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Topic: The Corrs - borrowed heaven (Read 41758 times) previous topic - next topic
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The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #50
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Was that on a radio show, on TV or in front of the stage?
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Ah, I wish I'd been there!

It was on TV - BBCi FreeView channel 702 (it would have been MPEG-1 layer II 48kHz 192kbps). It was on BBC Radio 2 at the same time, but I didn't switch to check - it's impossible to sync digital TV and digital or analogue radio broadcasts, and I wanted to watch it.

Cheers,
David.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #51
OMG! I'm familiar with WANTED distortion as I listen to lots of Black Metal and Grindcore albums where in some cases the more distortion is the better as it creates some "crusty" and "crunchy" sound.

But these two samples I'm listening to right now simply sound awful. While on angel.ape I find the compression more annoying than the distortion long_night.ape is just distorted like hell. I don't know where is the reason for fooling customers with such a badly produced piece of music. Loudness race, that's it.

Perhaps somebody else from Germany remembers the good old years where TV advertisements had the same volume level as the movie/show/whatever. I also dislike the loudness used in theaters (cinemas). When you are not deaf when going into the cinema, you'll be when you leave. For discos it's the same. I don't know if this is a special problem in Germany or if it's a global one. And I can't understand that people who dislike those loudness trends (even if it's about too much loundess only and not about additional noise) are that rare.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #52
I have a bit appreciation for a newbie stating here "well, I can't hear anything really bad".
If someone has never heard anything else than the super-loud squashed sound since the late 90s, he/she won't know what it should sound like. Something in mind has to popup: "Oh, the percussions should be dynamical." "Oh, these distortions aren't normal."
Only a few years ago, I myself would have probably said that I can't here anything bad. There are lots of people outside of HA who just don't notice because they're not trained to hear it, but they would care, if they would notice. If HA forum sofware would allow me to upload, I could offer additional self-made samples.
The "angel" sample sounded normal to me (in terms of nowadays). Of course, constant distortions, really poor dynamics. Just about the same as on your Dido-Life for rent CD, David; Dido had more clicks, this one more distortions. Idiots at the mixing console, sloppiness.
Is "Long night" the worst track on this CD ? It reminds me of "Whitney Houston-Greatest hits", the title "Didn't we almost have it all" had the same continuous distortions like "Long night". Besides that, "Long night" is the worst I've ever heard.
I know that I know nothing. But how can I then know that ?

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #53
The title "Long night" is now a popular radio single in Germany. I can notice the vocals' clipping distortions even via my cheap mono clockradio without cable antenna, still worse with my hifi tuner and headphone. I just can't believe that the usual listener won't notice it. This CD is my current loudness war artifacts winner.
I know that I know nothing. But how can I then know that ?

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #54
I can confirm that my CD sounds very poor also.  Distorted and compressed.  Reminds me of a low quality compact cassette recording using automatic level control that is permanently stuck in the red at +6dB.

Doesn’t sound as bad as the Foo Fighters One By One CD with a master gain value of -3dB.

I have given up on new CDs and have just spent a fortune on Amazon buying any CDs I like from the 80’s & 90’s.  Buy before its too late and they get Remastered the modern way.

When CD format was new one of the advertised benefits was the high dynamic range.  Why is the format being abused?  There is no excuse, don’t the music industry executives realise if we want it louder we have something called a volume control!

No wonder CD sales have fallen.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #55
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One wonder CD sales have fallen.
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I don't think this has to do with bad mastering. Like said before, the majority of people doesn't even hear it.

I think the race for loudness is in line with the necessity to score hits. Today, the only way for record companies to make real money is "making" hitsingles (we can find evidence on this by watching MTV for a couple of hours). This means that a song should attract attention between all the other songs on the radio, and thus be as loud as possible.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #56
Here's another sorry example, from Röyksopps new album The Understanding... well, I'm not understanding. Decide for yourselves... Oh, and the title is Triumphant... not a triumph for digial music, that's for sure. 

Maybe I should send the CD back to the artists...

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #57
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One wonder CD sales have fallen.
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I think the race for loudness is in line with the necessity to score hits. Today, the only way for record companies to make real money is "making" hitsingles (we can find evidence on this by watching MTV for a couple of hours). This means that a song should attract attention between all the other songs on the radio, and thus be as loud as possible.
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Apparently Hypercompressed material doesn’t sound louder on air, see link below

[a href="http://www.masterdigital.com/24bit/images/rdioproc.pdf]http://www.masterdigital.com/24bit/images/rdioproc.pdf[/url]

Radio stations and Music Video channels have their own compressors so there is no need to compress CDs.  Anyway its not just Hit singles being compressed or the promo versions being sent out to radio stations, its the shop bought full lenghth Albums!  Why do these have to be ruined?

