need to decompress

[JohnnieB]

Flippin compressed garbage. Wish I could stuff one of those record producers in a box, bury him 6 feet under and force him to listen to the garbage they pump out at excrutiating volumes until he dies. Then i'd dig him up and feed his corpse to a zombie horde. Just picked up a matchbox 20 cd and they utterly ruined the music. Do artists not have ears? Don't they listen to their own stuff? I have always liked Matchbox 20, but now that I have a set of speakers that shows the true nature of the recording, my opinion has changed somewhat. Can we just burn the whole industry to the ground and start over?

 

[shadyJ]

If artists don't care about their music, why should you? Sell the CD, and listen to something worthwhile instead. There are lots of good labels, artists, and recordings out there.

 

[itschris]

Jaime2112 Tried to explain this to me, but what does compression actually do to the sound? How does it impact the music?

 

[rojo]

Compression reduces dynamic range. Most popular music is mixed very close to clipping, because to the plebs louder sounds better. There's no subtlety or artistry left in the mix.

Sent from my LG-VS980 using Tapatalk

 

[shadyJ]

Here is a short and succinct demonstration on how compression sucks the dynamics out of music:
[video=youtube;3Gmex_4hreQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ[/video]

 

[Nestor]

Compression reduces dynamic range. Most popular music is mixed very close to clipping, because to the plebs louder sounds better. There's no subtlety or artistry left in the mix.

Sent from my LG-VS980 using Tapatalk

From Bob Katz's experience, these recordings actually DO clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Fb3rWNWDA

 

[markw]

Simply put, compression, at least the way it's used nowadays, strives to make music a constant level by destroying dynamic range. It boosts the low lwvwl signals up to near the maximum it can before clipping and tries to "limit" any higher levels to not clip.

A good working example is why commercials seem louder than the programs.

 

[herbu]

So, is there any way for the consumer to know how compressed a CD is before buying it?

 

[markw]

So, is there any way for the consumer to know how compressed a CD is before buying it?

Not really, it just like politics in that you have to buy it before you really know how bad you got it stuck to you.

A lot has to do with what one lsitens to. Well recorded classican and jazz can sound pretty good. Pop can generally be counted on to generally suck.

Mapleshade (the label) puts out great sounding recordings but the artists and material tend to be, well, let's just say "a bit eclectic".

 

[JohnnieB]

So basically im forced to listen to a particular genre if i dont want to hear compressed garbage. Is there an activist group to fight this, there seems to be one for everything else. At least this would be a worthy cause.

Thx for that link Nestor. In this day and age a lot of the artists cant sing without pitch modulation and auto tuning so to expect them to know what good music is supposed to sound like would be a lot to ask.

Maybe im just getting older but classical and jazz are really sounding better to me lately. In truth most of it has to do with how they ruin the music.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Maybe im just getting older but classical and jazz are really sounding better to me lately. In truth most of it has to do with how they ruin the music.

Welcome to the club

 

[JohnnieB]

I did find a little second hand shop that had a pretty decent album selection. Dont have a turntable yet, but plan on getting one in the future, as my mom has a good size album collection that I will probably inherit when she goes. Will prolly be one of the last pieces I buy. Who knows?