What's your definition for the word "brickwalled"?

picture worth a thousand words.

 

===> then asking advice from fellow Hoffmannites where to find the best sounding "un-brickwalled" CD's (normally older CD's) of your favourite recordings/artists.

 

Sorry to get all Funk & Wagnalls but this is a good definition of brickwalled.

A CD is brickwalled if it..

1) isn't mastered by Steve Hoffman or Barry Diament

or

2) doesn't date from the cold war era

or

3) was pressed from a country other than Japan or W. Germany

 

I disagree with you! There are many CD, which aren't brickwalled, are relatively new, not mastered by those men and are not pressed in Japan or Germany... You're just shortsighted and don't know about other music...

 

doesn't sarcasm work for those who speak ESL?

 

Estonian Sign Language?

 

The word brickwalled is used way too often here. Of the following 3 wavforms I'd only call the last one brickwalled, even though all 3 have at least some compression added. All 3 have been called brickwalled or loud/harsh on this board, even the first one.

 

quoted without pictures....

for me all are brickwalleds, the second and the last is easy to see and if you zoom(horizontal) the final of the first picture in your wave editor will be easy to see that in final of the music where the waveform is squared(with straigh lines in the top of the some waves) is brickwalled too.

great examples.

@ Chris M

cheers!

 

delete.

 

I guess you misunderstood what I was trying to say. Of course I can see 2 clipped samples on both channels in the first wavform. So yes, some peak limiting was used. What I was trying to point out is that a handful of clipped samples (picture 1) isn't the same as no dynamic range at all (picture 3). It's a difference of night and day, so it's ridiculous to use the same word for both things.

 

+1

That last clip is the only one that I personally would describe as "brickwalled" though there are other things going on with the first two.

 

Exactly. All limiting != "brickwalling."

Far too frequently do I see a modern issue that has essentially the same (lack) of dynamic range as the original CD, but has the misfortune to imply some digital dynamic processing, described as "brickwalled." T'aint the same!

 

My definition is - everything louder than everything else.

 

My definition, or at least the way I understand it, is that peaks have been limited, at the discretion of the mastering engineer, resulting in less dynamics; forcing the music to 'sit' with its face smashed up against the wall. This cuts off the air around the music, in my experience.

Brickwalling, to me, isn't the same as maximizing, or creating a 'loudness wars' participant. This happens when the brickwall is moved out, stretching the sound to use every last bit of space within the digital domain.

 

i don't misunderstood and you posted greats examples.
is not needed the whole waveform to the music be brickwalled in my opinion.
only one part of the music with squared(or stright line) waveforms in the top or in the bottom is needed to change "day for night".

as i had requested, just zoom (horizontal) the final of the first wave (right channel) and you'll see "clips". in this part was brickwalled.
the probables 'sines" in the extremes of the waves are now as straight lines because are going above 0dB and the wave editor can't draw above 0dB.
can you post this part with zoom, please?
pictures 2 and 3 are clevers, was brickwalleds even if you decrease the level the waveforms will remains damageds, no way to recover the original form.

in the end we are talking about the same thing...lol
cheers.

 

exactly, no more headroom for the whole music or in some cases for part of the music.
for this reason in my last post i was trying to show that if only one part of the music was brickwalled, this part lose headroom, we can't recover and no need to be in the whole music...the music was brickwalled, no way!

cheers!

 

For some people here, "brickwalled" means any CD louder then one made in 1985. Whether they've heard it or not.

 

brickwalled;-Death Magnetic

 

Death Magnetic is more than brickwalled is one disaster, i can't play two musics, is needed some interval.

and Pink Floyd - The Wall


....not the sound, only the cover!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrixraZPvrI
Death Magnetic EVEN LOUDER and MORE BRICKWALLED!!!
But be careful, this one is extremly loud and can cause a strong headache!!!

 

I gotta disagree. What Doug Sclar said is accurate, and the technically accurate term.

 

some people? who are you talking about?

 

What Doug said was what he interpreted "brickwalled" to mean. A definition I agree with.

What he did not do was supply a suitable term to replace how others are using "brickwalled" here. Although I think the term is wrongly used, language is a growing thing and the usage has so much traction, an alternative is unlikely to emerge.