I hate this cack. I’ve started collecting ‘unmastered’ versions of albums whenever I find them. The two that spring to mind are Amy Winehouse Back to Black and Metallica’s Death Magnetic (ripped from an XBOX game). Absolutely stunning difference in sound quality compared to the real CD.

There was a great video of a lecture posted here about mastering for vinyl which touches on the subject.

http://vimeo.com/29121804#at=0

BTW anyone with golden ears slagging off MP3/AAC*, let’s see your encoder & ABX logs… 🙂

* absolutely nothing to do with dynamic range compression by the way, many encoders (eg NERO AAC) will happily encode 24 bit dynamic range source material.

you’re deluding yourself – the BBC have already dropped bitrates on DAB far below their original recommendations for what was acceptable, which I think was 192kb.

Now you only get R3 at that high a rate sometimes – and why should that be – why shouldn’t some of the live sessions that the other stations do also be at that high a bit rate – is classical superior to everything FFS?

Perhaps.

The principle is that the DAB frequencies are very cramped for space. Analogue TV takes up, relatively, a massive amount of the available bandwidth. Once this has gone, there should be a lot more room to increase the number of available stations and to improve the quality of them.

Faced with the choice between fewer stations or a drop in quality that the majority of listeners won’t notice / are about, it’s only ever going to turn out one way.

Whilst we’re at it, I would like to question the morality of those in the media production business who compress the sound for TV ads. Hangings too good for ’em!

There is only a market for so many stations though surely?

So why the hell did they employ a monkey who’s previous job was possibly to make Nokia ring tones to master the bloody thing?

Wasn’t it Thomas Dolby that is responsible for making the Nokia ring tones, and if so, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have mastering the bloody thing 🙂

Screen Kiss is still one of my all time favourite songs.

trailmonkey – Member
maybe, just maybe, the album sounds exactly as the artists intended.
stw at its finest
POSTED 12 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

It’s not how they play it live. Indeed, about the only music I’ve seen performed live with greater dynamic range has been orchestral

So ironically, you’re quite right in regard to this being stw at its finest: there’s always one poster who shows up and posts crap, clearly not having read much, if any, of the thread’s contents

Once this has gone, there should be a lot more room to increase the number of available stations and to improve the quality of them.

but it won’t happen – both Sky and the BBC have undertaken experiments to see how far they could drop bitrates on their tv channels before users start to complain – i.e. how far they could get away with.

cable and satellite could carry far higher quality tv and radio feeds than they do as they have more bandwidth, but they don’t.

interesting thread, going back to album mastering and what the artists want…. have any of you recorded an album then paid to have it mastered for proper release (as in: into the shops, radio play, national music magazines etc etc, not cd ripping and selling to your mates for a fiver)?

i can appreciate this from a music lovers point of view, but even when getting an album mastered the band does have the scope to ask for dynamics to be left in i..e quiet bits remaining quiet and loud bits loud.

Again. This is what puzzles me with bands like Arcade Fire, who clearly use dynamics as part of their music when played live, but seem quite happy to totally erase that dimension of their creative work when it comes to selling it on a cd, lp, or mp3

but it won’t happen – both Sky and the BBC have undertaken experiments to see how far they could drop bitrates on their tv channels before users start to complain – i.e. how far they could get away with.

The cynic in me wondered if the perceived drop in SD quality was to make their HD channels appear more attractive.

The cynic in me wondered if the perceived drop in SD quality was to make their HD channels appear more attractive.

Do the BBC get a cut of HDTV sales then?

bloody irritating when playing mix stuff on your ipod, you can hardly hear some stuff and other tracks have you diving for the volume as your ear drums begin to bleed !

Do the BBC get a cut of HDTV sales then?

Do the BBC not get any benefit whatsoever from broadcasting in HD then? Seems odd that they’d bother, if so.

‘s an interesting point, though. I might compare freeview terrestrial BBC SD against Sky-delivered BBC SD at some point, see how they stack up. Cos Sky absolutely do benefit from it, they charge you a tenner a month extra for the HD and 3D package.

bloody irritating when playing mix stuff on your ipod, you can hardly hear some stuff and other tracks have you diving for the volume as your ear drums begin to bleed !

Isn’t their a “normalization” function in iTunes to solve this issue?

My Surround Sound thing (which isn’t particularly advanced) has a Dynamic Range Compression thing for watching films at night. You can then hear people whispering without deafening the neighbours everytime there is an explosion/car chase/gunshot etc.

