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Is the Loudness War Over (or about to be)?


Joe Muscara

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Posted

If so, yay! I'm not saying he's right, but if he is, it would be great.

 

http://mixonline.com/mixline/reierson_loudness_war_0802/

 

I was at the AES show in San Francisco last November and I came back with renewed hope for the future of the music industrynot just from a business perspective, but from a recording-quality perspective as well. Besides the usual discussions about gear and recording techniques, there was a lot of talk about high resolution digital downloads surpassing CDs as the dominant delivery format within the next few years. Optimism is growing as more and more engineers are seeing a way to finally get past the loudness war.

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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Posted
If this is an end to over-compressed pop, then I'm all for it. Not enough dynamics in a lot of today's music IMO, which makes it sound sterile despite there being good artists around.
Posted
Great News, Joe! but I Don't think it'll be over soon, maybe in 5 years, hopefully!
"The purple piper plays his tune, The choir softly sing; Three lullabies in an ancient tongue, For the court of the crimson king"
Posted

I don't know any new good srtists of probably the last decade, if I'm honest, sorry for maybe the tiny exceptions I didn't think of or possibly the few "new" Jazz persons. I mean it, I'm not kidding, I just really don't think so, Statistically speaking there should be some new young man and women, and of course the ones who established themselves in better times.

 

From my own recent and longer ago AES experience I know that not just the loudness (like on CDs but also on TV) but also all kinds of (extremey faulty IMO) processing that nobody neccesarily asks for is being used on all kinds of channels.

 

The whole picture is not very professional after lets say the end of the 80s, in comparison with such better times, and I'm sure that some of the "officials" also in the record business do that on purpose.

 

There is some light, I think, as I've also tried myself: Cheskey records brings out fully uncompressed and even unprocessed music recordings and do so very nicely, which is a revelation on systems like my major monitoring system. They also started making (uncompressed, or lossless compressed) 96 and 192 kS/s materials available, and recently also from great artists and "classic" albums! Unfortunately, they do not allow customers from outside the us to purchase (for quite reasonable prices I must say) these tracks. (Hint hint if you happen to know these people...!)

 

On TV the loudness wars were e.g. about commercials that I've heard some more about from people in the field, but it seems to me the whole discussion to make this all work nicer gets bogged down by people who do not take "committees" to be all free from civil servants behavior of the moderate kind...

 

I myself would more be concerned that I couldn't even bring out an official BluRay with recordings and sound tracks of my because some GmBh or other form of distributer link probably wouldn't leave any of the tracks or encoded videos bit-for-bit in piece, and mess with it all so bad that nobody likes it anymore to listen to great music.

 

So in that sense I'd say the subject is good, but quite a bit broader.

 

Theo

 

Posted

I believe I can actually respond to what Theo is saying here. Compression and whatnot on broadcast media is a different issue than in the actual recordings. Radio stations have long done this, and I expect that will continue as long as they exist (I don't know if satellite radio does the same thing).

 

What I'd like to see, and I'm sure many others do as well, is that the original recordings that we can buy not have the life quashed out of them. What broadcasters do to them after that is another problem.

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

Posted
I don't know any new good srtists of probably the last decade

 

I don't know of any new good srtists either.....

 

Not quite sure where you're coming from on your posts Theo -

 

but I think I visited somewhere akin to it when I used to dabble with LSD 20/30 years ago... :freak: ! ! !

 

 

John.

 

some stuff on myspace

 

Nord: StageEX-88, Electro2-73, Hammond: XK-1, Yamaha: XS7

Korg: M3-73 EXpanded, M50-88, X50, Roland: Juno D, Kurzweil: K2000vp.

Posted
I believe I can actually respond to what Theo is saying here. Compression and whatnot on broadcast media is a different issue than in the actual recordings. Radio stations have long done this, and I expect that will continue as long as they exist (I don't know if satellite radio does the same thing).

 

What I'd like to see, and I'm sure many others do as well, is that the original recordings that we can buy not have the life quashed out of them. What broadcasters do to them after that is another problem.

 

+1 Well said, Joe. i don't listen to radio or watch tv so i can careless, what matters to me is the record i'm buying

"The purple piper plays his tune, The choir softly sing; Three lullabies in an ancient tongue, For the court of the crimson king"
Posted

Is that a threat or a suggested slandrous statement ? You must be careful with those, they're not legal.

 

More to the point: if I don't like the new age world, and think all kinds of things are badly influenced by that, and *have* to draw such a conclusion after I myself as kid and adult have been exposed to an enormous mount of good music, i feel it is a good idea to say so in our democratic west.

