBR MP3 or 128kbps VBR AAC through iTunes. On a pair of studio monitors, some folks probably can.

The fact of the matter is that the problem is not the medium. Does lossy encoding affect the sonics of digital music? Yes, by definition it does, but if encoded with a decent encoder at a decent bit rate, the changes are practically imperceptable, and frankly not particularly unpleasant. It may bring up the level of the lower bit or two of the 16-bit dynamic range of CD audio, but on most consumer gear you won’t even notice, and if you set your bit-rate to something better than the default and turn on VBR, it’s a non-issue.

Now, compare the *extremely* slight sonic effects of even the default lossy compression in most ripping software to what the record labels have been *forcing* engineers to do to their works over the last 10-15 years. The waveform images in the article are not BS. This is not rocket science nor is it ‘audiophile juju magic’; when a song looks like a flat blob of audio, it sounds like a flat blob of audio, and there is very little that can be done by the consumer to recover it once it’s been sonically destroyed by order of a record-label higher-up.

Where the article (or the sources used in the article) falls flat on it’s face is in stating that all this post-production compression has been applied to ‘compensate’ for a ‘perceived lack of volume or dynamic range’ in iPods or music encoded using lossy compression.

I’m sorry, but that’s bullshit. Apple is potentially litigious enough to draft a legal love note based on such statements. It sounds to me like the folks in the recording industry have a chip on their shoulder as a result of Apple’s tactics in securing music for the iTunes store, and are suddenly willing to write off the sonic butchering of recorded works over the last decade as Apple’s fault for making portable compressed digital music the de-facto medium of choice for consumers. I’m not one to stand up and defend Apple at every turn, but in this particular case it’s absolutely clear-cut.

Pro Tools makes artists sound ‘unnaturally perfect’? Equally as libelous and without merit. To name just a few whose albums I own, Geddy Lee and Art Neville have both recorded, produced, and released albums that were done start-to-finish in Pro Tools, and they sound great because no corporate rock production was involved.

Regardless of the reason, the ‘loudness war’ is real. There’s nothing wrong with a certain degree of ‘loudness’, but the finished product must be 99% free of clipped transients and be loud where the music is loud and quiet where the music is quiet. The crash cymbal must be louder than the ‘background’ drum track, the bass’ finger-popping must stand out, etc. A compromise can certainly be reached where music is ‘loud’ enough to satisfy both the label and people that actually care what the disc sounds like.

It’s time to call a spade a spade. If music sounds like shit in the studio after post-prod compression, it will sound like shit on any playback device, regardless of the medium (including analog vinyl!). If computer-based digital audio workstations, lossy compression, and iPods sound so bad, then what exactly the hell should we be using to record, mix, master, and distribute music in 2008, Mr. Record Man? Ah, I seem to have forgotten: in order to sound good music must only come from from major labels’ studios, sold on CD, and listened to on CD players…

The lead comment in this thread by “Carlos” shows just how shallow and uncomprehending some folks can be. He completely misses the point, mistakenly conflating a number of issues in his rush to attack what he obviously fails to comprehend His comments about the volume control show he completely fails to grasp the core of the problem.

I’m glad to see this article.

As both a musician and a former recording professional, I’ve been hugely dismayed by not just the hideous, ear-grinding mastering on new recordings but by the industry’s application of what they apparently see as a good-selling formula to past classics.

Increasingly, as I listen to my subscription service I hear “newly remastered” tracks of old classics that make me want to rip my ears off the side of my head and mail them to someplace safe and quiet.

The goal of popular music is to be popular. Compression is viable since compressed recordings sell. It has to do with how people use music and the environment where they listen. Broadcast radio, from classical to rap is highly compressed, the logic being that people are listening in their cars…a quiet passage will be lost over engine noise, etc.

Music has become a pablum for a society bombarded by noise. It isn’t anything you really listen to, it is, for the vast majority, something you use to insulate yourself from the noise around you.

High Fidelity lives on in a few recordings that do indeed make use of the dynamic range available to the CD, and are listened to by those who are listening on good audio systems. When people listen to an MP3 they are usually hearing it on a pair of earphones that cost around $30. Good earphones can cost $300. Most people would not have interest in high fidelity…while most people hear music, they just aren’t listening.

Karl

The article is right, but don’t worry about it. After 10 years your IPod will hold 20 times as much music as today. But rather than 20,000 songs we will all have 2,000 songs with all the highs and lows put back in. It is the small size of the files which causes the problem and high tech will give you the hardware to no have small sized files anymore.

Amen!
To those who claim you can’t hear the difference between mp3 vs CD vs DVD Audio on “average” equipment: You either have hearing damage or were born with very less than average hearing (not a slam, just a fact of life). You know what though, the majority of people have always listened to poor copies of music on poor reproduction systems. There are only a small percentage of us that hear above average and care about this stuff. Note that most folks listen to music for the words. Sound quality has actually evolved I think. We now have DVD Audio which offers up to 192kHz/24 bit resolution as well as surround sound. This actually rivals all but the best vinyl pressings. Digital can work quite well. It’s just that the CD has given it a bad name due to the low resolution of the format. Things are in fact getting better for those of us who care. Now you can quickly download a CD or mp3 clip to preview something and then buy the DVD Audio if you like it. The other 90% who just listen to the CD or mp3? Well, apparently they’re getting something from it.

I totally agree it takes constant badgering of the engineers in the studio to keep them from ruining the true sound of my recording .
However it is not just the recording engineers and mastering tecks that has led to the demise of good sound . When I was in my teens I don’t recall that anyone was listening to music on plastic reproduction equipment ( unless it was the trusty AM portable transistor radio and if you expected your friends to sit around that instead of the big beautiful sound system wood speakers and all ,that belonged to your parents or older siblings you would be laughed out of the room.

The best part about this discussion is the intensity of it, and the sheer volume of responses, no matter that some of them are truly dumb. Most are not, regardless of position. However, when I read people calling those of us who appreciate good sound as “snobs,” I want to wretch! I guess then so are people who buy big screen HDTVs, right? RIGHT? No of course not, that would be an idiotic statement, mostly born of jealousy. Why wouldn’t you want to watch a movie or sports on a big screen high rez device? So please tell me why you wouldn’t want to listen to music on a really great sounding rig? MOST PEOPLE WOULD….part of the problem today is that there’s a huge disconnect, with an generation or two not even knowing what good sound means. They’ve never heard it. They know LOUD and boomy car stereos and think that’s what good sound is…I had a young friend of mine bring a friend over who was a big Dylan fan who had only heard Bob via MP3s. I played him an original LP pressing of “Tangled Up in Blue,” (recorded by the great Phil Ramone) on my system and he was bawling at the end. He said he’d really NEVER heard the song before, just the bare outline of it..never heard half the instruments or any of the textures of the instruments and especially of Dylan’s voice. New isn’t necessarily better. We’ve been going way in the wrong direction sonically and that’s just a fact. When I play kids recordings from the 1950s, they flip out and realize they are being fed, and consume sonic crap..That said, when I was in college in the dark ages, and most kids listened to vinyl on crappy Sears Silvertone flip down record changer junk, what they heard was infinitely WORSE sounding than an iPod playing MP3s through one of those docking stations….vinyl still sounds best almost all of the time and the better your turntable, the better it continues to get. With CDs, and especially with MP3s, after a low threshold it just doesn’t get any better. I compared the recent Stones SACDs for a Stones fanatic, with my original UK Decca pressings I’ve been playing since the 1960s, and as good as the SACDs sound, and they were carefully done, the original Decca vinyl KILLS it, and this guy took about a minute to hear the difference. As for the comment someone made about people not being able to hear the difference between MP3s and CDs. Bull! I took a blind test last week for Shure using their best headphones and a short snippet of a U2 song (not exactly the best recorded group, and certainly dynamically compressed). Yet I was correctly able to identify three levels of compression and the .wav version—and I’m OLD….but I can still hear and I care. This young generation is being fed a diet of sonic crap. Fight back, or eat crap and enjoy it! But know that it is crap that you’re consuming. It’s very sad but there are artists fighting back. Listen to a Sufjan Stevens album for instance, recorded on cheap digital, but he knows what he’s shooting for and makes damn good sounding recordings and mixes (and some of the most interesting music of his generation). Instead of dismissing sonics, I suggest getting acquainted with good sound first. You might enjoy it- MF senior editor, Stereophile magazine

The most telling fact in this whole “debate” is that the pretentious dorks who keep screaming “.mp3 sucks” obviously don’t HAVE to listen to music in .mp3 format. Nobody is putting a gun to their heads. But that’s not enough for them, is it? Being nothing more than brain-dead Fanboys, what they REALLY want is to tell the rest of us how “inferior” we are for not sharing their “high standards”. Seriously, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU CARE what format anyone else uses when listening to their music? And yet, here you all are, trying to convince yourselves of how “intelligent” and “discerning” you are, but attacking other people over something so idiotic as the file extension attached to a data file.

Don’t like .mp3s? Great, don’t listen to them. But you appear to be nothing but complete Tools when you try and tell ME (or anyone else) that I’m “wrong” or “inferior to REAL music lovers” because I see nothing wrong with the .mp3 format. Seriously, if your life is so small and empty that the only way you can fill it is by acting all snide and smug over the format of your music collection, you need some professional help.

It’s not the job of recording “engineers” to modify their mixes to compensate for lossy audio coders like MP3 and AAC. The PhDs who engineer such audio coders know exactly how the algorithms work. Modern lossy audio coders use psychoacoustic models to determine exactly which portions of a recording are perceptible and imperceptible to humans. Recording “engineers” tend not to know even that basic fact. If they feel they need to emphasize a particular part of a recording so it is perceptible when it is compressed with MP3, chances are that nobody would have been able to hear that part anyway.

If a recording sounds bad compared to the original when compressed using a lossy coder even at a relatively high bitrate, then that’s a problem with the coder, not the recording. There is never a need for recording engineers to “compensate” for lossy audio coders.

One thing that has not been mentioned in either the RS article or in these comments is the way that folks listen to music. In the past, people would actually sit down and actively listen to music, in other words, give the sounds their complete and undivided attention.
Nowadays for many folks, music has become a non stop soundtrack for everything else they do in their life, a sonic barrier to the outside world while they engage in other activities, be it playing sports, surfing the net, driving, at work, and so on. Music has to these people become not the “main attraction”, but mere “sonic wallpaper.” Music that is all at the same level is prefect for this.

Here is a bit of history: The introduction of the Sony Walkman in 1979 was the first time that people could take their choice of music literally anywhere they went. It became a worldwide cultural phenomenon, as within a few years one would see folks everywhere with those things clipped to their belts and the little headphones in their ears. For the first time, we could take our own music with us on the streets, to the gym, to work or to school. MP-3’s and ipods are just the technological updating of the original Walkman.
The late 1970’s also brought us the Orban “Optimod”, a multi-band compressor/limiter marketed to radio stations who wanted to participate in the FM “loudness wars”. The device was a commercial success, as any radio station who felt they had to keep up with their competition bought one.
To make the sounds in the Walkman be more like what was being heard on the radio, record label management began to insist that mastering engineers apply more and more compression to their releases.

I would like to add that while the RIAA is constantly blaming piracy for the drop in music sales, I think they are way off the mark. I know I am speaking for more than myself when I say that the lack of interesting music being released by the major labels is the reason I have not bought any new CD releases in the last few years. The over-compression written about in the article is a major part of why modern popular music does not interest me very much.

Step one is to offer both audiophile and highly compressed versions to the people and let them decide what to use where. Step 2 would be for non-audiophile audio consumer devices (iPod, car stereos) to offer some level of consumer controlled multi-band compression so they can load the audiophile versions and decide on their own when they need it. Sitting quietly in the office you’d use no compression, but in a loud environment (especially a car stereo) you’d crank the compression up so the music could better compete in the audio environment. In other words, give the control to the listeners. Consumer products need a Finalizer on a chip with simple (slider) interface that can be added for a couple bucks to all our favorite audio players.

Actually, thanks to mp3, the loudness wars are over. People just haven’t realized it, but they will.

The solution is a little free piece of software called replaygain. It analyzes any mp3 you have for perceived loudness and then sets a correction factor. You run this over your whole mp3 collection to even out the volume differences in tracks. Unlike compression, this only sets the base volume for each track. Dynamics are not touched. Songs from the 80s usually stay the same volume, current pop songs get turned down by 12db.

If more people use tools like this, over compressed music will lose its volume advantage over normal music and will now sound just flat. So the incentive to compress heavily goes away…

“Step one is to offer both audiophile . . . ”

Audiophile? What’s that, someone who exposes himself in front of his stereo system?

I am happy and yet saddened to see this article. I can also attest to this being a reason why I am purchasing less music these days. Record companies – LISTEN!

Usually on a trip to Silver Platters, I would pick up two or three “impulse” items from the Audiphile section. Often, I had never even heard of the artist before! However, as SACD and DVD-A are failing, the section is shrinking, and is pretty much the same inventory that I have picked up and put back down several times already. So, I don’t buy anymore. I have lately gone because I was in the mood to buy new music, and left empty handed.

When the record companies bother to publish on SACD/DVD-A, it seems to be because it was actually quality music, and well-mastered. In my opinion, quality means good, and I would usually enjoy it. I very rarely made an impulse SACD purchase that I regretted.

However, as SACDs and DVD-As are disappearing, I no longer have this “flag” to indicate the good stuff. There are so many CDs, and so many of them are BAD, that it’s simply not worth it to me to pick up something new.

Here’s a specific case where poor quality is stopping me:
Norah Jones’ first album, “Come Away With Me” is incredible. I honestly think this is one of the best-sounding CD’s ever.

