My illustrated take on compression and the "Loudness Wars"

I just wrote up a piece for my weblog about the increased loudness and dynamic range compression affecting CDs over the years.

While I'm sure it doesn't reveal anything that isn't common knowledge here, I think people here might be interested in seeing it, and I included waveform samples taken from various CDs released in the last 23 years (with a little help from EAC and Audacity ):


Have you ever thought that popular music today sounds worse than ever? There's truth to that...and I'm not talking about musical styles.

It's not your imagination: The sound quality itself of music on CD has deteriorated over the years. The reason? Dynamic Range Compression.

Dynamic range is the difference between the loudest and softest parts of a recording. Compression is used to reduce this dynamic range. Compression itself has a number of practical uses, but in record or CD mastering it usually carries the purpose of making the recording sound louder than it otherwise would be.

So, why would mastering engineers make a CD sound louder than it otherwise would be? To be fair, the earliest CDs played at relatively low volume levels, and to many people, LOUDER is equated with better. Thus, new CD releases on average have been sounding louder and louder ever since then. The Compact Disc format allows for a very large dynamic range, but even so releases soon got loud enough for the use of compression to be necessary in order to maintain a higher average volume level. Some compression led to more compression, and nowadays many CDs are compressed so much that they are distorted and fatiguing to listen to, and basically constitute sonic mush. Listen to Rush's Vapor Trails if you don't believe me.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words (or something like that), here are pictures of representative waveforms of songs taken from various CDs released each year from 1983 to 2005. Notice how the diagrams resemble brick walls more and more as the chronology approaches the present:


1983
Bob Dylan - "Jokerman" (Infidels)

1984
The Cars - "You Might Think" (Heartbeat City)

1985
INXS - "Listen Like Thieves" (Listen Like Thieves)

1986
Journey - "Girl Can't Help It" (Raised on Radio)

1987
Bryan Adams - "Heat of the Night" (Into the Fire)

1988
Mike + the Mechanics - "Seeing is Believing" (Living Years)

1989
The Smithereens - "A Girl Like You" (11)

1990
Alice in Chains - "Sea of Sorrow" (Facelift)

1991
Toad the Wet Sprocket - "Walk on the Ocean" (Fear)

1992
Gin Blossoms - "Found Out About You" (New Miserable Experience)

1993
Rush - "Cold Fire" (Counterparts)

1994
Weezer - "Buddy Holly" (Weezer)

1995
Collective Soul - "Smashing Young Man" (Collective Soul)

1996
Dave Matthews Band - "So Much to Say" (Crash)

1997
Savage Garden - "To the Moon and Back" (Savage Garden)

1998
Better Than Ezra - "At the Stars" (How Does Your Garden Grow)

1999
Third Eye Blind - "10 Days Late" (Blue)

2000
Green Day - "Minority" (Warning)

2001
Incubus - "Nice to Know You" (Morning View)

2002
Jason Mraz - "The Remedy" (Waiting for My Rocket to Come)

2003
Third Eye Blind - "Crystal Baller" (Out of the Vein)

2004
U2 - "Vertigo" (How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb)

2005
INXS - "Devil's Party" (Switch)

The saddest part of the increasing over-compression in CD mastering over the years is how unnecessary it is: It carries no purpose whatsoever, and once the damage is done, it can't be undone, short of remastering a CD in question. Earlier CDs mastered at lower levels sound fine (and often great) with just a turn of the volume knob. While it is true that radio stations use compression in their broadcasts, this additional compression is always added at the broadcaster's end and overly-compressed CDs do not have any advantages in this context either. You don't need to be an audiophile to pay note, either: Even when I first started buying CDs six years ago, listened to them on a cheap headphone setup, and knew nothing about the issues at hand, I noticed that releases from 1999 or 2000 tended to sound needlessly louder and less dynamic than CDs from 1997 or 1998.

Unfortunately, over-compression has become so accustomed to on major-label CD releases (and oftentimes insisted upon by record companies, artists, and/or producers) that it probably won't go away any time soon. That said, the popularity of vinyl and audiophile-oriented LPs and CDs with superior mastering in some circles...as well as the endurance of older music in general...speaks some about the avenues in which dissatisfaction with the sound quality of recent CDs can be vented.

 

Thanks for posting the waveforms.

