Buy Death Magnetic at Hot Topic TODAY

[HardcoreZ28]

It's on sale today only at Hot Topic stores for $5. Almost makes it worth buying instead of stealing online haha. They also have 2 different t-shirts for $10 available.

[ar0ck]

Its always worth pirating it online especially if its from Metallica :lol:

[BigAls87Z28]

Already pirated...sorry.

[HardcoreZ28]

Hahaha.....what.....nobody wants the album art??? LOL talk about something that's a thing of the past.

[Knipps]

You can download that too :lol:

[shane27]

i get a free copy when i go to the concert :D

[GP99GT]

i get a free copy when i go to the concert :D

you get it next week actually, chris said theyre coming monday

[shane27]

you get it next week actually, chris said theyre coming monday
well how about that :nod:

[deadtrend1]

Already pirated...sorry.

me too ...

I mean. I got a special preview of the album ... :nod:

[BonzoHansen]

Getting free ones as bonus for buying concert tix

[SteveR]

Regardless of who the band is and what you may think of them, pirating music, regardless of the legalities of it, will almost assure the death of performing arts in this country. If nobody buys the cd, then all that up front money spent recording the album is the responsibility of the band to pay back to the label who provided the advance. If the trend is big enough, which it is now, then labels wont want to pay the proper amount of money to record the album the right way. Then the big studios go out of business, as they are. Then to try and recoup the loss the labels raise the price on cds. Now you have labels paying little to no money to record an album, thats done in some guys basement, that doesnt sound great, and the engineers are unemployed. Go on ebay alone and see how much high end pro studio gear is being liquidated because of studios going under. You cant call yourself a fan of anything if you're stealing from them.

[79CamaroDiva]

Regardless of who the band is and what you may think of them, pirating music, regardless of the legalities of it, will almost assure the death of performing arts in this country. If nobody buys the cd, then all that up front money spent recording the album is the responsibility of the band to pay back to the label who provided the advance. If the trend is big enough, which it is now, then labels wont want to pay the proper amount of money to record the album the right way. Then the big studios go out of business, as they are. Then to try and recoup the loss the labels raise the price on cds. Now you have labels paying little to no money to record an album, thats done in some guys basement, that doesnt sound great, and the engineers are unemployed. Go on ebay alone and see how much high end pro studio gear is being liquidated because of studios going under. You cant call yourself a fan of anything if you're stealing from them.

he's one of them.. as the highest trained person in the state of NJ on ProTools (an industry standard program), we searched for almost 2 years and he couldn't get a job in the music industry unless we moved to TN. I used to dl music, figured who will it hurt? The band? hell, they get enough revenue through ticket sales, what does it matter.. wrong. Eventually it affected me, albeit indirectly, still affected me when he couldn't find a job.

[BonzoHansen]

<--never downloaded copyrighted/commercially available music

That sucks. But the music industry (its leaders) devoured itself by whoring the price of music. New cds cost too damn much. $10 @ CD is about right IMO. Not $18-20. It's just like the current financial industry that is getting hammered because of a few greedy upper mgmt types. The employees that make it tick get the shaft. No, I don't feel bad for the CEO of Lehman Brothers that just lost like $750M in personal asset value. But I feel bad for the Lehman employees that will be out of work and whose retirement $$ just fell into the sea.

Then again I think the CD ruined music, but that is another story.

side note: Tell the currently employed engineers to stop the madness that is the 'loudness wars' . A lot of new music has no subtlety anymore and is hard to listen to.

.

[SteveR]

side note: Tell the currently employed engineers to stop the madness that is the 'loudness wars' . A lot of new music has no subtlety anymore and is hard to listen to.
.

Thats all style unfortunately. One knucklehead does it and it sells a record and now everybody does it. Thats also part of the fall out of the implosion of the music business, a lot of the good producers and engineers are seeking refuge in places like France where the music scene is probably the strongest in the world right now.

[BonzoHansen]

This about right?

http://amebasaladeriva.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/loudness-war-compression-diagram.jpg

[SteveR]

This about right?

http://amebasaladeriva.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/loudness-war-compression-diagram.jpg

LOL thats awesome

[BonzoHansen]

Awesome like a train wreck. This is killing a lot of 'remasters' too. Sad that orginal CD pressings (which often sounded crappy) are better than new ones. That crappy early days/later days Zep cd set is a good example of a g/h hits package that sucks. (side advice: buy the cube or get the old 4 cd box set and followup 2 cd set).

W/O ever looking at pics, the velvet revolver stuff sounds really compressed. Hell, I picked up the new whietsnake cd ($10) at target because it had a bonus live cd that has stuff from the deep purple/coverdale days and the studio cd is so compressed it's like has a hum like an amp with a ground problem. Surprisingly a few of the new tunes rock. I bet untamed dave would like this cd.

[SteveR]

Awesome like listening to feedback at a bazillion decibels.

[BonzoHansen]

Awesome like listening to feedback at a bazillion decibels.

Perfect, like a lot of new music. You can listen for a while, but eventually it gives you a headache. Too bad, it might be burying good music.

[SteveR]

Perfect, like a lot of new music. You can listen for a while, but eventually it gives you a headache. Too bad, it might be burying good music.

