BBC Radio 4 - "Compression Versus Art"

Listening to this right now...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06tvgp1

Trevor Cox asks whether compression can detract from our enjoyment of recorded music - does it matter that what we hear may not be the same as what the musicians heard in the studio? How important is high quality reproduction? He looks at attempts to make music recordings sound louder and louder (the so-called Loudness War) and asks whether anything is lost in the process. And he considers whether making audio file sizes smaller, so that they take up less space on portable devices, means that some of the musical detail is lost. He talks to record producer Steve Levine (who produced Culture Club among many others) mastering engineer Ian Shepherd, the musician Steven Wilson, members of the BBC Philharmonic, and Dr Bruno Fazenda, Senior Lecturer in Audio Technology.

 

I'll check it out later, thanks for the heads up

 

Bump for the afternoon crowd

 

radio 4 could do with a bit of compression for their FM signal. about 6db lower than some others. I call it radio quiet!

 

Would you like Radio 3 to level match Radio 1 while they're at it?

 

Radio 4's analogue signal slaughters the terrible DAB digital one, especially on comedy shows with a studio audience.

 

This was actually the first time I've played a radio show on my hifi. I was pleasantly surprised to find a soundstage with the interviewer and subject placed in opposing chairs!

 

Radio 3 and Radio 4 can still sound staggeringly good on live broadcasts, especially on a quality FM tuner - too dynamic for most modern listening!!

Funnily enough, I've been ripping The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Gallery, which in 1978, was the first stereo, comedy broadcast on BBC radio. Apparently, they called it a "drama" rather than comedy to get the go-ahead to broadcast in stereo

 

More from the beeb: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35250557

 

I obviously meant Galaxy!! Good old predictive text. It will be interesting, to compare the dynamics of the first two discs, recorded 1978-1980, to the rest, which were recorded in the mid noughties. I hope the BEEB was not compressing then.

Interesting articles, thanks Robert.

 

This deserved more responses than it got, although I know the destructive nature of compression even I was surprised by the difference I could hear on my poor laptop speakers. My friends son is a drummer and knew zilch about this issue, when he listened to the broadcast he immediately saw why he in particular could be adversely effected. It's an interesting listen, even if you disagree with some of the contents, catch it before it's removed from iplayer.

 

Ian Sheperd's Youtube channel is worthy to checkout as well.

Ian Shepherd »

 

Excellent just sent link to the drumming son of my friend. They're just starting to use a local recording studio and as it's a small enterprise everyone in the studio is under 22.