sazzrah Posted April 24, 2009 Share Posted April 24, 2009 Apologies for dragging up an old thread, but I think we should probably rattle our cups along the loudness war prison bars for as long as possible; especially with the new album on the horizon. (Sorry that was a wanky analogy.) Anyway, I felt the need to express what a wasted opportunity it was that no one asked about this during the Muse questions voting... I would really like to hear what the band themselves have to say about how their music is mastered. I had always thought the louder tracks like MotP and Stockholm Syndrome sounded sort of 'clogged up' and that probably some of the instruments we're supposed to hear are getting lost in the noise somewhere. I see that my initial feelings weren't wholly unfounded... a real, real shame. Edit: Ok, so I am procrastinating on my essays a bit, and decided to check out the dynamic range of some of Muse's stuff for myself. I downloaded the range checker from http://www.pleasurizemusic.com and was really shocked at the difference. From Showbiz tracks reaching 7's and 8's on the checker, but then looking at BH&R and getting as low as 4. The best track I found for dynamic range, hitting the max of 9 was Bedroom Acoustics... if you turn up the volume you can even hear Matt breathing as he plays and the movement of his fingers on the strings. It's just astounding the level of detail you can hear. It makes me quite sad to know that we're missing out on how truly epic BH&R could have been. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trippynet Posted April 24, 2009 Share Posted April 24, 2009 Quite right. And it's stupid as modern music doesn't have to be that bad. GNV FLA by Less Than Jake was released just last year and that manages a dynamic range of a good 7 or 8dB on almost all tracks. OK it's still limited and compressed just like all modern releases, but it hasn't been utterly thrashed to pieces like it was with BHAR. The result? Almost as loud, but the drums are so much more clearly audible, the sound isn't as harsh and there isn't the nasty and blatant distortion everywhere that exists on BHAR. Yes GNV FLA would sound even better if it wasn't for the whole silly loudness war, but the fact is that it's perfectly listenable all the way through and I'm able to sit back and enjoy it, unlike with BHAR. I'm with you and I implore Muse to tone things down a little and ensure that the new album is released with out the horrific distortion which blighted BHAR. Especially as to me, there's only 3 proper Muse studio albums as I can only sit down and listen to 3 of them without my ears bleeding. I really want that to become 4. And then I want them to properly remaster BHAR so it becomes 5 :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofsaturdaynight Posted April 25, 2009 Share Posted April 25, 2009 Eh? vinyl is clearly better despite one of the reasons 33rpm LP's became so popular over 45rpm singles was that despite the theory, they sounded better because the volume wasn't unnecessarily cranked up like it would be on the singles. re-master & re-release on vinyl please (all the albums) http://board.muse.mu/showthread.php?t=56409&highlight=vinyl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trippynet Posted April 25, 2009 Share Posted April 25, 2009 That would be nice, but I can't see it happening. When the Chilis released Stadium Arcadium on vinyl, it was a complete remaster by Steve Hoffman and I happily paid £65 for my copy of it. And because it was properly remastered, it destroys the CD version in terms of sound quality. Having a properly remastered set of Muse vinyls would be superb (I only have the "Newborn" single on 7"), but if Muse's label are prepared to allow BHAR to be butchered as much as it was, seeing them release a decent sounding copy of the albums on vinyl would be incredibly unlikely. Especially as it'd only take 5 minutes for someone to rip the better quality versions and upload them on the net for everyone to really hear just how pants the CDs sound in comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted April 27, 2009 Share Posted April 27, 2009 Eh? OOS is still hitting 0.00 a large percent of the time, probably just as much as BH&R. The real difference between them is one was mastered well, the other wasn't, not the overall RMS as that's pretty much identical. No he is right OOS does clip but not nearly as much or for as long. BTW check out my loudness war vid Apologies for dragging up an old thread, but I think we should probably rattle our cups along the loudness war prison bars for as long as possible; especially with the new album on the horizon. (Sorry that was a wanky analogy.) Anyway, I felt the need to express what a wasted opportunity it was that no one asked about this during the Muse questions voting... I would really like to hear what the band themselves have to say about how their music is mastered. That might work, I think the new Keane album has better sound quality than their previous albums, which to me are up there with the worst of the worst. Trippynet I always think of Nevermind as a good example of how it should be done, it was made as loud as an album can get without damaging the sound quality, because it is also important not to be too quiet either. A good rule of thumb is to make sure there is no single loud bit bringing the overall volume down and then to peak level normalize. