I wanted to update the URLs so the picture would remain and it was a royal pain in the ass to find it via search function. So to make it easier in the future, and because it sort of took on it's own life in the middle of a huge thread, I'm putting it here:
Quote:
Before I go any further it should be noted that production in the Compact Disc era has never been ideal, and there has pretty much ALWAYS been some clipping. The way they produced in the vinyl era was much more true to the way audio was supposed to sound naturally. It wasn't great in the early/mid 90s, and got better towards the mid/late 90s. However, in the late 90s/early 2000s the loudness wars really took over and took clipping to a whole new level. I'm going to show the complete unzoomed version of each song I am presenting, and then a zoomed in portion to show 10 seconds of the wave so you can see that it's not always as bad as it looks when zoomed out, but also get a good idea of how often the clips actually occur.
It looks bad but not incredibly bad, but when I zoom in to a 1 second window at a point that looks clipped on the zoom out, you'll see it really isn't as bad as it looks. And that is reflected in what you hear:
But parts of the album are starting to suffer, as you'll see in Red Mosquito. Now this is still nothing compared to what we'll see by S/T, which is consistently the worse throughout the album. Just imagine how much better Red Mosquito would sound if the levels were dropped just 3dB.
Now onto Yield. It looks VERY similar to No Code and Vitalogy but if you look closely you can see that it's not QUITE as clipped, and this is pretty much what I consider to be the most clipping you can get away with before getting sound deterioration. Now Vitalogy/No Code aren't THAT bad, but would sound a bit better if they were dropped just a bit.
Take a look at G2F on DTE. Given To Fly is more on par for what most of the album looks like, and DTE is an example of the worst that Yield gets clipping wise.
Now, you might say to yourself after looking at all these: "well, these differences aren't that huge, they all clip a bit, some SLIGHTLY more than others, but barely". You have to realize that that slight variation is a big difference sound wise. It's a bigger difference than you think just by looking at it. With that said, let's jump forward 8 years to self titled (sorry, I dont have Binaural and RA on me), and you will see MASSIVE clipping, to the point where even the untrained ear should be able to tell that something isn't right. I won't elaborate on these, just let the graphics speak for themselves.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Why is this a new thread?
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
BadMusic wrote:
Quote:
because it sort of took on it's own life in the middle of a huge thread
Troll: Please Ignore.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
lipidicman wrote:
Own thread? This should be the start of a wiki. Great stuff
What would convince me is people actually discussing the content of chud's post.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Own thread? This should be the start of a wiki. Great stuff
What would convince me is people actually discussing the content of chud's post.
Well, it's not liable to start an argument or anything.
I will say that a lot of people who get worked up about this topic would actually argue that Pearl Jam's entire career has been on the wrong end of the "loudness wars." Compared to mastering in the 60's and 70's, a lot of streamlining had gone on even by the time Ten first dropped. Every one of those wav files shows more containment than is preferable...but none of us were sitting online grumbling about lost dynamics the first time we heard Yield.
Further (and this is relevant to just about any recording), there's a lot of evidence that the way we perceive sound dynamics is separate from the actual range presented in the recording. For example, most people who are played a set of recordings featuring widely varying levels of compression perceive much smaller differences than actually exist between them, and tend to process the loud-to-soft dynamics fairly similarly even with substantial limiting present.
Also, even high end audio geeks often perceive their favorite records as being "less compressed" than other recordings, regardless of whether they actually ARE or not, so probably our brain's understanding of the music itself (presumably brought on by repeated listening?) impacts our perception of the recording.
So while I agree that the loudness wars are a problem, and quite frankly more and more I'm a fan of extremely minimal compression in general, I don't think it is a clear-cut case of a corporate trend "destroying music" or anything....I mean, how many people listen to music with Apple ear buds, or bass-heavy car stereos/computer speakers? Or through some countertop system they bought at Best Buy for less than $300? Should this trend be stopped? Absolutely? Reversed? Sure. Is it the biggest inhibitor of the average listeners experience? I doubt it.
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2006 9:23 am Posts: 1867 Location: UK
McParadigm wrote:
So while I agree that the loudness wars are a problem, and quite frankly more and more I'm a fan of extremely minimal compression in general, I don't think it is a clear-cut case of a corporate trend "destroying music" or anything....I mean, how many people listen to music with Apple ear buds, or bass-heavy car stereos/computer speakers? Or through some countertop system they bought at Best Buy for less than $300? Should this trend be stopped? Absolutely? Reversed? Sure. Is it the biggest inhibitor of the average listeners experience? I doubt it.
