// reading...

Announcements

JFA – We Care About The Sound

By ⋅ ⋅ Post a comment
Filed Under  , , , , , ,
Album:

Thank you for visiting, this site aims at bringing awareness to the general public about a worrying and disasterous trend in modern recorded music, commonly dubbed “The Loudness Wars”. This is where music is being excessively compressed or “squashed” in terms of loudness so that a song is as loud as possible the entire way through.

  • metallihead79

    I’m glad to see this site up and running, albeit in it’s early stages. It’s amazing what can be achieved in such a short amount of time.
    Well done guys. This issue need public awareness.

  • Jules Mischief

    I’m all for “Stoping The Loudness War” Beautiful records shouldn’t be ruined by Music Industries so that they could sell more & more copies!

  • horrorfreak82

    awesome, more people need to know about this horrible trend.

  • noloveinfear

    Glad to see something is up and running already. Now its time to spread the word

  • stew

    lads in fairness if your trying to make the public aware then there should be a better explanation of what exactly is wrong!

    i came on the site to investigate but im no sound engineer and i get that there are compression issues etc but what does that all mean??

    im leaving this site none the wiser than when i came on!

  • Admin

    As said before, we are still getting the site together, the design and the information, and gathering like minded people to support the cause on the ground. Within another day or 2 we should have much more info on the site about the general movement and cause

  • BigDave

    Great work folks. I hope this site grows beyond anyone’s expectations, and really does hit a blow to the music industry of late.

    Well done. :)

  • http://blog.eventmagic.com Lil Mike

    this all started with radio… they built this EQ technique ( as well as time shifting pop hits) to the point where labels began doing it ahead of time… because listeners expect it…

  • TonyBone

    Die-hard Metallica fan here. Need help? Need gfx?

    I’d be happy to help.

  • CFHinLA

    Tony, yes we will need graphics. Please register for the forums and send me a PM. Thanks.

  • Imperium

    I finally logged in, turned onto the site from the Metallica forums. Glad to be here.

  • http://mastering-media.blogspot.com pigchop

    Hey all.

    I ironic that by way of supporting Death Magnetic, Lars Ulrich has effectively given the thumbs up to ‘illegal’ downloading of the GH3 rips.

    Dome people are saying the 13,000+ petition is a ‘dead issue’. I disagree. It has failed to achieve it’s goal, but has brought about a whole lot of attention to the practice of overkill in compression.

    While it is true that too much of the media is playing up the word ‘loudness’, there are plenty of people spreading the word about what that loudness translates to – crap sound quality.

    Spread Ian Shepherd’s blog about the net. Create stickers displaying his blog URL and paste them on the back of CD’s in stores.

    http://mastering-media.blogspot.com

  • http://mastering-media.blogspot.com pigchop

    Some…not Dome.

  • anaxaplaysia

    I see that most people agree that Death Magnetic is horribly mangled by distortion. I bought it on day one of release and I could not believe a major label released it as a final product. This is actually the WORST sounding CD I have ever bought. I have also seen a few people posting statements saying how great it sounds and the complainers are not listening to the music. We are listening to the music and we notice how badly it is being presented. This is not to say that Metallica is the only guilty party in this Loudness War but so far, they are the biggest offender. I propose that it should be released minus the horrible clipping and it will satisfy those who can not hear the dreadful quality and those that need a little headroom for music to sound musical. Win win situation I think.

  • Casey

    You need to start a top 100 (or whatever amount) wall of shame list of the loudest/most clipped CDs with Death Magnet starting out as #1.

  • http://www.destructavator.com Destructavator

    I think there already is such a list of the worst offenders on the internet, I saw it somewhere but can’t remember where it was, I don’t have a link handy (sorry!), but regarding the Metallica CD, I agree the tunes are good, but the final product isn’t, because of the clipping. On a side note, I’m glad I just discovered this website, I agree with the cause. What I don’t get is when other musicians like myself, especially ones that I’ve seen who are younger than I am (I’m 30) record something on a DAW and think it is cool to over-compress it in mastering so it sounds just like the recent crap out there in the loudness war. Then again, it might just be their age, having not been around when music was mastered and put on cassette/CD properly, I don’t really know…

  • http://www.musicangle.com Michael Fremer

    The deterioration of recorded sound quality has been ongoing since the mid 1980s. It cannot get much worse than it is now.

    The worst part is, most listeners don’t really give a shit. In fact, few people actually listen to music anymore. They hear it while doing other stuff but don’t really sit down and LISTEN to the exclusion of other activities (commuting, cooking, screwing, exercising, etc.)

