Members T. Alan Smith Posted June 30, 2009 Members Posted June 30, 2009 I was just thinking about how recorded music reached it's peak in quality during the 70s. Sure, we were buying hi bias tape and phono cords to make relatively decent quality copies for our cars...and friends. But if you wanted the best quality, you bought an original recording. Copying wasn't anywhere near as destructive to the industry as the digital revolution has been. People still wanted one original copy(LP or tape) with which to make copies for their car, or mix tapes for their projects. Copies of copies were pretty ratty. The cost of convenience(i.e. digital formats) is the loss of value in production quality. Anyway, I can't help but think the only way out of this mess; putting value back into recorded music; is to do a major overhaul in format. Alas, I'm sure the consumer will cast their vote with the almighty dollar towards convenience.
Members soundwave106 Posted June 30, 2009 Members Posted June 30, 2009 The audiophile world seems to have largely migrated to multimedia, though (DVD and now Blu-Ray). Here's my take: an awful lot of blame for this can be put on the record companies themselves. For example, we all know about the "loudness wars" -- they have destroyed digital's headroom advantage in the pop realm, and have created listening experiences that will never be nice no matter what the end-product is. All these arguments about MP3s sounding like {censored} are moot when even simple acoustic guitar / singer pieces are being put through brickwall compressors to the point of distortion (see Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt" for one of the worst examples of this.) The film world has an awful lot of loud purists that both advocate and educate techniques to achieve a quality experience. The audio world does too. So why does Hollywood listen to the film world more for its general purpose products than the audio world does for theirs? It seems like that film companies respond more to "geeky" discussions over such things as anamorphic video, edge enhancement, excessive digital noise reduction, etc. Audio companies ignore audiophile geeks and instead push excessively compressed, over-autotuned pop flash that would not benefit from any quality medium. Personally, I think that top-end consumer digital (SACD, DVD-Audio, and audio on DVD and Blu-Ray) surpasses top-end consumer analog. At least in terms of accurate reproduction is concerned. I find phonographs "colored" even at the high end of things, and while it is a pleasing coloring to the ear, a colored tone is still a colored tone. Professional reel-to-reel versus digital is a different argument altogether, but consumer analog formats tend to have some compromise built in. The decline in audio quality has less to do with analog versus digital, and more to do with the audio quality of the music being pushed. There's more of an emphasis of using the new digital tools to rush a product through instead of craft a fine recording; and there's more of an emphasis on "standing out" (ala the loudness wars) then creating a quality listening experience. At least from my viewpoint. A new "analog" medium won't save that.
Members T. Alan Smith Posted June 30, 2009 Author Members Posted June 30, 2009 So, if the record industry would release their catalogs only on a top-end consumer digital format, would that do the trick? Couldn't the current top-end consumer digital formats be just as easily copied(with more than adequate results), therefore distributed?
Members soundwave106 Posted June 30, 2009 Members Posted June 30, 2009 So, if the record industry would release their catalogs only on a top-end consumer digital format, would that do the trick? Couldn't the current top-end consumer digital formats be just as easily copied(with more than adequate results), therefore distributed? Yes. With today's cheap recording methods, a reasonable digital copy could be made out of a high-end analog format, though. There will always be an "analog hole". I'd like to point out that the most popular piracy formats *are* compromised formats, for size reasons -- MP3 for audio, and XVID / DIVX / H.264 for movies. Even CDs and DVDs are of a higher quality. Yet online piracy seems to impact movies much less (for now -- if movies embrace the "online distribution" model they'll start shooting themself in the foot). Size might be the issue here -- it takes hours to download a movie, mere minutes for a song.
Moderators daddymack Posted June 30, 2009 Moderators Posted June 30, 2009 There has been a trend to go back to analog vinyl, unfortunately, this will not bring back the days of turntables, nor usher in a improved audio standard for digital. Audiophiles are in the extreme minority, and generally are not interested in pop music, so their impact on the major labels is nil.
Members Kramerguy Posted June 30, 2009 Members Posted June 30, 2009 My understanding of dynamic compression, aka 'loudness', is that it is used in 95%+ of ALL music today, not just pop. That being said, I'd fear that even returning to the vinyl standard wouldn't change the foul engineering tactics used in the studio productions.
Members Blackwatch Posted July 1, 2009 Members Posted July 1, 2009 My understanding of dynamic compression, aka 'loudness', is that it is used in 95%+ of ALL music today, not just pop.That being said, I'd fear that even returning to the vinyl standard wouldn't change the foul engineering tactics used in the studio productions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but how squashed your master is depends on who mastered it and the record company demanding that it be that squashed....I've looked at popular, mastered songs in my recording program and they look like the buttes in Montana....a bunch of flat tops.......
Members Kramerguy Posted July 1, 2009 Members Posted July 1, 2009 I stand corrected, I should have said "95% of all major label artist releases"....and only most of the indie label releases.. Most artists don't even know what it is, much less care if their music is mastered with compression out the wazoo.
Members jabney Posted July 8, 2009 Members Posted July 8, 2009 My understanding of dynamic compression, aka 'loudness', is that it is used in 95%+ of ALL music today, not just pop.That being said, I'd fear that even returning to the vinyl standard wouldn't change the foul engineering tactics used in the studio productions. Actually, those foul engineering tactics will not work with vinyl. The needle would jump out of the groove. For fans of vinyl, the laws of physics are a great benefit. best, john
Members HKSblade1 Posted July 8, 2009 Members Posted July 8, 2009 They can put a lot of stereo wav files on a SD or USB flash sound quality does not have to be as much of an issue.
Members Roy Brooks Posted July 8, 2009 Members Posted July 8, 2009 I record CDs because that is the medium that I have that I can do myself. I do not use any dynamic compression. I don't really need to.
Members Nijyo Posted July 10, 2009 Members Posted July 10, 2009 I stand corrected, I should have said "95% of all major label artist releases"....and only most of the indie label releases..Most artists don't even know what it is, much less care if their music is mastered with compression out the wazoo. It's weirder than that sometimes. I read somewhere that someone quoted Steve Harris (Iron Maiden) as saying they "didn't master their last album" and released just the mix version to "avoid the horrible mastering that happened on their previous release". Which makes no sense to me, since they have their own label. Then again, there's the Death Magnetic nonsense with the differently mastered versions on the CD and on Guitar Hero, which the mastering engineer claimed was due to a bad original mix ("it wasn't his fault").
Members richardmac Posted July 10, 2009 Members Posted July 10, 2009 You know, it IS true that mastering engineers only have a stereo master to work with, and if that stereo master is already hyped up and compressed, there's not much they can do about it. And today's computers make it very easy to put a compressor on every track...
Members Nijyo Posted July 10, 2009 Members Posted July 10, 2009 You know, it IS true that mastering engineers only have a stereo master to work with, and if that stereo master is already hyped up and compressed, there's not much they can do about it. And today's computers make it very easy to put a compressor on every track... Yeah, except that in the case of Metallica's most recent release, I *really* doubt that they went back in an re-mixed everything just for the Guitar Hero game tracks (which sound significantly better).
Members Kramerguy Posted July 10, 2009 Members Posted July 10, 2009 I should probably re-read this myself, but this is where I got most of my understandings about dynamic compression: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity
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