The Loudness War - your experiences - Page 8

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJGeorgeT 

LOL, so true. I used to drive and listen to my own mixtapes. That was a while back ago.

 

The only time it is OK to drive and listen to your own tunes is if the music is work in progress and you are trying to find if it sounds good in the car  cus I might change something otherwise.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by ramicio 

 

Lars Ulrich is a tool and said he likes the loud version of the album better and he drives around listening to it.  I think any artist who listens to their own music is a total tool.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by ramicio 

Yea, but that kinda belongs in the studio rather than trying to see how something should sound in a noisy environment such as a car.  It's one thing to listen to work on it, but to produce an album, then drive around listening to it after its released is just retarded.  People say Metallica cares about the music and not the money.  They must be stupid too because Lars Ulrich has always gone ape shit over people downloading music.  They did get into music to get rich.  I bet even before they were signed they still wanted people to pay for their music.

I have to agree with DJGeorge here, when I'm working on a mix, I try to listen to it through as many different systems as possible.  I find the music sounds different on a home stereo, compared to a car stereo, or headphones.  It also helps to keep in mind that most of the people that are going to hear this mix are using low end audio equipment.  That being said, I am very careful to preserve the dynamic range in all my music, and to make sure that it does sound good through high end gear. 

Commercialized artists don't do any of the work themselves, they just play.  They hire people like producers and engineers to make the decisions for them.  So for someone like Lars Ulrich to listen to DM in his car, that's just idiotic and toolish.  I could understand Metallica defending DM if they would have been the ones to do the work themselves, but it wasn't even their job that's being questioned.

I love Tool's earlier albums the last one was a little disappointing sound wise is this due to brick walling? The same for Infected Mushroom's last two, the last one being bad enough that i only listen to it in the car.

I think some stuff just sounds horrible is because equipment on the recording end is getting so spectacular yet the consumer format (CD) and equipment is staying the same or getting worse.  I just got "Damn The Torpedoes" by Tom Petty in 24/96 and their greatest hits was not brickwalled or anything by any means and the HD format sounds way better.  It's time for people to stop defending that the CD format is the best there can be and just move on, get a life, and realize more resolution is ALWAYS better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ramicio 

I think some stuff just sounds horrible is because equipment on the recording end is getting so spectacular yet the consumer format (CD) and equipment is staying the same or getting worse.  I just got "Damn The Torpedoes" by Tom Petty in 24/96 and their greatest hits was not brickwalled or anything by any means and the HD format sounds way better.  It's time for people to stop defending that the CD format is the best there can be and just move on, get a life, and realize more resolution is ALWAYS better.

The reason the 24/96 file sounds better is mainly due to mastering! More resolution is not always better if the mastering is bad. Listen to the high resolution DVDA of "Rumours" and you will hear the same crap sound available on the new remasters. CD resolution is more than adequate enough to convey a well mastered albums sense of tone, dynamics and resolution.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ramicio 

Commercialized artists don't do any of the work themselves, they just play.  They hire people like producers and engineers to make the decisions for them.  So for someone like Lars Ulrich to listen to DM in his car, that's just idiotic and toolish.  I could understand Metallica defending DM if they would have been the ones to do the work themselves, but it wasn't even their job that's being questioned.

A lot of bands approve the final results of a album.

Metallica is a band who I'm sure could say something and the label would do what they want.

Death Magnetic was fine well some could argue the drums had sound issues until the final mastering stages where it was bumped up very loud and now sounds like it does.

The band should care about how it sounded or could hear something was obviously wrong with the final product.

A lot of albums are overly loud but most never come close to sounding as bad as DM sounds.

Now some bands don't always get a say in producer,production tone or how long they have to record etc...A lot of recording problems were many years ago though.

In these days with all the technology and what you can do I would think there isn't an excuse at all for a album to sound that bad especially from such a popular band with  a big recording budget they should have production wise one of the finest sounding albums around not one of worst ever.

To the original topic question:

I've had mixed experiences.  Being mostly a classical / movie score lover, the loudness war generally does not interfere with my music taste.  However, there are some bad apples out there for movie score lovers too...anyone who liked the first Pirates of the Caribbean will find a badly mastered album with lots of clipping.  Some of the more recent soundtrack entries (e.g. How to Train Your Dragon) are nice, but are definitely louder than what they need to be.  The dynamics aren't that huge, as is typical for a lot of orchestral music.

anime music.

There's tons of problems in making them sound better -- it has to sound decent coming out of TV speakers so dynamic range is typically thrown out the window; the recent trend towards using voice actors as the vocals means tracks from ill-trained vocalists need significant post-processing to not sound like they were singing in a karaoke bar; and, the people who care about audio quality have pretty much left the building, leaving behind a purchasing group that's either a devoted fanboy of the series or particular VA, sound quality be damned.  You'd think they would be in the crowd that's spending $1000+ to get more intimate with the series/etc, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I did find a wonderful long-running thread on 2ch that deals primarily with audio quality reviews of this particular genre, and have been enjoying tracks from various series that can actually keep up with better equipment.  It's certainly been an interesting way to rediscover some old series that I missed, and are now available for hefty discounts as dvd boxes.  Who could have guessed Hidamari Sketch had some very well done (for an anime song, anyway) acoustic image songs made for them?

