#510910 - 03/23/04 12:47 PM
When will this madness stop?!?!?
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B3Nut
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Registered: 04/09/01
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Loc: Mount Horeb, WI USA
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I know the trend today is for "LOUD" CD's (witness the horrid fiasco with Rush's Vapor Trails CD and Rip Rowan's article on that subject, but it doesn't seem to be getting any better. I recently bought John Mayer's 'Heavier Things' CD, and am severely disappointed in the sound. I thought Jack Joseph Puig was a legendary engineer. And it was mastered by Bob Ludwig! Did they have to hold a gun to his head to squash a record this badly? I know he's capable of stunning mastering work.
This record is muddy, distorted, and devoid of real dynamics! Like Vapor Trails, whole transients are clipped and squashed. The sound is noticeably distorted. It's the worst-sounding CD I've ever heard. And this is tragic, because the music on this CD is wonderful. But this CD sounds like hammered canine effluvium.
To the record label mooks insisting on LOUD: KNOCK IT OFF! 
TP
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#510911 - 03/23/04 01:27 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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3D Audio
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You're being set up. The labels are amassing ammo for the next wave of re-releases.
Once everybody had finished replacing their vinyl collections with CDs, the labels were at a loss for the "next new thing." You know, the way to re-sell catalog over and over again without investing major capital into new product. I mean, why would anyone buy another CD when the first one has "perfect sound forever?"
Then someone figured out that if they sell flawed music the first time (squished, mashed, flattened), they can come back and "fix it" later and re-release it and everyone will buy the same thing twice. Double your money.
So they are in the process of releasing the worst sounding records in the history of music and then in about, oh say, 10 years, they'll start doing "Natural Sound" remixes so they can resell all their back catalog again.
Unfortunately I think technology may bite them in the @*%. Now that engineers and amateurs have bought the "louder is better" and "who needs to tickle the red light on the digital recorder when you can spank it?" propaganda, there may not ever be any natural sound left to remix. All the tracks on the multitracked are being individually spanked into lifelessness. So when it comes time to remix them, they'll realize that they dug the hole so deep they have no ladder tall enough to get out of it.
Who knows where this cycle will end? I don't.
But you can be a part of the solution or part of the problem. I hope there's still some value left in making and preserving and releasing good sounds.
_________________________
Lynn Fuston 3D Audio Inc Home of 3dB
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#510912 - 03/23/04 03:37 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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kk
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Well I was at a seminar Sat morning with Bob Ludwig. I was lucky to be early so I asked Bob about this very subject. His resposne was sort of, I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is he doesn't seeing it getting much better since all the A&Rs are worried about their CD not being as loud as the next guy. The good news is it can't get any louder. Not much of a consulation but even someone of Bob's stature really has no control of current trends. If he doesn't do it some other mastering house will. All he can do is try to perserve as much fidelity as posssible and still give them what they want. Bloody shame. I've given up on buying new CDs as refs since they're pretty much useless on a good system. As we all know the problem is with the labels. And now that we have a generation who's grown up with MP3s the standard has just been lowered again. If the market has no expectations of fidelity then it's going to be harder to justify. KK.
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#510913 - 03/23/04 03:49 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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Nathan_Eldred
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I don't get it either, and I'm fed up with it. I did a full length independent CD of a client that was commuting from LA to Tampa for work/home. 4 months of hard work. He wanted to have an "objective" ear master it from an established company. I only had my premastered copy for the last long while, and never bothered listening to the final master (my opinion on the matter wouldn't have been taken into account since "loud" is supposedly good). Completetly squashed, pegging digital zero and not moving at all. I'll tell you who did it if you email me (a somewhat established name), I am so pissed at this BS.
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#510914 - 03/23/04 05:22 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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jindrich
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Registered: 03/28/02
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well, i have completely stopped buying CDs for this reason alone. There're many discs i'd like to buy, but they're simply unslistenable.
We're facing the worst-soundind-records-era ever.