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trippynet Posted April 27, 2009 Share Posted April 27, 2009 I have to disagree with you about the latest Keane album, I think it's dreadfully mastered. The first 2 albums were heavily compressed, but weren't badly clipped. However, the amount of clipping in "Spiralling" on the new album is obscene. Each bass drum kick is just a blast of distortion. Meanwhile, the rest of the album has a really harsh and tinny edge to it that wasn't present on the first 2 albums, even though they did sound massively squashed and over-compressed. If you pull a track into a wave editor from "Perfect Symmetry", it does look deceptive at first, until you zoom in on the bass kicks. Then you get something like this: http://spider.dur.ac.uk/loudness/Keane-Spiralling.png Whoops! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted April 27, 2009 Share Posted April 27, 2009 The dynamic range compression might be just as bad, but the first album sounded like they had also ripped it to MP3 and then copied that to CD! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trippynet Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Well! Still waiting to see if "The Resistance" will manage to survive the loudness war unlike BHAR. In the mean time though, I've managed to pull copies of Supermassive Black Hole, Exo-Politics and Knights Of Cydonia from Guitar Hero onto my PC. The difference in terms of sound quality is very impressive - especially for Knights Of Cydonia as these versions of the songs were not subject to the same destructive mastering as the CD release. So! I now have a version of KoC which has crystal clear drums, proper dynamics and no nasty clipping. To show the difference, this is how Knights of Cydonia should look and sound, and this is the version which ended up on the CD instead. Guess which one sounds so much better and more natural? Unfortunately MotP never made it into Guitar Hero so I'm stuck with a practically unlistenable version of that song, which is a pity as music wise it's one of the best songs on the album :-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clunge Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 As much as I agree with you entirely, I just can't get over the attitude of lots of audiophiles. You call it 'unlistenable' - don't you think that's just a tad irrational? Sure, it's not ideal to have music brickwalled during the production/mastering stage but it's not THAT bad. I really do hope they make a good job of The Resistance in this respect but I wouldn't dream of NOT listening to something because of the way in which it has been mastered. Not directed at you Trippynet, more audiophiles in general . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juuso Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 As much as I agree with you entirely, I just can't get over the attitude of lots of audiophiles. You call it 'unlistenable' - don't you think that's just a tad irrational? Sure, it's not ideal to have music brickwalled during the production/mastering stage but it's not THAT bad. I really do hope they make a good job of The Resistance in this respect but I wouldn't dream of NOT listening to something because of the way in which it has been mastered. Not directed at you Trippynet, more audiophiles in general . Yeah, I loathe the audiophiles who get stuck listening to the slight alterations in quality instead of the, well, SONGS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trippynet Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Unfortunately I don't. There's very little that I consider to fall into that category mind you. Absolution and earlier are listenable to me, despite also being brickwalled. A vast majority of albums in fact I can tolerate despite the loudness treatment. BHAR though to my ears is mastered even worse than usual and I just cannot stand listening to it for more than a few minutes. MotP came on random the other day and despite trying to enjoy it, I spent about 2 and a half minutes cringing before bringing up Winamp and skipping to the next track. I just couldn't listen any longer to the harsh, flat, wall of clipping that was pouring out of my speakers. It sounds so harsh and bad to my ears that I actually find it unpleasant to listen to, despite liking the tune. A few other albums that fall into that "unlistenable" category for me are the Chili's - Californication (I have a copy of the unmastered bootleg of this one thankfully), Keane - Perfect Symmetry and the lesser known Fandangle - Fly Away, and that really is about it. All others I am able to enjoy listening to, even if I do feel a bit cheesed about the deliberately damaged sound quality of them. A small minority though just go overly destructive with loudness treatment to the point where I cannot enjoy the resulting sound from them. I really, really hope that Muse aren't the first band to stick 2 of their albums in that "unlistenable" category... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofsaturdaynight Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 As much as I agree with you entirely, I just can't get over the attitude of lots of audiophiles. You call it 'unlistenable' - don't you think that's just a tad irrational? Sure, it's not ideal to have music brickwalled during the production/mastering stage but it's not THAT bad. I really do hope they make a good job of The Resistance in this respect but I wouldn't dream of NOT listening to something because of the way in which it has been mastered. Not directed at you Trippynet, more audiophiles in general . the attitude of lots of audiophiles is very annoying. I love good sounding music but more importantly I love music. Which is why I do not consider myself to be a audiophile. The music is always more important than the recording but a poor recording (or release) can take away from the experience. It is a shame that as technology improves and gets cheaper to buy, music release's get worse! I have played BHAR on my good HiFi quite a few times (a