Hi snowy,
I think it's you who got me wrong, here
Metal is my favorite genre, yes, but it's not the only one I listen to. We're on a metal band's forum here, so of course I would talk mostly about metal records but my complaints about overcompression extend to all music genres - all the more if we consider that most other genres are "naturally" more dynamic than metal.
My bad for misinterpreting, then. These are the words that led me to think you were implying a direct correlation between loudness and sales:
These assumptions are proven wrong by research and experience.
When comparing two different songs, people will always pick the one they like the best regardless of its loudness. The vast majority of people don't care about how things sound, which means they're indifferent to whether a master is compressed/loud or dynamic. Since they don't care, there is no real reason to feed them compressed records. The minority that cares like their music better dynamic. By making it dynamic you'd actually widen your catchment area, rather than narrowing it. IIRC, sales figures were higher before the LW than after it.
Besides, I'm not talking 20db of dynamic range. That'd require more muscle than the vast majority of stereos possess to sound loud. I'm talking normal DR figures, in between 10db and 14db. Making it loud is a stereo's job, not a sound engineer's.
You can make it clear, full and thick without birckwalling it. As a matter of fact, overcompressed music sounds flat and dull and is never really aggressive. Take Threat Signal's new single Fallen Disciples, for instance (I'm making a metal example 'cause we're on a metal forum AND that's my favorite genre, but the same applies to other genres as well): it's overcompressed, flat and dull. Aggressive? The song yes, the sound no. It's anemic and emotionally indifferent. Drums sound like a bunch of shoe boxes hit with fish sticks. Treble is ear-fatiguing. Everything sounds fake. No good!
Then try Nobody's hero from Edguy's new album. It's not brickwalled, and it sounds great. As a matter of fact, its production is more aggressive than Threat Signal's because it's not flat. Drums sound like drums, and you can actually hear bass (which is non-existant in Threat Signal's song). It's encompassing. Wanna make it louder? Crank it up!
If you want non-metal examples, compare Gerry Rafferty's City to City from 1978 to, say, the new RHCP album. The latter was mixed and mastered by Rick Rubin, so not exactly a newcomer to the world of sound engineering, but it's not hard to guess which one sounds better once Rafferty's cranked up.
Making use of analog or digital devices/processes doesn't make for 100% of an album's sound quality. Analog sounds better, but that doesn't mean you can't make an album sound good - or even very good - with digital. Take Eric Clapton's MTV Unplugged album (see? It's not a metal record): it's a completely digital record, and it's long been a reference demo disc for audiophiles. Coincidentally it also has a whopping dynamic range.
That being said, if there's people who can hear a difference between analog and digital and prefer analog, you can't label them as douches and snobs just because they have a different sensitivity to certain aspects of musical reproduction, and their tastes lead them to favor the analog recording (I'm not saying I can always pick whether an album is analog or digital; I never tried and I most likely cannot if the digital record is very well done. I just like analog better in general).
Hi Arcane,
HCDR suffers from the Loudness War just like any other Bodom release (here's its entry on the DR Database). On my setup it doesn't really sound good.
Back when CDs were first introduced, there used to be a triple letter identifier that told you whether the disc had been analogically or digitally recorded and mixed. The labels were as follows:
AAD - analog recording, analog mixing, digital transfer
ADD - anlog recording, digital mixing, digital transfer
DDD - digital recording, digital mixing, digital transfer
After a while they stopped labelling discs (and I believe a certain japanese company had something to do with this ), but it is safe to assume that 99% of post-2000 releases are DDD. This isn't necessarily a bad thing: the aforementioned Eric Clapton album is also marked as DDD and it sounds awesome.
If you want to compare "old-style" sound to "new-style" sound on the same album, try Megadeth's Rust in peace. The first pressing from 1991 was AAD with an average dynamic range of 13db. The new remaster is most certainly ADD and has an average dynamic range of 6db. The remaster will obviously sound louder, so you'll have to crank up the former until it matches the latter in terms of loudness if you're to make a fair comparison in terms of sound quality.
I own the first pressing of that album, so I can rip mp3s in whatever bit rate for you if you can't find it.
I don't think it is possible to find the same album in AAD and DDD cause that would require re-recording it, which would make it a different album in the first place.
