|
|
Post by johnnyfromthewood on Mar 28, 2009 17:28:44 GMT
There is some clipping on Radio Wars 
On Digital Hearts @ 3:27
On How Long @ 0:04The mastering is not very good. You can see Digital Hearts and Wishing Stone in comparison in wave form.  |
|
|
|
Post by ledjarde on Mar 28, 2009 22:31:47 GMT
I didn't notice this when listening myself, but if it's true then it seems HB have become another victim of the dreaded volume war. Mastering technicians are compressing the hell out of music and someone needs to put a stop to it now!! Bring back dynamic range, it's what HB's music was made for.
|
|
|
|
Post by skeffington on Mar 30, 2009 12:07:37 GMT
Don't be so quick to blame the mastering engineers, they only work to what the artist/label wants. Chances are that the record was brickwalled or very near before it even reached mastering. Anyway, it's no Raw Power  |
|
|
|
Post by blade on Mar 30, 2009 19:21:01 GMT
Can anybody explain in primitive terms what you're talking about?
|
|
|
|
Post by johnnyfromthewood on Mar 30, 2009 20:45:07 GMT
For clipping check the times i gave you on the 2 tracks in the first post. You will here a short sound that shouldn't be there. Clipping on Wikipedia |
|
|
|
Post by blade on Mar 30, 2009 22:54:33 GMT
I've just listened to How Long again and I can't discern anything untoward after 4 seconds.
It strikes me that you technophiles are probing and examining so deeply you're risking losing your enjoyment of the music but who am I to say what's right or wrong for each individual? Each to his own I guess.
So long as I can play it loud and sing along, I'm happy. Mind you, other people might not be so happy if they had to listen to my singing!
|
|
|
|
Post by ledjarde on Mar 31, 2009 13:59:29 GMT
For Blade...the difference between the quietest and the loudest instrument in a piece of music is known as dynamic range, and too much modern music is having all dynamic range squashed out of it, and it's not the band's fault.
The reason is that many people in the music industry over ther last 10 - 15 years (often those in marketing!) have this crazy notion that if your music is the loudest, it will get noticed more. It's as simple as that. You'll have noticed it on TV when the adverts are louder than the programmes. It's to grab our attention. It's been going on for years now. The trouble is that CD's can only be so loud, it's a physical limitation of them (it's technical and I can't remember the exact reason), so people push and push the format to be as loud as it physically can. But because there's a limit, people try and get as close as possible to the limit, but if you overstep the mark, you get clipping, i.e. distortion. It gets worse the more you overstep the threshold.
This whole notion is at the expense of the quiet parts of the songs, which should really be lower in the mix. In order to make the whole thing sound louder, the levels on every channel/instrument get turned up (yes, to '11' I know!). It's liking pushing every slider on a 30 channel graphic equaliser all the way up. No one who likes music would every do this. Obviously, this decision is partly ruining the music because it removes all those instances when the levels of instruments rise and fall, it brings every instrument up to the same volume when they shouldn't be. This compressing of all volume levels is known as dynamic range compression. Certain things need to be lower in the mix to have more of a background influence on the overall music. But industry bosses aren't interested in this...they just want loudness and volume to get yours and mine attention. They forget this isn't actually why we buy CDs!!
There's a movement calling for and end to all this, involving fans, writers, critics, musicians, , engineers, etc, and it's gathering momentum. Yes, I was incorrect to partly blame them as whole, because they're often forced to do it against their will.
Music should be like a black and white photograph....yes, it has black and white as two extremes, but inbetween those extremes it has many shades that truly give it life, texture, imperfections, shade, subtleties, mood, etc. It's these countless shades that make the photograph what it is.
Google 'volume war' and you'll fine more about it, it's something a lot of the music buying public know nothing about, and they should. Hope this explanation helps mate. It's an interesting subject to look into.
|
|
|
|
Post by blade on Mar 31, 2009 15:28:24 GMT
Thanks for the explanation. I don't doubt you're right and I hope you don't think I'm dismissing what you say without a thought. It's just that it's something I've never noticed and now that I do know about it it's still something I could never get worked up about.
I have noticed the increased volume on TV ads, which is why I always hit the mute button and don't watch them!
|
|
|
|
Post by johnnyfromthewood on Mar 31, 2009 20:50:34 GMT
Oh...
Now i checked the CD and it's no clipping in there.
My mp3s that i ripped from the cd have clipping in it. Interesting.
Didn't notice it on any other of my CD-rips before.
And now i see why i did discover it relative lately, because i started to listen to the rip.
|
|
|
|
Post by skeffington on Mar 31, 2009 20:58:56 GMT
...and it's not the band's fault. They must have approved it. You're well intentioned but (not meaning to sound rude here) I'm not quite sure you fully understand the processes involved. The way I see it, the only way things are going to change is if the artists kick up a fuss. |
|
|
|
Post by ledjarde on Apr 1, 2009 1:26:30 GMT
Thankfully many bands seem to be wholely against the volume war too, and are currently throwing their might behind the growing movement to return things to the way they were. I've no idea if HB approved their album being mastered in this way, but maybe they had no say in the matter either, maybe they're unaware of the issue, I don't know. If they knew about it, it might have been a good idea to change it's title to Volume Wars!
|
|
