Hi everybody,

I've got several CDs that really sound bad although they are "remastered". Among them are
Gov't Mule - The Deep End
Crazy Horse - Left for Dead -- and what's worst
Led Zeppelin - How the West was won.

No matter which program I use for extracting them (and no matter under which OS), and no matter which CD-Drive I use, I always get exactly the same files. Viewing them in a audio editor shows immediately that the tracks are much to loud and that there's much clipping.
I even downloaded some of the tracks from the internet - they appear to have the same nasty clipping artefacts (sometimes less noticable because of bad mp3 encoders). Anyway, I don't seem to be the only one who has this problem.

Does anybody know what's happening here? I can't really imagine that the big record companies are to stupid to create CDs without clipping (after all the remastering seems to be well done).

Thanks in advance

Thomas

Ciao..


1. buy a vinyl.. if there is one..

Search this forum, there are several postings on this topic. Basically newer discs are mastered beyond clipping to sound "louder."

For example:
Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Disc"

If you're familiar with the band "Zwan" (Billy Corgan's new group) they actually admit to doing it on purpose and are pleased with the effect. Here's a link to a post by Corgan (not sure if you can get to it without registering):

LOUD AT ANY VOLUME

This trend is so stupid. At this point, most vinyls probably have more *actually used* dynamic range than most recent CD's! In fact, it's an argument in favor of finding the same thing on vinyl, if it can be located -- almost guaranteed it won't be as loud and/or "clip-py" (although it probably will still be compressed).

Unless, of course, the CD master (clipped and all) is just pressed on vinyl as-is, at an overall lower level so as not to exceed vinyl's limitations -- now that would have to be the ultimate record company stupidity.

Also, this is an excellent article on the subject.

These new CD are not just clipping: The sound is dynamicly compressed.
Perhaps they do this, that it sounds fatter on a cheap stereo.

I don't get where people think this heavy compression sounds "punchy" though... to me, a drumbeat with a lot of dynamic range is "punchy," but compress that drumbeat and it loses its punch and sounds much duller. Probably percussion is the most "hurt" from overcompression, but IMHO everything in the music suffers.

You can give drums a punchy sound, if you compress the bassdrum and the snaredrum independent. But if you compress the whole song you just loose clarity.

I bought vinyl until 1995, and at this time they suffered more than CD, because cutting them too loud lead to awful distortion.
There is one (Photek - Modus Operandi, Source records, audiophile 180 g release) where I could see with a microscope a beautiful pattern of the groove being destroyed by the cutting stylus being overdriven (the rear part of the stylus destroys the shape given by the front part, because the lateral moves are too big).

Only the pattern was much more clearer than on the blurry picture in the electroacoustic book where I learned about this kind of defect.

Believe it or not, that's exactly what's being done, more often than not! For an excellent example, record any of the vinyl remasters of Jimi Hendrix' catalogue (on the "Experience Hendrix" label... mastered by Sterling Sound, who are some of the worst offenders) on your PC, making sure the levels are low enough not to even risk introducing any new clipping. Open them in your favourite WAV editor, zoom in, and you'll see that almost every major peak is clipped.

Such shoddy mastering techniques are one of the primary reasons I would like to see a "declip" function added to WaveGain. Any luck on those sources, john33?

- M.

OMG... >_<

Maybe now I know why I basically lost track of new music around 1995 or so (& haven't bought a remaster in quite long either). I'm not getting old, my ears just can't take it anymore...

i don't necessarily agree. sterling sound is owned by really talented people who were recording engineers before they were mastering engineers when most of us were still in diapers

therefore, i doubt they do this sort of thing intentionally or because they don't know what they're doing. let's face it, it's the labels who are demanding hot levels, and in some cases today, it's the artist who is submitting a master which is already too loud. if a mastering facility refuses to master this album as asked by the label or artist, they will lose the client

take for example delerium's "karma" CD which was mastered by sterling sound. it sounds surprisingly good, natural, and is not very compressed considering it was mastered in 1997

personally i really hate the way CDs are mastered today. not even ballads, which are supposed to be more quiet, escape the loudness war. musicians and record labels think it's good to make everything loud, but it actually isn't. and believe me it doesn't get people's attention either. the music sounds very sterile and artificial when it's loud and heavily compressed. it's not about using a sound editor to see how the waveform looks. in most cases nowadays it's easy to tell how it will look just by listening to the CD first

outscape, I believe you misunderstood the gist of my post. I am not accusing Sterling Sound of incompetence; rather, they excell at this sort of mastering (making the music louder than the desirable dynamic range of the CD medium). If you sample their projects across the spectrum, you will find many that are mastered "correctly," but they have gained a deserved reputation for their over-driven digital transfers. It is Sterling Sound's reputation as one of the "best" for producing hotter-than-the-hottest digital masters which led me to label them as one of the "worst" offenders. I stand by that remark.

Now, given the amount of clipping they deliberately introduce (and the issue of whether such deliberation is an arbitrary decision of the engineer or done at the behest of the record label is irrelevant; it is, for the most part, specified by the label - which is why the "Experience Hendrix" releases are of uniform quality - but the occasional engineering whim may come into play...) I would still qualify this as a shoddy mastering technique. I doubt there are many here who would disagree with that statement, either.

- M.

Sometimes I wonder if people (in general, for the most part) even *remember* how good an uncompressed (or not very compressed) recording can sound. Being a fan of older vinyls and older music in general, I consider myself lucky to listen to mostly uncompressed stuff -- and it can be stunning. Especially with headphones. The music is quiet, and suddenly a *burst* of sound that just shocks you to silence, or moves you to a kind of ephiphany.

