On September 03 2009 20:28 7mk wrote: My last concert was machinehead/slipknot (yeah, a pop concert) a few months ago, when machinehead played it was still ok, already quite loud but then slipknot (unfortunately main act) played and they turned it up soooooo much more. It was ridiculous. I don't get how anybody who didnt have something to cover their ears didn't get permanent tinitus
Obviously you went to the concert, so you know how loud it was, but other factors to take into account are things like poor venue acoustics and badly selected/low-quality/mismatched PA equipment.
Resonances and harmonics created by a poor acoustic environment or poor equipment could be behind a lot of the ear fatigue, rather than the volume itself.
Great post and info, I remember my parents telling me this after hearing about it in 9 o clock Korean news and youngsters were getting partially deaf much earlier.
1. you never hear the music with the recorded volume, you change your own volume control according to your preference 2. in the digital age I expect all music to be normalized. normalization means that you scale the volume exactly so that the loudest part has the highest possible value (if you have trouble understanding this imagine an image where you increase the brightness until the brightest pixel has exactly 255 (highest 8 bit value) in one component (red, green oder blue))
P.S.: Ok I have to correct myself after reading all the details. Only using the highest 5 db by using compressors and limiters is so stupid that I didn't imaging someone could do this :-) I mean is it really true that the loudest track gets the most attention? I prefer the best sounding one :-)
Actually, the real problem seems to be the ipod and specifically the 'shuffle' feature. When tracks are played next to each other, record labels are afraid their tracks sound softer than their neighbours.
I'm not sure how I feel about this honestly... It seems like it can be taken too far in either direction.
I've downloaded several high quality FLAC files with high dynamic range that were simply intolerable, because the high-pitched and louder than normal snare treble hurts the ears. There are honestly times where the reduced quality and "blending" affect can make some albums sound better, and made me delete the higher quality tracks in favor of my older mp3's.
Then again, I don't listen to much modern music, I'm a huge classic rock fan. Modern pop does sound very muddled to me, and there is a HUGE volume difference between my oldest tracks and my newest tracks on my ipod. I have to isolate the quieter/older songs and manually raise their default volume to create uniformity and prevent myself from going deaf after switching from an old to a new track.
The first part of the video does a good job showing the differences from compression, but the second part of the video doesn't. You are simply drawn to the louder track. If they played the tracks at the same volume it would better illustrate the actual dynamic differences instead of just the different volume. That's probably why many people will reach the conclusion of kirdie above.
On September 09 2011 00:43 Lucidity wrote: The post above made me cry a little.
I blame you and your fellow teen friends for making the record companies do this!
If all you're after is volume, then turn up the volume of your speakers. gg? The problem with the loudness war is that the range is removed...
To be fair, how many people - outside of 'audiophiles' - know enough about music to say anything other than "it sounds the same to me"? How many people have spent the time in concert and in studio to know when the sound of a cymbal, or bass, or whatever, is accurate? Probably very little, because they haven't been trained or haven't cared to notice. More probably, they've been trained not to notice.
I love mp3's for the fact that I can bring them anywhere, but I hate their audio fidelity. I hate vinyl for the bulk, but I love the audio fidelity.
The problem, I think, is that the 'consumer' has been told that audio equipment should be relatively cheap; that music should be easily accessible, etc. The system is built to sell records, not to sound the best it can.
On September 09 2011 00:48 theSAiNT wrote: Actually, the real problem seems to be the ipod and specifically the 'shuffle' feature. When tracks are played next to each other, record labels are afraid their tracks sound softer than their neighbours.
I don't think it is just the record labels. If I have music playing in the background, I don't want to fiddle with the volume every time the song changes. I DON'T want to have to turn my tv up when there is whispering and then down again when the guns start firing.
On September 09 2011 00:48 theSAiNT wrote: Actually, the real problem seems to be the ipod and specifically the 'shuffle' feature. When tracks are played next to each other, record labels are afraid their tracks sound softer than their neighbours.
I don't think it is just the record labels. If I have music playing in the background, I don't want to fiddle with the volume every time the song changes. I DON'T want to have to turn my tv up when there is whispering and then down again when the guns start firing.
If you have to do that then the sound engineers fucked up (A notable example of this in my experience is Breaking Bad). Obviously the range can't be too high (in music), but what they're doing nowadays is going overboard.
EPT
