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  #23  
Old 2004-12-17, 11:41 PM
h_vargas
 
Re: Clipping on official releases

Quote:
Originally Posted by RainDawg
No, this is quite simply either a carelessness or an intentional hijacking of the audio on a certain recording. Read that HA thread again, some interesting comments have been posted about the possibilities of incomptence and/or malice being at issue with some of these recordings.
RainDawg - i know you will appreciate the article link i'm posting here, by Rip Rowan. i read it about 2-3 months after it was posted online, and it's a great read. he delves into some "techie" points in his article, but i suspect you'll enjoy it as much as i did.

Rowan knows his stuff and he has excellent theories as to why the 'remasters' sound, ummm... less than desirable to say the least, and why more and more current recordings are sounding awful, to put it bluntly.

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/article...256C2E005DAF1C


and this crap is really happening. being a big u2 fan, you can even hear it on their albums. if i pop the Joshua Tree disc in the Pioneer cd player in my car, the comfortable listening level (and i dont listen to music loudly on the stereo or in my car) is at #15 to 17. however, if i were to put in a newer disc (All That You Cant Leave Behind or 'Atomic Bomb'), the comfortable listening level is at to #9 to 11 tops. the newer albums are just pumped up to the max levels, and it makes the entire album much LESS enjoyable. there arent any more parts on newly released albums that are "quiet"... the "quiet" parts are still loud, and it destroys the artist's work and aim in the first place of putting a quiet track/part on an album.

with the combined efforts of music labels - the guys in the suits in offices worrying over profit margins and radio play - must be putting the heat on to the mastering engineers to make the "hot new artist's" album as loud as possible so it gets noticed from radio airplay.

over a year ago, i got into an argument over this very thing on a different message board with an audio "engineer." he was all high and mighty, saying he had read articles that "changed his mind" about mastering audio at the maximum levels possible. i posted that article, and he pretty much shut up then. (interestingly enough, he never did post any links as he said he would to those alleged articles that "changed his mind" abut mastering audio. what a douche.)


p.s. sorry for the rant. this is a topic that REALLY rubs me the wrong way. mess with my music, and it's personal then!!
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