It's so ironic that with all this available dynamic range on CD's, so little of it is often used (especially with current rock/pop, probably not so true with classical & acoustic). A great deal of the power inherent in music is just gone along with the dynamic range.

This is not only a shoddy mastering technique to me, it's a sort of crime against the art of music itself, as it tends to suck the soul right out of a recording. Maybe I'm going a bit overboard, since much of today's music (especially the popular stuff that gets radio play) is rather soulless in my opinion anyway. As far as large numbers of clipped peaks, I have nothing to say except that isn't shoddy mastering, it's sh*tty mastering. In other words, things were likely planned that way intentionally, so the word shoddy doesn't really apply.

every mastering facility will listen to what the client wants. it's got nothing to do with the engineers "pushing it". the client asks for a project to "sound" a certain way, and it's the job of the mastering engineer to fulfill the client's needs. it's the nature of the business, and sterling sound is not the only mastering facility which is pushing the loudness threshold. there is no need to concentrate on only one studio. everybody does it. sad fact, i know, but that's reality. like i said, blame the label, not the studio. most of the studios are not the "offenders". the labels are the ones who ultimately decide how the music will sound

Good article on this matter:
http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/...6256C2E005DAF1C

Why is it you seem to think we're arguing on different sides of the coin? As far as I can tell, you haven't really said anything which directly contradicts anything I've said, other that assuming that I bash Sterling Sound exclusively. Heck, I was giving them credit, if anything. All over-driven masters are not created equally, and for what they do Sterling Sound does a "sterling" job. It still doesn't make the original decision to introduce clipping (on the part of the studio or anyone else!) desirable.

- M.

The fact is that on a musical score, loudness is expressed by letters : pp, p, mf, f, or ff from very quiet to very loud.
If a recording is overcompressed, all the score is played at ff. Thus the original score is not followed properly.
In this way, we can say that overcompression harms music.

It's not so much a problem IME since dynamic range is extremely important in classical music and classical fans tend to be exceptionally picky about how their music is recorded.
In fact, I'd wager classical is recorded in a manner that reflects this more than most any other genre. You'll have a tough time finding 'artificially loud' classical with dramatically reduced dynamic range outside of mass-market 'as seen on TV' collections and the bargain bin.

For popular music, even the people you'd expect to know better have this problem.
Ever hear Elvis Costello's most recent studio album?
edit: good article cookie AND PHONG

I guess I'm Mr. Invisible.

Did somebody say something?
I missed it the first time.....

If every audio device had built-in ReplayGain, I believe this problem of over-mastering would go away after artists and labels realize that they weren't making their music louder anymore, but only with less dynamic range. And I'm not just talking about MP3 players and CD players, but also TVs, radios, and any other device that processes/transmits an audio signal.

Television broadcasters do the same thing with over-compression, from what it sounds like. How many times have you been watching a TV show, only to have a commercial blast out of the speakers considerably louder than the volume of the show? They're trying to get your attention, obviously...a perfect case for ReplayGain firmware in televisions and standalone receivers, IMO. Just dial up the reference level you want, and all signals will be gain-adjusted at playback. There should also be user-adjustable compression setting too, though, to accommodate a "nighttime listening" mode, when you don't want a steep dynamic range. I know this would constitute playback DSP, which I've voiced strong objections to recently, but if we could be blessed with playback control of audio gain and compression, then I'd give in and accept a few DSP settings...but *only* the ones that I'd really need!

The same technology could be put into car stereo head units and portable radios. Radio broadcasters compress the signals they broadcast anyway to try to consistently get the loudest transmission possible (as pointed out in the prorec.com article...thx to phong and cookie for the links). And since they're paid by advertisers just as TV broadcasters are, they are specifically paid to blast the commercials even louder so their clients can sell products.

Anyway, this tends to divert from the original scope of this thread, so I'll try to give my ranting some focus. If all devices had ReplayGain capabilities built-in, then TV, radio, *and* record labels/artists would eventually stop demanding highly compressed, LOUD audio when they realized that no matter how loud they make their signal, devices all play them at a nice. preset reference volume, determined not by the *broadcaster* but by the *listener*, just as it should be.

And when it comes to the music...Then, just maybe, we could get high-quality recordings again like we did three decades ago.

ScorLibran - Certain TVs already have an automatic commercial volume adjustment feature iirc.

I don't understand why people feel compressed music is a better sounding solution than music with a large dynamic range. I can listen to "Pink Floyd - The Wall" for hours on end without feeling tired, yet I can't listen to "The Red Hot Chile Peppers - By The Way" for more than 5 minutes at any time.

PS - TV Ad creators - When I hear a really loud commercial, I change the channel. I don't like being YELLED at. You are not selling your s**t to me by being obnoxious and loud.

Definition, history, reasons and perils of dynamic compression in audio:

http://www.digido.com/index/pmodule_id=11/...der_page_id=33/

Examples of honorary CDs where dynamic compression has been used not at all, moderately or with a good effect in regards to artistic integrity of music:

http://www.digido.com/portal/pmodule_id=11...der_page_id=93/

regards,
Halcyon

Does anyone know anything about this HDCD peak extention?

Something already does, or did exist which would remove the loudness from commercials. Basically you set your T.V. at a specific volume level and the device wouldn't allow it to get any louder. I remember seeing it in mail order magazines many years ago -- it was advertised as a way to quiet loud commercials. I don't however remember what the device was called.

Where has this been quoted from ?

Anyway, try http://www.hdcd.com, technical papers.

i don't think we're on different sides of the coin. perhaps not on all issues. i do believe, however, that you are confusing clipping with this whole loudness practice musicians, studios, labels, etc. use nowadays