It was later released on SACD, and I didn’t hesitate to buy it again. If the CD was that good, the SACD should be fantastic! But, it sounded *exactly* the same to me, like they had just translated the 44KHz/16bit stereo CD “master” to DSD. (At the time I figured the marketing guys were to blame, it got at least one snooty sucker to buy it again…)

When her second album (Feels Like Home) was released on CD only, I bought it immediately. WTF??? The levels were simply wrong, her voice was clipping. I was shocked that a recoring engineer could make such fundamental mistakes.

So, she now has a third album, “Not Too Late”. Interestingly, it is mentioned in this very article as a “good” recording. But I haven’t bought it. I the producers clearly care more about getting my dollar than they do about giving me a quality product in return. I have been twice cheated, not by Ms. Jones, but by her producers. They are the ones to blame.

I just want to reiterate that the “dynamic range compression” that is done in the studio is a separate issue from the “mp3 compression” that is done during the creation of MP3s.

You can fix one, or the other, or both. But, they are separate issues.

Look at this article like this: it is a discussion about all the various different ways in which musical fidelity can be lost.

But the problems are not necessarily causing each other. The root of the problem is not MP3. The root of the problem is not iPods. The root of the problem is also not “dynamic range compression” in the studio, although I feel that is the worst of the bunch.

Think of each of these elements as links in the chain that bring you the music.

The first link is the raw 24-bit master audio.

The second link is the post-production 24-bit data. Depending on the studio, this may-or-may-not have dynamic range compression applied to it. It also may-or-may-not having Auto-Tuning to fix blemishes in the singer’s voice.

The third link is the conversion from 24-bit master audio to 16-bit CD audio. There is some (usually, but not always, imperceptible fidelity loss when converting to CD format.)

A possible fourth link is the conversion of the 16-bit CD-quality linear audio to a 16-bit lossy format, such as MP3 or AAC. There is fidelity lost here.

And then, of course, the fifth link is the equipment you use to play back the audio. An iPod with cheap earbuds doesn’t sound BAD, but it doesn’t sound like a quality home receiver with quality monitor earphones, either.

Put five of these links together, and yes, you can end up with some very crappy sounding audio. But the links do not require each other.

If you could somehow get the master 24-bit audio onto an iPod with crappy earbuds, it would still sound substandard.

If you could somehow get MP3s without lossy compression — the MP3 will still sound bad if the producer in the studio compressed the hell out of the dynamic range to get more loudness.

The point is: there are many ways in which fidelity can be lost. If you combine them together, even more fidelity is lost. Some of the links in the chain cause drastically more fidelity loss than other links.

Know and understand each link in the chain. Do not point your finger at the whole bunch and say “shame on that!” Addressing each issue separately is the only practical way to approach the issue.

Its really pointless, when somebody does release an album with a lot of Dynamic range (Mark Ronson, The 411, Franz Firdinand) Radio stations will compress it any way, so people won’t notice its quieter until they buy it and take it home, in which case people will automatically turn it up. And FWIW my iPod with stock I pod headphones had more than enough volume to cope with music that has a lot of dynamic range, its only when I plug my audiophile cans into my iPod I stuggle with volume!

Hi everyone:

There is a big myth out there in the music world that tell us that the louder cd is going to sound louder in radio station, but the truth is that the compresed music is NOT going to sound louder in radio stations!!!!! It’s incredible how almost everyone in the music industry believe this. I supervised a study in a Colombian university and we demostrate that modern recordings are inferior in loudness compared to less compressed recordings….big surprise… the reason is the radio station compression, drive by the Orban “Optimood” that almost all stations use. Second myth: the more compressed, better mp3…this is false too!!!! When you have this data compression in a over compressed cd, the data reduction is more likely to distort in the digital domain…

A paper about this is going to be write the next year.

Interesting reading the comments here. To sum up:

1) Many people are confusing mp3 digital compression (using a digital algorithm to reduce audio file sizes) – and audio compression (compressing sound peaks to make the overall volume louder at the expense of dynamic range). I think the issue at hand is the second which has resulted in “loudness wars”.

2) A great solution some people have brought up is to release 2 versions of each song, one for radio/car play, one for ‘audiophile’ listening sessions.

3) Another option is to provide listeners with some mastering tools – in particular a limiter/compressor – so they can adjust the dynamic range themselves. This would take pressure of the mastering process to maximize levels and result in better source recordings.

I would like to add my own comment in that it seems like we are entering a new era in how music is recorded, produced and sold. As internet connection speeds and hard drive storage space keep on increasing, perhaps we can move away from the concept of a single definitive track mix and master. I like to envision sometime in the future artists releasing not only 2 versions of their songs, but actually putting all the raw tracks channels out there (meaning drums, bass, guitars, etc..) resulting in numerous different mixes and masters with the best one winning out in the ‘marketplace’ as the definitive version.

Frankly, Maven, you’re the one who sounds disturbed. You write as if you are being attacked. No one is attacking you. Enjoy your MP3s. I listen to them too on airplanes and at the gym but not when I really want to do some serious listening (ie: when not doing anything else but listening–no secondary activity). You seem to be more concerned about people who want better sound than people who want better sound care that you love your Mp3s. Enjoy. I don’t give a damn if people want to exist on a diet of fast food either, as long as I can get fresh, unprocessed food….as for the Norah Jones poster–you got it correct! The “Come Away With Me” SACD layer was just the 16/44.1 master “upconverted.” It sounded no different because it wasn’t any different. A rip off and a really stupid idea. The recording was all analog and mixed to 30IPS 2 track analog. You should hear the 180g vinyl cut from that tape. It is astounding. Her newest recording was done all analog as well, and recorded in her home studio, all analog. It too sounds incredible. I know, Maven, who gives a crap. Well some people do and you shouldn’t care so much that they do. You’re welcome to listen to the MP3 of course.

Its not about MP3 vs original CD. its about the process by which, by the time you convert your music to MP3, its already ruined; the original CD is already compressed to death. that last step does not take away that much.
The CD vs high bit rate MP3 conversion wars were over 7 years ago, here:
http://www.geocities.com /altbinariessoundsmusicclassic al/mp3test.html
where experts and industry insiders could not discern original from conversion on a good system.

“A paper about this is going to be write the next year.”

It looks like you might have some trouble with it!

I wrote a blog entry on this topic a couple of years ago:

http://www.happyassassin .net/2005/11/03/howie-weinberg -is-killing-music/

Grace was a good example in the article. I don’t listen to the reissue of that (although I have it), I listen to the original. As mentioned in my post, after hearing massive over-compression on Ted Leo’s second to last record, I emailed a complaint, and got a reply from Ted in about ten minutes. Cool guy. His recent album sounds a lot better.

I don’t think SACD and DVD-A are failing because no-one wants higher quality audio. They’re failing because the benefits are frankly dubious (it’s still not entirely clear that a well-mastered CD doesn’t sound exactly as good as an SACD or DVD-A) and the copy protection on them is ridiculous. Audiophiles like to be able to rip our music too, we just do it at high quality (usually FLAC). No one likes a disc you can’t transfer to a portable player.

some people are missing the point here. and the angry young-uns… take your ritalin.

its about compressign the hell out of a record so it “performs well in the marketplace” – whether that be analog or digital. so it has mass-appeal in the short term [to get your attention], and sells.

that, vs making a song sound how we think it should, doing something based on art and songwriting. if you think you’re a real rebel and “woooooooo mp3 is the way of tha future lolz” consider that the soundtrack to your rebellion is carefully positioned to appeal to you and sell, sell, sell. kinda takes the hardcore edge off it, yeah?

i didnt see anyone here say vinyl was a superior format in EVERY context, just that they liked a few records more on vinyl. (fall out boy are going to sound crap on vinyl).

its funny that with all our advancements, technologically (we can have 1000s of songs in our pocket – no one’s denying thats pretty cool, are they?), vinyl has a ‘charm’ about it. thats what people miss sometimes. not all the times, sometimes – an experience of music. not just anal nuances of a technical widdly guitar bit – but the naturel rise and fall of a song. emotions, that sort of thing.

so yeah, take your ritalin.

The article is flat out wrong. In the Hear Me Now section, the Lilly Allen link goes to the the second version of “Smile”. That version sounds horrific on any iPod and that defeats the author’s primary argument. I have spent $$$$$ on audio equipment and what I get out of my iPod is amazing compared to what it would have cost 10 years ago. Heck, I have mini planars as my PC speakers! Audiophiles are not dead, iPod isn’t killing high fidelity, bad article!

Carlos,
What are you bithing about? This does not in any way affect you…
128k mp3s will still be aviable on bittorent no matter what.

Also, Loudness is a psychological thing which doesnt have anything to do with your volumeknob.It is much better described as “robbing the kick from the kickdrum”.

However, there is a big group of soundprofessionals who really loves degradation of soundquality, Discjockeys (DJs), because their job is a lot easier when songs doesnt have a sharp rhytm.
And when the distortion from their djmixers is high enough to cover the difference between songs, they dont need to be so picky about what to play next either.

-Carlos, are you a DJ?

re: Electroaudio | 12/30/2007, 8:38 am EST

“However, there is a big group of soundprofessionals who really loves degradation of soundquality, Discjockeys (DJs), because their job is a lot easier when songs doesnt have a sharp rhytm.”

Oh come on, that’s ridiculous; there isn’t THAT MUCH of a dropoff in sound.

A DJ’s lifeblood is in the RHYTHM. And even if the sound quality was diminished to such a ridiculously absurd level, that make the DJs job HARDER not easier! Who wants to dance to a DJ who can’t bring the rhythms?

You don’t what the hell you’re talking about. You make Carlos look intelligent!

This opened a can of worms… let’s face it folks – today’s records sound like shit – mp3 or not. The article addresses the situation well. Today’s records just don’t have the same warmth and punch as they used to. It’s all a bunch of disposable shit for a disposable society.

I apologize Metal Shawn G for my grammar mistakes, what I meant was “a paper is going to be release the next year” in spanish (AES latin america)

When art and commerce mix, art loses.

It’s that simple.

Commerce demands “creating” an audience or market. Therefore it will insist that art compromise itself in order to gain a wider audience.

The artist who courts an audience shows the impact of the commercial perspective, and that artist has headed down the road to creative death. He/she may be “rewarded” financially or materially better in this new pathway to “success,” but I’ll wager that she/he will start to produce hackneyed, pointless material while traveling that pathway.

Art should be for its own sake, it should represent artistic vision and not a commercial fantasy.

is BS. It’s a way to make all your stuff play back at the same volume, but it WILL NOT RECOVER LOST DYNAMIC RANGE, and that’s what the article is talking about.

When you strip out harmonic and tonal information from a piece of music, promote music as ambient backdrop or ringtone, break up albums and sacrifice thematic structure to sell songs for 99 cents each, blow off the cover art in favor of an easy download, you make music disposable. In doing that you take away its power as art to effect change. But so far, the “market” doesn’t seem to care. It’s either about cool stuff to go, or “authentic” garage sound.

In the 1970s, when turquoise jewelry was hot, the Navajo street vendors in Santa Fe plaza started to run up against shortages of the popular blue turquoise, and started making jewelry with greener shades. Tourists from Texas and Colorado stopped buying, convinced that it wasn’t real. So the Navajo switched to bright blue, cheaper synthetic turquoise and sales picked back up.

Until the pendulum swings back to an artist’s market, with long-term audience and label support for musicians’ independent visions, compression is just one symptom of a bigger illness.

While I do listen to MP3s, the loss of dynamic range has bugged me for years. If I want everything to sound the same, I can compress the dynamic range and ruin the sound before sticking it on the ipod.

The Norah Jones Feels Like Home album sounds great in MP3 so saying that MP3 and other file-size reduction schemes are the cause of the recording industry’s dynamic-range compression pandemic is a shallow conclusion.

It doesn’t surprise me that an industry whose main business is sucking the life out of its customers would create products with the life deliberately pre-sucked!

It’s sad. You’d think the music industry would be all about high quality, but no. Instead, it’s all about sales and money.

re: Alejandro | 12/30/2007, 12:30 pm EST

“I apologize Metal Shawn G for my grammar mistakes, what I meant was “a paper is going to be release the next year” in spanish (AES latin america)”

Just bustin’ your chops, dude. It’s nice to see someone FINALLY who can take a joke!

I did read your article and it was actually quite good. I think you should it write in English too, and just get someone to look it over. Have a good New Year, man.

RS, this note is off topic but extrememly important!

Those long blue scroll bars on the right side of the screen are back! When they’re long like that you can’t scroll down to post your own comment.

In fact, you can’t even scroll down far enough to read other people’s comments!

Thank You

The loss of dynamic range in music recordings is disappointing. This is especially true when, like referenced in the article, I see old music that is “remastered” into this world of compressing everything to -0.2db. Not all of us listen to our music on iPods while using jackhammers, so I don’t understand why the mastering is apparently done for this type of listening.

Wow. So many comments. Some argue, but I think everyone wants the same thing. They want the quality back! The loudness war needs to end. Great article.

I think this has been touched on, but I want to emphasize it.

Master and mix an album properly, and put in on CD, and you will have GREAT sound. CD is very capable! Its downfall has been the problems in mixing and mastering.. such as… The loudness war!

Am I saying the CD is better then Vinyl? Maybe. (Depends on the person!!) But for sure I am saying that the way audio for CD’s has been produced has caused most of the bad reputation, not the CD format.

MP3? Come on people, Set the Bitrate to 320 if you are concerned with the sound. Double blind tests have proven beyond a shred of doubt that the differences are imperceptible to anyone at such high bitrates. Still, I’d still rather listen to CD, just cause it makes me feel better to know it’s the original.

