The Loudness War - your experiences - Page 9

So the purpose of the "loudness" is to make the music stand out more and play seemingly louder on radio and more (artificially) dynamic sounding to get people to purchase it.

What about music that is never even played on radio or never receives any public airplay?  What would be the purpose of making those recordings "louder"?

Ex: What's ironic is 20 years ago Spyro Gyra DID receive some airplay yet the recordings are excellent while being flat and neutral.  But their last 6-7 releases are much bassier and louder yet they are virtually NEVER played publicly.  So what's the point?

So all artists and record companies across the globe have decided that big fat bassy and compressed sounds best?  Strange....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spyro 

So all artists and record companies across the globe have decided that big fat bassy and compressed sounds best?  Strange....

They may not have necessarily decided that it sounds "best", but it sells.  Personally, I'd have a hard time believing that any capable audio engineer who is told to make it "loud", thinks his/her end product is of high fidelity.  For them, as a career, it seems they can go the way of money making and produce crap, or stay true and passionate and record/engineer more genuine music that will not appeal to the masses, and thus will make less money.

*listens to a song*

me: "this is too darn loud and sounds muddy"

"oh wait the volume bar is too high and im wearing a beats by dre headphones"

I met someone from 1 of the "record" labels at a tradeshow and she said that, in general, an artist typically generates more income from concert tours than from song distribution. If true, I guess that would cause them to care less about the Hi-Fi aspects of their album release than it simply getting more airplay and attention, therebye increasing ticket sales. Also, I wonder how many artists are really audiophiles...prob not many.   

I think it's a little silly to judge songs based on low res waveforms.

I've seen totally brickwalled stuff that sounds beautiful. 

U2-HOW TO BUILD AN ATOMIC BOMB-VERTIGO

Sounds acceptable in my car,but is horrible through my home stereo and through my headphone setup.

U2-JOSHUA TREE-BULLET THE BLUESKY

Sounds good no matter what I play it on.

I've got quite a few CD's in my collection that just don't sound good through anything that is capable of reasonable HIFI.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bustersgotavmax 

U2-HOW TO BUILD AN ATOMIC BOMB-VERTIGO

Sounds acceptable in my car,but is horrible through my home stereo and through my headphone setup.

 

U2-JOSHUA TREE-BULLET THE BLUESKY

Sounds good no matter what I play it on.

 

I've got quite a few CD's in my collection that just don't sound good through anything that is capable of reasonable HIFI.

I'm sorry, this is a little off topic, what program/plug-in are you using to get these images? And can I install it on foobar?

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrLazyAnt 

I'm sorry, this is a little off topic, what program/plug-in are you using to get these images? And can I install it on foobar?

You can use Audacity or any other audio editor.

I'm using WAVELAB LE 7,it's a free download.

I've been using it soley for external audio editing  for video until I tried throwing some of my music into it. When recording for video it's normal to set mic gains to somewhere around  -12db leaving enough room for peaks(percussive sounds or sources that can come within close range of the mic ) Older CD's that haven't been basterdized by the loudness war,show the same gain settings,or close to it. 

 It's not a plug in for foobar, but is very easy to use and capture a screen shot.

Thanks Buster =)

I'd just like to add that even if things are pushed all the way to -3dB that doesn't necessarily mean that the dynamic range is crap. If it is well mixed the quieter sounds will cut through the louder ones and the subtlety of a softer mix can remain. I believe the origin of the loudness war was so that tracks stand out when played on the radio/in a DJ set. The Image of "U2 - How to Build an Atomic Bomb" does look horrid, and probably is, but loudness does not always mean less dynamic range. Bad mixing results in a loss of dynamic range.

Here are a few tracks that are "up there" volume wise but I believe hold their own when it comes to dynamic range (I'm trying to diversify but lately my playlist has been fairly limited genre-wise):

A Perfect Circle - Pet

Tool - The Pot

Radioactive Sandwich - Walking on strings

J.Viewz - Muse Breaks

Dusty Kid - Argia

Ott - Rogue Bagel

Phototaxis - Notice

Note - I am saying "loud" entirely based on listening experience, and not spectrograph's and I am listening on a fairly basic set-up (onboard crappy-lappy realtek soundcard hooked up to a Marantz pm230 amplifier which in turn feeds speakers that I am pretty certain date back to the 70's, brand unknown, but they have an IMHO crisper sound than my father's B&W DM1800's)

EDIT: It also depends if you're listening to lossless files or not. I thought "Younger Brother - All I want" was dead boring listening to it at 192kbps mp3 but then I bought the relevant album, and BOY what a difference

Quote:

Originally Posted by JuanseAmador 

I downloaded the Pre-Mastered version of Californication. It helps a lil' bit, but still.

The reissue of Californication is supposed to sound alot better than the CD. Its never going to sound as good as Stadium Arcadium does on vinyl, but thats just the sound of the record. The reissue is supposed to have significantly less compression. Ive got my copy, but havent been able to listen to it yet.