It's too freaking loud !!!

Ha.  Very recently a friend of mine was for some reason checking out the sonic properties of a Wolfmother album.  The song "Woman" was literally a square block of compression.  So bad!

Loudness: Another symptom of post-89 degeneracy.

Whereas tape benefited from natural compression and early digital recording exhibited judiciousness when dealing with the increased dynamic range, modern attention whores can't help but turn everything into a loud pile of digitized tosh. Take a gander at a waveform for some current atrocity then compare it to a pre-89 treasure. Not only is the music itself a piss-poor imitation, but the sonic properties reflect the muddied frenzy of this aberrant age.

notesworth wrote: All I know is the loudness war turns me off new music. If I like new music it's in spite of the bad mastering. I want to hear something with more dynamics than my MIDI keyboard.

Henry Plainview wrote: topographicbroadways wrote: i did an experiment once importing files of songs recorded in different decades from the 70's up to the 00's into a DAW and found when i got to about 1994 a lot of digital clipping started emerging and as you move forward from that point dynamic range disappears more and more.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war Already posted, and the loudness war is really overrated. It wrecks a few CDs by overzealous bands, yes, but those aren't CDs that I have any interest in listening to, and you probably don't either, so why does it matter?

i did an experiment once importing files of songs recorded in different decades from the 70's up to the 00's into a DAW and found when i got to about 1994 a lot of digital clipping started emerging and as you move forward from that point dynamic range disappears more and more. 

It varies from album to album. CDs can be mastered louder than vinyls while the quality remains the same, they can be mastered too loud - adding more compression, reducing dynamics - or they can be re-mastered less loud - less loud, increasing the dynamic range. It's up to those who decide how the CD should sound. I don't know much about KT Tungstall, but guessing that it's a mainstreamy alternative band, it wouldn't surprise me if they opted for the overly compressed sound that is common in that genre. Except for a elitary niche of audiophile artists that exists in most genres to varying degrees.

Have you heard the Mind's Eye cd by Stiltskin? It's recorded far too loud and the distortion is massive. If ever there was an argument for remastering an album, this is it.

harmonium.ro wrote: An obvious case can emerge when you listen to different albums of the same band; for me such a case is that of Led Zeppelin. When yoy listen to I, II and III in a row, you notice that II is produced at a much lower volume than the others, and the difference is unpleasant to my ears. It's ok when I listen to it by itself and I crank up the volume, but the comparison does not favour it.

Oh, I thought you meant dynamics within a song, that is why I was confused.

harmonium.ro wrote: rogerthat wrote: But if it was produced all the way on a low volume level, you would not have to rush to turn it down because it suddenly got too loud.  No, those are indeed different things. I am not mixing these scenarios: - the one when the music has various sound range dynamics - the one when the music has range dynamics that are unpleasant to my listening habits - the one when all the album is produced at a low volume level Yes, I do have albums which are so well recorded and produced that they have amazing dynamics and variation to the sound and music, at reasonably high levels of volume. It IS possible!

I am just saying that range dynamics that feel unpleasant to you and CDs being too quiet are not the same thing.  The latter certainly reads like the third scenario in which case it would simply need to be cranked up.   What CDs do you have such a problem with, by the way? I don't remember having to ever turn the volume up while playing a CD. 

harmonium.ro wrote: I don't think there's any sense in producing the music on a low volume level (and now I'm not referring to dynamics, in which it's normal to have highs and lows, according to the development of the music). How does that help? I just have to raise the volume from the speakers to the same volume I listen all my music at - the volume where I can hear what's going on.

But if it was produced all the way on a low volume level, you would not have to rush to turn it down because it suddenly got too loud.  So that means the recording was intended to be quiet at some places and loud at some others.  I love the feeling of getting involuntarily pushed back when the music suddenly touches a thundering crescendo and takes me by surprise.