I, too, think it’s important to make sure people know the difference in the two types of compression being talked about here. One kind deliberately changes the sound just to make it more intense (The Loudness War!). The other, MP3, tries to store the digital sound more efficiently to save disk space, while altering the sound as little as possible.

Again, great article. I am glad to see more awareness building. It gives me hope.

PD

There are multiple issues at work here.

As a recording engineer for the last decade, I’ve seen the trend progress.

Mp3s are not the problem. Sure 128k sounds like garbage, but V0 or 320 is fine.

The biggest problem with Mp3s is the industry stuck its head in up its ass and now there is a whole generation of consumers, their prized demographic which has become accustomed to ‘free’ music and piracy has become normalized.

As far as the ‘loudness war’ the fad is coming to an end as its already hit a brickwall : ) If its in RS you can be sure many of the people recording, producing and mastering music have been aware of this for a long time

A simple solution is to use Replay Gain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_gain

and the open source media player firmware Rock Box.
http://www.rockbox.org/

^agreed. With something like replaygain the psychoacoustic advantage (re: fletcher munson curve) provided by hard limiting is negated and the sonic consequences become readily apparent.

Something that’s often overlooked, is that there’s more to this that being able to visually see clipped samples in a wave editor.

With look-ahead hard-limiters a waveform can be as a solid brickwall without showing a single clipped sample. It still sounds like shit though.

Btw the way, if anyone wants to see the ABSOLUTE WORST EXAMPLE OF ABSURD LIMITING check out the remaster of “Raw Power” by Iggy Pop and the Stooges in a wave editor. This was released in 1997 and nothing since has come close.

Wow. I’m impressed with some of these comments. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who suffers ‘ear fatigue’ from many types of modern music.

Right now there’s discussion on HDTV forums about how many of the newly launched HD networks (TBS HD, Cartoon Network HD, Tennis Channel HD, etc.) all take a regular 4:3 picture and sttttretch it to fill 16:9 widescreens. I liken that debate to the one about loudness on recordings… Someone is taking away the consumer’s choice to alter their viewing/listening as they see fit.

Many folks say they want their new HDTV’s screens to be filled, even though the stretched picture completely distorts people’s faces and makes everyone look fat. Many folks conversely like loud music because it makes it ’sound better’ during casual listening.

But in both cases it’s distorting the original program out of sheer ignorance and willful neglect.

Other have suggested it but it’s worth re-iterating: record companies would do well to include the entire album in mp3 (or FLAC) format on a data track of the CD. They could do a quieter, more dynamic version on CD, and a more punchy version in mp3 format for portable players. It’s a win-win for consumers, who get two ‘versions’ of the album ready-made, and a win for the lables who get more CD sales and fewer people flocking to iTunes and its competitors.

That would also help eliminate the other scourge of modern music, the ‘we have to fill up all 74 minutes of our next album even if it’s with stupid skits and throwaway songs’ mindset amongst record companies. A band could throw out their best 10 songs and the rest of the CD would be ate up with mp3s.

Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll see an end to the loudness wars anytime soon. Consumers will keep buying tiny portable music players, with tiny amplifers incapable of driving decent headphones loud enough. They’ll keep listening through $10 computer speakers. And don’t expect to see dynamic compression added to the list of sound tools on your mp3 player – lord no, that might add a nickel to the player’s cost, can’t have that, can we?

I need to kill someone.

I know: Carlos!

Jesus Christ, Dexter. Somebody obviously forgot to take their meds before they posted. Look, I made a comment that obviously nobody appears to agree with. I’m okay with that, but just take it as it is and move the hell on. I’m surprised that a lot of you assholes are so offended by just one little thing I said. Maybe we should take a cue from ‘Frank “TJ” Mackey’ because this shit has gotten just a tad bit too ridiculous.

Dexter and TJ Mackey are good friends, and we can keep busting balls for as long as we want to!

Get a sense a humor, because I know who wrote this, and it’s NOT CARLOS?!

God, don’t you laugh at anything???

I’m a serial killer; I do whatever I want!!!

Frank pass the doobie in my direction once in a while, huh?

carlos,

people were pissed cause you called the writers “fucking whiners” and “dumbasses” who don’t know how to use a volume knob.

it’s not about turning a volume knob up and down, in this context “loudness” is about the use of compression and overdriving of channels in the mixing and mastering process.

this is used to create “loud” music in the same way fast food places create fat-laden disgusting processed food under the concept more, better, faster is what sells, but people eventually get nauseous of it, just like anything else in life.

watch the youtube video “the loudness war” on page 5 of the article to explain exactly what you aren’t comprehending.

If ‘tame-her’ really is ‘TJ’, then I’d like to retract that statement I made in taking a cue from him. He just made this much more ridiculous.

re: ola | 12/31/2007, 1:12 pm EST

You should be give the electric chair because you’re an absolute COMEDY KILLER!

re: Carlos

Damn. You people need to watch some movies!

What-fucking-ever, I’m done. Go ahead and continue to point out an insignificant comment I made if it helps make your day better. Get a life when you’re done feeding your egos.

re: Carlos | 12/31/2007, 3:32 pm EST

“What-fucking-ever, I’m done. Go ahead and continue to point out an insignificant comment I made if it helps make your day better. Get a life when you’re done feeding your egos.”

Come on, Carlos don’t be so hard on yourself; It wasn’t insignificant. If it was, it wouldn’t be such a goldmine for comedy!

Hold on, it might a while before we’re done feeding our egos! We might want to continue the escape from our meaningless lives for just a little while longer!

I think it’s quite ironic that in the days of vinyl there were disks certified to 90 dB dynamic range.They were few and far between as that is pretty much a gimmick. My father had a copy from the early ’80’s of the 1812 overture (the one with the cannons if that gives you some idea)The cannon segment only lasts for about 30 seconds but took up about 1/5 th of the playing surface.It came with warnings about keeping the volume turned down low for that segment to avoid speaker damage. His cheap turntable was able to track it OK.I ended up spending about 4 grand (Aussie) on my turntable, and eventually used it to remaster older music video clips for night club use, where we couldn’t find the CD (or even where we could find the CD, as the results were better in many cases)
CD’s were released partly on the premise that music could be released uncompressed, but even in the early days it was the vinyl that was left uncompressed and the CD was squashed with a roller.My tastes were and still are pretty indy, but the first Simply Red album “Picture Book” was a glaring example. I couldn’t believe how dead the CD was.
However there were many CD’s that were released with the full dynamic range from the studio left intact, and they just sound so spacious and alive.
I like the idea of Ipods coming out with a control for compression. Many DVD players have that, as most film sound tracks have VERY wide dynamics, and if all you have is a little TV speaker, then it’s probably a good idea to compress the sound a bit.If the record companies started dipping their toes in the water and released certain material with wide dynamics, it might surprise a few people with IPods.
Record companies are weird beasts though, as they are basically 2 entities. One half is the promotions arm that tries to get everything onto radio, and gives out free promo copies of everything as soon as look at you.Several times at Blue Light Disco’s (discos for school age)we were involved in, Warner and Sony used to give us CASES of CD singles to throw out into the crowd (hundreds of them)!
The other half of the record company holds the publishing rights. They’re the half that sue anyone who downloads an mp3.
Oddly sometimes the publishing arm of one company will use the promotion arm of a rival to release an album. BMG were good at country and grunge for instance.

This may be me overconcerned but I am unsure which CDs I have bought of older artists have been poorly remastered. When I first heard them they sounded fine but I am unsure which are most true to the artist’s original intentions. Is the Cream Remaster release of Disraeli Gears not what it was when initially released? I have spent good money on many cds thinking that these were exact conversions from the originals. I spent the whole day today trying to see if my music was devalued but I can’t do it. Help me before I jump off a bridge.

The BIGGEST problem in many current endeavors is that people with decades of real-world experience who know their craft are routinely ignored and treated as if their knowledge is worthless. If they push their point-of-view too strongly, they are removed from the equation in favor of someone who won’t question ‘the current wisdom’. A handful of people benefit and thousands–or millions–are never allowed to experience what it could be like; consequently, they rarely have the opportunity to develop a definition of what constitutes excellence.

Ummm . . . Is that on topic?

Is there a topic?

First off, Shouldn’t music be about quality? I am afraid that there will be no unique music left for people to enjoy because it will sound all the same without the emotion that makes it unique. The loudness and digital era will let artists that really don’t sound all too well, have a chance to get heard and don’t care for intricate details, whereas the musicians that bust their asses for perfect sound are getting raped. I wouldn’t be surprised if artists started realizing this issue sooner and stop putting out MP3 or digital copies of their work! When I listen to Led Zepplin, Cream or The Band, it is something out of this world, I realize even though I wasn’t around when those bands were at their peak, music isn’t the same anymore. I do know that each band during those times, had their own signature sound, or trademark, you don’t hear that too often now a days!

Believe it or not, I’ve scanned quite a few of these behemouth entries, and I’ve come to the conclusion that more than a few of you are completely full of shit!

Go ahead, RS kids. Read a couple of them (I bet you haven’t- a smart move by the way) and you tell me. Complete bullshit!

The Beach Boys 1972 Holland album is one of the group’s least acclaimed, but the audio engineering was ahead of its time and is something to be marvelled at even today.

Tom Servo | 12/31/2007, 12:34 am EST

Tom, thanks for that wise post and suggestion of dual-format commercial music CDs.

Unfortunately, we live in a consumer convenience society that has no understanding of art or science. It understands only convenience, even at the expense of quality, subtlety, and fidelity.

Because most Americans are tone-deaf (loose term I know, but the fans of flat music seem to indicate this is true), there will not be sufficient “loss of sales” from compressed, flattened music.

Music now serves the same purpose as Prozac. Plug in your iPod with the trebly bias and the tinny earbuds, scramble the grey matter, tune out the world.

Quality? It’s never been about quality, not in America. It’s always been about MOVING UNITS.

The record industry must stop brick-wall limiting albums if it expects me to continue buying music.

Bob Katz said it best, “It’s not how loud you make it, it’s how you make it loud.”

People who download music without paying for it SUCK.

MP3s SUCK.

Carlos SUCKS.

“The BIGGEST problem in many current endeavors is that people”…

“Is that on topic?”

That is quite on topic.

Honing your craft doesn’t mean that your craft will be worth a shit if it gets in the way of the tail wagging the dog.

Music has become one more thing that computers do.

This is why Apple is in the appliance business and they flog compressed copies of pop songs as a sideline to fill those appliances up.

Quality getting fistf***ed in the name of commerce isn’t a new concept, but it certainly wasn’t the defacto standard, until lately.

Anybody else want to watch Wall Street, again and think about how cool Gordon Gwecko is?

Cause the character in that film is precisely the sort of oily sonofabitch that’s deciding what’s good and isn’t and how it should sound and what sort of return they demand for tossing it out on the market floor.

Welcome to the video game America. Strap in, buy a big Mac, crank up the noise and blow stuff up.

I suppose I hold out a bit of hope for Blu Ray and HD DVD being used for music release (though one of them is going to have to win the format war)
DVD -A was a completely confusing format to the consumer. First off you needed a DVD Audio player to play it. But oddly enough, it also played DVD movies, but it wasn’t a DVD video player.However most of the disks came with a Dolby 2 track version of the audio as well, which meant it would play in DVD video players using those tracks.It’s no wonder people found it too hard. People just want a machine, that when you throw a disk at it, it works as intended. The high Def DVD formats give the record companied that abilty, and a multi media version of an album isn’t a bad thing.There’s plenty of space on there to have the high quality mp3’s for the car and IPod as well.
BTW, I’m one of those that feel MP3’s done at a decent bitrate can sound pretty decent. Sometimes it’s just your level of expectation though. I was listening to FM radio rebroadcast as streaming MP3 at 128 Kbit on decent PC speakers (not my favourite rate)but was amazed how good it sounded, compared to what I was used to.
Selling high qality sound has always been a difficult thing to achieve though. I had my business partner come over one day with a vinyl copy of the Blues Brothers, that he’d picked up in a school fete. I washed it, threw it on a Luxman turntable (designed for wet vinyl,as the platter is waterproof) and handed him a nice set of headphones. I was astounded by his reaction, as he’d never heard anything sound that way before. I probably could have sold him a $20,000 stereo at that point, but that’s not the business I’m in.
Anyway, just my 5 cents worth (as we no longer have 1 and 2 cent coins)

Many of you describe the quality of digital audio as though it sounds as bad as a cassette full of music recorded from an AM radio station using a “built in” microphone!

For the sake of your own philosophical windbagging, you distort digital audio infiniely more than digital technology ever did!

“Honing your craft doesn’t mean that your craft will be worth a shit if it gets in the way of the tail wagging the dog.”

WHAT???

DVD-A won’t help you at all if the producers have trashed the hell out of the audio in the studio before the discs were even stamped.

David Bendeth is one of the worse offenders in the loudness wars. His records sound atrocious, he is a huge part of the problem. All of the modern Producers used in this article are part of the problem.

“DVD-A won’t help you at all if the producers have trashed the hell out of the audio in the studio before the discs were even stamped.”

Very true. I was talking to my wife about this- and basically it meant nothing until I said “most modern recordings are being produced like TV ads”
She instantly understood and understood this was a bad thing, as like most people hates the way TV ads yell at you compared to the program material.
If we can get this concept out to the populace, then it may have som traction, and force producers to alter their ways.
Basically a music album shouldn’t be trated in the same way as something used to sell you soap powder.

For years radio stations have had their own ideas on compression, no one wanted a “flat” sound. In these days of “The Loudness Wars” between radio stations they are “compressing the compressed” for the sake of being loud and ruining great sonic quality in the process.

