THE LOUDNESS WAR IS REAL!

[ChrisCoaster]

I RECENTLY BORROWED MY FRIEND'S 1987 CD RELEASE OF "THRILLER"(MICHAEL
JACKSON), RIPPED SOME TRACKS AND LOADED THEM INTO AUDACITY. I THEN
RIPPED THE SAME TRACK #S FROM MY "25TH ANNIV" THRILLER AND LOADED THEM
INTO AUDACITY.

MY WORST FEARS WERE CONFIRMED - "BEAT IT"(2007) WAVEFORM APPEARED
BLOATED AND CLIPPED COMPARED TO THE CD FROM THE '80S.

MY ADVICE: PURCHASE THE 25TH ANNIV THRILLER ONLY FOR TRACKS NOT ON THE
ORIGINAL THRILLER ALBUM! AND TO POST- ENGINEERS:

turn it down, please?

-chriscoaster...

[ChrisCoaster]

_________
Guess this got ignored because 80% of it was typed in Caps?

I wasn't actually yelling; the caps was a poke at the loudness war and
badly remastered compilations. ;)

-CC

[Tobiah]

>> MY WORST FEARS WERE CONFIRMED - "BEAT IT"(2007) WAVEFORM APPEARED
>> BLOATED AND CLIPPED COMPARED TO THE CD FROM THE '80S.

That makes me sad and angry. Do you think that MJ had to sign
off on that, or did it just happen as a matter of course?

[Mark]

you may be interested in this

http://turnmeup.org/

Mark

[Mxsmanic]

Tobiah writes:

> That makes me sad and angry. Do you think that MJ had to sign
> off on that, or did it just happen as a matter of course?

He probably wasn't even asked about it, unless there was a specific
contractual obligation on the part of the music label to get his approval.
Indeed, the contract could have been written to explicitly deny him the right
to sign off on such things, but that would probably be unusual for a major
artist (he just wouldn't be told about it).

[ChrisCoaster]

______________
I'm sure he would have been all for a 25th Anniv. Edition release
Thriller - he was alive at that point. My issue is, would he have
approved what they DID to the original tracks from the 1982 release?

And this is not just limited to Michael Jackson. If you were to go
into a store today and purchase, say "Shakedown Street"(1978) on CD by
the Gratful Dead, EVEN IT BORE NO INDICATION OF BEING REMASTERED OR A
"REISSUE", CHANCES ARE IT HAS BEEN FUCKED WITH AND WILL NEVER SOUND
LIKE THE LP MASTER AGAIN.

This is a CRIME what is going on. Now even the albums on which some
these great hits were first heard are being altered without any actual
notification to such effect on the packaging! So look over carefully
the outside of that "Van Halen II" CD you're holding in the aisle at
FYE or WalMart. If you see multiple copyright dates INCLUDING
post-2000, chances are it has been FUCKED with(that's my term for
'Remastering' - take it or leave it). If the copyright dates are from
the 1970s and one from the 1980s, that's just a copyright on the
original CD release and the music is proabably intact. Buy it in that
case. As for the rest of you: hold on to your original CD
releases(early '80s to mid-1990s) for dear life. They are the only
link to the original sound of these artists!!!

<caps in protest of the loudness war>

-CC

[ChrisCoaster]

________________
Thanks Mark: I'm quite familiar with their efforts. I need to contact
them and see what they are doing regarding the preservation of
existing/archival works, not just material as it is being released.
See my previous post case in point. For those who appreciate music
this is a national emergency!

-CC

[Scott Dorsey]

ChrisCoaster <ckoz...@snet.net> wrote:
>And this is not just limited to Michael Jackson. If you were to go
>into a store today and purchase, say "Shakedown Street"(1978) on CD by
>the Gratful Dead, EVEN IT BORE NO INDICATION OF BEING REMASTERED OR A
>"REISSUE", CHANCES ARE IT HAS BEEN FUCKED WITH AND WILL NEVER SOUND
>LIKE THE LP MASTER AGAIN.

Actually, you picked one of the few exceptions. The Dead have been
very, very careful about CD reissues and getting them right, probably
more so than any other organization out there.

