This is a very strange little dilemma that's going on within the world of audio recordings.
I'm going to try to explain this in the simplest terms I can. Essentially, when you make a CD, you record the actual album, and it tends to be a little quiet, with big dynamics between the quietest and loudest parts. It's then given to a mastering engineer, who then takes the album and adjust the dynamics of it so that it is louder and the dynamics are usually adjusted in a way to add to the "groove" of whatever the recording is. For a long time, it was considered best to have an album with a decent amount of dynamics, which is usually perceived as being about 5-8 decibels quieter than what is usually done now. Essentially, people are making their albums as loud as they can (I think it's to make poor quality MP3's sound better through computer speakers and crappy iPod headphones- however it sounds much, much worse on a nice stereo), which sacrifices a large amount of the dynamics and definition of the actual recording.
For more info go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_warIt's a weird dilemma, and I honestly don't know where I stand on it. On the one hand, I personally know a tiny bit about all this, so I understand that if I turn up my CD player, my "less-loud" CD will actually sound a lot better than the "louder" one. On the other hand, I know a lot of people don't understand this, and for example, I know the singer in my band in particular got pissed when a couple of our recordings where mastered considerably quieter than say, the new MGMT record or something.
Here's a visual comparison, where the compressed level is brought down to the same perceived volume. You'll notice that the newer version has much less dynamics, and is just all peaked at the same volume:
Original:
New:
Anyways, I'm writing all this, partially just to spread the word and get people thinking about it, but also because I found, via the TapeOp message board, a website called "vLoud" (
http://www.vloud.com/), that takes mp3's and makes them louder. This is a really, really weird thing to have a website for. I don't know if this would seem weird to someone who doesn't spend time recording their own music, but trust me, this is a strange thing. But, however, unlike the TapeOppers, I actually think this is kind of genius. Essentially, people could master things to a great volume, and have all that quality, headroom and definition that you really want in a recording, and then people who are listening to their music on piece of shit iPod headphones or through their built-in computer speakers can go to this site, upload their mp3's and have a version that sounds appropriate for what they're using it for. Quite frankly I can't wait to try it and tell people such as the singer in my band to try it if they so choose. (Who knows if they do a good job or not).
Quite frankly, most people I know can barely tell the difference between a low res mp3 and a high quality CD, let alone get the difference between a heavily compressed and well-balanced recording. And I don't necessarily have a problem with that. When it comes down to it, most people probably just want a large variety of music on their iPod, and probably actually prefer volume over quality and definition. However, I really do think it's sad that we're loosing so much of the dynamic of our recordings, and have actually gotten tot the point where I can hear the difference on a lot of the new music coming out these days. I honestly feel that I understand both sides of the problem. So yeah, I guess I think vLoud is a great way to allow people who want that the option, without having to make every album sound distorted and muddy.
blah blah blah blah. Sorry I ranted. It was a good way to spend my lunch break.