Hope some label people read this and see the light:
I dont buy records anymore. I simply download mp3s for free. There's NO single difference in (awful) sound. €22 apiece for distorted pinknoise is idiotic.
Funny thing is that many indie records (some mastered on bedrooms) sound MILES better.
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#510915 - 03/23/04 06:35 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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FormerOceanwaySlave
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Registered: 01/15/03
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Agreed!
That said, I want to put in a plug for Rickie Lee Jones who not only did not squish the dynamics in the mastering of her self-released CD, she didn't even let the engineers compress her vocals. She actually screamed into the microphone now and then to make sure they weren't compressing her voice. Totally extreme behavior, the CD sounds nice though.
"We have met the enemy, and he is us" - Walt Kelly
Cheers,
Alan Tomlinson
P.S. No, I don't work for her, I don't make any money if people buy her stuff, no . . . .
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#510916 - 03/23/04 07:23 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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adebar
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Registered: 07/17/01
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When will this madness stop?!?!?
The only problem could be the hybrid DVDs with CD and DVD layer when the CD Layer seems to be louder than the DVD layer and producers wants both layers at the same level.
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#510917 - 03/23/04 09:13 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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ptuzer
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Registered: 02/24/02
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I mixed a metal project recently and the producer made me put L1 on every single channel. They wanted it loud. - The label and the band loved it. Go Figure.
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#510919 - 03/23/04 10:28 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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Kendrix
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Registered: 09/06/01
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I must say I just bought a new state of the art
D to A converter for my main stereo and it has made the squashed stuff much, much less tolerable.
So, I see at least one factor that might contribute to finding a way out of this.
To the extent that folks like SONY control big chunks of both the music reproduction equipment market as well as the content side of the business it would seem they have both the incentive and the power to raise the bar.
There is little incentive to invest in better playback gear if the sound of the source material sucks.
However, several forces of evil will persist:
multi CD changers ( no one wants to follow a louder source), Radio- same deal, and MP3s where portabilty rules over fidelity.
In the cae of MP3's Id assume the inevitable march of technial progress in the form of commnications bandwith and storge capacity & density will bring higher quality to the world of portable/downloadable music. As for radio - isnt this what those broadcast compressors are for?
Typically as market mature they fractionate and sub-markets evolve. Perhaps this might happen - such as with SACD or DVD audio complementing CDs and MP3s. Personally, I just hope good 2 channel mixes remain -part of the picture.
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#510920 - 03/23/04 11:20 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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DP3
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Registered: 05/26/03
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I don't understand it. I make my CDs loud but not at the cost of the sound. I can get close to the loudest i've heard but to get there it wouil destroy the mix.
What's the advantage of having a louder CD? Well it sell more? Is it to keep people from turning up the volume on their stereo? The only way it would make a difference would be if you were comparing one CD to the next for sonics, which the average listener does not do.
Is it for radio play? Or is it just ego, maybe that's it, cause it does not make sense to put out a distorted CD smashed to the limits.
_________________________
"There is no spoon."
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#510921 - 03/24/04 01:14 AM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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CraigC
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Registered: 09/12/03
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Every one is complaining about the "loud cd"
the complaints should be about the lack of dynamic range not the fact that they placed the level near or at 0. They could place the maximum level at -3 but it would still sound squashed and WOULD NOT SOUND BETTER. Try a listening test comparing two mics or two speakers or two of anything. You will always pick the louder one as the better one.
Also squashed mixes sound better on cheaper playback systems. Do you really expect the record companies to make two mixes of every song ? One for the engineers with the great palyback systems and one for the 90% of people with poor systems.
I hope i have clearified the question of why we make "loud cds"
Craig C.
CalistroMusic.com
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#510922 - 03/24/04 01:28 AM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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CraigC
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Every one is complaining about the "loud cd"
the complaints should be about the lack of dynamic range not the fact that they placed the level near or at 0. They could place the maximum level at -3 but it would still sound squashed and WOULD NOT SOUND BETTER. Try a listening test comparing two mics or two speakers or two of anything. You will always pick the louder one as the better one.