shit load) and at a decent volume - it does not sound great. From the start I noticed this - not after reading forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clunge Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Unfortunately I don't. There's very little that I consider to fall into that category mind you. Absolution and earlier are listenable to me, despite also being brickwalled. A vast majority of albums in fact I can tolerate despite the loudness treatment. BHAR though to my ears is mastered even worse than usual and I just cannot stand listening to it for more than a few minutes. MotP came on random the other day and despite trying to enjoy it, I spent about 2 and a half minutes cringing before bringing up Winamp and skipping to the next track. I just couldn't listen any longer to the harsh, flat, wall of clipping that was pouring out of my speakers. It sounds so harsh and bad to my ears that I actually find it unpleasant to listen to, despite liking the tune. A few other albums that fall into that "unlistenable" category for me are the Chili's - Californication (I have a copy of the unmastered bootleg of this one thankfully), Keane - Perfect Symmetry and the lesser known Fandangle - Fly Away, and that really is about it. All others I am able to enjoy listening to, even if I do feel a bit cheesed about the deliberately damaged sound quality of them. A small minority though just go overly destructive with loudness treatment to the point where I cannot enjoy the resulting sound from them. I really, really hope that Muse aren't the first band to stick 2 of their albums in that "unlistenable" category... Fair enough . I definitely find it a much more difficult album to listen to in one sitting than the previous three, but that's more a combination of poor songs/song-writing and the mastering . B]The music is always more important than the recording but a poor recording (or release) can take away from the experience[/b] Aye, that is a good point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haze015 Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 the attitude of lots of audiophiles is very annoying. I love good sounding music but more importantly I love music. Which is why I do not consider myself to be a audiophile. The music is always more important than the recording but a poor recording (or release) can take away from the experience. It is a shame that as technology improves and gets cheaper to buy, music release's get worse! I have played BHAR on my good HiFi quite a few times (a shit load) and at a decent volume - it does not sound great. From the start I noticed this - not after reading forums. Nicely put, too many audiophiles are more than happy to stare at a screen looking at the audio than actually listening to it it seems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trippynet Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 too many audiophiles are more than happy to stare at a screen looking at the audio than actually listening to it it seems. I go by how it sounds. The wave editor on a PC is just a means of being able to see what the actual problem is with an album that sounds bad to me as it simply visualises the waveform that your ears are hearing. I've seen plenty of albums that look quite bad in a wave editor, but which don't sound all that bad in real life (Absolution is a good example of this, as is the Chilli's Stadium Arcadium). Similarly, I've heard albums which sound positively awful to my ears, yet which look surprisingly less butchered than I had expected when pulled into a wave editor (Keane's Perfect Symmetry being a good example here). Ultimately though when choosing whether to like or dislike an album, I go purely by what my ears hear. To make a decision any other way is daft really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haze015 Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 I go by how it sounds. The wave editor on a PC is just a means of being able to see what the actual problem is with an album that sounds bad to me as it simply visualises the waveform that your ears are hearing. I've seen plenty of albums that look quite bad in a wave editor, but which don't sound all that bad in real life (Absolution is a good example of this, as is the Chilli's Stadium Arcadium). Similarly, I've heard albums which sound positively awful to my ears, yet which look surprisingly less butchered than I had expected when pulled into a wave editor (Keane's Perfect Symmetry being a good example here). Ultimately though when choosing whether to like or dislike an album, I go purely by what my ears hear. To make a decision any other way is daft really. It wasn't aimed at you, just there are a lot of audiophiles happy to jump on the 'loudness war' bandwagon and seem to judge everything by what's on screen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mobius Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 It wasn't aimed at you, just there are a lot of audiophiles happy to jump on the 'loudness war' bandwagon and seem to judge everything by what's on screen. For example, I've never heard any complaints about Radiohead's last 4 albums, which are all very heavily mastered. Actually that reminds me of someone moaning about In Rainbows and taking a screenie of the waveform when it first came out. But it sounds fine. Another album I can think of which sounds pretty fucked up from poor mastering is Intimacy by Bloc Party. Shame really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trippynet Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 It wasn't aimed at you, just there are a lot of audiophiles happy to jump on the 'loudness war' bandwagon and seem to judge everything by what's on screen. Don't worry, no offence taken. Some "audiophiles" do go decidedly OTT with what they claim is acceptable and what isn't, and what they can hear that nobody else can. Thankfully I'm not that bad! I rip to MP3 and have a decidedly modest hifi just like a lot of people. I'm not treating any of these comments as nasty personal attacks, so don't worry about me being offended by perfectly valid points that your making! