John Cale "Fragments of a Rainy Season". Is this the first brickwalled acoustic album?

Vinyl wav form.

 

Looking for a friendlier wave form.

 

What does this all mean? By "brickwalled" do you mean just a louder version or a version that is distorted in some way?

 

Both!

from wiki.
"With the advent of the CD, music is encoded to a digital format with a clearly defined maximum peak amplitude. Once the maximum amplitude of a CD is reached, loudness can be increased still further through signal processing techniques such as dynamic range compression and equalisation. Engineers can apply an increasingly high ratio of compression to a recording until it more frequently peaks at the maximum amplitude. In extreme cases, efforts to increase loudness can result in clipping and other audible distortion. Modern recordings that use extreme dynamic range compression ("brickwalling") and other measures to increase loudness therefore can sacrifice sound quality to loudness."

 

Ear bleeder
Ear fatigue

 

Ouch! Anyone else have a chance to listen to it? My copy arrived but I have not opened it. I'm thinking I should return it.

 

The audio images look "louder" - at least that's how they look when I increase the volume of a track using my audio software (i.e., longer peaks) - but what are the indications that it also is "compressed"?

 

look at the pic in post #5

 

Help me our here. What should I be looking for? I see the length of the waves, which looks to me like it's just louder. I thought compression would have its own fingerprint of sorts. If you are saying that the mere length of the waves shows compression, then I'll accept that. Could it be that the waves are longer but also "clipped" at the ends? I can see how that's possible, but it's not readily apparent to me from post 5.

 

Compression is the process of lessening the dynamic range between the loudest and quietest parts of an audio signal. This is done by boosting the quieter signals and attenuating the louder signals. In its fullest the blue wav pattern would be an oblong block...... resembling a brick

 

Thanks for the explanation. I think I understand now. I listened to some of the audio samples at Amazon.uk - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fragments-Rainy-Season-VINYL-John/dp/B01LXPK253 - and they sound pretty dreadful compared to my original 1992 CD (and consistent with what you seem to be saying).

Any thoughts as to why one would do this to any album (let alone this one)? Is there some benefit? Is it just sloppy workmanship?

 

It's not sloppy workmanship. This is almost certainly intentional.
I doubt you could brickwall music accidentally.
Someone somewhere actually wants this new issue to sound like this...

 

Not me . . . unless someone here can convince me otherwise. It might be conducive to some of Cale's other work, but I don't think it's a good fit here.

 

I think it's a form of mastering that's catering for the mp3 generation. I'm not happy because i don't buy mp3, my portable player can play wav files.

 

Ditto. This loudification crap has really soured me on buying any new releases that don't have the name Steven Wilson attached to them.

 

I think I'm going to cut my losses and return the LPs. Good thing I didn't even open the outer packaging yet! I still have my 1992 CD and the DVD, which I haven't watched in several years. Also, I have a boot or two from the period, and the Spotify option (as noted above) is there, as well.

Thanks for your assessment of the audio quality. Much appreciated.

 

Some excellent discussion along these lines here - SH Spotlight - I was asked "Why do recordings need compression/limiting during recording, mastering?" »

 

Love Domino Records. Hate Domino Records vinyl releases. Almost as bad as Jagjaguwar.

 

Qobuz has a standard "16-bit CD Quality" version of the new release, but also offers a 24-bit 44.1 kHz hi-res option. I'd love the latter to be a proper audiophile version with all dynamics intact, but having already purchased the 2LP + wav-download, and not being able to sample an individual track on the Qobuz-site, I'm reluctant to take the risk and blow another 18€... Is there anybody who can advise on the sonic characteristics of the "hi-res" version?

 

Why, Santa, WHY!? I thought it says on the album cover that it was remastered by Cale--so I had hope!!??
Do they really mean brick walled?!

I was wanting to get this double LP....I do hate those brick walled digital disasters. Is it really that bad in the vinyl release??

That is WHY I love my old analog LPs. I'm guessing Dylan or Young, with their return to analog, don't allow such travesties to our aural senses. At least I hope not!

 

Weren't the last couple of Cale albums brickwalled badly as well? I'm thinking of Shifty Adventures... and M:FANS. Great artist but bad judgment in sound quality.

Fragments is probably my all-time favorite live album and I was excited about the reissue, but I'm not falling into that trap, I hope they get stuck with enough unsold copies to learn a lesson.

 

That sucks...it deserved better. Glad I didn't buy it

 

Cale's had the same mastering engineer for the last decade....does he know what's going on?

 

I returned mine unopened. I got back the entire cost (i.e., I only had to pay return shipping). I can live with that.

I've tried listening to the album on Spotify, but I find the sound to be quite harsh even in that format.

 

the cd?