The Loudness War

[AdrianMills]

Okay, this may be old news to a lot of people here but does anyone know if there are any plans afoot to standardize mastering so that this silliness stops? I'm even thinking of going back to older pop 'n crackle vinyl after buying "improved digitally remastered" CD's that sound like **** compared to what I remember the original records sounding like. To be honest I wouldn't mind so much if we had a choice but there's no way of knowing until you listen to a CD and with internet shopping it's a little too late by then.

For those that have no clue about what I'm talking about there's an article by the Guardian newspaper in the UK here "How CDs are remastering the art of noise" and a cool You Tube video graphically showing the problem here "The Loudness War”

 

[Brian_the_King]

Yea, I honestly can't believe how long this has been going on... And it's not getting any better. It made me angry enough to use vinyl, definetely give it a try ;p

 

[AdrianMills]

Really, I wouldn't mind so much if the dynamic range of the tracks on a CD were listed on the cover - at least I'd know whether or not to buy the thing. The fact that they sometimes stick a label on the case saying "new, improved and digitally remastered" just adds insult to injury.

 

[tbewick]

I've got the vinyl and digitally remastered version of the Tchaikovsky Pathetique symphony, (Deutsche Grammophon, Karajan, Berlin Phil 1976) and I prefer the digital version. I also think the remastered Joy Division box set has been done very well.

My rather low-tech solution is to just listen to recent pop CD's on a cheap portable stereo, as this usually helps to reduce the top-end a bit.

 

[emorphien]

This has been a frustrating thing for me, I do like some modern music (albeit very little). Fortunately most of what I like is obscure enough to not have been run through "pop processing" as I call it, where they master the music to be as loud as possible, compromising clarity and dynamic range. That seems to be more common in more popular music as perhaps it's what they feel most people want.

There are a few bands I like and either I have and don't listen to their CDs, or I simply won't buy their CDs because the quality of the audio has been destroyed to make it seem louder. There's no pleasure in listening to music that sounds like that.

 

[MDS]

I don't think there are any standardization efforts underway, but mastering engineer Bob Katz has proposed his system called the 'K-system'. The details are in his book - The Art of Mastering Digital Audio.

That YouTube video explains things nicely but there are some remastered CDs that are much louder than earlier versions and still sound good. In general though, it has gotten way out of hand.

I had thought about posting images of various waveforms to illustrate the differences but I'm not sure of the best way to do that.

 

[AdrianMills]

So has anyone compiled a list of well mastered CD's?

 

[no. 5]

So has anyone compiled a list of well mastered CD's?

I'd like to see that, and hopefuly it's a long list.

 

[Bluesmobile]

That's a good article from The Guardian. As I read, I was thinking "Rush Vapor Trails" suffers from this and then BAM at the end of the article amention is give to that album. Too bad. The music is great but it is a labor to listen to it.

 

[JoeE SP9]

CD's that Bob Katz and Steve Hoffman master sound very good. It seems that you can rely on certain engineers to deliver good product.

 

[dave1490]

Okay, this may be old news to a lot of people here but does anyone know if there are any plans afoot to standardize mastering so that this silliness stops? I'm even thinking of going back to older pop 'n crackle vinyl after buying "improved digitally remastered" CD's that sound like **** compared to what I remember the original records sounding like. To be honest I wouldn't mind so much if we had a choice but there's no way of knowing until you listen to a CD and with internet shopping it's a little too late by then.

For those that have no clue about what I'm talking about there's an article by the Guardian newspaper in the UK here "How CDs are remastering the art of noise" and a cool You Tube video graphically showing the problem here "The Loudness War”

it stop,s when you come home from the bar and what to listen to music then your thermal breaker click,s in.and your ears are ringing.