Contrary to what author Levine says, radio stations don’t compress their signals “for technical reasons”–it’s pure economics, baby: a louder signal covers a wider area, increasing the potential audience size and leading to–you guessed it–more advertising revenue! (If you want to get technical, radio stations LIMIT their signals to avoid illegal overmodulation that could interfere with neighboring stations. Compression is related, but different.)

Over-compression of music is a classic case of the bad driving out the good. THANK YOU for bringing attention to a problem that I’ve been railing against for, oh, only about 30 years now.

Tired ears comments that ”David Bendeth is one of the worse offenders in the loudness wars. His records sound atrocious, he is a huge part of the problem. All of the modern Producers used in this article are part of the problem.”
Which seems to read as if Tired Ears had tired eyes when he skipped the first paragraph of the text. David makes no excuse for himself, he only does what he is paid to do. He cannot do but what he is asked to do else he not be asked to do anything again.
And to Carlos (12/27), all I can say is you come off as if you’re too to have ever experienced recordings that were not poorly made and have never ever heard someone play an instrument in front of you and will be able to tell the difference between that and made CD of the same performance using the techniques obejected to in the article. The fact that you do not understand the concept of Ear Fatigue is enough said by you on this subject.
Your solution to ear fatigue is to turn down the volume, fine do that. That doesn’t change the properties of the recording. I can’t help it if you do not understand and I am not going to explain it to you since it was very well explained in the article and that did not take.

I guess im really obsolete I listen to CD-4 on vinyl,the wars will be over soon with the hearing aid companies declared the winners.

The loudness wars will end with the hearing aid companies declared the winners.I will continue to listen to my obsolete vinyl in CD-4

Too bad about them arctic monkeys.

Well I listen to The Arctic Monkeys, and Lily Allen and being a teen I also have a ipod but my ears do know that the sound is way to loud in the wrong places. Were as when I listen to my Dad’s old Vinyl Beatle Albums it is so much easier on my ears!! but can we please can we pick on some one who has no talent I mean Alex Turner is a AMAZING song writer!!!!!!! and he can sing live!!

There is a simple solution to all of this. Don’t buy crap. Put your money in your pocket and don’t spend it on what you don’t think is value. If you mess up and buy something that is inferior, take it back. In 30 years of listening I have accumulated plenty to listen to and I won’t buy new music just because it is new. And I will return discs that are poor quality. I will write letters and e-mails to the music companys and tell them why. Some of the labels are starting to respond to the market for better quality sound. As for the high cost of equipment I can afford things now that I could never touch before because I can buy used top quality stuff for reasonable prices on the net.

I am not all about letting the “free markets” decide everything, but I have learned to make them work for me. If folks would stick together and not cave too easily we could persuade the music biz to listen. They cater to the MP3 market because it makes them money. I use MP3 on my Bike tours. But they will also cater to the high end if they have to do it to get our money! I think most American consumers have given up their personal power without even realizing that they had it to begin with.

This argument has been going on for years. I feel like a lot of it is complaining for the sake of. Sure, I think that a lot of current music is crap, but it has more to do with the songwriting than anything else. Give me some overcompressed Nirvana over highly dynamic Fall Out Boy any day. The autocorrect and editing tricks are the real concern, but I guess not as much as old school musicians would like you to believe. And the comment on Californication not having dynamics? It wouldn’t have dynamics regardless of whether or not it was overcompressed. The song has no dynamics anyways, the chorus is naturally no louder than the verse.

to Scared Fan;
“Is the Cream Remaster release of Disraeli Gears not what it was when initially released? I have spent good money on many cds thinking that these were exact conversions from the originals.”

You better start looking for the early Polydor Dennis Drake remasters or for the Gold CDs remastered by Steve Hoffman.
And I see no mention of the lossless FLAC format, wich plays on ipods with rockbox firmware. Geez not everyone listen to horrid MP3s anymore…

Good comment about the potential for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD for music releases. Both of these support multichannel audio, and have the potential for better-than-CD quality. However, they would inevitably be locked and non-rippable, just like Music DVDs, DVD-Audio or DTS.

While I believe that DSD is slightly superior to PCM in terms of imaging, SACD also has another advantage: Most releases are “hybrid” meaning that they contain a CD layer as well. These will play in any CD player, and are rippable to MP3.

I actually think Sony SCREWED UP by not including SACD capability as part of the Blu-Ray spec, including the PS3. This would have breathed new life into SACD, and given Blu-Ray a bigger carrot to the typical buyer. If you’re in that market, you probably already have the audio equipment.

However, I think it is apparent that the multitude of formats is already to consumers. Too many buzzwords, too many acronyms, too many choices. Everybody claims quality, but few have it.

Quiz: What is “HD Radio”? The answer may surprise you…

Carlos, turn down the volume? The volume switch you mean? This proved you have no idea what you are talking about and probably hadn’t read the article fully nor checked out one of the key links…
http://www.yout ube.c om/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

Re: RobZalete | 12/28/2007, 5:44 am EST

Compression ahs been around for more than 50 years, but this is a discussion about digital compression on CD rather than analogue compression. Two completely different things entirely.

The title is a little misleading. It says that sound is worse, but in reality it’s the music itself what’s worse. IMO, the problem is still, that people with iPods wear tiny little earphones that cannot reproduce the sound well, and all that post processing goes to try to make all the detail of the songs can be heard on those tiny little earphones. That should be an “iPod” feature rather than a “re-mastering” job.

The truth is this has been coming for the past 23 or 24 years…since the introduction of the CD.
Sound has suffered from it’s introduction. The LP has always sounded better than the CD. As a former audio salesperson, I long fought the battle of better sound, but the sad fact is that the convenience is what matters to most people. The current MP3 file system that can remove 90 % of the source, again 90 % of the source is a travesty. Unless the musicians AND the buying public demand better sound, it will continue to go down hill. I still buy record albums when I can, though most of my purchases are of CD’s. I love it when I find a good dynamic CD, but more often than not, they sound compressed. I’d love to believe the future holds an improvement in audio quality, but I am not holding my breath.

While I agree entirely that the loudness race is deplorable, there are a variety of completely inaccurate, unsupportable technical assertions made in this article around the issues of MP3 and how human hearing works. Many of these are in fact putting the cart before the horse, or attributing purpose to blind evolution.

quick point on the article. pressings of new releases come from the same shitty overcompressed master anyway, right? so, comparing vinyl to CD to mp3 using a new release doesn’t really show what vinyl (and CD for that matter) can really do. next time, try a better recording – perhaps a steely Dan LP, CD and then mp3.

now onto my discourse:

the record and audio industry got what it asked for when they killed competent mass-market hi-fi in the late 70’s/early 80’s. basically in my view – good sounding equipment was pretty readily available up until the early 1980’s. especially speakers. anybody could plunk down some minor duckets and grab a pair of very capable large Advent loudspeakers and a decent receiver.

not the best stuff in the world – but it was competent and world’s beyond the i-crap docking stations we see all over the place these days. technology has nothing to do with it. you could make just as small an integrated crap-can audio system back then as you could now. difference back then was that people knew that small all-in-one systems SUCKED!

so, in the industry plight to make music more accessible to the masses, they made these horrid things where sound quality didn’t matter. well, if sound quality doesn’t matter, then neither does the recording quality. mp3’s are fine when they blasting through 4″ “full-range” cones. in fact, better because if the driver is limited to like 150hz-8kHz, you won’t get as much listener fatigue from the low bit rate and compression.

this, in turn, marginalizes the value of the music. if these little crap-can audio systems are not worthy of actually sitting and listening, then people will just have them burping away in the background while people do something else. and now the music is not important either.

so, it’s not wonder people feel entitled to STEAL music for free on the Internet. it’s virtually worthless to them.

i do feel for the employees of record companies and retailers. there’s gonna be lots of lay-offs. the recording artists will do fine. they most likely follow Thom York and Prince’s path. sell their music themselves or give the music away for free at their concerts.

i feel there is something to this. with American’s insatiable appetite for consumerism and debt – people WILL PAY for something they value.

Will bose in-ear headphones help with this problem? i know that the audio files will still be loud but it seems that i can hear each individual instrument clearly.

Also would one of those things that turn records to cds help at all with this problem?

My first recording device as a little kid was a simple cassette recorder which i placed in front of a speaker to record songs on the radio.
I was fine with that.

Then i got a new radio with an audio out option and i recorded using a cale, and i was fine with that.

Later, when I had the money, I was able to buy a stereo and a turntable.
I was very fine with that. especially because i loved to buy all these clicking second hand LP’s which were hard to get new back then.
I loved that.

When the CD came out, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one of those, because i wanted to listen to Pink Floyd and Charly Antolini in a truly mesmerizing audio quality.
A lot of old stuff was remastered back then – jus to get the best out of the medium.
but even if it was just an old Hendrix Bootleg, recorded in Stockholm, i was fine with that.

Today i use itunes and others to take a listening-stroll through music genres I would have never found, if I still had to stand in line at a in a shop, waiting behind 5 rap-kiddies to find their “drug de jour” among 17 CDs, just to listen to stuff I never heard of.

I LOVE THAT.
I care about music, not sound.
Reception is a very personal thing anyway, that’s why there are bass and treble controls on every stereo.

I’m pretty sure that mp3 lacks aoustic quality. But not enough that I would mind.
In terms of experience and musical variety technical progress always gave me more than it took away.

Im really fine with that.

The most important thing is the song! A great song will last forever!

The singer, band, playback format , record label, record store, jukebox, radio station all come and go.

Some of the greatest hit songs were recorded in less than perfect conditions and the imperfection is what made them so great. Many great songs are from way before recording even existed.

Who cares what it sounds like. Write some good songs. I have’nt heard many lately.

yeah, they do tend to sound like greased ketchup. but dylans studio albums sound like it too, on CD rom, and the rolling stones sond even worse.

Come on RS fans- remember when mama used to say “turn it down!!” and you turned it up???? How quicly we forget!!

While I do understand the problems faced by RS readers and 70’s types, the fact is that, ever since the introduction of Kraftwerk to U.S. shores, the old guard has shitted on electronic music styles, content, and processes, while the labels/movie studios/video channels/magazine ad departments laugh all the way to the bank.

I am a fan of 60’s Blue Note, 70’s Buddah, 80’s Def Jam, 90’s Loud, and 00’s Myspace, and what I hear going on today is the acoustic/electric crowd trying to catch up to the sonic innovations introduced by the geniuses of digital music production. Some win, some lose.

The average Top 40 station today will play a Beyonce record next to a Kid Rock record, and FM processors (mainly by Orban and Cutting Edge) will work against the best efforts made by the brightest engineers and producers of either genre. But knowledge is half the battle, and the rock crowd must get down or lay down.

As file compression algorithms and production techniques continue to evolve, I hope that the next Rick Rubin-financed hip-hop record can find a home in Starbucks next to Nora Jones and Frank Sinatra without taking a retro-trip to the tape days a la Johnny Cash.

Keep the negativity coming music fans!!

If revisionists continue their rain dance to destroy “the box,” this will free the younger artists from the 6-album deal that goes nowhere, and the next 50 Cent-type $8-per-album royalty artist will sit at home emailing songs to the world and self-booking shows while the aging rocker begs the union for adequate health care.

If corporate politics suddenly shift back to a point where old folks can dictate to young folks what to do with their computers, drum machines, guitars and microphones again, the youth will revolt and make even more disgustingly loud and personal music.

Chuck D for Def Jam president!!!

Dave,
There is still music being produced and released. Also in many cases there is usually a version of the recording that has quite decent dynamics, before it’s flattened for FM radio and IPods. That’s the version we’re after. A good start would be to release as an option on Itunes at 256 VBR MP3. It would even garner some other mainstream press.
Also Gereon, I pretty much followed your path, but I care now about quality as well as diversity. I’m currently a fan of Arcade Fire, The Grates and The Dresden Dolls (I told you my tastes were a bit indy)
but I’d like Arcade Fire a bit more if their CD’s had a bit more life. The other 2 aren’t too bad.
To hopefully answer a couple of points raised here, I’ve thrown up a copy of Brazil by Zavier Cugat. This recording is from 1941,even before magnetic tape was used. It was recorded direct to’78, much later played on someting VERY good and recorded to DAT in the late 80’s and released on a box set called “Popular Music of the 1940’s”.
I’ve played that at 33 on a Luxman turntable through an Audigy 2 soundcard and compressed the WAV file to VBR MP3 at 192 Kb.It almost still sounds like it could be a modern recording (exept ironically in the context of this debate, it still has some dynamics left)
You can have a listen at:
http://www.sitezero.com.au /files/brazil_zavier_cugat.mp3

Quote;”knows that the albums he makes are often played through tiny computer speakers by fans who are busy surfing the Internet.”
What a deceptively simple way to get people into and to stay in the stereo sound field. It beats having the left speaker behind a corner of the couch and the right speaker as a plant stand.
digatelier.com

This is one of the few music related articles that RS has done recently that’s very worthwhile (compared to the frontpage Britney shit). Good comment, whoever mentioned they should have made the difference between analogue and digital compression. They are used for entirely different purposes. Also, since when were we suppose remenisce about the sound quality of CD? Last time I checked it lacked the dynamic range of records, despite being “newer” technology. SACD and DVD-A and the discs that use the violet (”blue”) lasers are the best solution. And to the person talking about the Volume knob…there is a big difference in what you are talking about and what the article was referring to. The listener has no control over the ear fatigue they are talking about. Dynamic range inherit in a recording should be preserved as much as possible, and making it all loud does nothing but steal power from the music, just as the article says.

