Current CD mastering practices, And why I now buy so few new CD's. Options

[RockFan]

Although I've been aware of the ever more destructive levels of compression/limiting used over the last 5-10 years (and taken part in discussions here and other places), it only dawned on me recently that I had unconciously practically stopped buying CD's the last year or two..

By that I'm referring to largely rock, indie, jazz etc, incuding so-called 'remasters'.

There are recent releases out there which I would like to own, but with what I've come to expect from modern CD's, I know that an album which I might have 'played to death' over weeks or months in years gone by will simply get boring after a few plays. So I don't buy them. Dynamics, soft/loud contrasts, drama - squashed out of existence.

New Queens Of The Stone Age? Probably a great album - but once bitten .....

I'm increasingly going to exchanges to try and find older releases of albums I want, or even buying vinyl versions of new albums where they're released, as they tend not to be afflicted as badly.

Obviously there are a proportion of buyers who only lsiten to CD's in the car or on personals in noisy environments who couldn't care less and will keep buying, but there must be a lot of others who, like me, are completely disillusioned with this 'loudness fetish' crap and have simply lost interest.

In fact I wonder how much this has contributed to the stagnancy in sales over the last few years that the 'industry' whines about so frequently?

R.

[NeoRenegade]

OK, this is going to sound very stupid, but remember that I am new here.  I understand that clipping is when the volume tops 0 dB, but what does that sound like?  I really have no clue what you guys are talking about.

-Phil

If you want to know, there's one easy way. Take an MP3, load it into MP3Gain, and adjust the gain to around 106 or 112dB. Then listen to the MP3.
This won't permanently damage the MP3; remember, MP3gain is completely lossless and reversible.

Norman people don't give a fuck about how a CD sounds.  Infact, I done a few silly test wich seemed to show they prefered fucked up music.

I know what you mean! I've had times, especially back in high school, when I'd pass my CD player to a friend so they can sample my music collection, and they'd turn the volume up as high as it can go, and turn on the old "bass boost" feature. The result is horrible. To paraphrase Rip Rowan, it's more white noise than music. All the bass drum pumps are reduced to dull thuds enveloped in static. And yet this is how they like it.

This post has been edited by NeoRenegade: Aug 14 2005, 18:41