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haze015 Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Don't worry, no offence taken. Some "audiophiles" do go decidedly OTT with what they claim is acceptable and what isn't, and what they can hear that nobody else can. Thankfully I'm not that bad! I rip to MP3 and have a decidedly modest hifi just like a lot of people. I'm not treating any of these comments as nasty personal attacks, so don't worry about me being offended by perfectly valid points that your making! That always makes me laugh, everyone can hear the same, just it doesn't bother others like it does some. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofsaturdaynight Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Fair enough . I definitely find it a much more difficult album to listen to in one sitting than the previous three, but that's more a combination of poor songs/song-writing and the mastering . Aye, that is a good point. I love the songs & music, I just don’t think it sounds very HiFi. It is the album that made me really sit up and say "f*** me, muse are brilliant", I did have all the previous albums but I had not absorbed them enough. I went back and relistened to them over and over and over. To the point where I was listening to it way more than I should. With every listen the music sounded better - and I heard more. Yet I previously found their music a little difficult to penetrate. I usually get bored with music quite quickly – so 1 new CD in the car per week, along with old favourites. Then at home something different every night and often finishing off with some Pink Floyd before bed. I found with Muse I could listen to them over & over and it still has not got boring and I still hear new things. This is surprising as they only have 4 studio albums – I like other artists who have 3 times that amount but I can’t repeatedly listen to them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofsaturdaynight Posted June 19, 2009 Share Posted June 19, 2009 just got Placebo's: Battle For the Sun and here's another great album but victim of the loudness war. Sounds fine in the car or on a small midi system - put it on last night on my good HiFi with headphones and it sounds like piss. so I google'd :battle for the sun loudness and what do you know: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13162-battle-for-the-sun/ I use my ears first - that was just to confirm I'm not going mad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted June 19, 2009 Share Posted June 19, 2009 As much as I agree with you entirely, I just can't get over the attitude of lots of audiophiles. You call it 'unlistenable' - don't you think that's just a tad irrational? Sure, it's not ideal to have music brickwalled during the production/mastering stage but it's not THAT bad. I really do hope they make a good job of The Resistance in this respect but I wouldn't dream of NOT listening to something because of the way in which it has been mastered. Not directed at you Trippynet, more audiophiles in general . Often it can detract from repeat listening often without many people knowing why. I have yet to see any evidence that over compression is needed to help an album sell yes it's a good idea not to be overly quiet for the sake of it, but on iTunes there are a lot of dynamic masters of songs that out sell much more compressed versions check out Massive Attack's top songs if you don't believe me. Radio will add their own compression so no one will notice until they have already bought the album. Look at BTW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musestu Posted June 19, 2009 Share Posted June 19, 2009 I finally undertand why ACDC at donington sounds so much better than everything else live. NO bloody clipping or stuff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofsaturdaynight Posted June 19, 2009 Share Posted June 19, 2009 I finally undertand why ACDC at donington sounds so much better than everything else live. NO bloody clipping or stuff Yes and most AD/DC albums sound bloody great. Great open & dynamic sound, with lots of separation. Back in Black & Highway to Hell on the turntable = hard to beat. Shivers down the spine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trippynet Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 I find it especially noticeable since running all my music through MP3Gain a while back. This analsyses the volume of each song in my MP3 collection, then tweaks the volume up or down in order to match a reference volume level. The result? The Beatles now sound just as loud as Muse, or Nirvana or AC/DC when played back through my PC or iPod. The loudness of an album becomes irrelevent and the only result of the loudness war for me is the degredation in sound quality which results from it. I can now drive along in my car and not have to keep tweaking the volume up and down when an 80s song comes on in-between a couple of recent tracks. However, once everything is the same volume, the sheer clarity and sound quality of albums such as Nevermind (Nirvana) and Parklife (Blur) is so noticeable and fantastic compared with the muffled, distorted and flat sound from more recent stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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