Music is not about hearing. It is about listening!

time re-popularize the vinyl record. no pirating, cheap to manufacture, cheaper to buy at the stores, album art work is bigger and interesting, better sound quality.

All the problems of the indusrty solved.

Unfortunately, vinyl is heavy and takes more space on the retailers shelves than CD’s do. As a result, they don’t like stocking records as much.

I prefer to expand my music collection by purchasing secondhand vinyl. I often find a great selection of older records at thrift shops, yard sales and flea markets, and they usually sell for $0.25 – $0.50. I can purchase a whole lot of great sounding music for the same $17.99 that the major labels charge for a CD full of the crap they have been trying to sell us for years.
I let others know of my interest in vinyl and have, on several occasions, had people give me their old record collections. There’s nothing as nice as free music!

i keep reading posters blabbering on that their image of vinyl is clicking, popping, veiled, not clear as CD, muffled, etc.

well, I’m sorry that you were listening to worn out records on a shitty turntable with a shitty cartridge that wasn’t set up correctly. you are really depriving yourselves if you haven’t heard a properly set up analog rig playing some decent material (i.e. – not thrashed).

I’m not talking mega-buck rigs – just a good turntable. done, right, it CREAMS digital. be it CD or FLAC, etc.

here’s some pointers. if you hear clicks and pops – try a Hunt-EDA brush and clean the record. if it still pops, clean the record in a nitty gritty or VPI discwasher. some record stores have them and will clean a record for you (at a cost). or used vinyl is so cheap – chuck it and and buy a better copy.

how to look for good vinyl. obviously, look at it against the light and look for scratches. also, make sure the surface is like a black mirror. if it has a “rainbow hue” or is sorta of a milky looking, it’s probably been trashed by the elements or a worn stylus. lastly, check the spindle hole. if it looks virgin, then the record hasn’t been played much. if it has lots of small tears – then it’s been well loved.

next – do the vocals and high frequencies have distortion in them? THAT’S NOT NORMAL! might be an abused record BUT let’s make sure your turntable is set up correctly.

i use a modded Technics SL-1600MK2 (basically a suspended SL-1200). it’s easy as cake to dial in. first go to vinylengine.com and download the Kearns Universal Arc protractor. this will aid you in setting up your cartridge overhang correctly.

next up, set your vertical tracking force (VTF) to manufacture’s specifications. you can tweak it later. zero out the arm (so it just floats) then, add the appropriate weight.

next up, if vocals and high frequencies sound distorted, lower the vertical tracking angle (VTA) to the point the sibilance disappears. this is done on my technics with the adjustable rotating collar. this basically raises and lowers the height of the tone arm.

does music sound muffled with a lot of boomy bass? well, then raise the VTA as high as you can without introducing distortion into the vocals and high frequencies.

go the vinylengine.com or audioasylum.com to learn more!

great starter turntable? same as it’s always been. the venerable Technics SL-1200MK2-MK5. great starter cartridge? why try the audio technica AT-440MLa and you all set!

see ya,
Robby

Rolling Stone, it’s funny. Just when I can’t think you get any worse, you go ahead and throw in a relevant article and make me hate you even more for giving out valuable information to your retarded readers. Oh, woe is me.

Tony: nice name drop on the Beach Boys album Holland. incredible record. i’ll try and one up you “high fidelity style” (like the movie) – if you haven’t already, listen to Dennis Wilson – Pacific Ocean Blue. quite possibly the most incredible album I’ve ever heard. the first track River Song is a real jaw dropper!

peace,
Robby

Digital limiting and analog compression are used for the same purposes- to improve loudness and hopefully clarity.

Analog program compression was invented to keep telephone analog voice levels within a usable zone as analog voices traversed the planet via copper wire. Digital clipping was invented to rock my body!!!! The algorithms used in modern plugins (Waves L1, L2, L3, etc.) are designed to increase “punch.” Mastering labs get paid many $$$ to increase punch, so if a 15 yearold figures out how to do it at home, it becomes a part of the music- like a Marshall stack.

Dynamics in a 3 minute pop record can kill careers.

The records most regarded by American audiophiles used a combination of track compression/limiting, tape saturation, and stereo bus compression- mostly for technical reasons. Once the greats applied it for style (Gordy, Spector, Tubby, etc.) their records flew off the shelves.

Distortion- whether harmonic, inharmonic, accidental, intentional, analog or digital-
is a key ingredient in the success of American records over the last 50 years.

The soft, soapy sound of UK pop should never break thru Top 40, but is cool for Lite FM.

Comparing soft rockers to happy thrashers and crunkness is futile, but I encourage you to cop a Lil’ Jon album to experience the true marriage of classic analog and modern digital techniques.

Let’s stop complaining and hit the clubs and arenas again. Support labels that share your tastes, but don’t stop the digital revolution.

Shanachie puts out great music that won’t tear out your ear drums.

One Love,
Steve

“Reels for feel, bits for beats.”

After toppling Alicia Keys’ “No One” from the top spot last week, Flo Rida’s “Low” remains No. 1 this week on the Billboard Hot 100. The track’s 470,000 digital sales sets a single-week record, easily trumping the former title-holder, Fergie’s “Fergalicious” at 294,000.

Hey all you full of hot air pretentious pricks, shut the fuck up and ROCK THE EQUALIZERS!!! thank you.

Here is a link to a ‘techie’ site with a good article on how Big Music has trashed our sound quality…
http://spectrum.iee e.org/aug07/5429

Multimedia version (not so good) http://spectrum.ieee.org/aug07 /5480

Here Hear! I have been dragged into the digital world kicking and screaming. Always having to compete with the volume of records that are squashed to bring the volume up and compromising the audio quality. Sadly the analog days are about over with the cost and availability of tape. Glad to hear there are growing numbers of people that want the warm kickass sound of analog back. Let’s get back to making real music again and dump those &#%@’ing plugins that most people use for crutches. If you can’t play it in time or sing it in tune get another job.

Hard Rockin old fart
Good link, but I think there was a typo.

http://spectrum.ieee.or g/aug07/5429
The most disturbing conclusion is that the loudness war has stymied the development of the next generation of audio delivery.
I reiterate though there are still good artists releasing good music (correcting my own typo from before).However it’s my experience that younger people are not as passionate about their music as we were.People put it down to competition from video games and the “Net” etc, but compressing the life out of anything good can’t help.
In my dealings with record companies, ther were too many only concerned with “moving units” who had no concern for the artistry involved. Part of that artistry is the audio engineer, who should be allowed to do THEIR job.

Although I do like the sound of vinyl, I don’t think we need to give up on CDs yet. The big problem, as this article indicates, is that CDs are deliberately being made to sound as bad as possible — a devious plot to make people dissatisfied and demand a new format, or just plain ignorance?

I’ve vowed to never again buy a “remastered” version of a favorite CD, because the last twenty or so have sounded so much worse than the previous edition. Compression, lack of detail and space, glassiness… I don’t know what it is, but most CDs sound like poor, low-bit-rate mp3s these days. They hurt my ears and make we want to turn them off mere minutes into the disc.

And, no, turning the master volume down does not help at all, as anyone with functioning ears will recognize.

Damn, it just moves the typo. Obviously breaks up links.

I am glad that RS put forth an article which articulates so well the current state of music production. Secondly, as I recall – the industry dreaded the adoption of MP3 as a music delivery medium (for obvious reason). Although I believe that audio quality has suffered, it is only so in the short term. Eventually, all the novelty of digitally cataloging one’s music collection will fade. Eventually, the demand for HI Fideltiy will come back and when it does, it will be bigger than ever.

Everybody craves that which they do not have. Everybody will have a hard drive full of music. Nobody will have a system that can make them feel as though they are in the studio with the artists. Everybody will thirst for sonic clarity.

In the past ten years, I’d say the largest part of the problem has stemmed from piracy.

In my mind, the advent of mp3s allowed for incredibly small files sizes which were readily transferable over the internet (ah, 1997, anyone else remember 56k modems?). Of course, only a complete idiot would pay for something he could get for free, and so now even the staunchest advocates of paying-for-music have turned to piracy.
Unfortunately, even with the increases in the internet backbone (I know we’re at least up to a 10GB ps backbone throughout most of the US), we’re still using these compressed digital files. Gathered, I think 320 kbps mp3s do sound pretty good, but we still don’t have enough hard-drive space / bandwidth to be downloading whole albums in wave form. It’s just not economical.
So, since mp3s are still what’s used for ripping / piracy, it only makes sense that digital music players only support mp3s (and don’t ipods further compress the mp3s anyways?).
My point is that as long as piracy is king and we all don’t have 100GBps connections, I don’t think *.wav and other lossless files are going to see much action. Furthermore, with people using those in-ear headphones or laptop speakers, there’s no point in higher fidelity. *Though I do have the Bose in-ear headphones, and they’ve got incredible bass for their size*

Then there’s the whole radio issue where it’s far easier to hear higher frequencies / louder volumes when you’re driving or in an area with lots of background noise.

We could also argue that the high fidelity problem could be related to commercialization, globalization, and the problems of maintaining integrity and individuality while still competing in the modern world, as those things MAY contribute to songwriting of a poorer caliber than seen in the past, resulting in more production necessary to cover up the shit beneath it. In other words, low fidelity works the same magic for terrible musicians / songwriting as make-up does for ugly girls.

You can still have recordings with subtlety and nice wide dynamics done in MP3 format. The format’s not the issue, it’s the mastering done with high compression to make it sound louder that is the problem. It’s sucking all the life out of these recordings, and nowdays it’s hard to find one that hasn’t been so affected.

Great article. I am a mastering engineer with moderate successes. I have two teenagers who mainly listen to brutally limited MP3 pop, and I wonder how to teach successive generations of musicians and music consumers about good sound. Thankfully many of my clients are jazz, folk and classical pros, and not all that interested in “as loud as possible” – they understand and can hear the sacrifices. However, I echo Bernie Grundmann in that I HAVE had clients come back and say “it sounds great, can you make it louder?” Arrrgh! I don’t completely agree with Butch Vig’s comment that there’s no turning back (although that may be true in rock and pop). My recommendations for keeping your sanity and educating young people about sound and music: Keep attending live music performance, and keep acoustic and unamplified live music part of your diet.

Well…..thanks man
ya this is good stuff to know.
i was happy at 192kbs, so now i gotta go back and rip my CDs at 320kbs.

These days I listen to mp3s almost exclusively. My listening habits are driven by music that I like, and that sounds great – with or without too much compression. Really great digital recordings do stand out – Massive Attack’s “Mezzanine” and “100th Window” come to mind for great depth and dynamics.

When I used to listen to vinyl, the sound quality of pop music was equally hit and miss. Many records were flat and some were brilliant.

What I’m coming to is that in the pop music market, a large majority of listeners just don’t care much about sound quality. This is easily evidenced by all those mp3s one finds that aren’t tagged, that have glitches, and that are at 128kbps or even less.

But without much digging, a modern-day audiophile can still find gold, particularly by looking outside pop music. A recent discovery for me, The Uri Caine Ensemble won’t be in the top 40, but certainly will thrill your ears if you let them.

At 46 I’ve experienced the transition from analog to digital music reproduction. I remember when the big selling point for cd’s was the supposed pristine sound. No doubt, cd’s do sound crisper, but there’s no guts to the sound. Mp3’s are much worse, obviously. Overall, I think the music industry got what it deserved when everybody used the digital format to get their music for free. They killed the quality of the sound for more profit and it came back to bite them beyond belief. They should’ve seen it coming.

II’ve been making records professionally for 30 years and listening to music for 51 years. I wear alotta hats in the industry, so I propose a schism, yeah, a revolt of sorts, and I put out a challenge to artists. All my analog friends, you know, people who still record on 2″ analog tape and then mix onto 1/2″ analog tape and then master to SACD, Oh shit!! whadd I say, yes……..

All those people have their work converted to a digital realm.

So here’ the challenge:

release two levels of products for two demographics-

-[1]- iPod happy !! i don’t care if they’re mp3, mp4, FLAC or whuudddeveuh you want, just as long as they download quickly so I can be on with my ADD lifestyle!

-[2]- Audiophile Acceptable…….

Why not release music at the same sampling depth and bit rate that it was originally recorded?? File size !! File size you say, hell I have 2 G of storage hangin’ off of my keychain. People who want great sound will pay for it and will wait for the download or wait for a “hi-def” copy to arrive via snail mail.

Leave the “crush”- [Multiband strangulation of the details] out and let people hear the music. How SACD didn’t get included in the BluRay spec is criminal and unfortunately supports the erroneous premise that no one gives a shit about sound.

And a sidebar to all the CES vendors:

[1]-An iPod that plays 24 bit /192 kHz files, a cell phone that plays 24 bit /192 kHz files………
[2]-A hardware playback engine that supports 24 bit /192 kHz files Or LARGER………….and interfaces to an analog pre-amp/power amp combo.

Maybe users of such “Audiophile” gear [my apologies to all you tri-amped, Mogami only, Conrad Johnson Monoblockheads....] can lead by example and show the world what it has been missing.

Oh yeah,

live music rules !!!!!!

I’ve been making records professionally for 30 years and listening to music for 51 years. I wear alotta hats in the industry, so I propose a schism, yeah, a revolt of sorts, and I put out a challenge to artists. All my analog friends, you know, people who still record on 2″ analog tape and then mix onto 1/2″ analog tape and then master to SACD, Oh shit!! whadd I say, yes……..

All those people have their work converted to a digital realm.

So here’ the challenge:

release two levels of products for two demographics-

-[1]- iPod happy !! i don’t care if they’re mp3, mp4, FLAC or whuudddeveuh you want, just as long as they download quickly so I can be on with my ADD lifestyle!

-[2]- Audiophile Acceptable…….

