Paz on 15/9/2009 at 18:54
Quote:
Some of those waveforms (especially near the end) look like they're clipping.
maaaybe some at the very outermost peaks on the right(?) channel of "I want you (she's so heavy)," or maybe he just cropped the picture tightly - I don't hear it on the record, but I also don't have £3,000 speakers
we're into pretty finicky am-I-just-imagining-this territory with that though; at least that's my view
Muzman on 15/9/2009 at 20:01
You wouldn't be able to tell unless you were zoomed right in anyway (unless it's Death Magnetic-obvious, which would have cause a tsunami of hate long before now)
june gloom on 15/9/2009 at 20:26
For those not in the know, Death Magnetic was another victim of the (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_War) Loudness War, the most insidiously evil bullshit to happen to heavy music since the rise of grunge.
Mr.Duck on 16/9/2009 at 06:28
CAN ANYONE HEAR ME BACK THERE!?
:cool:
uncadonego on 16/9/2009 at 07:51
Speaking of Stitch's comment, it brought to mind a time when I was a teenager and I took all my Beatles' albums and put them on reel to reel in alphabetical order. I remember getting in a dispute with my brother-in-law about where to set the levels for recording. It was his reel to reel, so I really couldn't do much about it, but the levels were pretty low once it was done. He was used to recording his Deutsch Grammophon classical stuff at those levels, and they blew the lid off. And the mono stuff (or fake stereo) made everything fit on one reel, because I put half the stuff on left and the other half on right. It was basically mono anyway. I just played back one channel of the reel.
I don't know how many times I'm going to end up giving the Beatles money, but I guess I'm going to do it again. Albums, singles, eight tracks, cassettes, CD's. It never ends.
Fingernail on 16/9/2009 at 12:49
Quote Posted by Stitch
Some compression and limiting is expected in any competent mastering job. These remasters actually look very tastefully done, and their loudness over the original masters is to be expected considering the latter weren't even normalized to peak at zero.
From a waveform inspection angle, this is the best these songs have ever looked.
Also: building on what Paz said slightly earlier, I would gladly sacrifice authenticity in the name of competent stereo mixes, but it would appear that crazy shit like hard panning the rhythm section is here to stay.
You don't really need to normalize to zero, -0.5 or -1 is perfectly adequate and leaves some headroom in case you're using seriously delicate equipment.
It's actually rather pointless making it louder in terms of sound quality, the dB range of CDs is vastly greater than what is employed for any pop music anyway, ergo a quiet CD (within reason) turned UP will have the same "sound quality" as a loud one. The loud one just sounds more impressive straight away.
People often listen too loud anyway (especially on earphones), but that's a different matter.
Muzman on 16/9/2009 at 13:34
Digital doesn't have overhead like that. If your normalising algorithm is letting anything clip it's not doing what it says on the tin.
Seems to me the equipment would also be dodgy if any zero level signal is causing any distortion (consistenly or otherwise).
Having to turn up a quiet recording brings in to play the quality of the components and the listening envronment. Even today the average system isn't very good at high volume levels (partly because pop mastering has made them unecessary for most people). If the production doesn't require a vast dynamic range (like say classical or film) you may as well take up whatever space you have.
heywood on 16/9/2009 at 14:06
Quote Posted by Muzman
Having to turn up a quiet recording brings in to play the quality of the components and the listening envronment. Even today the average system isn't very good at high volume levels (partly because pop mastering has made them unecessary for most people).
No it doesn't (responding to first sentence). You're confusing playback volume level with the setting of the volume control. Playback volume levels are a function of the level on the disc
and the setting of the volume control on the system. It's the playback volume (the dBs you hear) that stresses the system, not the setting of the volume control.
The problem with making loud CDs is that you need a lot of compression and/or peak limiting, otherwise the peaks will clip. That takes the dynamics and life out of the percussion. Here's a video that explains it:
(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ
You can't hear the loss too much on a boom box because it can't reproduce the dynamics anyway. But on a good system loud CDs really sound flat. Mastering engineers sometimes compensate by equalizing up the mid-upper bass to give the kick drum more punch. And on remastering jobs, they always seem to push up the treble so that the new release has more "detail" than the old one. The result is crap except on cheap playback hardware that had no bass, treble, or dynamics to begin with.
Stitch on 16/9/2009 at 14:25
Quote Posted by heywood
The problem with making loud CDs is that you need a lot of compression and/or peak limiting, otherwise the peaks will clip. That takes the dynamics and life out of the percussion. Here's a video that explains it:
I think Muzman is well aware of the basics of compression and mastering. His point--one I'd agree with--is contrary to Fingernail's statement above, there's no reason to peak at anything less than zero*. Arguments about leaving headroom are kind of silly.
The problem--one we'd all agree on, I think--is that a lot of modern music also over-compresses the mix to achieve a consistently loud sound, which results in a flat, distorted recording.
*for your basic pop/rock/hiphop album, of course. Other genres, or songs intended to be quiet by contrast, are a different bag entirely.
Muzman on 16/9/2009 at 14:56
Quote:
You're confusing playback volume level with the setting of the volume control. Playback volume levels are a function of the level on the disc and the setting of the volume control on the system. It's the playback volume (the dBs you hear) that stresses the system, not the setting of the volume control.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by playback volume level. Is it percieved loudness or something else? The loudness of the output (and its true db level) is a function of the disk's signal and its amplification, but if the CD and the player are conforming to standard, a zero signal isn't going to produce a higher voltage than is technically possible. (at least I think that's how it goes)
I'm a bit confused about stressing the system too; I don't know if this refers to speaker damage or something else. Turning up the volume on a quiet recording will bring up noise to some extent, which is presumably an undesirable element. I wasn't advocating the sorts of loudness maximising that goes on lately. Merely that if turning everything up fits fine in the mix you might as well use it, and peaking at zero is ok.
ed: Beated by Stitch
