Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, Captain Ned
just brew it! wrote:@biffzinker: Even within the metal genre, compare that Metallica album (I assume you mean Death Magnetic...) to, say, Opeth's Blackwater Park. Heavily distorted guitars (and death growl vocals, in Opeth's case) doesn't mean the whole mix needs to be a distorted, muddy mess!
Looking for Knowledge wrote:When drunk.....
I want to have sex, but find I am more likely to be shot down than when I am sober.
Heiwashin wrote:Not only compression problems, ive mentioned before that a radio station I used to listen to always bothered me for some reason. I sat down and figured out they they sped up songs just slightly, maybe 1 or 2 percent faster. I could never really figure out why they would do this though.
Heiwashin wrote:Not only that ive mentioned before that a radio station I used to listen to always bothered me for some reason. I sat down and figured out they they sped up songs just slightly, maybe 1 or 2 percent faster. I could never really figure out why they would do this though.
just brew it! wrote:@biffzinker: Even within the metal genre, compare that Metallica album (I assume you mean Death Magnetic...) to, say, Opeth's Blackwater Park. Heavily distorted guitars (and death growl vocals, in Opeth's case) doesn't mean the whole mix needs to be a distorted, muddy mess!
cynan wrote:I've heard that a more recent reason for purposeful compression of dynamic range was to master toward cheaper headphones/earbuds that so many people wear these days. Every phone you buy these days is also a music player. The earbuds they come with, however, are usually not the best. How many people go out of their way to spend to upgrade to something decent?
slowriot wrote:just brew it! wrote:@biffzinker: Even within the metal genre, compare that Metallica album (I assume you mean Death Magnetic...) to, say, Opeth's Blackwater Park. Heavily distorted guitars (and death growl vocals, in Opeth's case) doesn't mean the whole mix needs to be a distorted, muddy mess!
The issues you have with the Metallica recordings go beyond the dynamic range. And Blackwater Park is an example of how dispite there being minimal dynamic range you can still enjoy the recording and even think it has good dynamic range.
Death Magnetic: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/111598
Blackwater Park: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/99051
Opeth in general had terrible recording and master quality for ages. Their early albums really suffer because of it. A significant portion of the catalog has been remastered though.
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/106225
travbrad wrote:I've noticed from those dr loudness tests the vinyl versions of new albums seem to almost always have better dynamic range too. It almost makes me tempted to get a player and record them as FLAC/WAV, but I don't know if I can venture that far into hipster audiophile territory.
Captain Ned wrote:As for heavy/thrash/metal, dynamic range isn't much of an issue (barring the occasional "Unforgiven").
morphine wrote:You'd be surprised. I mean, it's not like dynamics are going to matter as much as with jazz or something, but the combination of "too much compression" + "heavy music" will wear out your ears pretty fast. I stopped listening to Disturbed because the albums just sounded terrible after the first.
Oh, right, and even though I'm a big Dream Theater fan, the latest couple albums also sound like s**t. Since it was usually John Petrucci calling the shots sound-wise, I wonder wtf's going on. Having 10+ minute songs that are prone to fatiguing ears is not a good recipe.
localhostrulez wrote:Yep, I mentioned this a while back - at some point, dynamic range (on most modern music) ends up ruining the audio quality more than mp3 compression. Finding the same album before and after the loudness wars (remasters)... man it's obvious.
Analysis suggests that the loudness trend may have peaked around 2005 and subsequently reduced, with a pronounced increase in overall and minimum album DR (crest factor) for albums since 2005.
One of the biggest albums of 2013 was Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, with many reviews commenting on the album's great sound. Mixing engineer Mick Guzauski deliberately chose to use less compression on the project, commenting "We never tried to make it loud and I think it sounds better for it." In January 2014 the album won five Grammy Awards, including Best Engineered Album (Non-Classical).