Loud

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

"Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication, branded 'unlistenable' by studio experts"

(insert obvious joke in comments)

More seriously, is this degree of compression something you notice when listening to new CDs? I had noticed that you need to set the volume control at a much lower level than you do with older CDs. But, rather naively, I assumed modern 'remastering' tended to broaden the dynamic range rather than narrow it.

Maybe it is only rock records that are mastered in the way this article complains about.

Comments

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

I don't remember if Nick mentions this in his article or not, but the modern sound of hip-hop wouldn't be what it is without "brick wall" compression--that extreme dynamic squshing makes the spare beats and solo-vocal-out-front arrangement of most pop hip-hop tracks sound even better. Compressors eat up the sudden drops and clearly deliniated parts of hip-hop tracks.

I think Sasha's line on this is probably the one I agree with--some stuff sounds great with brick-wall mastering (My Chemical Romance, the teenpop Liz Phair album, System of a Down, etc.) and some stuff doesn't. There's nothing wrong with the technique per se, and TBH it's pretty eye-rolly when people go on about the "scientific" effects of extreme compression upon the listener, but you just have to know when to use it and when not to. And how much, of course, like for example I can't really listen to Love Angel Music Baby anymore because the uber-compressed high-end sounds like a dentist's drill.