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Why Do All Records Sound the Same?

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Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?

#11

Post by sp332 »

dankoss wrote: post #2

Nitpicks: "A great deal of quality is lost as those huge files are squished to the CD format, before being further squished into MP3s on your iPod." Not true, AAC files at high bitrates are proven to be indistinguishable from the original. http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html "Every part of the signal chain—from earbuds to digital/audio converters—is improving and getting cheaper." Like other technologies,…

The format is not the limitation, but audio engineers (for major studios anyway) tend to crank the volume up on CDs more often than vinyl releases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?

#12

Post by davidgerard »

evo_9 wrote: post #10

Mainstream music, sure, but there will always be bands like The Flaming Lips, or My Bloody Valentine releasing records that are completely counter to this approach. I would argue that any 'true artist' - aka one that is consumed with the perfection of their art - is not going to be swayed to produce a 'hit' no matter what the studio wants (they simply won't sign with a big label to begin with, I know plenty of musici…

The mainstream is fragmenting now that people can get access to music without it, per Steve Albini's recent update to "The Problem With Music": http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/17/steve-albinis-k...

Per the article, the "mainstream" is literally music for people who don't like music.

Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?

#13

Post by davidgerard »

Gracana wrote: post #5

> Worse still, the technology behind systems like Waves Ultramaximizer could easily be built into an iPod, automatically remastering all those dull old Neil Young records into BIG LOUD IN-YOUR-FACE BANGERS. I believe Museum of Techno has done some work on this problem. http://archive.museumoftechno.org/exhibition_detail.php?id=5

:-D

Loudness wars is the sound of the genre, to be fair. But not everything is ear-bashing techno.

Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?

#14

Post by k-mcgrady »

>> "In a very few years, we’ll have 1 terabyte iPods, easily capable of handling thousands of recordings in their original high-definition form."

I doubt it. I think we'll be lucky if Apple has increased the maximum configuration to 256GB in a few years. The other issue is that people have moved to streaming and the connections aren't good enough to stream high-quality audio. I signed up for Tidal (lossless Spotify) and even on a decent internet connection it had to buffer and the experience wasn't good enough for me to stick around.

Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?

#15

Post by dankoss »

sp332 wrote: post #11
dankoss wrote: post #2

Nitpicks: "A great deal of quality is lost as those huge files are squished to the CD format, before being further squished into MP3s on your iPod." Not true, AAC files at high bitrates are proven to be indistinguishable from the original. http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html "Every part of the signal chain—from earbuds to digital/audio converters—is improving and getting cheaper." Like other technologies,…

The format is not the limitation, but audio engineers (for major studios anyway) tend to crank the volume up on CDs more often than vinyl releases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

The irony is that digital audio has much more dynamic range than vinyl, and yet modern productions use much less of it in order to psychologically sound better / louder.

Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?

#18

Post by splawn »

sp332 wrote: post #11
dankoss wrote: post #2

Nitpicks: "A great deal of quality is lost as those huge files are squished to the CD format, before being further squished into MP3s on your iPod." Not true, AAC files at high bitrates are proven to be indistinguishable from the original. http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html "Every part of the signal chain—from earbuds to digital/audio converters—is improving and getting cheaper." Like other technologies,…

The format is not the limitation, but audio engineers (for major studios anyway) tend to crank the volume up on CDs more often than vinyl releases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

I was once told that when mastering for vinyl you have to be careful with extremes because it can cause the needle to jump off the record.

Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?

#20

Post by zild3d »

api wrote: post #7

Stuff like this reminds me a lot of sugary simple-carb-laden junk food. The holy grail of popular marketing is to find a way to tap into some kind of simple and probably very evolutionarily ancient "craving" or "desire" pathway in the brain. Seems like they've learned a whole collection of hacks to do this with music, and are now just cranking out manufactured pop music full of those hacks. Combined with repetition i…

Plenty of markets have a similar effect. If you only take a shallow look into the market you will find the junk that is heavily advertised, but there are always experts/aficionados deeply involved in the craft. And this is true in music as well, I don't see why a "movement" is needed.

millercoors : craft beer

Beats by Dre : Beyer Dynamic

Lipton Tea : loose leaf

top 40 : jazz/metal/classical/progressive rock/...

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