I think it's you who got me wrong, here
Metal is my favorite genre, yes, but it's not the only one I listen to. We're on a metal band's forum here, so of course I would talk mostly about metal records but my complaints about overcompression extend to all music genres - all the more if we consider that most other genres are "naturally" more dynamic than metal.My bad for misinterpreting, then. These are the words that led me to think you were implying a direct correlation between loudness and sales:
These assumptions are proven wrong by research and experience.
When comparing two different songs, people will always pick the one they like the best regardless of its loudness. The vast majority of people don't care about how things sound, which means they're indifferent to whether a master is compressed/loud or dynamic. Since they don't care, there is no real reason to feed them compressed records. The minority that cares like their music better dynamic. By making it dynamic you'd actually widen your catchment area, rather than narrowing it. IIRC, sales figures were higher before the LW than after it.
Besides, I'm not talking 20db of dynamic range. That'd require more muscle than the vast majority of stereos possess to sound loud. I'm talking normal DR figures, in between 10db and 14db. Making it loud is a stereo's job, not a sound engineer's.
You can make it clear, full and thick without birckwalling it. As a matter of fact, overcompressed music sounds flat and dull and is never really aggressive. Take Threat Signal's new single Fallen Disciples, for instance (I'm making a metal example 'cause we're on a metal forum AND that's my favorite genre, but the same applies to other genres as well): it's overcompressed, flat and dull. Aggressive? The song yes, the sound no. It's anemic and emotionally indifferent. Drums sound like a bunch of shoe boxes hit with fish sticks. Treble is ear-fatiguing. Everything sounds fake. No good!
Then try Nobody's hero from Edguy's new album. It's not brickwalled, and it sounds great. As a matter of fact, its production is more aggressive than Threat Signal's because it's not flat. Drums sound like drums, and you can actually hear bass (which is non-existant in Threat Signal's song). It's encompassing. Wanna make it louder? Crank it up!
If you want non-metal examples, compare Gerry Rafferty's City to City from 1978 to, say, the new RHCP album. The latter was mixed and mastered by Rick Rubin, so not exactly a newcomer to the world of sound engineering, but it's not hard to guess which one sounds better once Rafferty's cranked up.
Making use of analog or digital devices/processes doesn't make for 100% of an album's sound quality. Analog sounds better, but that doesn't mean you can't make an album sound good - or even very good - with digital. Take Eric Clapton's MTV Unplugged album (see? It's not a metal record
): it's a completely digital record, and it's long been a reference demo disc for audiophiles. Coincidentally it also has a whopping dynamic range. That being said, if there's people who can hear a difference between analog and digital and prefer analog, you can't label them as douches and snobs just because they have a different sensitivity to certain aspects of musical reproduction, and their tastes lead them to favor the analog recording (I'm not saying I can always pick whether an album is analog or digital; I never tried and I most likely cannot if the digital record is very well done. I just like analog better in general).
Hi Arcane,
HCDR suffers from the Loudness War just like any other Bodom release (here's its entry on the DR Database). On my setup it doesn't really sound good.
Back when CDs were first introduced, there used to be a triple letter identifier that told you whether the disc had been analogically or digitally recorded and mixed. The labels were as follows:
AAD - analog recording, analog mixing, digital transfer
ADD - anlog recording, digital mixing, digital transfer
DDD - digital recording, digital mixing, digital transfer
After a while they stopped labelling discs (and I believe a certain japanese company had something to do with this
), but it is safe to assume that 99% of post-2000 releases are DDD. This isn't necessarily a bad thing: the aforementioned Eric Clapton album is also marked as DDD and it sounds awesome.If you want to compare "old-style" sound to "new-style" sound on the same album, try Megadeth's Rust in peace. The first pressing from 1991 was AAD with an average dynamic range of 13db. The new remaster is most certainly ADD and has an average dynamic range of 6db. The remaster will obviously sound louder, so you'll have to crank up the former until it matches the latter in terms of loudness if you're to make a fair comparison in terms of sound quality.
I own the first pressing of that album, so I can rip mp3s in whatever bit rate for you if you can't find it.
I don't think it is possible to find the same album in AAD and DDD cause that would require re-recording it, which would make it a different album in the first place.