Why not release music at the same sampling depth and bit rate that it was originally recorded?? File size !! File size you say, hell I have 2 G of storage hangin’ off of my keychain. People who want great sound will pay for it and will wait for the download or wait for a “hi-def” copy to arrive via snail mail.

Leave the “crush”- [Multiband strangulation of the details] out and let people hear the music. How SACD didn’t get included in the BluRay spec is criminal and unfortunately supports the erroneous premise that no one gives a shit about sound.

And a sidebar to all the CES vendors:

[1]-An iPod that plays 24 bit /192 kHz files, a cell phone that plays 24 bit /192 kHz files………
[2]-A hardware playback engine that supports 24 bit /192 kHz files Or LARGER………….and interfaces to an analog pre-amp/power amp combo.

For a breath of fresh air amongst this mess – listen to Herbie Hancock’s “River – the joni letters”. Beautiful playing – captured by a wonderful job of engineering & mastering.
This is the way music should be done!!

I’ve got a question or two. What about remastered CD’s? Is this better or worse than the originals? Do compilations and bonus discs have the same attention to sound quality as they do the selections on them. Rhino comes to mind – I’ve always liked it when they get ahold of a favorite artist but are they doing the recordings justice?
What about the Creative Xmod enhancer?

Wow, sure are a lot of people here unclear on the difference between digital file compression and dynamic range compression.

Digital file compression shrinks the size of a digital file for easier transmission over a network. This process is hopefully non-destructive.

Dynamic range compression is an audio Special Effect, like an echo box or distortion. There are digital and analog versions of these devices. They need not be used destructively, but, like any effect, they can be wearyingly overused.

The over-compressed effect that everyone in the article is complaining about is not readily audible to everyone. It helps to hear comparisons, so check it out.

Are people really still arguing that vinyl LPs sound better than CDs? Oh, that’s right, this is Rolling Stone magazine we’re dealing with here.

A little history: The physical limitations of carving a sound print into a piece of wax (to be later transferred to vinyl) creates it’s own kind of compression. Sound engineers have to deal with this limitation by creating equalization schemes. For instance; loud bass passages, if not suppressed, would create a track in the wax so large it would destroy adjacent tracks! In the early days each recording company would use it’s own equalization formula to record a disk, and of course when played back a little tweaking of the bass and treble knob was required to restore the original sound. In the fifties a standard equalization formula was established by the RIAA which could be built into the ‘phono input’ of the consumers amplifier.
A digital recording doesn’t have the same physical limitations a needle in wax has. A small audio signal of whatever frequency can be assigned a small number, a large signal can be assigned a large number. The computer has no trouble recording the numbers and playing them back at the desired bit rate and sampling frequency. Your amplifier and speakers my have trouble reproducing the sound but there are no limitations to the computer.
Personally, when I first started buying CDs. I was both amazed and annoyed by the dynamic range. A CD with a wide dynamic range was thrilling, but it had to be listened to with great attention. If there was any ambient noise I’d have to turn the volume up to hear the soft passages and then the loud passages would really blast.
One last thing: Joe Levy did a comparison of vinyl, CD, and MP3 formats. But he didn’t make the most important comparison; he didn’t compare live musicians to recordings of the same musicians! At one point Joe says “The CD sounded good, though I was convinced the bass was warmer on the vinyl.” I don’t care if the bass was warm as Texas in August or cold as Alaska in February, I just want it to sound as close to the original as possible.

Glad to see some discussion on this. The article helped (partially) explain why so much new music sounds the same and sounds so bad. A couple of comments to add:

1. Now that I have kids I find that CDs and DVDs have an additional problem (with respect to cassettes-audio and VHS) they get scratched and dirtied easily.

2. Occasionally, after hours and hours of digital media, I will listen to an old cassette or watch a movie on VHS and have been surprised, even shocked, at what good sound and even image quality a tape has.

3. For me digital is convenient and crisp, but it makes no improvement over analogue in sound(or even image) quality. I’m happy that we have not abandoned analogue media and machines and we must keep it that way!

Remember this:
http://www.sitezero.com. au/files/brazil_zavier_cugat.m p3
has been through TWO generations of vinyl.The original being recorded in 1941, the second generation in the early 80’s. There are other recording from 1938 that are almost as good.As stated before, vinyl could easily go to 90 db dynamic range, though the effect was almost absurd and was mainly confined to test records to demonstrate how it sounded)
We’re getting off topic here, as I have no problems with the capabilities of CD, just the commercial pressure forcing bad sound, ironically in an effort to sell it.

As a mastering engineer, I can tell you that this article is trying to make a point but is kind of all over the place.

1) the loudness wars started long before the advent of mp3. Mp3 may have accelerated things, but it’s not the origin of the problem. Mp3 quality may be reduced, but remember how popular the cassette was back in the 80’s? That was even worse. Laying the loudness wars and the decline in audio quality at the foot of mp3’s is a bit disingenuous.

2) Compression is not, strictly speaking, the enemy. Recording engineers have been using compressors as effects for decades. They’re used live, they’re used in the studio, and sometimes even overcompression and sidechaining is used as an effect. It’s pretty much de-riguer in the recording process, and not for some trumped-up loudness reason – it’s just useful to make a good-sounding recording.

3) Pro Tools is not the culprit. The author writes about it as though the use of Pro Tools is responsible for all of music’s ills. It’s analogus to blaming the problem on the mixing board. First, PT (or any other DAW) are complicated pieces of software and hardware – they’re not “as easy as using a word processor.” Similarly, they’re not magic – Autotune and Beat Detective can make corrections but they’re never going to make an amateur sound professional. Garbage in, garbage out (Butch Vig notwithstanding). You can make screwy overcompressed masters with entirely analog signal paths as well, if you’re so inclined.

4) Remastering is not by default a horrible process. In most cases it’s just cleaning up of a recording that was made on older gear. Heck, *Mastering* isn’t either. Yes, you can make things louder and you can compress/limit things. That’s part of what mastering is – adding a final layer of “smudge” (as one person called it) is one tactic that helps a recording hold together on the myriad systems it’s likley to be played on, and preps it level-wise for its target medium (CD, vinyl, tape, film, TV, etc). While some recordings can sound acceptable in an unmastered state, most really don’t. I mean, your speakers are different than your neighbors’, and it’s the job of the Mastering Engineer to do what they can to make sure the album sounds similar – and decent – on both of them.

5) Overlimiting is a very real problem, but it’s not new. Each generation of technology has produced new mastering tools which allow the engineer to push the envelope just a bit further. Probably the only reason things weren’t compressed beyond recognition 20 years ago was because the technology wasn’t there to do it yet.

6) Don’t automatically blame the mastering engineer. Most of us hate hate HATE being asked to make it as loud as possible, partially because it takes all the subtlety out of our craft, and partially because it’s really not good for our ears, which are our stock-in-trade.

Similarly, the tools are cheap these days, so anyone with half a mind to can compress/limit the holy hell out of their track.

I dunno, this article overall leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I see what the author is getting at but it seems a little hysterical.

I’m just an average listener … so take this as a consumer reaction. That comment “God is in the details” really hit me. After many years of loving all kinds of music, especially rock and pop, I find myself retreating to classical music as the one place where a full range of volume, tempo, and tonal quality is still used to convey the emotional qualities of the music.

I’ve been an audio signal processing engineer for some years now and have designed a few dynamic range compression algorithms in the past. I have also been a mastering engineer in the past. The problem of loudness has gotten out of hand to say the least. I should just say this in agreement with some other posts up here; loudness issues relating to dynamic compression have absolutely nothing got to do with bitrate compression. They both contribute to the degradation of audio quality and it is the case that highly dynamically compressed audio content will not respond well to bitrate compression but the two issues really need to be dealt with separately. Dynamic compression in the context of audio reproduction was originally developed in order to help radio stations to broadcast with more average power without over modulating. Over modulation results in a radio station exceeding its permitted band width causing interference with nearby stations on the dial. In an effort to have the highest broadcast range and be loudest station on the dial, stations began to supply more power to their transmitters causing over modulation. At this stage, the FCC stepped in and began to impose hefty fines for over modulation. Being louder and having greater range means more money from advertisers so stations needed to find a way of being louder without over modulating. Compression had been in use in military comunication and was soon adopted in broadcast audio as early as the late 40’s. Compression allowed the radio stations to have both a longer broadcast range as well as being louder on the dial without over modulating. This is where the problem started and this is ultimately when the loudness war began. Limiters effectively gave broadcasters the ability to “apparently” increase the loudness of audio content without exceeding the peak limits which would casue over modulation. The race had now begun…who can be loudest without compromising audio quality? They just kept turning it up! It’s been getting louder ever since. Compressors and limiters are now used in almost every link in the recording and broadcast chain.
When used correctly dynamic range compression is almost indispensable in recording so what is the solution?
The one thing that we must keep in mind is that limiters and compressors are not autonomous (although ironically some now are!)…normally somebody sets the parameters or decides to use ‘auto’ compression, so ultimately the engineers who misuse compression and limiting are to blame, not compressors, not Pro Tools, not Waves L2. Although, what do you say to a client who demands a super loud master? Or the record exec. who demands the loudest track possible? So in some cases even the engineers are not to blame!

This is well covered ground in Audio Engineering and I’m happy to see RS covering it for the music loving masses too.
It is unfortunate that it has come to this but some standardistion is occuring in the broadcast industry on loudness of audio content. ITU BS-1770 deals with loudness standardisation which is probably what we need at this stage but may also compromise artisitic integrity if it extends into the recording industry. Ultimately, education is the way forward and I think that we may just see a new breed of ‘loudness aware’ engineers if the issue continues to get as much coverage as possible.

Dan
http://www.audioresearchgrou p.com

Reading through the comments, it seems there are ways to fight it. Take something from the movie industry and release a(n) “Artist’s/Producer’s Cut” with the subcaption, “The way the artist intended their music to be heard”… The compression wars (which I hate calling the loudness wars because people who don’t understand it just say to turn the volume down) have been going on a long time and with cheaper digital distribution, and weakened labels, it is the time to convince people that the goal should be naturalism in sound engineering…

I have an MP3 player, and listen mostly to classical music. But not really on the player as you get no sense of space or anything like thwe true range of the music. When a flute sounds as loud as a full orchestra, something is wrong.

“Decibel creep” is the term for this. Paul M. called it that years ago. “The Stones would listen to our record and go a little louder. Then we’d listen to theirs, and go a bit louder. And so on. Decibel creep.” GL, SFSU

omfg, arguing about the compression of the files is pointless… any song with a quality above 192kb/s is a waste of space without the proper headphones to hear the difference, I mean, I spend 150$ on my headphones and sound card so I could buy cds and hear the difference between 192 and 320, and with another 50$, I’m able to hear the subtle differences between 320 and 1.4 mb/s which is the actual compression of the songs on the album. converting songs to smaller sizes cuts off sounds THAT NORMALLY AREN’T HEARD WITH REGULAR HEADPHONES. I admit, 128 kb/s is pretty crappy, but that’s only because the range cut off starts to bite at the audible range of songs that you would hear, in say, the earbuds that come with an iPod. I agree with carlos, if its too loud, turn it down, and if you don’t like the way the album was mastered, don’t support the band. if the band has some spending money, they can always master it themselves so that this doesn’t happen.

a lot of the complaints are due to the mp3 player or the headphones… My problem with some bands, like tool’s 10000 days, is the sound card, because when it tries to make everything sound like surround-sound, it brings out stuff you shouldn’t hear as loud, like the samples used in vicarious, 10000 days, wings for marie etc.

I’m just a regular dude, music lover for my whole life and I don’t see what the big deal is. While I definitely think that over-compressed (sonically, not digitally) music results in a muddy, undifferentiated mess (See: Californication), i don’t think that MP3/AAC is that big of a problem. For one thing, most people don’t have (can’t afford) the equipment to resolve every nuance of the music. Secondly, most people can’t even physically hear every nuance of the music. I myself try to get the best equipment I can afford (I use Axiom Audio speakers and Grado 325 headphones) but I honestly cannot tell the difference between CD audio and 128 AAC. For most people, the convenience of MP3/AAC far outweighs the slight, dubious increase in sound quality. People aren’t willing to shell out $15000+ for an audio system just to get a better sense of “spaciousness” in music. Granted, I’m no audiophile, but neither is 90% of the music-buying public.

I get plenty of detail, soundstage and clarity for my taste (and just about everyone who has heard my system) while having the convenience of my entire music collection in AAC/MP3 format at the click of a remote in my AppleTV. Now that is advanced technology!

The assumption that you have to spend $15000 to be able to tell the differences between the music and to discern the tiny nuances is a fallacy. Personally I’ve spent around maybe $500 or $600 on upgrading the system in my car and one can definitely tell the difference. If people can afford to waste $500 to $400 on an iPhone or around $200 for a various shitty version of an iPod, there is no reason money can’t be saved for a moderately decent stereo.

Also, just because YOU yourself can’t discern the difference between MP3 audio and CD quality audio doesn’t mean, that those who can should have to suffer and put up with your bullshit.

Regarding the way music sounds on video game soundtracks:

Guitar Hero III sounds pretty horrible in my opinion, but Rock Band actually sounds BETTER than some of the original recordings by the bands on there. I’ll use the Queens of the Stone Age song “Go With the Flow” for an example. On the CD, if you look at the soundwave pattern it is just one huge block of noise; however, if you rip the track from the Rockband game and check out the soundwave pattern you can actually see the peaks and dips. It sounds a hell of a lot more impactful as well. Sure, it may sound quieter after you listen to the CD version, but you know what rectifies and enhances that? The volume knob being turned up by, and this is key, the LISTENER and not the people responsible for the compression.