A generally good post marred at the end there. I don't care if the quality of the recording isn't the limit to most users experience. That isn't a valid argument to tailor the quality of the only copy I can spend my good money on to the kid with the white earbuds and a case of tinnitus brewing.
Edit: I stand by my point but it sounds too abrupt as a response to your insightful post. You brought up a lot of other really interesting points there McParadigm, some of which might be interesting to discuss further when I have thought about them more
Last edited by lipidicman on Wed Dec 30, 2009 9:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:02 pm Posts: 6405 Location: DC Gender: Male
So I read a bit about this, but can't really figure out why it's done. I mean wouldn't the artist, who are presumably music nerds as well, want the best possible production? Why would they allow for the overt loudness? Some I understand have no say so, as it's the labels. However, Pearl Jam is their own beast, and they claim to love vinyl, so why would they "ruin" the production with the crazy clipping?
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2006 9:23 am Posts: 1867 Location: UK
McParadigm wrote:
Of course not, and that's not what I was saying there at all.
I know. Hence the edit when I read what I had posted but you beat me to it!
darth_vedder wrote:
So I read a bit about this, but can't really figure out why it's done. I mean wouldn't the artist, who are presumably music nerds as well, want the best possible production? Why would they allow for the overt loudness? Some I understand have no say so, as it's the labels. However, Pearl Jam is their own beast, and they claim to love vinyl, so why would they "ruin" the production with the crazy clipping?
It is what the kids dig. Lowest common denominator.
Joined: Sun May 21, 2006 2:02 am Posts: 91597 Location: Sector 7-G
McParadigm wrote:
B wrote:
lipidicman wrote:
Own thread? This should be the start of a wiki. Great stuff
What would convince me is people actually discussing the content of chud's post.
Well, it's not liable to start an argument or anything.
I will say that a lot of people who get worked up about this topic would actually argue that Pearl Jam's entire career has been on the wrong end of the "loudness wars." Compared to mastering in the 60's and 70's, a lot of streamlining had gone on even by the time Ten first dropped. Every one of those wav files shows more containment than is preferable...but none of us were sitting online grumbling about lost dynamics the first time we heard Yield.
Further (and this is relevant to just about any recording), there's a lot of evidence that the way we perceive sound dynamics is separate from the actual range presented in the recording. For example, most people who are played a set of recordings featuring widely varying levels of compression perceive much smaller differences than actually exist between them, and tend to process the loud-to-soft dynamics fairly similarly even with substantial limiting present.
Also, even high end audio geeks often perceive their favorite records as being "less compressed" than other recordings, regardless of whether they actually ARE or not, so probably our brain's understanding of the music itself (presumably brought on by repeated listening?) impacts our perception of the recording.
So while I agree that the loudness wars are a problem, and quite frankly more and more I'm a fan of extremely minimal compression in general, I don't think it is a clear-cut case of a corporate trend "destroying music" or anything....I mean, how many people listen to music with Apple ear buds, or bass-heavy car stereos/computer speakers? Or through some countertop system they bought at Best Buy for less than $300? Should this trend be stopped? Absolutely? Reversed? Sure. Is it the biggest inhibitor of the average listeners experience? I doubt it.
Good post. People talking about the loudness war aren't necessarily your "average listener" though.
_________________ It takes a big man to make a threat on the internet.
Joined: Sun May 21, 2006 2:02 am Posts: 91597 Location: Sector 7-G
darth_vedder wrote:
So I read a bit about this, but can't really figure out why it's done. I mean wouldn't the artist, who are presumably music nerds as well, want the best possible production? Why would they allow for the overt loudness? Some I understand have no say so, as it's the labels. However, Pearl Jam is their own beast, and they claim to love vinyl, so why would they "ruin" the production with the crazy clipping?
Because louder songs on the radio sell more records.
_________________ It takes a big man to make a threat on the internet.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 4:23 pm Posts: 3721 Location: Canada
I remember Alan Cross interviewing Ed on 102.1 before the Ten Reissue came out and Alan said something like "I hope the remix doesn't use a lot of compression like a lot of these things seem to have these days", and Ed says something along the lines of "You know, I don't really know what compression is. I feel compressed sometimes though."
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