Quote:
Originally Posted by poo /img/forum/go_quote.gif
If we want things to change, we have a big battle ahead of us all. The only advantage we have in our corner is how damn good it can sound...
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Maybe not such a big battle as you think. The loudness war was first discussed by the studio engineers themselves. There are many good engineers, producers and mastering engineers who are totally against the loudness wars. Back in the mid '90s if you wanted a decent 24bit recording system you needed tens of thousands now you can get a similar system within four figures. This means anyone can (and often do) set themselves up as engineers or producers even though they have relatively little idea of what they are doing. They, along with many bands and record labels generally think that louder is better. This is not just an arbitrary feeling, it was born out of the 80s and 90s where louder recordings broadcast on radio equated into higher sales.
However, many of us in the industry (especially the experienced ones) would happily back any initiative to bring the dynamic range back into many genres of music. In fact there have already been a number of initiatives within the industry over the years but it has not made much impact. Letters are sent to the labels and we explain to bands that louder is worse not better but usually the answer is along the lines of "We understand this and you can do whatever you like with the recording to make it better ... as long as it's louder than band x". At that point you smash your forehead on the console and compress the crap out of it or loose the business.
For those who asked, a compressor (softwre or hardware) reduces the peaks in the musical material. This provides a gap between the signal peak and the maximum level of the digital system (headroom) allowing you to boost the level of the whole file. Keep doing this agressively and you end up with a waveform which looks like a solid block because it has virtually no peaks, or rather everything is at peak level. In theory compression works because our ears do not use just level to determine loudness. As a naturally occuring sound gets louder, so it's range and balance of harmonics change and our ears recognise and use this information. So even though something is compressed, there should still be perceivable dynamic range even if that isn't reflected in the amplitude of the waveforms. In practice, there are good quality compressors and crap ones and many recordings are not just compressed but way over compressed. Many of the cheap software compressors sound really nasty and harsh but good quality ones actually sweeten the sound (if not over used!).
Bottom line is, vote with your wallets and email the labels complaining when you hear really poorly made recordings. Tell them you won't buy their music anymore unless you get better quality. If enough of you do this then we, the engineers, can use this to support our claim that over compression is a bad thing and more importantly unwanted by the consumer.
G