Thoughts on this article from Rush fans or those who think "Loud" has gone too far?
- Thread starter Cuzin B
- Start date
what makes it worse
The whole issue of Louder being Better,
makes it worse on an independant musician.
If I am being paid to do a product for someone, they want the product up to industry standards. What a joke....I have had countless projects (in my opinion) ruined because of this.
Whatever happened to dynamics??
Back in the day an acoustic guitar intro by a band like metallica would be quieter and when the band kicked in...VIOLA...BALLS.
The whole issue of Louder being Better,
makes it worse on an independant musician.
If I am being paid to do a product for someone, they want the product up to industry standards. What a joke....I have had countless projects (in my opinion) ruined because of this.
Whatever happened to dynamics??
Back in the day an acoustic guitar intro by a band like metallica would be quieter and when the band kicked in...VIOLA...BALLS.
pipelineaudio
Well-known member
I record and mix my way. And then tell the client to take it to the mastering lab, and if they want to ruin it there,fine..I still keep copies of the undestroyed 2 tracks for a time when sanity kicks in
I happen to also be a Rush fan, more of yore -- though Michael, I don't think their DOWNFALL was until, say, Presto 
...
But I like some songs I heard off Vapor. I have this friend over right now, he's watching the World Series with my husband (Bay Area, Go Giants ...) and I showed him the article. Interesting. A non-audio guy but such a Rush fan he's gone on pilgrimages to places in Canada where he knows members are from, spent time in, etc. His devotion to the band far eclipses mine ... I asked him first, "What do you think of Vapor trails?" His response: "Oh, .... it's alright."
"What don't you like about it?"
"It has no punch," he settled on, after struggling with how to describe such sonics the way non-audio-engineers do.
The general public hears this shit. It's not just musicians and engineers who know this kind of processing is unnatural. It's the sonic equivalent of a Twinkie, or Wonderbread. Really, we all know it's made up.
He was pissed when I showed him the wave forms.
And I want to add that, my favorite Rush album of ALL TIME has to be Hemispheres ... Right after that, Moving Pix. The thing is, when you listen to old Rush, their art-prog-rock days, you understand dynamics are a huge part of who they are. They're not Incubus! It's not pop-metal! This mastering style is ill-suited to them.
It's like in some Back Room, the record mooks have 5 mastering algorithms they plug everything into based on genre ... like those cheap boom boxes that offer up EQ presets such as "Jazz" and "Rock" and "Country" ... well, THANK YOU for tellin' me jest how Ah Lahk ta Hair Mah Moozik ... Cuz I's too Stoo-pid ta figger out mah-selfs ...
...But I like some songs I heard off Vapor. I have this friend over right now, he's watching the World Series with my husband (Bay Area, Go Giants ...) and I showed him the article. Interesting. A non-audio guy but such a Rush fan he's gone on pilgrimages to places in Canada where he knows members are from, spent time in, etc. His devotion to the band far eclipses mine ... I asked him first, "What do you think of Vapor trails?" His response: "Oh, .... it's alright."
"What don't you like about it?"
"It has no punch," he settled on, after struggling with how to describe such sonics the way non-audio-engineers do.
The general public hears this shit. It's not just musicians and engineers who know this kind of processing is unnatural. It's the sonic equivalent of a Twinkie, or Wonderbread. Really, we all know it's made up.
He was pissed when I showed him the wave forms.
And I want to add that, my favorite Rush album of ALL TIME has to be Hemispheres ... Right after that, Moving Pix. The thing is, when you listen to old Rush, their art-prog-rock days, you understand dynamics are a huge part of who they are. They're not Incubus! It's not pop-metal! This mastering style is ill-suited to them.
It's like in some Back Room, the record mooks have 5 mastering algorithms they plug everything into based on genre ... like those cheap boom boxes that offer up EQ presets such as "Jazz" and "Rock" and "Country" ... well, THANK YOU for tellin' me jest how Ah Lahk ta Hair Mah Moozik ... Cuz I's too Stoo-pid ta figger out mah-selfs ...
Seanmorse79
New member
Very good analogy - I like it.
rushfan33
New member
C'mon.... your killing me here!! They haven't had a "downfall!"
They're still kicking ass in my opinion. I've listened so damn much over the years it's almost like I was part of the writing process for each new album! I listened to VP for about a week and as usual with a new Rush CD, I didn't quite know what to make of it yet. Then as I listened to it more and more, I was able to appreciate the "reason" for the material. Neil wrote some heart felt lyrics in this one as apposed to his usual story telling or anthropoloy approach. Alex and Geddy did a great job at conveying the emotion that went into the lyrics (and the reason for them). I also read Neil's book and holy shit.... he seemed like a true asshole! But given the circumstances of his last few years, he "had the right" to feel the way he did. Anyway, back on the subjeect.... I'm not trying to make persuade people into liking it dispite the "mastering" but personally I can't stop listening to it. I finally got past the mastering job. I still the mastering sucks though.
RF
I don't buy many CDs anymore but I did just get the new Santana disc. Talk about LOUD. These tracks are insane. I loaded a few in Cool Edit Pro and sure enough, most of the wave forms are just pegged at -0.01db the entire time. I just pulled up one particular track where the average RMS power is nearly -6db !
Got me so distressed I had to create an account just to post this message ;-)
Got me so distressed I had to create an account just to post this message ;-)
Cyrokk
Farce of Nature
I quit listening to the radio a couple years ago. I got really sick of the crap they played, everyone trying to be Creed trying to be Alice in Chains. And it was just a big blend of bland shit.
But after reading that article, I wonder how much of my disdain has to do with the limiting and compression. Unlike many of you, I don't have ears gold enough to directly hear such compression artifacts as pumping, but I do notice when I get a cd based on a song I heard on the radio, that the cd sounds more clean and less homoginized at home due to the lack of compression that radio stations smack on it.
I was in the car with my wife, waiting at the drive-thru at the bank. She turned up the radio during a Puddle of Mudd song, showing me a group she has started liking. I don't know the name of it.. that ballady one. I remember noticing though it seems that since the mid nineties, acoustic passages have been recorded at the exact same level as the rest of the song. I also noticed that everything fit in a neat package of even volumes, with the kick just kinda, well, going with the flow...
Can someone here do me a favor? I don't have any way of analyzing waves, but I'd like someone to look at STP's "Sin" from their debut album Core. I suspect this does not suffer from the compression overkill, because the kick hits you where you live. Am I right on this one? Or is this just another example of "Loud is Better" that my ears have yet to pick up on?
Cy
But after reading that article, I wonder how much of my disdain has to do with the limiting and compression. Unlike many of you, I don't have ears gold enough to directly hear such compression artifacts as pumping, but I do notice when I get a cd based on a song I heard on the radio, that the cd sounds more clean and less homoginized at home due to the lack of compression that radio stations smack on it.
I was in the car with my wife, waiting at the drive-thru at the bank. She turned up the radio during a Puddle of Mudd song, showing me a group she has started liking. I don't know the name of it.. that ballady one. I remember noticing though it seems that since the mid nineties, acoustic passages have been recorded at the exact same level as the rest of the song. I also noticed that everything fit in a neat package of even volumes, with the kick just kinda, well, going with the flow...
Can someone here do me a favor? I don't have any way of analyzing waves, but I'd like someone to look at STP's "Sin" from their debut album Core. I suspect this does not suffer from the compression overkill, because the kick hits you where you live. Am I right on this one? Or is this just another example of "Loud is Better" that my ears have yet to pick up on?
Cy