What's really sad is to find old folk and jazz stuff that has been
crushed... there's _no reason_ to do it.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[ChrisCoaster]

On Feb 11, 12:34 pm, klu...@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

_______________
Well I've learned my lessons Scott: I'm buying no more 'reissues",
"ReMasters", or "Greatest Hits" compilations! It's off to the
"Friends of the Library" used music section and used record stores and
tag sales for this old fogey!

-ChrisCoaster

[ChrisCoaster]

On Jan 30, 9:28 pm, ChrisCoaster <ckozi...@snet.net> wrote:

____________________
And by the way, mister big record label or big time act: You can't
fool this old pro at spotting an altered track. I'll load it into Pro
Tools or Audacity and know it's been meddled with just by the
brickwalled sections of its wave form and how little the meters move
up and down when I play it! Watch out! The reissue/remastering
sheriff has entered the studio. ;)

-CC

[Ron Capik]

I bought a Ventures CD several years back. The cover
art was identical to the old LP. Nothing to indicate that
it was any different from the LP. It wasn't compresses
to hell, it was disco-ized. The thing was un-listen-able.

Later...
Ron Capik
--

[ChrisCoaster]

On Feb 11, 1:30 pm, Ron Capik <r.ca...@verizon.net> wrote:

>
> I bought a Ventures CD several years back. The cover
> art was identical to the old LP. Nothing to indicate that
> it was any different from the LP. It wasn't compresses
> to hell, it was disco-ized. The thing was un-listen-able.
>
> Later...
> Ron Capik
> --

_________________________
Well, sounds like SOMETHING was done to it. They probably stuck a
Swiss Alp's worth of bottom at either 100Hz or below. LMAO!

BTW I've done the same thing in Audacity to older tracks that were
from LP master tapes that contained nothing below 60-70Hz. But I did
it conservatively and by constantly analyzing and listening to what I
was doing.
The Ventures post-producers probably just applied a boiler plate EQ to
the low end and FUCKED it all up!

-CC

[Ron Capik]

No, they screwed with the tempo. I never listened
enough to hear what else they screwed with.

Later...
Ron Capik
--

[ChrisCoaster]

> --- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
______________________
Man! I'd love to get a RIP of that CD! I'd at least re-equalize the
songs and slow them down.

LOL!

[Ron Capik]

Seems I didn't quite make myself clear. So I sent
Chris a clip. I'll leave it to him review it if he cares.
Again, there's NOTHING anywhere in the packaging
to suggest that this was anything but a transcription.

I don't believe he still wants "a RIP of that CD."

Later...
Ron Capik
--

[ChrisCoaster]

I hope you read my e-mail. I stand corrected in it not being a
remaster, but I hope my feedback also makes sense to you.

-CC

[Ron Capik]

Read your feedback. I don't think compilation and reissue
warnings really applied to CDs from ~1991. I don't believe
truth in packaging issues were (quite as) rampant back then.

Later....
Ron Capik
--

[ChrisCoaster]

_____
Well it's a trend that gained momentum very slowly. As for the
loudness aspect eaklings of that began to appear as early as the mid
'90s according to a good website which I cannot recall on that
subject. Louder CDs and compressed remastering really picked up
momentum at the turn of the last decade. Has it come to a front? I
hope so. Technically there is only so far you can go with compressing
so much audio information into a 1 to 2 dB range of amplitude.
Clipping can and will start to occur as low as -5dB digital VU! Talk
about diminishing returns. I experimented with this in Audacity and
the effects of layered/hyper compression are downright DANGEROUS for
both playback equipment and for our EARS.

Now as for what are clearly reMAKES as in the case of your Ventures,
this has been going on for a long time! I'm going through some of my
parents' compilation vinyl from 20-30 years ago containing such acts
as the Penguins and the Marcels. And in fact, some of the versions of
the songs on there were rerecorded by THOSE GROUPS at least a decade
after their heyday - when those songs first shot up the charts. So
again for those buying 'Greatest Hits' compilations - either of one
group or of an entire era(Fab 50s or Sensational 70s or whenever) -
READ THE PACKAGING and BE CAREFUL!

regards,


-CC