I think most DJs have enough common sense to slide the fader up a bit on softer CDs anyway if necessary. 

My Corrs Borrowed Heaven CD is now on ebay

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #58
[Aug 6 2005, 05:11 PM]Here's another sorry example, from Röyksopps new album The Understanding... well, I'm not understanding. Decide for yourselves... Oh, and the title is Triumphant... not a triumph for digial music, that's for sure. 

Maybe I should send the CD back to the artists...
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[/quote]

That Royksopp clip sounds horrible.  Looks like they are trying to make money from square waves,  I almost bought that CD.

I read somewhere else on the web that a 78 RPM record is now technically superior to the average pop CD recording. 
 

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #59
Square waves? That's so the 80s

"it's hip to be square"

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #60
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I read somewhere else on the web that a 78 RPM record is now technically superior to the average pop CD recording.  [/b] 
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I'm not sure about SNR, frequency response, or stereo - but certainly the dynamic range of the musical content on most 1930s "pop" recordings is greater than you'll hear on many modern CDs.

Cheers,
David.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #61
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I think the race for loudness is in line with the necessity to score hits. Today, the only way for record companies to make real money is "making" hitsingles (we can find evidence on this by watching MTV for a couple of hours). This means that a song should attract attention between all the other songs on the radio, and thus be as loud as possible.
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I think radio stations use about 128kbps mp3 or wma (ugh!) to play the hits quickly from hard disc, bad encoder, heavy real-time compressor and mp3 gain (or the like) to make the loudnesses equal.
The station that would be my favorite one if the quality was better plays both records which I know they're dynamic on the original CD and records which I know they're heavily compressed (because I've once ripped and analysed those CDs). They always have the same average loudness.
I know that I know nothing. But how can I then know that ?

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #62
The weirdest thing to me about all this is that "sounding loud on the radio" is often cited as the reason behind this stupid war.

I heard some tracks from Muse's heavily compressed album "Blackholes and Revelations" on BBC Radio 1 when I was driving home the other day and they sounded terrible. It was nowhere near as punchy or loud as the previous tracks they had been playing and I had to actually turn the volume UP to discern the different parts of the track. I assume this is the radio stations compressor interacting with the already over-compressed recording and turning the whole lot into inaudible mush. The drums were non-existent even at very high volume.

The best sounding radio station I have ever heard was a pirate radio station here playing dance tracks. It honestly sounded brilliant, I had no idea FM could sound like that. I can only assume this was because their broadcast equipment was cheap and lacked a compressor.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #63
The weirdest thing to me about all this is that "sounding loud on the radio" is often cited as the reason behind this stupid war.


while i understand your desire to share your experience with others, there are already multiple threads on crappy engineering practices that are still "alive", while this one had been dead for 2.5 years now.. might i suggest you post, or continue this conversation (if indeed one grows out of this posting) there rather than here?

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #64
while i understand your desire to share your experience with others, there are already multiple threads on crappy engineering practices that are still "alive", while this one had been dead for 2.5 years now.. might i suggest you post, or continue this conversation (if indeed one grows out of this posting) there rather than here?


Whoops! Don't know how I ended up in this old thread! Apologies for digging this up.

 

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #65
Well, the loudness problem remains about the same. Why start a new thread?
The best sounding radio station I have ever heard was a pirate radio station here playing dance tracks. It honestly sounded brilliant, I had no idea FM could sound like that. I can only assume this was because their broadcast equipment was cheap and lacked a compressor.

Pop radio stations also sin by not allowing any pauses between tracks. They play one loud track, then an equally loud jingle that blends with the subsequent piece of music, or commercial. It's a way to constantly attract your attention over background noise. But as a listener in a quiet controlled environment, I find it difficult to listen to this kind of programme.

The noise of the FM medium itself is low enough. But the pop radio manages to always play something loud so that it becomes impossible to adjust the antenna by listening to the noise level.

Here we also have state public radio (in the best meaning of this term). They actually allow songs to fade out properly, and I noticed that long extended versions of music are also sometimes broadcast. Overall I get an impression of the station's importance, its ability to lay own standards.