"Don Pearce" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 08 Mar 2006 19:47:49 +0000, Glenn Richards
wrote:

Don Pearce wrote:

I mean the phenomenon, not the news propagation. To see the comments
you need to frequent the pro sound groups.

Well, until the government passes a law that there's now 36 hours in a
day rather than 24, I don't have time to frequent every newsgroup I'd
like to.

Anyway... what is it with "remasters" destroying the music like that? I
have a remaster of Dire Straits "Brothers In Arms", and it does actually
sound better than the original release. Ditto with Paul Simon's
"Graceland". But they're the exceptions.

There you have two bands/artists who not only have a lot of artistic
integrity, but the sheer muscle to tell the studio where to get off.

For the rest, the conception is that if reasonably loud is good, then
very loud must be better. So much of the development work in DAW
software in the past few years has concentrated on maximizing the
dynamic squash on the signal while still leaving the music
recognizable. The result is what you have highlighted, and it isn't
pretty.

Radio is the problem - the record producers figure that as you are
hopping through the channels, you will stop on the one that is the
loudest. A ridiculous concept, but it is what drives the music
industry right now.

d

Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

Even more ridiculous when you think that the processor will squash the
dynamic range anyway. However, I have heard it expressed by one record
company exec I was talking to that record companies now have to squash the
CDs as kids want them to sound like they heard them on the radio. Sadly, it
is not limited to the sort of music aimed at teenagers. I have one CD-
Robert Plant, Dreamland, which has full-scale output in several places
throughout the CD, and even in the same track. Looking at it on a 'scope and
using my bit-stream analyser, it is clearly clipped several times. Clipping
for very short periods isn't particularly audible, but you get an extra few
dBs of loudness that way.

Lunacy, sheer lunacy........

S.