 

If all some people can do is b8tch about that in a m*f* way or not, so be it, but THAT is than how you are going to be known.

 

And if you think people *need* drugs to feel certain ways, probably you're a pretty weak person with little imagination. I think some of those poepl in the time you refer to "did" drugs to make sure certain pusher types for instance wouldn't get to kids. I don't know if you require more cynicism from me, I was raised with ample supplies of that, so I can, but I like to think of myself as developing and having matured around 18 or 21, so I don't need that sort of sh*t.

 

Posted
I think there's a basic misunderstanding here: radio stations have to protect their broadcasting gear, and use special limiters. But maybe you're talking about what commercial stations have long done to advertisements to make them stand out more?

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35, D'angelico SS Bari, EXL1,

Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, LP 57, Eastman T486, T64, Ibanez PM2, Hammond XK4, Moog Voyager

Posted
I was surprised to learn recently that Oasis started the Loudness Wars, with their second album in the mid-90's. They talk about this in the 25th anniversary edition of Sound-On-Sound, alongside Cher's impact.

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35, D'angelico SS Bari, EXL1,

Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, LP 57, Eastman T486, T64, Ibanez PM2, Hammond XK4, Moog Voyager

Posted
I don't know any new good srtists of probably the last decade, if I'm honest, sorry for maybe the tiny exceptions I didn't think of or possibly the few "new" Jazz persons. I mean it, I'm not kidding, I just really don't think so, Statistically speaking there should be some new young man and women, and of course the ones who established themselves in better times.

 

From my own recent and longer ago AES experience I know that not just the loudness (like on CDs but also on TV) but also all kinds of (extremey faulty IMO) processing that nobody neccesarily asks for is being used on all kinds of channels.

 

The whole picture is not very professional after lets say the end of the 80s, in comparison with such better times, and I'm sure that some of the "officials" also in the record business do that on purpose.

 

There is some light, I think, as I've also tried myself: Cheskey records brings out fully uncompressed and even unprocessed music recordings and do so very nicely, which is a revelation on systems like my major monitoring system. They also started making (uncompressed, or lossless compressed) 96 and 192 kS/s materials available, and recently also from great artists and "classic" albums! Unfortunately, they do not allow customers from outside the us to purchase (for quite reasonable prices I must say) these tracks. (Hint hint if you happen to know these people...!)

 

On TV the loudness wars were e.g. about commercials that I've heard some more about from people in the field, but it seems to me the whole discussion to make this all work nicer gets bogged down by people who do not take "committees" to be all free from civil servants behavior of the moderate kind...

 

I myself would more be concerned that I couldn't even bring out an official BluRay with recordings and sound tracks of my because some GmBh or other form of distributer link probably wouldn't leave any of the tracks or encoded videos bit-for-bit in piece, and mess with it all so bad that nobody likes it anymore to listen to great music.

 

So in that sense I'd say the subject is good, but quite a bit broader.

 

Theo

Well Duffy is good.

Steve Force,

Durham, North Carolina

--------

My Professional Websites

Posted
I was surprised to learn recently that Oasis started the Loudness Wars, with their second album in the mid-90's. They talk about this in the 25th anniversary edition of Sound-On-Sound, alongside Cher's impact.

 

Maybe they were trying to be like The Beatles (nothing new here), and duplicate the wall of sound technique when something went badly wrong :whistle:

"The purple piper plays his tune, The choir softly sing; Three lullabies in an ancient tongue, For the court of the crimson king"
Posted
I was surprised to learn recently that Oasis started the Loudness Wars, with their second album in the mid-90's. They talk about this in the 25th anniversary edition of Sound-On-Sound, alongside Cher's impact.

 

Maybe they were trying to be like The Beatles (nothing new here), and duplicate the wall of sound technique when something went badly wrong :whistle:

 

What badly went wrong was they had no clue how to incorporate anything but guitars, bass, drums, and annoying cockney accents into their arrangements.... :freak:

Posted
Yeah, they were the Beatles without any of the melody, harmony, groove, or taste. Maybe they were just trying to be Wings?
A ROMpler is just a polyphonic turntable.
Posted

What badly went wrong was they had no clue how to incorporate anything but guitars, bass, drums, and

 

annoying cockney accents into their arrangements....

 

Wrong, wrong, WRONG !!!

 

Oasis were a Manchester (North-West England) band,

 

& their accents couldn't be more widely removed from a Cockney (South-East England) accent.

 

The difference is HUGE !

 

 

PS : I agree that the cockney accent is annoying...

 

just listen to Dick Van Dyke trying to attempt it in 'Mauwry Poppyyns' ! (or something like that :facepalm:) :D

John.