Quote:

Originally Posted by MuuMuu 

anime music.

 

Vocal Tracks? Because the instrumental BGM usually used really can't be brickwalled without major sound problems.

The vocal tracks can be loud but still listenable although sometimes things are taken too far and it sounds horrible.

Like here is Gundam X opening pretty loud but still sounds listenable.

Here is a vocal track from anime in the 80's and listening to the song its just really nice sounding.

Here are some BGM tracks

This is one that makes a good point instrumental music the BGM good.

But here is the vocal opening vocal track to the above's BGM.

Here is BGM even to a somewhat recent show Monster (2004)

I haven't really seen any new new animes nor have I got the OST's.

But I would think most of  the damage is in the vocal tracks.

I really haven't liked any vocal tracks from newer stuff though.

Old stuff 80's early 90's anime had amazing vocal tracks.

They really don't have great songs like this anymore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My8eQby_E0c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKgAz_FcHy4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-liR39wY84
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nuv-1MaiayU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDmsQvexBIE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNBIXRobCNI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqTwQ_6N4HY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvMOAGv1f2U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhgr9lWdkKA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvzfGXt8Ck4

I feel a lot of the heart and passion from older anime is dead or absent in newer stuff.

Bit of an older post there, but since the problem still is the same...

Quote:

Originally Posted by LFF 

The music industry is going to hell at the moment.

When you explain it to the artists (indie or pro) they sometimes agree and see the point but fear that a lack of hyper-compression will make their EP's and full length records sell less.

When you explain it to the labels, the feel the same way as the artists.

When you explain it to the mix engineers, the feel the use of a loud mix will make their work stand out more. If they understand the point you are making, they feel the artist will think their mix was inadequate.

In other words, you might just as well be arguing against a solid brick wall. People are caught up within their paranoia, feeling they cannot afford to do things right (provided they actually still know how...). Have you ever heard any solid factual arguments? I doubt it. It's all down to beliefs, unsubstantiated ones at that. (And I thought those belonged in religions.) Whatever happened to pride? Integrity? Ideals, even? Quoting audio engineer Tim de Paravicini, "If you think with a salesman's hat on, you will never make a good product." The gentleman's got a point, doesn't he?

In an article of mine I have pointed out a number of real problems caused by excessively loud recordings, mostly technically-rooted. Maybe those could serve as a decent basis for discussion.

You can probably imagine how someone like me who's not even in the industry must feel. It's like arguing against a brick wall that's 10 km away. Where's a remote-operated jackhammer when you need one?

(Of course, once it's all over, it'll be nobody's fault. Just like nobody had ever supported that guy who got my native country into a second world war. Yeah, right. What did ol' Einstein say? "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." To which one might add that not only is human stupidity infinite, it also likes to repeat itself.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by LFF 

What seems to be happening more and more is that artists hire a proper mix engineer for the mix and just pay him a little extra to "master" it. All the mix engineer does is brickwall it and call it mastering.

That's another factor which isn't exactly beneficial. Someone who has merely adopted the function will be more susceptible to "lemming syndrome", learning things from others on the fly without a formal frame of reference that would allow judgement.

Imagine you're decent in DIY and want to build a headphone amp. Of course you can pick one of many DIY designs on the web, but the chances of actually picking the exact right one for your needs will be pretty slim unless you have some knowledge in electrical engineering. It does get better when you stick to proven designs with well-documented properties, but that still isn't the real thing.

Which brings us to the familiar conclusion (well, to me anyway...): Nothing beats proper education, and lack thereof may give results worthy of Failblog.org.

Anyway, I'm not about to give up, even though the whole affair nearly tears me apart every time I think about it.

Umm...I have "Rumours" by Fleetwood Mac in 24/96 and there is nothing wrong with it at all.  Sure there is some clipping, but the mastering is not bad.  Maybe a petition for them to re-release it without clipping?  Just because there are some jerk producers and engineers out there who have no talent doesn't mean a new format needs a bad name in whole.  Most DVD-A releases are magnificent, and I only have ones of popular-ish older stuff, no classical or jazz stuff.  It's a shame it got killed off.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ramicio 

Umm...I have "Rumours" by Fleetwood Mac in 24/96 and there is nothing wrong with it at all.  Sure there is some clipping, but the mastering is not bad. 

Now that sounds like an oxymoron.

The levels on that master are really jacked up. The EQ work is ok but it does clip all over the place.

Random clipping doesn't make a horrible sounding album.  It is still mastered better than most new CDs which are absolutely clipped all over the place.  It could be a lot worse.  Ever listen to Foreigner 4 from SACD?  That album looks like they put zero effort into it, and it sounds like it.

Dear God. What the hell is this.

Lana Del Rey - Diet Mountain Dew