gregorio
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2008
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1. Already explained. And of course it's not the only reason.
2. And why shall "over" be more neutral than "hyper"?
3. Still and even more I can't see what you think that I wouldn't understand about the loudness war.
4. Tell to Metallica fans who prefer the guitar hero 3 version of Death Magnetic ...
5. I have listened to it. Do you think there is "over-compression" used?
5a. How do we know to what extent the voice level was regulated by Cobain himself by varying his distance to the microphone, or later by (linear) amplification or by compression?
5b. The loudest chorus part towards the end still has RMS -13.3dB and ClippingAnalyzer shows a moderate compression indicator of 13%.
5c. As already stated I've never pretended that there was no compression - but at least no "inappropriate over-compression" or whatever wording you like.
6. I have no statistics, do you?
6a. I think that the loudness war on the pop/rock genres gives pressure to all genres, first to jazz (already happened) and then to classical ...
1. First of all you explained that as the loudness war increased, so did the sales of vinyl. That was incorrect as in practice the exact opposite occurred and even if there were a direct correlation, a correlation does not prove a causation anyway!
2. "Over" (over-driven) compression has been a musical tool since the 1960's and is desirable/essential to many genres and musicians (Hendrix for example). Also, "over-driven" is relatively easy to define, as non-linear distortion caused by a deliberate overload condition. "Over" is therefore both definable and musically neutral, whereas "hyper" is neither!
3. See #6.
4. You stated you'd read the article I linked to but obviously that statement is either false or you did read it but somehow failed to understand any of it! You do realise there was a section of the article specifically dedicated to "Death Magnetic"?
5. How can you ask that question if you have listened to it? Of course "over-compression" has been used, if over-compression had not been used it would be a different genre! And the same is true for Death Magnetic, the Metallica fans would have liked "Death Magnetic" even less if there hadn't been any over-compression because it wouldn't even have been trash metal anymore.
5a. "Varying his distance to the microphone" is compression and so is dynamic amplification! The only difference is that it's manual compression and in the case of dynamic amplification, typically called "riding the gain" but both are still compression. The problem with static amplification is that you're limited to how much amplification you can add by the highest peak value in the whole track/channel.
5b. To achieve an RMS of -13.3 requires heavy compression and again, very obvious "over-compression" has been used. And also again, you are relying on a tool which is at best an indicator and at worse, nonsense. It is referenced against pink noise correct? I'm sure whatever metrics it is using of pink noise it would be possible (and probably trivially easy) to record something which exceeds those metrics, and then what, how would ClippingAnalyser show compression of less than 0%? Or, to put it another way, it's almost certainly possible to create a recording with compression which ClippingAnalyser registers as 0% compression and another recording without compression which registers as some percent higher than 0%. The reference of pink noise is abstract and compression cannot be accurately or reliably measured.
5c. But that's the whole problem! What amount of compression is "inappropriate over-compression"? What maybe an entirely desirable, even essential amount of compression (or over-compression) for one piece of music might be an entirely inappropriate amount for another! That's the problem with Death Magnetic (as obviously you did not understand the article): An entirely appropriate amount of compression was applied to Death Magnetic, unfortunately, it was an appropriate amount for EDM and some other contemporary genres but NOT thrash metal! The problem facing Metallica was that the whole ethos of thrash metal is to be loud and distorted, which was somewhat difficult to achieve in the 1980's but entirely possible. However, in 2008 Death Magnetic was in competition with a new generation of genres which employed far greater compression/loudness than the genres thrash metal was competing against in the 1980's and they either therefore had to apply completely inappropriate amounts of compression or not achieve the relative loudness demanded by the genre.
6. Yes I do! Go to the DR Database and in the album box type "Schubert". You'll see the DR figure is pretty much the same in the most recent recordings as those from the '70's and '80's. You'll see the same if you type in "Tchaik", "Beeth" or other big name composers. Where's the war?
6a. You're free to think whatever you like but you have made a claim/assertion with no supporting evidence and worst still, the best evidence we do have, actually contradicts your assertion!
The rest of your post, and indeed most of the above as well, is based on arbitrary percentage levels of compression or hypercompression and distortion which you cannot define except in terms of what you personally like or dislike but in an attempt to justify/validate your likes/dislikes you are missing and sometimes misrepresenting the facts. A couple of other examples to hopefully put this nonsense to rest:
9. If technically limiting is a form of compression and clipping is a form of limiting, then logically hypercompression includes clipping.
9b. Would be great if some open minded engineers see the chances for better supplying the consumers demand by product differentiation. [9c] And I hope you can break out of your genre dogmas...
9. Yes, that would be the logical conclusion. However, as clipping is NOT a form of limiting and in fact the whole point of limiting is to avoid clipping, then your conclusion is nonsense!
9b. That has ABSOLUTELY nothing whatsoever to do with engineers, let alone how open minded they are! That decision is purely down to the artist (and/or record label).
9c. OK, now you're just being ridiculous! You think maybe I should ignore "genre dogmas" and mix or master classical impressionist music the same as I mix and master thrash metal or vice versa? I wouldn't be long for this job if I took your advice, just one such mix or master would get me the reputation of utter incompetence!
G
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