Also squashed mixes sound better on cheaper playback systems. Do you really expect the record companies to make two mixes of every song ? One for the engineers with the great palyback systems and one for the 90% of people with poor systems.
I hope i have clearified the question of why we make "loud cds"
Craig C.
CalistroMusic.com
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#510924 - 03/24/04 04:23 AM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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axis
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When will this madness stop?!?!?
Kind regards
Peter
_________________________
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.>>Søren kirkegaard>
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#510925 - 03/24/04 12:06 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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B3Nut
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Registered: 04/09/01
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Well...I promised myself that anything I throw out as a finished piece of music won't be squashed to hell. A couple years ago I worked on my first full-length CD project as producer and instrumentalist...low-budget worship record that came out not bad considering. Looking back I can clearly see mistakes I made...some rather large...gotta make 'em to learn from 'em tho. I should never have let the engineer go so hog-wild with PT plugins...one dynamics and one EQ per channel is enough! It ended up pretty squashed, though not nearly as bad as this John Mayer CD I bought. We had my friend Murph in Nashville master it, he was able to salvage most of it and even the sonic balance out. Got quite an education as to what we had done wrong with it though. Live and learn, as they say...
But for a record as *distorted* as John Mayer's new CD to come from a commercial label in just inexcusable IMHO. Especially when it's got such good music, a rarity these days for new releases.
John Mayer is a talented writer and musician - his music deserves far, far better than this.
TP
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#510926 - 03/24/04 01:42 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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miroslav
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Originally posted by 3D Audio:
"who needs to tickle the red light on the digital recorder when you can spank it?"
...if it's done the right way... 
...but many of them audio sadists are using whips and chains!!! 
_________________________
miroslav - miroslavmusic.com"Just because it happened to you, it doesn't mean it's important."
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#510927 - 03/24/04 01:53 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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Rog
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Originally posted by CraigC:
They could place the maximum level at -3 but it would still sound squashed and WOULD NOT SOUND BETTER.
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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." - Banky Edwards.
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#510928 - 03/24/04 02:47 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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Lee Flier
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To stop the madness simply takes balls, something almost nobody has anymore. With due respect to guys like Bob Ludwig, who's obviously a brilliant mastering engineer... well, he should simply refuse to do work that's gonna compromise his name to that degree. "If I don't do it, someone else will" doesn't fly - in that case then, let someone else do it. At least it won't have Bob Ludwig's name on it. If enough respected names truly refused to destroy masters, and made a public stink about it, the practice would soon fall out of favor.
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#510929 - 03/24/04 03:36 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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miroslav
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I think another problem is that even if a lot of the respected E's & ME's stopped squashing everything...
...there would still be many other there that would not...thus giving the artists and record co's that desire that squashed-pump-up-the-volume sound, many opportunities to still have it their way.
And, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that it's a lot easier to engineer/mix/master for that squashed, linear sound...than it is for a dynamic result.
How hard is it to just set the dials to "nuke"?
So...maybe some E’s and ME’s…
…are just a little lazy to work a dynamic-rich product...
...while others are a little bit incapable or unsure of how to do it...
...and others still, just a bit too "follow-the-mass-marketing" in their approach...
...to really turn back the tide, and return to a more dynamics-rich way of making music...???
_________________________
miroslav - miroslavmusic.com"Just because it happened to you, it doesn't mean it's important."
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#510930 - 03/24/04 03:49 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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axis
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Originally posted by miroslav:
.
And, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that it's a lot easier to engineer/mix/master for that squashed, linear sound...than it is for a dynamic result.
How hard is it to just set the dials to "nuke"?
Kind regards
Peter
_________________________
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.>>Søren kirkegaard>
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#510931 - 03/24/04 05:27 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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Neil Wilkes
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Okay, I'm a nobody in the industry,but I totally refuse to participate in this madness.
