What Can We Do About Brickwalling?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Bruce Burgess, Nov 23, 2021.

  1. CAP

    CAP Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austin, Texas
    old physical media and the right master. no new releases. this is how i am going from now on. labels will never change. and now that "engineer" just means anyone with a DAW and plugins - forget any semblance of quality pretty much ever again.
     
    dunce, MielR, mozz and 1 other person like this.
  2. NettleBed

    NettleBed Forum Transient

    Location:
    new york city
    Not untrue, but the original question was about late 1990s-early 2000s brickwalled CD titles in particular. Considering the vinyl release as an alternative is an excellent remedy for this particular problem. It is not relevant that vinyl itself might have some degree of compression or have other problems inherent to the format: it won't likely be brickwalled, which is what the OP is trying to avoid.

    On-point plug for this site to vet versions before one buys, in any format!
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2021
  3. Bruce Burgess

    Bruce Burgess Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hamilton, Canada
    Vinyl is my format of choice. However, not everything is available in vinyl. In other cases, the vinyl is ridiculously overpriced. Since most people who purchase hi res downloads are audiophiles, you would think that they music on this format could be given the same respect as vinyl.
    That's good to know. It's super expensive but the 2 LP set is more moderately priced.
     
    Shak Cohen likes this.
  4. Bruce Burgess

    Bruce Burgess Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hamilton, Canada
    I have to respectfully disagree with you. The two Rolling Stones examples I provided were released in 2020 and 2021. The loudness war is by no means over. In the case of the Stones, it's getting worse. Although most of their previous archival releases were compressed, these are the first two I found unlistenable.
     
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  5. Sex Lies And Master Tapes

    Sex Lies And Master Tapes Gaulois réfractaire

    Location:
    Nantes, France
  6. orson

    orson Forum Resident

    Ordinarily if you want to illicit change, a boycott of a companies products works, but in this case the record company simply see it as we sold less CD's so there for we will get out of the CD business faster...or to the extreme drop the artist for selling less than their expectations. Boycotting downloads/streaming will just penalize the artist only, record companies are too invested in non-physical media only -with the exception of the still niche LP records. Instead petition artists to stand up to the vandalism that is occurring with their digital products by the record companies.
     
    Ryan Lux, mikmcmee, Severopol and 3 others like this.
  7. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    The Big Lie is the industry's position that, "the customers don't notice"...well, if they don't notice...WHY GO THROUGH THE TROUBLE OF DOING IT. You wanna make it louder, they've got a control on their devices for doing that.

    "My boss likes taller employees"...does that mean you're gonna get ahead in the industry by putting lifts in your shoes, or walking around in heels?
     
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  8. Maggie

    Maggie like a walking, talking art show

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    I believe you that these releases are terrible. I don't listen to the Rolling Stones. But it is a fact that in the streaming era, the amount of dynamic compression and limiting used on most commercial releases and archival releases is much reduced compared to about 15 years ago, when there was undoubtedly an industry-wide problem. That "millennial crunch" sound is now very dated and the vast majority of producers avoid it. Sometimes a release with this sound will still leak out (e.g. the recent California Music CD on Omnivore) but it's becoming increasingly rare because it sounds so 2006 and producers are trying to avoid that very dated sound. The sound of 2006 is now as dated as the sound of 1952 was in 1967.

    And this is leaving aside the issue that physical media sales are so piddling now that no consumer action could ever have an effect on industry practices except to end archival releases altogether.

    The problem with this approach is that the tools used by the vast majority of consumers to calculate DR (e.g. Audacity reports) are affected by EQ. "Audiophiles" don't understand this because they don't understand the calculations involved and their limitations. But if you mic up a speaker and record a track with a calculated DR of 6, and then turn the bass knob down, you can get a calculated DR of 10-12 without doing anything to the dynamic range of the recording. Oops! Non-STEM dudes sure do love misunderstanding math.

    Bro, I assure you, "The Big Lie" is something else
     
  9. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    The point is, I was in a radio convention, in a small group session including a label guy and an artist, and during questions, I asked him point blank why messing with an artist's master tape to ruin the dynamics, makes the album any more desirable.

    His answer was, "the customers don't notice"...totally oblivious to both that he was talking to a guy who went right out that afternoon after the session and bought twelve CD's...and, the eyes rolling on the artist he was sitting next to.

    And unfortunately, I was not allowed the courtesy of the follow-up, which is, "if they don't notice, why are you doing it".
     
    Ryan Lux, WMTC, Severopol and 3 others like this.
  10. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    not a single thing other than deprive yourself of the music.
     
  11. nosliw

    nosliw Delivering parcels throughout Teyvat! Meow~!

    Location:
    Ottawa, ON, Canada
    Not much you can do about it since it's both the label and artist's prerogative in their choice of different masters. Short of hacking into their internal archives filled with high-resolution post-mixes digital files or breaking into their archival warehouses of master tapes (obviously, I do not condone it!!), the best you can do is to research a particular release and find the best possible master.

