Loudness wars
 

Article

I couldn't find a thread for this, which surprised me. I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but it's something that a lot of audiophiles are getting quite excited about, bless 'em.

Basically, a lot of records are being mastered to the point where they sound like shit. Thoughts? Opinions? Glib horseshit non-opinions based on spurious notions of 'humour'?

fucking seriously! I haven't been too happy with a lot of production in years.
I blame three elements:

1) digitalization and protools: Digital is great for remastering, but recording needs to remain on tape, it both expands and yet limits the process, creating cleaner sound with less add-ons. Recording straight to digital I believe was the beginning of the end for contemporary music

2) recording each party individually: Now people make albums having never even met! And not just someone coming into the studio later for some overdubs, no, shit, they are recording albums in several studios and sending the tracks to places to get mastered together.. it makes sterile, boring records. I miss Steve Albini recordings, fuck it all live in the studio.

3) the over-marketing/commercialization of music:
simply put, there are WAY to many records out there. complete and utter oversaturation.. It is just overwhelming, and it is no wonder that so much tripe and bullshit makes it out there. It is watering down the quality.

So artists (even good and respectable ones) are making shitty sounding records because they are using digital, they are not working with group dynamics in the studio, and they are just rushing it way to much to get it out there to compete with the rest of the crap

I heard all that shit when it came out. How can Metallica be too loud?????? It is supposed to be loud. I bought the CD the day it came out my first thought was not "this is too loud". Just a bunch of people bitching cause they have nothin else to do. I do not want a remaster!!!!!

i really don't mind a bit of loudness unless there's heaps of distortion/clipping and the dynamics are completely fucked.

Not being funny, but you should watch the article I linked above. It's kind of a misnomer calling it 'loudness' wars, because the argument from the audiophile's side is that the records lose their dynamic range, making them actually less loud because of shitty mastering.

Essentially you want a drum to make a MASSIVE BANG; what Death Magnetic has is a dissatisfying farty sound.

1) Digital in itself really isn't the problem. It's up to the people making the record. For the majority of bands, digital is more convenient and easier for editing. I've no real preference either way, but I would say that for the overwhelming majority of bands, digital makes more sense just because it's more economical and (generally) quicker.

2) Separated recording is nothing new; I'd be surprised if more than 70% of your (or anyone else's) record collection didn't feature a lot of this - it's pretty much endemic from around the mid-60s onwards. I tend to think that Albini likes to label himself as an 'engineer' because he doesn't want to take responsibility for the fact that his records more often than not sound like a pile of shit.

3) Meh. I'm not going to complain about having more choice than ever in the record market.

I can see what they mean. When the music gets over modulated and peaked out, then the intended tone gets all wacked. The bass gets all warbly and the drums sound stupid. Beyond that the instruments will start to bleed together and make it difficult to sort them out.

I've never taken a big consideration on how qualitative the sound of a record is with a handful of exceptions. But I have kind of a admitted hypocritical attitude towards the subject, since I prefer the shittier sounding GBV records to the higher-fi ones. But at least I'd say I'd want the record to sound competent.

I don't really know what Metallica was going for. If it really sounds like that just to make it louder then that's just dumb. The new Lightning Bolt record is a brawl of volume and it doesn't have those maxed out mistakes, that I can recall anyway.

So I dunno, it'd be interesting to hear what Metallica has to say about it, what they were thinking when they mixed the record.

I watched it before i posted. i just was happy to have some new music made for me i am in no position to judge recording shit I have minimal knowledge in this area. I was just happy with the sound so I did'nt understand the fuss

Ears are all the qualification you need to listen. I mean, if you're happy with it, that's fine, but it is comically poor, mastering-wise.