It seems to be adaptive and takes a brief moment to adjust. Wouldn’t that solve the compression thing or have i misunderstood?

In iTunes its called SoundCheck apparently… http://ipod.about.com/od/itunes/g/soundcheck_def.htm

Isn’t their a “normalization” function in iTunes to solve this issue?

unfortunately it seems to have the habit of making very quiet songs inordinately loud.

That’s what it’s supposed to do? (-:

The cynic in me wondered if the perceived drop in SD quality was to make their HD channels appear more attractive.

They’ve dropped the bitrates on their HD channels as well, although they reckon you won’t see a difference with the encoders they now use.

Anyway, the pictures are far from stunning, and there’s a campaign site dedicated for it:

http://hdcampaign.kk5.org/

Do the BBC not get any benefit whatsoever from broadcasting in HD then? Seems odd that they’d bother, if so.

Because they can? Unlike Sky they don’t need to make a profit.

Sky quality is crap anyway (well ours is, but it’s through a SCART cable).

Sky quality is crap anyway (well ours is, but it’s through a SCART cable).

Have you waggled it? All scary cable related problems can be solved by waggling it

MP3 will be mastered exactly the same as CD version, but will be compressed going to lossy format from lossless. That has nothing to do with mastering and Loudness war though… You can master as hot for vinyl as you can for a digital format.(Some do and this would sound even worse)

Incorrect – I saw an interview with Bjork where she sasy she masters for each format separately – SACD/Vinyl, CD and Compressed audio. I am sure she is not alone.

Still has nothing to do with the loudness wars.

For those interested in this topic, this is a good read:

So ironically, you’re quite right in regard to this being stw at its finest: there’s always one poster who shows up and posts crap, clearly not having read much, if any, of the thread’s contents

i only read the op as that’s all that i needed to form my opinion.

whatever you’re doing with your life, you need to become arcade fire’s musical director and engineer. 😆

whatever you’re doing with your life, you need to become arcade fire’s musical director and engineer.

Thing is though, it probably has nowt to do with their musical director or engineer. It will be set off to a specialist mastering house and any decisions will probably be made by record company sales executives.

schrickvr6 – Member
Still has nothing to do with the loudness wars.
POSTED 4 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST

If a decision is made only to compress the mp3 version in terms of dynamic range, it does

i only read the op as that’s all that i needed to form my opinion.

Let’s hope you’re not in a position back in the real world where your opinion matters one iota

I’m not really that into music, and I can tell the difference (and dislike the compressed sound). The thing is, the standard stereo in my base model Ford has a compression function for when you need to make the quiet bits louder due to road noise (it also has auto volume control, which to some extent also negates that need), hence making any compression when the CD is recorded rather unnecessary.

Cody, thanks for posting that, I was just about to, but you beat me to it. A quick google would have helped out on this thread, it would have given some crucial info; I just asked who mastered the album, and got this; (note the forum name)
http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.php?tid=7722

Which makes it all the more puzzling, unless they really dislike dynamic range, despite going to the effort of using it in their music.

The dynamic range of pretty much all modern mastered music is abysmal, i realised this quite a few years ago when i finally had the time and money/contacts to start playing about with music production hardware/software, when i run any new music through my software now the dynamic range is minimal : IE the quiet sections are maxed out to the limit and the loud sections are maxed out to the point of audio degradation when played back on decent equipment.

There was a good article last year in soundonsound magazine here.

I use a Native Instruments Audio Kontrol 1 usb external soundcard with 24-bit/192kHz sampling, high-end Cirrus Logic AD/DA converters onto KRK active monitors and sub, sounds sublime and crystal clear with my 400gb of various samples and selected 24-bit tunes but play a badly mastered cd or mp3 through it and you’ll want to throttle the mastering engineer. I prefer to buy what music i can in 96khz/24bit format, which for my electronic/techno tunes is available if you know where to look, for normal music that is mastered correctly with true dynamic range from the original master tapes i recommend HD Tracks , there is a vast difference in audio quality and please don’t ever buy anything from itunes with the comical “mastered for itunes” moniker.

Reading a bit about HDTracks it seems they are a bit funny about selling outside of the US. Is this easy to circumvent?

Well, now currently listening to Fleetwood Mac – Rumours. It appears that there have been many technological steps backwards thanks to the loudness war and compression since 1977. Cymbals and snare crisp and clear, guitars have bite, vocals soaring. Arcade fire should have used whoever mastered this…

Which makes it all the more puzzling, unless they really dislike dynamic range, despite going to the effort of using it in their music.