A little background: I’m a small-time recording artist who makes music because it makes me happy. I have tens of fans in fives of countries. I’ve sold out the living room on numerous occasions (free admission).

So:
So I don’t have the money or influence to do top-end recordings. I listen to what engineers say, take it into account, assemble the best bargain bits (software, compressor/exciter, tube preamps, noise reducer, microphones, etc.) I can from eBay and Craigslist, then do what’s REALLY important: capturing emotion, feeling, aurora, and motion in sound. Sometimes, I have the patience to fiddle with my dimestore equipment enough to get a truly remarkable high-quality recording. Sometimes, I set things up where they should be “OK”, then let it rip.

So, when I submit recordings to people for review, the first comment tends to be that the recording isn’t blast-compressed for instant recognition on 1/2″ speakers in a digital device. The second comment is usually that the music isn’t recorded to “industry standards” (read:loud, sparkly, flatly dynamic).

I’m glad I don’t have a suit telling me that I have to ruin my recordings with over-processed tools. I’m proud of my music. My recordings are expressions of my soul, not commercial receptacles for the boardroowm.

There are some truly wizard engineers, technicians, and artists out there (you gals and guys ROCK). They do stuff that is nothing less than magic. The tools aren’t responsible for mangling music. Most of the time, the engineers, techs, and artists aren’t responsible for mangling the recordings. It isn’t about blame – it’s about (music industry culture) cultural ignorance to sublety, nuance, emotion, and light-of-soul.

Yes, “The Red Rock Hills” is a quiet recording. No, “The Red Rock Hills” not going to make it on pop radio. No, I don’t mind that it’s made me only $21 in the past three years. Yes, lots of real care went into the recording. Give it a listen from uncompressed source like the original CD… you can hear me breathe. You can even hear the tears. And John Boy & Billy will never know the difference.

Jimmy

I’ve been reading through all of the comments here, and it’s amazing how much confusion still exists. As far as I can see, the technical specs of LPs, CDs, mp3s, et cetera (and many other concerns raised), have nothing to do with sound engineers deliberately distorting the music to make it appeal to some minority who don’t care about sound quality, just loudness.

As a music fan of 44 years standing, I’ve been pro-CD since they first appeared on the scene in 1983. Recently, though, I’ve been working with a well-known blues musician, assembling a compilation of his roots from existing LPs and CDS, preparing demo recordings to send to his arranger, and other audio tasks. By pointing out the deficiencies of recent CD sound, he’s made me very critical of what’s been happening in the industry over the last couple of years.

In a previous note, I mentioned my unhappiness with “re-mastered” titles. Some seem to have interpreted this as a critique of re-mastering itself, but there are plenty of good examples of restoration work (Bob Irwin, Steve Hoffman, Dennis Drake…). What I’m saying is that nothing I’ve heard lately is listenable (notable examples: Lucinda Williams’ “Car Wheels” and any of the latest Cream and Allman Brothers discs). Worst of all are the “mini-LP sleeve” series coming from Japan, which sound like they were done by a 14-year who had just been given his first graphic equalizer (”gee, it sounds really cool if I push everything up to the max!”).

I’ve tried experimenting with expanders to see if some of the original sound can be recovered, but it never works. I’m probably just not experienced enough to pull this trick off, but still the failure makes me suspect that there’s more being done to degrade the sound than just dynamic compression.

And for those who continue to suggest that listeners just “turn it down”, what seems to happen is this: a slight volume decrease results in going quickly from too loud to too soft, with no sweet spot in between. Listening to that “Car Wheels” remaster, I found myself constantly changing the volume to try to find a comfortable setting that was “just right”. It couldn’t be done.

One final thought, for all the folks who don’t care whether or not they’re experiencing the true sound of recordings, as long as they can get the general idea on their cheap iPods or car stereos. What you’re doing is not very different from watching a contemporary movie with the color turned off. You get the details of the story okay, but you’re missing an entire dimension of the artistry and the best of the sensual experience of music. Today’s degraded CD sound is, in effect, approaching black and white teevee viewing.

Here is the solution: with memory getting cheaper at an exponential rate, there is no reason to skimp on the amount of information contained in audio files. So we should try to create audio-files that are worthy of being played on the very best equipment, containing every scrap of detail that anyone will ever be able to appreciate. However: it is helpful for sound to be compressed when people are listening to music while driving, in bars, etc. So what we need is are audio-players which know how to compress those wonderful audio-files all by themselves when necessary.

“The masses don’t know what they want until it is given to them”

they probobly want the most for their money.

highly portable music i can listen to on the bus and tap my finger to at .99 a song..swell

-or-

great i have some spare time to veg in my room listening to Weinerschnitzel’s ‘Gotterdamerung’ on my VoxMagnifico monitors i bought off of ebay. ahh..the nuance.

Much of the new music is pretty much garbage anyway, no matter how good the production. I can’t believe that I actually miss the 90s…

Some of the best recordings I have are the Kingston Trio. They sound wonderful. The 50s and the 60s produced some good sounds that stand the test of time.
The processs of recording and replay is done best with less. I hope record producers will someday relearn how to do fine recording and if they do I will begin to buy their work and their artists.

Phil
Santa Fe, NM

I don’t much mind new music being trashed this way, but I’m really dreading the eventual appearance of Beatles remasters. The ’80s versions were bad enough.

What ever happened to the idea of the radio edit? Why not just heavily compress that, and leave the album alone?

We’re living in an age where home recording can end up being the finished product. Compression can turn a recording with relatively inexpensive microphones from sounding like a “demo” to bringing it closer to the speakers and effectively sounding more like a proffessional recording.

As for the Arctic Monkeys album; I enjoyed the album so much that I never actually thought to sit and analyse it’s fidelty. It’s just a great album, even on a crappy Rover car stereo everyday for a couple of months.

Now that downloads are so fast, and hard drives are so big, do we really need such heavily compressed files anymore? Maybe wavs should kick out mp3’s.

Back in the sixties people like Brian Wilson and Phil Spector made mixes for transistor radios and the single speaker in your dashboard. They’d have DJ’s play them so that they could drive around and see what they sounded like to the average listener. BUT…and this is a BIG BUT…they also had a seperate mix that was mastered and listened to on the best equipment available at that time. Both versions were saved on the best magnetic tapes that money could buy. What has been done with some of these masters is criminal and some of it is sublime. The devil is in the details and I submit that some truly AMAZING work has been done by loving and caring engineers when transfering these old and deteriorating tapes to digital. I, personally, don’t stick iPods in my ears and probably never will. I prefer to hear music BREATHE and fill a room with warmth. I know that is difficult given everyone’s close proximity these days and the need to not disturb the neighbors, but JEEZ…music IS analog…we hear waveforms and sound MOVES the air…digital is a CARRIER of analog waveforms. Give me a granite-slab turntable with a state-of-the-art pickup and the right diamond stylus and I’ll show you how music is SUPPOSED to sound…

Not that anyone cares about my opinion…

the Good Doctor

rolling stone is just covering this NOW?!?!?!?

this is very old news. RS needs to get with the times. they should have published this article 4-5 years ago.

The White Stripes “Elephant” is the best sounding record i think i’ve ever heard. The music breathes so much but it still packs a crunchy punch. Jack White needs to produce more bands because he has it figured out.

There’s a good video here on the topic:
http://www.artistshouse music.org/videos/compression

An experienced mastering engineer talking about the loudness issue.

I find it ironic that someone who produced an album by “Hawthorne Heights” is saying something about good music.

IMHO, the music industry is like TV – a democracy. For TV you vote with the channel changer (and that channels sponsors book more ads so the station schedules more of the same shit), or with your dollars at the music shop (and the music companys produce more of the same or similar). And, unfortunately, Joe Blow *wants* crap on TV, and he *wants* overcompressed music. So – now it becomes a matter of trying to educated the masses, which I’m sure will be a daunting task…

Oh, another thing… Uh, life should be more about *people*, no? I mean, heah, music is great, and I listen to it almost constantly (fairly quietly for background mood, or less commonly intently in order to get the message of the music). But shouldn’t we devote more time to others (while we’re listening to music, of course)? Music is just one (small) piece of this mosaic called Life, isn’t it? People, their needs, their problems, their struggles – these pieces of the mosaic are much more important, aren’t they? So let’s do more to help others, and we will end up helping ourselves.

And I hope these bastards stop overcompressing the shit out of music!

Interestingly enough, after reading this article and as many of the referenced articles as I could pull up, I was left thinking of something that wasn’t addressed anywhere…
In the “Everything Louder than Everything Else” article there was a mention of a record store employee who said they never played older cds on their multi-disc cd player because they’re too quiet. That’s the basic problem here. These days music is most often played on iPods and multi-disc cd players and quite often in a shuffle mode. You can’t throw a “quiet cd into the mix of either or you have to stand by the stereo and adjust the volume knob each time it goes back and forth. Although I started out buying vinyl, my current collection of digital music (that I listen to) is almost all new, loud stuff. Therefore it would be annoying to me to buy a cd that was mastered “quiet”. I wouldn’t be able to throw it in the mix. All the iTunes equalizing solutions I tried (to make quiet music fit in with loud music) make the music sound even more compressed. Trying to make a cd mix of old and new music is almost impossible. At any rate, at this point we’re talking about a consistency issue. All music has to remain over-compressed and terrible or it simply just won’t fit in the mix.

The music being put out these days is SOOO incredibly horrible, I’d rather listen to talk radio.

Who cares how it is mixed? If it sucks, it might as well not be mixed at all!!

I grew up in the 70s-90s Graduated HS in 1990. Music was so good then. No “hip-hop” or ‘gangster’ shite, no fake drums (except from the ‘pop’ tunes, but even those were better than the crap pop now)! I loved hard rock, classic rock, Metal, etc.. It was very inspiring to listen to being a guitar player.
THEN….. it turned into ’seattle grunge’ or nothing, then … NOTHING! Rock and Roll is DEAD now.

When I used to buy an album, on 99% of them EVERY SONG was great. Now they just sell singles, one-hit wonders that you could copy and paste over each other and see they are the same with diferent words, but the same exact structure. It has to be ‘punkish’, with 2 chords, NO solos, no tallent!

Just watch American Idol tonight and see for yourself who they are looking to give a record contract to! They were PISSED when we liked Bo, or especially Taylor Hicks. They destroyed him and got rid of him even though he won! They want one Maria Carey after another, or spiked hair idiots who cannot write a song.

Even that show with Tommy Lee as a judge looking for a rock star sucked! They found…shit!

To Rolling Stone: Listen to the music from 1965 to 1995 and figure out why it is a million times better! Tell the Music industry to quit killing music and get back to 1990!
We are all set with flash hits on the radio loved by teenage girls because the other teenage girls tell them it rules.

What about talent? What about guitar solos? Singing that is not just yelling??

I do not expect it to get better, only worse..

The consistency observation is interesting. I’d suggest, though, that if the mixes of the past 5 to 10 years have gotten out of whack with a century’s worth of music before it that was presented naturally and correctly, it’s the new stuff that should be corrected. It doesn’t make sense to break everything else.

Don-
You’re right of course, but that chunk of badly mixed music represents most of the music in the hands of the prime target audience of the record companies- teenagers and twenty-somethings.

Look, no one cares about design and construction, about sequencing, or whether the album hangs together, or if the 11 songs tied to the hit exist, or even if there is a physical representation of the music to own. Music as anything other than something constantly shoved at the brain doesn’t exist anymore, so what does sound quality matter now anyway? And besides, most consumers aren’t actually paying for it so why would they care?

At home over this Christmas period I discovered this loudness thing for myself. My dad put on a vinyl and I sat there listening for ages. I music was easy to listen to and didn’t hurt my ears like new music. I sifted through his dusty collection and found Brothers in Arms. Money for Nothing sounded soo good to the point where I can’t listen to the song on my ipod anymore! My question is how do we tackle this problem? Is it not to improve the bitrate/quality of sound from mp3 players??

My first audiophile musical experience was in 67 listening to Sgt. Pepper’s. I still have a turntable though I bought my first CD player in 98 and mostly listen to that. I don’t have an MP3 player. I know quite a lot about vinyl, less about CDs, and even less about the CDs I now burn.

My question to any serious techie is whether my burned copies are compromised, whether the files saved on my harddrive are compressed and inferior. My ears are older and I’m not sure it matters as much anymore, but still I’d like to know from a technical standpoint. And does slow burning help? Cheers to all.

The Quality vs Convenience war is already lost – and convenience wins hands down every time. Ever since the end of the ’60’s we’ve been expected to accept less. And so we have.

Do microwaves make your food taste better? Do cell phones sound better than two tin cans and a string? Is your computer on wheels as much fun to drive as a 1967 Mustang?

The answer, of course, is no. Nuked food is faster; a mobile phone fits in your pocket; and fun was outlawed in the 80’s.

Ultimately the punters will choose the path of least resistance because, let’s face it, concentration is hard. And, god forbid, you should want to sit down and listen to music – really listen with your ears and your brain and maybe, just maybe, enjoy it or discuss it!

We get what we deserve and, as far as I can tell, the dross that comes out of Music Corp Central or Laptopville is nothing but wallpaper. It’s soul-less, bland, grey drivel.

The Pod People have spoken: “Keep It Simple for the Stoopids”.

Here’s the quick fix for the attention def-i-sitters who are too anxious to wait for the next trip across the pond to perfection of old school sounds…

Cruise the old stereo shops and buy the old tube power amp and a good used reel to reel.. the thicker the better tape head size man… that’s what counts!

no only joking… find a good 1\2 inch if you can and by the time your done tinkering with wires and the fun of finding a really cool old clean machine.. you’ll already have time under your belt to do what you were born to do…roll on one.

p.s. xtra points for doing your homework and researching which old tubes and connectors work well with others.oh ya, and don’t forget to ask the old guy in the corner for an opinion or two…

p.p.s. don’t let your ears bleed.