1) the key word there is editing, yes digital is better for editing, but for recording stick to tapes. Its not that terribly difficult to output a tape machine into a digital sound board on the mix down, and even on a DIY you can easily go from a tape-> 2-track analog mix down -> digitalize the copy -> edit and remaster on the computer

My major beef with digital recording is that people try to cram way to much into it, or even worse, they try to splice to many segments of good takes and make a horrible Frankenstein's monster out of it.. Go back to the Hendrix style of recording 38 takes and picking the best fucking one! Thats how I prefer it. When you splice and cut and paste too much, it comes out in the mix.

2) yes, I know multi-tracking was especially popular in the 60s and 70s, but I think the way they do it today is a bit of an overkill. In the 60s they were limited with what they could do by the number of tracks and quality of the machinery. They often recorded multiple pieces together on the same track at the same time. and at the least, when they went piece by piece on the tracks, they still did it together, in a studio and they rehearsed it all together in the studio, rather than perhaps at different studios as is commonly done on albums today. Many artists today go into the studio at completely separate times and record strictly to the tape. That shit sucks and you can hear the lack of togetherness, it sounds just as it is, cut and pasted together. The band should ALL go into the studio together, even if they are recording parts individually, and many bands and artists today simply do not do that, it has become a standard even!

I don't agree with your "stick to tape" idea. Just use digital (your computer) more like a tape machine and then you got something! Analog is dead or dying...

bullshit! A computer cannot possibly catch the nuances and subtleties of things like feedback and harmonics, and it rarely catches the true dynamics of the instruments. It makes drum tracks sound like drum machines, and makes vocals sound like shit shit shit.

I fucking despise all digital recording, it is the lazy and irresponsible way to cut an album.

analog is not dying at all, in fact it is having quite the comeback as people realize how useful and great it really ease, and also how well it synchronizes with the digital editing and mastering technology. I honestly love the best of both worlds, record on tape, mix down and produce on computers.

This.

A number of artists' entire back catalogues have been rendered almost unlistenable as a result of this. Now it seems that there's a whole industry providing 'sensitive' rermasters (as is being discussed in terms of Death Magnetic, which does sound terrible) that try to correct the mistakes in the previous ones. I don't understand the technology involved, but why they can't simply take the masters closest to the original, transfer them to CD and have done with it, I'll never know. Unless of course they simply want fans to keep buying the same albums over and over again ... surely not!

Metallica and bad sounding together what's so surprising about that? Have they even learned how to play those instruments yet?

start a thread about classic rock i'll contribute.

yeah chicka, come on. start one about muscle cars, too. i wanna know whether people prefer camaros or mustangs. i'd do it myself but a thread like that, started by an englishman, just seems absurd. come on chicka, play the white man. start some cool threads, goddammit

Dude knows his shit when it comes to southern rock/classic stuff...for real. He puts me to SHAME.

+ as far as muscle cars....

http://www.gmphotostore.com/1969-Bui...info/53217712/

I helped someone restore one of these once...which really just boiled down to a 14 year old Swa(y) sitting around and watchin'. Fell in love w/ that car.

i'm not messing around either. this has to happen. southern rock and muscle cars or there's no point in anything anymore. So help me God.


I don't even have a driving licence, and I'm totally not inspired to have one over here, but I see something like that, or one of these ... I'd refuse to walk anywhere.

All that Detroit rock I listen to has made me want one....riding around w/ '69 Buick GS w/ the '5 blastin' full volume w/ wittle Sway behind the wheel is my idea of sexssez.

I dunno, I just turn the volume down a bit if it's too loud. Doesn't seem like a huge deal.

I've never understood audiophiles. Tons of classic albums sound like shit (Loveless, Trout Mask Replica, even tons of Albini-produced albums). It really makes no difference as far as my enjoyment of the actual songs go. I know a dude who only listens to music on vinyl because he said "that's the only possible way to hear the songs for real." Huh?!

...Anyway, I've yet to hear a cd produced so loud that it produces clipping to the point where it obscures the music or something -- without it being intentional and perhaps necessary (Merzbow, Coachwhips, Hospitals). Death Magnetic sounds amazing. There are quiet parts, loud parts, there's a good dynamic range, every instrument is clear in the mix (though the bass should be a bit louder).