 

some stuff on myspace

 

Nord: StageEX-88, Electro2-73, Hammond: XK-1, Yamaha: XS7

Korg: M3-73 EXpanded, M50-88, X50, Roland: Juno D, Kurzweil: K2000vp.

Posted

Sad to see what the loudness wars have done to this place. :whistle:

 

:snax:

 

;)

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

Posted
What badly went wrong was they had no clue how to incorporate anything but guitars, bass, drums, and

 

annoying cockney accents into their arrangements....

 

Wrong, wrong, WRONG !!!

 

Oasis were a Manchester (North-West England) band,

 

& their accents couldn't be more widely removed from a Cockney (South-East England) accent.

 

The difference is HUGE !

 

 

PS : I agree that the cockney accent is annoying ! :D

 

I'm an American, I couldn't tell the difference between guttural Manchester versus guttural London. All I knew was that they were whiny, consistently flat (which probably explains the lack of harmony - no one was guaranteed to hit the same note twice), and thickly ghetto-Brit-accented (I say ghetto because I've heard English spoken by educated Brits, and it's delightful, and I've heard ghetto/gutter Brit-speak, and it's bloody awful).

Posted
...I couldn't tell the difference between guttural Manchester versus guttural London.

Well, in that case, don't make uneducated, sweeping comments, yeh? :idea:

John.

 

some stuff on myspace

 

Nord: StageEX-88, Electro2-73, Hammond: XK-1, Yamaha: XS7

Korg: M3-73 EXpanded, M50-88, X50, Roland: Juno D, Kurzweil: K2000vp.

Posted
...I couldn't tell the difference between guttural Manchester versus guttural London.

Well, in that case, don't make uneducated, sweeping comments, yeh? :idea:

 

It's a small island. Surely you can appreciate where outsiders might mistake "cockney" for a general reference to guttural English?

 

Hell, "southern" in the States is used to describe an astounding host of accents from Virginia down to Georgia across to Texas and Oklahoma - all unique, though with certain common traits. Yet no "southerner" is offended when one refers to their accent as such...

Posted
It's a small island. Surely you can appreciate where outsiders might mistake "cockney" for a general reference to guttural English?

 

Hell, "southern" in the States is used to describe an astounding host of accents from Virginia down to Georgia across to Texas and Oklahoma - all unique, though with certain common traits. Yet no "southerner" is offended when one refers to their accent as such...

Indeed - I just saw some musician acquaintances from the east coast a week ago, and they were asking about my drawl. I don't have much of a drawl, pretty minor really, but to an east coaster, I sound like a southerner.

 

I remember a number of years ago, sitting outside of a club with friends, talking, having a good time. A couple of chicks from Long Island were walking by and stopped in their tracks when they heard us speaking. "Oh my Gwawwd. Yowah accents ahrh sow cuwet!"

 

Our accents?

 

We asked "Where do you ladies live?"

 

"Oh, weh're from LonGuyland...."

 

It's all a matter of perspective.

A ROMpler is just a polyphonic turntable.
Posted

Well, anyone from the Northeast thinks anyone from anywhere else has an accent.

 

From my experience in Indy and South Bend, you folks have pretty neutral speaking patterns - maybe a touch slower than the average New Yorker/New Jersey(what do you put on the end of that?) or New Englander, but no discernible drawl.

 

I grew up in NH, but my family is all upstate NY, so I wound up with a pretty neutral accent myself, though I'm prone to pick up on whatever tendencies are being spoken in my presence - to a Texan, I sound like a displaced Texan. To a New Englander, I sound like a displaced New Englander. This has extended all the way up to the UPI/northern Wisconsin/Minnesota - I tend to pick up the regional accent within minutes of hearing it consistently, and lose it just as fast after not hearing it for a while.

 

Heck, I sounded like a proper Scotsman after three days of hanging out with the Atholl Highlanders up in NH when they came over for a tour back in '86.

 

I suppose that's probably why I don't get my knickers in a twist when accents are the topic of dicussion.... ;)

Posted
I grew up in NH, but my family is all upstate NY, so I wound up with a pretty neutral accent myself, though I'm prone to pick up on whatever tendencies are being spoken in my presence - to a Texan, I sound like a displaced Texan. To a New Englander, I sound like a displaced New Englander. This has extended all the way up to the UPI/northern Wisconsin/Minnesota - I tend to pick up the regional accent within minutes of hearing it consistently, and lose it just as fast after not hearing it for a while.
Yeah, I have the same thing going on most of the time, although when I come back from Wisconsin, it can take a week for my speech to get back to normal ;)
A ROMpler is just a polyphonic turntable.

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