It's even starting to help out business wise too. We are at last beginning to get a reputation for not using finalizers, normalizers or any of that pony on anything that leaves our studio.
Fine - if they want to take their business to somebody who will kill it, then I guess that is their prerogative. Someone has to stop this bulls**t and we all need to play our part.
DVD, and DVDA has a great part to play in this, and the cynic in me says that this is quite deliberate. "natural sounding" remasters on SACD/DVDA? Quite possible. Sony are already selling SACD by stealth - a lot of customers don't even know they've bought it yet as the CD layer is also present. To get to the point, I can easily forsee this being used to bump up DVDA/SACD sales with the "this sounds much cleaner than CD" routine, thus - as posted earlier - yet again selling the back catalogues.
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#510932 - 03/24/04 05:31 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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Bob Olhsson
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It's time to stop blaming and start thinking about what can really be done.
The reason people want their CDs to be hot is the fact that any CD having a lower level is at a big disadvantage in conference rooms where decisions are being made between competing CDs and where focus groups are being used to create a favorable demographic profile as a means of attracting radio play.
Record labels and artists are between a rock and a hard place on the level issue. If somebody can develop a tool, such as a device that'll let people hear what a contender is actually going to sound like on the air, maybe we can finally get someplace. Maybe there is a better idea lurking. My point is that the REAL issue needs to be addressed or there can be no change.
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#510933 - 03/24/04 05:43 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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cram
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Registered: 05/23/01
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If everyone is downloading MP3's why would they care about hypercompression?
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Tom Cram
dbx Senior Technical Support
(801) 568-7530
tcram@dbxpro.com
non fui, fui, non sum, non curo
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#510936 - 03/24/04 06:23 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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Tedly Nightshade
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Originally posted by Lee Flier: Originally posted by Bob Olhsson:
The reason people want their CDs to be hot is the fact that any CD having a lower level is at a big disadvantage in conference rooms where decisions are being made between competing CDs and where focus groups are being used to create a favorable demographic profile as a means of attracting radio play.
'Course, once again there if anybody had any balls they wouldn't be using demographic sheets and focus groups to make their decisions for them in the first place... but that's a whole other story altogether.
We will be in bad shape until the time comes when these decisions can be made based on the judgement of some individual whose taste and judgement and experience is actually respected. To make calls with these pseudoscientific methods is a major dis to every pair of ears in the industry.
_________________________
A WOP BOP A LU BOP, A LOP BAM BOOM!
"There is nothing I regret so much as my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?" -Henry David Thoreau
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#510937 - 03/24/04 06:57 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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cram
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Erhhh... dynamic compression and data compression don't amount to the same thing. 
I'm talking about sound quality. If everyone is listening to a severely compromised delivery system, one more sonic compromise is irrelevant.
_________________________
Tom Cram
dbx Senior Technical Support
(801) 568-7530
tcram@dbxpro.com
non fui, fui, non sum, non curo
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#510938 - 03/24/04 07:06 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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Lee Flier
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Originally posted by cram:
I'm talking about sound quality. If everyone is listening to a severely compromised delivery system, one more sonic compromise is irrelevant.
If you don't believe me, try it yourself. Encode something well recorded and mastered with good dynamic range to MP3, using a good codec like Franhofer. Then do the same with your Hershey Bar atrocity of choice. Have a listen to the results. The difference will still be dramatic.
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#510939 - 03/24/04 07:24 PM
Re: When will this madness stop?!?!?
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John Sayers
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squashed CDs are the "NOW" sound - just like cardboard box drums were. It's a trend and Bob could easily have said "I do it because it's the current style."
They are now releasing MP3 CDs which will probably become the new trend. You can now put three albums on one CD - simpler and cheaper than a boxed set.
the public isn't complaining.
cheers
john
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Erhhh... dynamic compression and data compression don't amount to the same thing.
