Why, oh why, do people ruin music with compression???

The "market demand" is to be able to hear music over a phone or similar, and that requires loud compressed music, otherwise no one would hear it...

 

New Baroness album "Gold and Grey" is so horrible compressed that I just gave my copy away - I like the music but it was simply impossible to enjoy it.
When I put it on my headphones I was quite sure the CD must be broken, but then I realized it's compression. I couldn't get through first 2 songs on any moderate volume so I just gave it away.

It's like making a great food, wonderful spices, lot of care and attention and then serving it with some old dirty sauce that makes you wanna throw up. Completely senseless and maybe it's high time to tell companies to stop doing this cause it's simly disgusting.

 

Yes it's mainly driven by the fear of the client to not compare favourably with other hyper-loud tracks in the same musical genre. As a mastering engineer I've experienced it many times.
And as you note, I've mastered a lot of albums for Bandcamp and usually the artists are more interested in getting the best sound possible (as they conceptualize it) and not being as loud as the loudest.

 

I was playing the first CD pressing of On Every Street last week. Sounds incredible. If modern CDs sounded like this, people would have more love and respect for the format. I think some people blame the CD for the compressed/brickwalled sound that’s on them, but of course it’s the mastering that causes it.

 

To be fair, compression can be lovely.
Ringo's cymbals.

 

How can you say the vinyl is completely compressed by listening to 3 samples on amazon?

What are some examples of badly compressed music you have heard on vinyl?

 

The difference in sound between my main system and my earbuds, Bluetooth speaker and car stereo is huge. I am listening to the same music on all 4. Record companies and the artists and their management are going to where the sales are. They want their music to sound punchy on small speakers, earbuds, cheap sound bars etc.
Anything involving Dan Auerbach is going to sound loud and compressed, I personally can listen to compressed music and enjoy it on my main system, but when I bought new speakers just over a year ago I auditioned a few sets at home and one of my considerations was how they sounded with modern loud masterings.

 

Analog Man, my eye! He probably has no idea.

 

So why don't they build the compression into the hardware? The phone could have it, the car player could have it, amplifiers could have it, so people who like it or require it can have it, and those who enjoy quality music can turn it off.

 

The advent of volume normalization in streaming services has also made the rush for loud masters almost pointless. But I am starting to see improvements being made in some major industry releases, the latest Lana del Rey album (to quote a big name artist) for example, while not exactly dynamic, sounds significantly better than her preceding albums mastering wise. It's also down to the skill of the engineer: I've heard some excellent sounding albums that are quite compressed, and other highly dynamic albums that sound comparatively worse.

 

I had a Ford Explorer a few years back that actually had a compression button on the stereo console. It was great. It made nicely-mastered cd's audible in the car.

 

Ask them lol, not me!

 

On Every Street was released in '91. That period of time (from about '88 through '92) was pretty much the golden age of the compact disc. As I understand it, many of the back catalog albums released during the early CD era were mastered from equalized production tapes, which were originally produced for vinyl, so there was little to no additional dynamic range presented in the CD version of those back catalog albums. But for new material released during the glory days of the CD era, those albums could capitalize on the compact disc's substantially greater capacity for dynamic range, which (aside from the convenience and durability of the CD) was the audio enthusiast's reason for switching from vinyl to CD.

But with albums like Oasis' (What's the Story) Morning Glory, it all immediately and permanently went to hell in a handbasket.

 

That's what drives me nuts. I buy but can't listen to fantastic autumnal music from the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Paul Simon and Richard Thompson, because someone's squashed the hell out of the dynamics. Seriously, does anyone in their camp think they're competing for streaming plays with Beyonce?

It doesn't have to be this way, as per new releases from Van Morrison or Mark Knopfler.

 

Funny how I always told myself that music is the only thing that really counts, but lately I've realised (and also thanks to compression!) how important it is for the music to sound good as well.
I rather not listening to an album then listening to an album that sounds bad

 

Yeah, this sample is from Paul McCartney's Flowers in the Dirt (1989). It was recently remastered and has the same (or extremely close) DR values as the original album. Imo, one of the best produced records. I wish sound engineers would maintain the same approach with later music.

 

Thanks to this thread, I'm only going to buy CD's which are not available to stream. I have bought all of The Comet Is Coming on CD and have just checked the DR values.

Album list - Dynamic Range Database

 

I don't know if the album sounds good or bad, but I also don't know if transcoded, low bit rate Amazon samples are showing off whatever it is in the best possible light either.

 

Usually, even low bitrate mp3 / aac files pretty faithfully represent the DR values of the original file, provided no other changes were done to them, except transcodng.

 

The problem is that – at least in small doses – more compressed masterings can sound more attractive to the untrained ear, even on large and revealing systems. As a case in point, I played two versions of Sandy Denny's "Late November", one with a DR of 14 and the other the remaster with a DR of 9, to two friends through my $85,000 speakers. Both immediately preferred the more compressed mastering, believing it to be clearer and more punchy, and seemed baffled when I explained that on listening to the whole album they would almost certainly find that sound fatiguing and prefer the earlier mastering.

 

Best response to people who say<mewling voice on>;
"ooooo, ....well, you can just turn it down!"

No, I can't. You've f*cked it!

 

Yes this. The industry assumption is that most music is now consumed from digital files through cheap earbuds or small speakers. It is all mixed and mastered to be most impactful through those media. It is effectively a return to when most music was heard on small plastic transistor radios 50 or more years ago so singles were pressed very loud and with very little bottom end to jump out of the cheap tiny cones.

 

How difficult/expensive would it be for labels to officially release two mastering versions of a new album? Especially for older acts, they could offer a "Warm" version (minimal compression) and an "Enhanced" version (brickwalled). Plus, this would give their marketing departments something new to promote.

 

How beautiful it would be, butI guess it will never happen, to few good ears around. But maybe we can review good sounding albums here, to all's benefit?

 

It does happen, but at this point it looks like an exception from the trend though. Apple released 2 recent Beatles remixes in 2 masterings with 2 dB difference in the DR. I doubt it cost them much or anything and they ask premium price for these super deluxe editions.