    Music has become a background think thanks to crappy sound and even crappier so-called “audio systems,” consisting of a computer or Mp3 player and some tiny speakers in a plastic box.

    That has nothing to do with good sound or a good audio experience. No wonder music’s faded into the backdrop. This has happened because computer geeks have taken over writing about consumer electronics. Computer geeks know nothing about what constitutes good sound. They know good computers.

    However, I believe in the case of the Metallica release (CD and 5 LP box), it was an artistic decision, not a case of gross ineptitude, which is what it’s really come down to most often.

    That said, this site and the passion of the people fed up with the “loudness wars” may yet feed a revival of the great sound of the recordings from the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and for part of the ’80s.

    When I play “old records” for kids weaned on MP3s they FLIP OUT! They hear dynamics, frequency extension, air, textures, cymbal shimmers instead of crunches and a sonic picture they can “see.”

    Most of this has been lost to bad digital, bad sounding boards, mixes down on NS-10Ms and other shitty speakers and general ignorance about what constitutes good sound.

    The world is going high definition visually and ultra-low definition sonically. This trend must be reversed!!! So keep it up!!!!!

  • carfreak54

    I would love to hear some old recordings that you were talking about. Do you think you could record some, then upload them somewhere?

  • Locutus

    My first realization that this has gone too far came in 1998 with KISS’ Psycho Circus. Talk about some pretty good songs being ruined by making them ‘louder’ than the other guys. Anyway, this trend has even made “remastered” a warning rather than an affirmation of quality. Proof of this came with the second remastering of Journey’s catalog. Steve Perry commented that they have more detail & the subtle nuances are much more apparent. Even a non-audiophile knows what that means & they don’t compare to the fantastic SBM issues of the late 90′s.
    I think we are left with 2 generations of music listeners that have no clue how music is supposed to sound. This does not require a high end setup to hear either. The difference is obvious on a modest system or PC/Mp3 player if the source is of sufficient quality. Ripping at 128k & playing on a cheap all-in-one system does not qualify as high fidelity, but how can they tell the difference if all they hear is the volume & thinks that’s good enough?
    The trend of riding that 0db mark leads to listener fatigue quickly & makes the untrained listener say “I’m tired of this, I’ll play something else”. Maybe that’s a hidden element of the marketing to make music just another disposeable commodity instead of something to enjoy, appreciate & revisit like an old friend.

  • Imperium

    Here’s a petition I created to raise awareness to the LOUDNESS trend in music today. Let’s get as many people to sign this as we can.

    Spread the word.

    http://www.gopetition.com/online/22419.html

  • Redthahat

    Just showing some support for the cause. I’m doing what I can to spread the awareness, it’s an exciting time to be involved in something like this!!
    Cheers!

  • Emerson Prado

    +1
    I wanna hear the damn music! Let ‘em stop this loudness nonsense! I have a volume knob in my amp!
    Wholeheartedly hoping JFA and TurnMeUp get something done.
    http://www.turnmeup.org/
    Keep up!

  • http://myspace.com/nerosopeningact Gos

    I have to agree with Michael Fremer, when he said that brickwalled music will cause listener fatigue, causing people to want to turn it down or find something else to listen to.

    I, for one, want to continue to listen to music that makes me want to say, “Turn it UUUUP!”

    A friend of mine remastered DM to non-brickwalled standards, using tracks he ripped from the Guitar Hero game, and it sounds fuckin awesome — makes the WB release sound like like a turdpounder with cheese by comparison.

    — Gos
    — gos@nerosopeningact.com
    “Turn it UUUUP!”

  • Hendrix

    If all the compression was removed tomorrow you’d have loads of people complaining about having to turn the volume up in their cars and on their mp3 players. Unfortunately there are plenty of people who like compressed audio. The only way this is going to be resolved is if the music industry is persuaded there is enough people wanting to purchase alternative higher quality / lower compression versions to make it commercially viable.

  • Chris

    Hendrix, for “people who like compressed audio” there are a range of alternative options available – iTunes Soundcheck, Replay Gain, various audio-processing software, “night-mode” controls etc. People can make their own compression-adjustments and compressed mixtapes/album-copies if they wish. But the REVERSE is NOT true – destroyed dynamics and details CANNOT be recovered. So if the music industry were to start releasing dynamic, instead of over-compressed, versions, then there would be no problem – those who like dynamic sound can happily leave the music as it is, and those who want a compressed sound can create their own versions using the audio-processing mentioned above. As it is, they are LOSING part of their market, because people who want to hear music in all its splendour – with dynamics and detail – are simply not willing to purchase products that have already had all their musical qualities stripped away. So they are actually currently making LESS money than they would if they were to start releasing records with proper dynamic range.

Twitter Stream