 

Looks like an art project.

Nice work at illustrating the problem which is evident even for those who don't like to read.

 

Andrew, thanks a lot for posting this. You hit the nail on the head. Things were good until around 1990 (according to your examples). It's (almost) all downhill from then (there are some exceptions of course, like DCC, MFSL, etc.).

Every once in a while, we get a modern remastering which looks (and sounds) just like your examples from the 80's. One of them is Rainbow - Catch The Rainbow: Anthology from 2003. I can't praise this relatively new CD enough for the wonderful mastering. I would like to know how Steve Fallone was able to slip such a great mastering through the loudness and compression machinery going on at the major labels. Maybe it has to do with his first name...

 

1991 on looks pretty bad, are these typical or examples?

 

Very interesting. Thanks

 

Nice job Andrew

 

Just a small comment. You (and others in some of the recent compression threads) use the term brickwall. This term is usually used in relation to the anti-aliasing/reconstruction filters in analogue-to-digital or digital-to-analogue converters, since an ideal filter has a perfectly vertical roll-off that looks like a vertical wall. I point this out to avoid confusion for readers who may not be familiar with all the terms, and may think that people are discussing the same thing in relation to filters and compressors when mentioning a brickwall response.

 

Reminds me of this one

 

Damn, look at the Green Day!!!!

 

What is it a conspiracy to ruin our ears?

 

I did a much more jive illustration of compression for another thread in this forum, which I'm attaching here.

 

They're typical examples.

There are exceptions though, since not all labels caught on to this trend at the exact same time. Most CD's after 1995 though have pretty much some kind of compression (with some rare exceptions).

 

While we are on the subject - here are three waveforms of CD versions of "Help!". The first CD issue on Parlophone, the "1" album and the new "Love" album. Apart from the obvious level difference (the original CD was, as they all were then, quieter) - there is plenty of dynamic range still evident in the later editions.

 

I realise the Help! example might also be relevant on the "Look of Love" thread

 

Yes.

For me, 1993 was the last aceptable one.

 

Nice summary, and the illustrations, as you say, are worth 1000 words. The only suggestion I might make is just a sentence or two more about the "louder = better" claim. Someone reading your article knowing nothing about the situation might wonder *why* louder was thought to be better. Obviously, there's the issue about people tending to have music on in the background, listening on little boom boxes, etc. But, more subtly, there's also the issue about louder, more compressed CDs appearing to sound more detailed (because all the bits that were quiet, and less audible, are now much louder relative to the loud bits, and therefore much more prominent). So "louder = better" wasn't just an arbitrary, random thing (like the trend could have just as easily been "quieter = better"). You can be tricked into thinking that louder CDs actually do "sound better" (as long as you don't listen to them for any length of time).

Anyway, just $0.02 from an old teacher.

Geoff

 

Alice in Chains - "Sea of Sorrow" (Facelift) almost looks like it was maxed out and then reduced in volume when mastered...no dynamics.

 

But, how do they all sound? You can't judge sound just by loking at a waveform.

 

Thank you for answering this question I've had for a long time. While I have gone out of my way to avoid compression in recordings I've made, I have found it helpful when creating mp3's for online streaming. This is essentially a broadcast and compression helps in these cases, not on the original mastered recordings, especially since most people listen to these mp3's through sub par speakers that usually need help with bass and overall loudness. Thanks for all the references too. Best Regards, - DE

 

Well I've heard U2 - "Vertigo" (How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb)

On the other hand, my 1983 Bob Dylan - "Jokerman" (Infidels) sounds pretty good for a CD.

 

Do you have any idea how that sounds compared to the 1997 release The Very Best of Rainbow?

 

Andrew, thanks much for posting these waveforms. It's criminal how they've destroyed a lot of great music over the years.

Over the weekend, I was surprised to find a recent Japanese issue of Queen The Game in the bins for $7.99. The catalog number is TOCP-65848, and it is a jewel-case issue. I had high hopes for the sound of this disc due the "mystique" of Japanese releases. In comparing it to the target, I much preferred the target. The Japanese disc is nowhere near the worst offender I've ever heard, but it strained the ears at high volume and is louder than the target. The target sounded far more balanced and pleasing. Yet another example of "modern mastering".

 

How much compression do you guys recommend for our home audio receiver settings? (if any)