I have a 15 year old daughter who has had a portable CD player for years and asked for a MP3 player or IPod to play downloaded music. I was impressed but confused (now more impressed) when she came back and withdrew her request after listening to friends IPods and MP3 players. She said they “sounded aweful” and wanted a new portable CD player instead and didn’t care that it held only 20-30 songs. After reading this discussion, I now know why.

This is simply evolution, when a new technology arrives it isn’t allways better than the previous, but it can becam in the future.

The original iPod, just 7 years ago, had
5Gb,so you had to compress music as much as you could. Now you have a 80Gb iPod so you can fit the same music with 15x the quality. It is just a matter of time until we have better quality on an iPod that we ever had on a CD or a Vinil.

Betacam was also better than VHS, but how cares when Betacam were much more expensive. Now you have DVD’s.

I agree with many that the problem of dynamic compression isn’t a function of iPods-I have loaded many of my 1980’s CD’s onto my iPod and they’re not compressed dynamically. They don’t sound as loud as stuff downloaded from iTunes, of course, but that’s OK with me because I actually like dynamic range.

Lack of compression in the rock genre is killing the music and the artists. I believe new artists’ music gets shunted to the side because much of it is recorded so poorly that people find little to distinguish between.

It’s really bad to see Led Zeppelin release an album like Mothership, which they didn’t need to do in the way they did. How about a remaster that actually keeps or broadens the dynamic range instead of constricting it? How about a DSD remaster or a 24-bit 2-channel version, like what’s become available on MVI’s? Had Zep done something like this with Mothership, marketed it as “the best sounding Zep ever”, the loudness/compression problem would be exposed for what it is and probably on its way out.

I spent a lot of time buying a quality stereo system and for what? Yes I do have some fantastic sounding cd’s, but I happen to like rock and pop music so I now actually have a hearing problem, my ears don’t accept these compressed sounds. Has anyone heard of any lawsuits filed against record companies for intensionally distorting what should be acurately recorded music. We need laws to protect the consumer from ruining their hearing because of greedy record companies.

the mp3 standard, when used properly, can be a very dynamic high quality media. Most music gets “compressed” during the final mix to go on the radio – a media with limited dynamics. Now that radio has less and less to do with distributing music, this compression can be avoided! But for music to sound great, it needs to be produced well from the beginning to the end, from the microphones, mixing consoles, effects generators etc. Any one of these layers can compromise the quality, but if they are all done properly, the mp3 version will sound great even at 128k rates (better if higher of course). The real problem most people have is that the speakers they use connected to their ipods or computers don’t have good frequency range or dynamics. With this in mind, I highly suggest reading some of the comments you find on the net about the auxout 400 speaker system.

It is not just about compression. I am old enough to remember how mono Lps sounded. One or two microphones. One could hear the room acoustics, one could hear the blending of the instruments (even if they were not all distinct and up front), one could hear style differences of the performers. This meant that emotional expression was more subtle, and more important–not the flat emotional expressionlessness of today.
Result: today’s music has less range of emotional expression and less acoustic realism. It is an assault on the eardrums, a sort of acoustic masturbation, rather than the pleasure of music.

Has anyone seen, used, owned a DBX Dynamic Range Expander? (1bx, 2bx,3bx) These audio components will take care of most of the these problems. These were designed back in the 70’s & 80’s to compensate for LP’s with the same problems that MP3’s have been effected with now.
Though, joe bloe mp3 player guy will never know what he is missing today, word will get out, later.., that there is more in the music then what iPod ear buds can produce; CD-player, pre-amp, power-amp,(?what are those mp3 guy?) 1 pair Klipsch Klipschorn’s and the music will be there.
Want to take your music with you. Use an uncompressed codec, a pair of AKG, or Snnheiser headphones, and you’re in.. (bigger then earbuds… so what – they sound better) These types are looking to stand out anyway, why not with a good sounding hip pocket player, & phones.
TMO
KLund1

The solution is to sell CDs with full dynamic range LPCM tracks and also dynamically compressed MP3 files. The MP3 (or AAC or WMA) files take up very little space and would make it easier to transfer the album to a portable MP3 player. Convenience for those that don’t care about sound (or like it compressed) and better sound quality for those of us that appreciate the difference. It is really unfortunate that digital technology which has the power to bring us so much closer to the artist and the live experience is being used to dumb down art to the lowest common denominator.

Greg’s idea sounds pretty good to me! I just bought the Strut compilation “The Compass Point Story” and was excited to listen to it, Alex Sadkin is one of the best producers ever as far as I’m concerned and Steve Stanley is an engineering genius. First track I thought sounded weird, went into the second and the drums seemed to disappear. Looked at the audio files in Audacity and it’s squashed to hell and some tracks even have digital clipping. I still have my original copy of Grace Jones “Living My Life” CD from the early 80s so was able to compare the audio files – shocking, What depresses me most is the fact that this incredible group of musicians and producers made this amazing music at Compass Point during that period (Sly & Robbie, Wally Badarou, etc), and their work has been destroyed by bad mastering and many people will never hear it the way they intended it to sound; and boy, does it sound incredible on a decent system! Part of the reason I still have that original CD is I’ve always used it as reference when shopping for hi fi components.

One side effect of this may be that CDs mastered in the 80s will start going for premium prices secondhand; I just found the original CD of Living My Life listed on Amazon in the UK and used copies are advertised for 50 pounds.

I’m playing an old chart hits compilation CD from late 1986 as I type this. I got it from eBay and today is the frist chance I’ve had to play it all week. They say compilations are the worst offenders for dynamic compression. This one has all the “oomph” where “oomph” should be. The quiet parts of songs are quiet. The loud parts are loud.

One song on it is Billy Joel’s “A Matter Of Trust” so I whipped out my seldom played “The Essential Billy Joel” CD from 2001 (I have his Greatest Hits Vol 1&2 on LP) and ripped a wave file of the same song off both CD’s to look at them in waveform view like the images in the article. Whilst it does look as though the old hits CD might have been compressed a little, the Essential CD is clip city with most of the 4min 10sec off the scale! The old one still has quite a few peaks but even it’s loudest peak is around the same level as the Essential’s quietest moments NOT counting the 1-2-3-4 count-in at the start of the song. The count-in itself is strange: It’s peaks match on both copies but the waveform shows the new one is louder on the quiet bits between Billy’s counting than the old one!

Now, I am almost 30 and have been a fan of music since as long ago as I can remember and have preferred records since my teens. I prefer recording a mixtape on a tape rather than a CD. I have a huge MP3 collection that has filled the gaps in my music collection after my rough patch where I had to sell off my records, tapes and CD’s. (I did not sell my home recorded tapes of course!) But after several years of MP3′ing, I’m now out to re-build my record and CD collection. I had chosen CD’s simply because they are cheaper. Within six months I have changed my mind and am now collecting records instead. That’s not to say I don’t like CD’s. For the most part I like them almost as much as records. But it’s now a gamble as to whether or not a CD is any good – not the band, but the mastering. I may pay up to triple the price of the CD to get the record but at least I know I am getting what I pay for!

Honestly, I can’t fault sound engineers for mixing tunes with an eye towards optimal performance on low-end equipment; speakers and headphones sophisticated enough that any bitrate over 128k makes an appreciable difference isn’t quite the exclusive preserve of the most fanatical audiophile and/or the very wealthy, but it’s still a daunting sum of money for those with little disposable income. And I’ve come across some album mixes that go too far the other way, for that matter; at one point I had to jam every equaliser setting in iTunes to the maximum just to make out some parts of my CD copy of Dark Side Of The Moon, albeit on one of the cheapest and nastiest pairs of speakers I’ve ever owned. The quality was sub-optimal to put it charitably, but it was better than not being able to hear half the album for three months while I saved up for some better speakers.

cnatro

I used to listen to mp3s just to be able to know more music, then find good stuff and buy the CD. I hate the way mp3 sounds, but it does help me to meet new bands. But, since the loudness war took over, CDs sound quite the same as mp3 rips. So it became pointless to spend tens of bucks in a piece of plastic with noise. I quit buying CDs until they sound minimally decent.
BTW, compressing music for radio is unbelievably stupid. Radio stations compress all their sound sources!

Crappy audio gear could have built-in compressors/limiters. This way, CDs could be well produced while cheap boomboxes could still sound loud.
I also agree with Greg’s point.

Regards

I really love listening to various types of metal, but the genre is so badly squashed. I still listen to and enjoy a lot of artists, but I wish I could find just ONE good dynamic album. I have been recording my own music for a good 10 years, and it really is much more listenable. People that claim it doesn’t make a difference to them probably don’t realize how much that “urge to hit the next track button” or “move on to a different artist” may be coming from the flat dynamics.

It’s funny that people are saying you have to have a $5,000+ sound system to hear the difference in “subtle nuances.” Are you kidding me?! You can hear the difference on $50 computer speakers, $30 headphones, almost anything. I’ve asked my wife who knows nothing about sound and she can hear a difference.

CDs can sound absolutely amazing when treated with the same approach that analogue gets; it’s not the medium. Find the best CD track ever recorded in terms of fidelity and that’s all you need to prove it’s not the medium. There is a happy balance where albums aren’t squashed, but aren’t ridiculously loud in their choruses compared to the verses.

Let’s not mix up lossy audio file compression as done by mp3 and dynamic range compression. A well done mp3 (typically 200+ kbps and with a modern codec) cannot be distinguished from the original. It is not the reason to run the loudness race. Rather the ability to catch attention for a few seconds is.
And this hurts everybody who listens to music longer than a few seconds.
With mp3gain at least the different volumes of tracks can be compensated for mobile listening. Unfortunately the removal of dynamics and distortion by exagerated dynamic compression is not undone. That’s why older CDs often sound better.

This is probably yet another comment to get lost within the myriad of other comments, but I’ll throw my 2 cents in anyway.

I’m not an audio professional, nor can I claim to be. However I’ve spent a lot of time listening to music, and recently, an increasing amount of time analysing music. I can’t really say anything that hasn’t already been said here, except this: some modern releases can be fixed by “declipping” them.
Without getting too complicated, that basically means grabbing the squished bits and guessing what they used to be. Non-free programs like Adobe Audition, iZotope RX and SeeDeClip can do this, however, it’s impossible to get it right all the time, and they can occasionally stuff up (ironically, the cheapest of those three [SeeDeClip] does a better job than the other two commercial-giants), however the result is still a heck of a lot more listenable than the original.
That’s one way to attempt to restore modern music, however the music shouldn’t have been so messed up in the first place! I agree with others about the artist’s vision for their music; this gets utterly forgotten about when the mastering engineer (usually under contractual obligation, and not willingly) squishes the life out of it.

i think anything on fm radio sounds crappy.

I think the music industry has done themselves a miservice unknowingly over the last twenty years or so since digital audio has become the standard method of listening to music. In my opinion the standard of digital replay (across the range from LoFi to HiFi) has up until very recently not been up to the job of replaying music with any thing near the precision needed for exciting and coherent listening. In some ways I think the Loudness issue is an unconscious attempt to introduce some “kick” or “excitement” back to the listening experience.
As a result the general public appears to have a more fickle relationship to recorded music these days. Why buy a recording when all it is good for is listening to as background filler for a short while before moving on to another recording? Could this be the reason why recorded music sales are in decline?
I’d like to see a properly mastered version of many CDs being available along-side the standard “Loud” versions, I’d buy ‘em.

Does a simple utility exist for printing waveforms, or do I have to do a screen capture from my audio editing program (Ausdacity)and crop it?

Way too many people are confusing data compression (e.g., as related to creating mp3 or wma files) with the audio volume range compression that is being discussed in this article. They are distinctly different issues…

I’ve been noticing this for years. I have always been trying to find a way to turn down newer music so it isn’t in the red. I’ve had to turn down the preamp on music software. I’ve also had to put negative values on replaygain. This is extremely annoying when I play older stuff cause I have to turn it up so loud to here it with the amp down. I wish new music could be like the older stuff.
Also with the disscussion on ipods I hate them they always sound terrible. Stuff just sounds like it’s in the red all the time.

Much of today’s music sounds dense. If the words are part of the song, they are sometimes unintelligible. Also, especially in Rap/Hip-Hop, the bass is overpowering, and many performers are indistinguishable from others. With today’s iPods now able to hold 80 GB, I cannot see why the full CD bitrate cannot be used, or better headphones be included. About 100 full CDs can fit on an iPod without compression or conversion. Even higher sampling rates and bit depths are possible. Some studios are using 192 kHz 24 bit. My recording equipment is limited to 2-channels, and that’s plenty for my needs. I had a cassette deck with two microphone inputs, manual record level controls, and the sound quality was excellent. With decent microphones well placed, direct-to-2-track is capable of great sound. Classical music is usually recorded best by such means. Just put a pair of microphones above the conductor, and the balance usually takes care of itself. An accent microphone might help a quiet instrument if not overdone. Ambience mikes, near the back of the concert hall, could help if the main pickup is too dry.

Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?
Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!

Hi Ive been milling around this internet site for awhile – Just wanted to join the conversation

What’s up:) Ive been reading this internet site for a while, Wanted to stop lurking

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I am from Western and also am speaking English, give please true I wrote the following sentence: “So we made it, but admittedly by the skin of our collective teeth.”

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Good morning. You couldn’t even prove the White House staff sane beyond a reasonable doubt.
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Waiting for a reply , Rich.