It's too freaking loud !!!

I'd have spelled it wright it's too freakin' loud.

There's this thing called a volume control.  Maybe one day you will find it. 

Edited by Slartibartfast - December 27 2010 at 16:46

Heres a cute clip regarding all this

I was laughing so hard when watching this video making fun of the loudness war.  I'd definitely recommend watching it even if you're not a Metallica fan.  (I'm sure as hell not)

Bonnek wrote: I'm not into vinyl, but CD/mp3 loudness is a plague. (By loudness I mean the compression thing, not the volume, there are volume knobs and buttons to tune that) Here is a nicely mastered classic: And here's the typical thing you get these days. I can't listen to that for 40 minutes, it's deafening. The first one to guess which tracks are represented here gets a crate of Belgian beer! You may choose between compressed and non-compressed beers.

That last one look like something from Muse's last record.

This vid explains a bit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

ProgBob wrote: Great post, Bonnek.  This illustrates how this is not something that can be resolved simply by turning down the volume knob - information is actually being thrown away in the remaster.

More like illustrates how you can make an illustration show whatever you want these days.

Agree, not to mention, that you have to reset volume dramaticly on your system, everytime you move from older recording to those 21 century CD's.

Edited by tamijo - December 23 2010 at 03:18

stonebeard wrote: 1) A lot of times vinyl records these days are pressed from CD masters because vinyl is a good way to get unwitting people to spend a lot of money to feel superior. Sometimes if the band really cares and they have the money, it will be a separate master. 2) The loudness war is mostly a result of radio airplay. Human perceive something that is louder as being better, at least if it's slightly louder and the things being compared are similar. So slowly the song waveform became a block. But things don't have to have cavernous gaps in the waveform to be good (http://soundcloud.com/warp-records/brian-eno-2-forms-of-anger-small-craft-on-a-milk-sea) Example of good modern mastering. But you have to figure there's a lot of variety in the instrumentation here. Too much really loud distorted guitatrs will just be a wall of piss, to me. (re: Modern Heavy Rock/Post-grunge) 3) Remasters are often louder than the originals, but it is equally about getting a good stereo mix down, too. These days in 5.1 or maybe 7.1. Case in point: Nine Inch Nails's Pretty Hate Machine remaster. Granted, if you like the really 80s sounds-so-distant-it's-from-another-room goth production, you might not care for the remaster. But the mixing is so much more interesting. The songs actually have presence now. Seems to me like some people long for the days of mono and weak recordings. Why?

Great post Stoney, and the first phrase is pricesless

1) A lot of times vinyl records these days are pressed from CD masters because vinyl is a good way to get unwitting people to spend a lot of money to feel superior. Sometimes if the band really cares and they have the money, it will be a separate master.

2) The loudness war is mostly a result of radio airplay. Human perceive something that is louder as being better, at least if it's slightly louder and the things being compared are similar. So slowly the song waveform became a block. But things don't have to have cavernous gaps in the waveform to be good (http://soundcloud.com/warp-records/brian-eno-2-forms-of-anger-small-craft-on-a-milk-sea) Example of good modern mastering. But you have to figure there's a lot of variety in the instrumentation here. Too much really loud distorted guitatrs will just be a wall of piss, to me. (re: Modern Heavy Rock/Post-grunge)

3) Remasters are often louder than the originals, but it is equally about getting a good stereo mix down, too. These days in 5.1 or maybe 7.1. Case in point: Nine Inch Nails's Pretty Hate Machine remaster. Granted, if you like the really 80s sounds-so-distant-it's-from-another-room goth production, you might not care for the remaster. But the mixing is so much more interesting. The songs actually have presence now. Seems to me like some people long for the days of mono and weak recordings. Why?

WalterDigsTunes wrote: 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.

So are you suggesting that the post-89 albums of pre-89 bands are crap?  Old bands have adopted new technology.