    Or if you have massive amounts of cash, create your own label that specializes in quality releases by obtaining licenses from various labels/owners of the masters or become an activist investor and demand the labels to release non-crappy brickwalled masters.
     
    patient_ot likes this.
  12. Matt I

    Matt I Forum Resident

    Location:
    Alabama
    No matter how you slice it, the new Goats Head Soup on vinyl is fantastic. The proper LP is mixed by Giles Martin and sounds great. The Rarities LP is great and worth it for the instrumental version of Doo Doo Doo Heartbreaker alone, with the rest of the LP being just spectacular. Then add the Brussels Affair doule LP and it makes everything worthwhile.
     
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  13. Rich-n-Roll

    Rich-n-Roll Forum Resident

    Location:
    Washington State
    caravan70, nosliw and patient_ot like this.
  14. stef1205

    stef1205 Forum Resident

    If there is no listenable digital option, either try to get a needle drop, or, if you are unable to find one, get the LP, make your own needle drop and sell the LP, which should still be NM. You have to invest some time and a quite a few euros / dollars, but at least you have a non-brickwalled option to listen to. That’s what I’ve already done in some cases and the purchase and sale price has never been more than 8€.
     
    bangkok19 likes this.
  15. patient_ot

    patient_ot Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    The Loudness War doesn't just affect your classic rock warhorses. It affects almost everything is far from over. As for what to do about it - I agree that not much can be done. Occasionally I will leave a review on places like Amazon, Discogs, and Rateyourmusic.com if a particular release really bothers me. Labels don't really pay attention to this stuff though.

    Here's a recent example. The album was originally released in 1994 and was remastered and reissued in 2020.

    The Living Room – Roomservice (1994, CD)

    Here's what the remaster looks like:

    [​IMG]

    Here's what the original looks like:

    [​IMG]

    In this case the original CD is getting more difficult to find so it won't be an option for everyone. The album was also fairly overlooked for years, so a reissue was welcome and hopefully brought the artist some $ and recognition. However, the remaster took out about half the dynamic range on some tracks. If it had been done with just a bit more restraint, I'd feel a lot better about it. Anyone that cares about sound quality should buy the original CD.
     
  16. norliss

    norliss Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cardiff, Wales
    Talking about The Loudness War is a bit like talking about The Second World War or The Vietnam War: it was over years ago. And dynamic range lost.
     
    dunce, tagomago, weekendtoy and 2 others like this.
  17. patient_ot

    patient_ot Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    I have a number of CDs done by him. While he does often make his version louder than the originals, he at least shows some restraint and doesn't completely ruin everything like a lot of remastering jobs today.
     
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  18. PineBark

    PineBark formerly known as BackScratcher

    Location:
    Boston area
    I'll often get the vinyl and do a needle drop recording, so I have non-brickwalled versions in both analog and digital.
     
  19. Rich-n-Roll

    Rich-n-Roll Forum Resident

    Location:
    Washington State
    Cool so your hip to Patrick yeah he has done great work and his approach I would not say revolutionary but a little outside the box he does just enough to bring out the best in the recordings
     
  20. patient_ot

    patient_ot Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    Especially in the world of metal, he's one of the few guys where you can pick up a reissue he's worked on and know it will sound reasonably good.
     
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  21. NettleBed

    NettleBed Forum Transient

    Location:
    new york city
    Yeah, i see no signs of the loudness war being "over" - I think they just settled on "loud"

    I just pulled up a list of the top-selling albums of 2020 and checked the DRs for the CD releases, and they're all a 5 or a 6, with a few 3s and 4s and a few 7s (and the Hamilton Soundtrack is a 9).

    If 5 and 6 is the standard then yes - they're loud, and about as loud as ever.
     
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  22. Rich-n-Roll

    Rich-n-Roll Forum Resident

    Location:
    Washington State
    He redid the the Riot catalogue and I hear things I did not before especially the latter 80's- 2000's
     
  23. PineBark

    PineBark formerly known as BackScratcher

    Location:
    Boston area
    The war is over. Unfortunately loud won.
     
  24. MHP

    MHP Lover of Rock ‘n Roll

    Location:
    DK
    The hope it will end will only be possible, when a major artist will set the example and actually make a release that’s quieter than the rest.
    If, for example, Adele, Billie Eillish or Ed Sheeran made an album specifically more dynamic and made people aware it’s a problem, then the industry might take notice.
    Adele made Spotify abandon their shuffle button, she has such power right now.
    If she said, “make my album dynamic!”, the record label would do it.
     
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  25. patient_ot

    patient_ot Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    I haven't heard all the Riot remasters he did. I did buy his CD version of Fire Down Under, but ended up preferring a different version with more neutral EQ.
     
    Rich-n-Roll likes this.

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