I bet it was done by the record company, against their wishes. I doubt many bands are savvy enough to ensure when they sign a record deal that they get control over the final mastering.

I’m not really that into music, and I can tell the difference (and dislike the compressed sound). The thing is, the standard stereo in my base model Ford has a compression function for when you need to make the quiet bits louder due to road noise (it also has auto volume control, which to some extent also negates that need), hence making any compression when the CD is recorded rather unnecessary.

Compression will be used in pretty much every recording and it’s not necessarily a problem – I doubt there are many vocals in any style of music that don’t have some sort of compression applied during recording/mixing. What we’re talking about here is excessive compression/limiting applied to the final mixes after recording, usually in a specialist mastering facility.

If you look at the waveforms for some modern dance/pop tracks you can see how unbelievably compressed they are. Rather than seeing numerous peaks and troughs the waveforms are almost a block. It means the higher peaks are all being squashed completely by hard limiting, which as well as reducing dynamic range also introduces nasty compression artefacts that give that compressed sound.

Reading a bit about HDTracks it seems they are a bit funny about selling outside of the US. Is this easy to circumvent?

hint – use Paypal 😉

I use a Native Instruments Audio Kontrol 1 usb external soundcard with 24-bit/192kHz sampling, high-end Cirrus Logic AD/DA converters onto KRK active monitors and sub, sounds sublime and crystal clear with my 400gb of various samples and selected 24-bit tunes but play a badly mastered cd or mp3 through it and you’ll want to throttle the mastering engineer. I prefer to buy what music i can in 96khz/24bit format, which for my electronic/techno tunes is available if you know where to look, for normal music that is mastered correctly with true dynamic range from the original master tapes i recommend HD Tracks , there is a vast difference in audio quality and please don’t ever buy anything from itunes with the comical “mastered for itunes” moniker.

Slight thread hijack….which KRKs do you have, and does the sub make a big improvement? I’ve got a pair of KRK Rokit G5 but the bass driver on one of them is dead so I’m either just going to replace it with another, or maybe upgrade the pair. I was also thinking of getting a KRK sub to go with it. I really like the KRKs for electronic in particular, wondering if the bigger ones might be worth the upgrade. Cheers!

pedalhead : I’ve got a pair of the KRK VXT6, a pair of KRK Rokit 5’s and a KRK 10s sub, to be perfectly honest there is very little audio difference between the VXT’s and the Rokit’s, certainly not enough to justify the £400 price difference, although on the VXT’s there is more so called “headroom” and definition such as cymbal crashes or hi-hats, i guess you’d call it more snap or urgency to the drive, however they are not a monitor for listening to music for pleasure on as they are so analytical but they are perfect for mixing or buggering about in Ableton for hours trying to perfect that elusive beat.

The sub is a KRK 10s and i wouldn’t be without it, the difference it makes is just light and day and i’ve made myself jump with shock when i’ve been buggering about late at night with tunes, if i was in your position I’d get a new driver for your Rokit 5’s and a KRK 10s sub, my room is approx 13/14ft square and the Rokits and sub are more than capable of filling the room – don’t think you need to size up on the monitors to get the perfect sound.

Thanks for the info, I’ll follow your advice & stick with the Rokit 5’s (and get a sub 😀 ). I only use mine for nearfield listening (I don’t do mixing) as I have a small space. They were meant to be a stopgap after I moved house & sold my old system (Sonus Faber, infinite baffle DIY subs etc), but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the Rokits, just lacking a bit of bass. Got ’em running balanced from a CI Audio DAC and a Squeezebox & it’s a great solution for the price.

Anyway, sorry for the thread hijack folks!

As we appear to have diverted off on an equipment tangent, one of the reasons I posted this was having been very impressed with a Naim Uniti 2 in the new HiFi shop across the road. Until I found out about HDTracks earlier today, I was beginning to wonder what the point was. At least as my Fleetwood Mac experiment demonstrated earlier today, there’s some hope if I listen to older recordings.

How glad am I that I just totally love MUSIC and don’t know much about or care much about sound quality.

How glad am I that I just totally love MUSIC and don’t know much about or care much about sound quality.

Not one bit? Not remotely interested in hearing it as close to how it was intended by the artist? Not at all bothered about loosing a lot of the expression and bite of the music due to compressed dynamic range?

I guess ur bik iz saracin then!