Thats why my next project is going to revolutionize music. It'll bring back the golden age of noise sounds. It'll be five hours of carnival music. Maybe I'll title it "Music for Peanut Eating Monkeys" , or "Music to Spank Your Monkey To" Not quite sure of the title, but the whole clown in makeup/pie in the face theme is working out well so far.

[BonzoHansen]

Can I play a theramin? Good Vibrations rules. 8-)

[SteveR]

Can I play a theramin? Good Vibrations rules. 8-)

theramins are awesome!

[79CamaroDiva]

theramins are awesome!

do they come in men's, women's, and silver for those 50+?

[SteveR]

do they come in men's, women's, and silver for those 50+?

you can accessorize your theramin

[BonzoHansen]

Maybe

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f368/trickmirror0/theremin.jpg

[rscamaro73]

PLATTERS = FTW !!!

This is why I don't mind listening to "VINTAGE" stereo equipment with records. They're still clear....

CD's are clearer than 'radio'....but you can tell the differences when you know what you're listening to (and aren't tone deaf....lol).

I'm gonna go to scotts to listen to what he's listening to....drink some beers on his 'new' porch :rofl:

[BonzoHansen]

SteveR, I am reading reports that the new Metallica album is a sonic mess. Waiting for some verification of this source, but damn.

I did not realize Rick 'I also like it all wrong' Rubin mixed this. I've read complaints about his work with Mars Volta too.

Distorted and clipped all to hell. Way to go, guys. Try reading this before releasing your next album...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v397/adamhlava/a2ymir.png


So the average reader here is probably saying "golly, why does this matter to me, I like it loud". It's not loud like 'my amp goes to 11'. It's a matter of complete loss of sonic quality. You lose the nuances, the 'light & shade'. Even metal has nuance. This can make a even a great song sound bad.

As once described to me, they could not do this with vinyl, they were actually physically controlled by the allowable size of the grooves in the record. Yet another reason why CDs killed music.

Good article on it: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity

[SteveR]

LOL is that an actual waveform of the song? I got the cd today and listened to the first 5 songs so far. Its a lot better than St. Anger production wise, but does have a lot of problems. Just by listening to it I can tell what equipment they used, the ears of the mix engineer, and the volume they mixed it at. I can hear that they mixed it loud, and that the mix engineer has the onset of permanent hearing loss, as he overcompensated in the octave of 4-8khz, which is where your hearing will go first. The main problem with mixing loud, is that everything tends to sound better loud, but if you mix loud, you dont hear what you're actually doing. If that's the actual waveform, then they messed up big time. It's not supposed to look like that lol What they did was take the mix of the song, make it really loud, and run it through a limiter where they crushed the waveform so it doesnt go over the 0 db threshold for digital. Doing that changes the tonality of each octave and removes all of the nuances and volume changes in the songs. Thats audio engineering 101 not to do that. There are a lot of other mistakes, some small, some huge that were made in the mix as well. A good mix engineer will treat each song as a separate piece and approach it with a blank slate. That way your ballads dont sound like your hard metal songs and vice versa. That requires that you zero out all the gear and start fresh with each song. You can hear that they cut corners and just left everything the same for each song. What they probably did, and I've seen amateurs do this before, is pick one song and mix that the way they like it, then just play all the songs through that setup and record the output back into Pro Tools as the mix version. You can definitely hear that they did that as soon as you hear the drums and lead guitar come in on Unforgiven 3. You have that nice melodic quiet guitar piece, then loud ass in your face drums? C'mon, thats basic 'not to do' crap right there.

Next, you can definitely hear what gear they are using. This goes back to our talk about everything being 'loud' and 'in your face' from the other thread. Rick Rubin was always good at that, and it was absolutely perfected by Chris Lord Alge (he mixed such great albums as the last Green Day and Rise Against). What happened was during the birth of rap in NY, there werent too many instruments involved, usually just rappers and some cheesy ass beat. So traditional recording gear that was very popular at that time in the rock scene wasnt going to work as it tended to be more soft and rounded out the sounds more than sharpened them. So what Rick Rubin did was take the British recording and mixing consoles by SSL, which had a very harsh and in your face sound, and were used a lot in film post production, and use them for rap artists such as Run DMC, Public Enemy, LL Cool J, and the Beastie Boys. The change in gear made the simplistic production of rap albums sound a bit more full and had more presence. Well, as the boom of rap became greater, and labels were throwing ridiculous amounts of money around to get rap albums made, recording studios responded by selling off their Neve consoles and replacing them with SSLs in the hopes to attract these artists and projects (and big ass wallets too). Meanwhile, Rick Rubin gets back into recording rock albums like Blood Sugar Sex Magic by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and recording the album in an old haunted house outside of LA (Rick would return to this house to record another album in 2006, Minutes To Midnight by Linkin Park). Other albums he recorded from '90 to '95 were Slayer, Danzig, and Mick Jagger. He then went on to record acts like U2, Green Day, Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, AC/DC, and System of a Down. He's also noted as having produced the new Slayer that should be out in a few months and the new ZZ Top that should be out next spring. The big thing with Rubin is making everything in your face.

The problem with this album, is that his new approach to recording and influencing the mix is he wants everything to be 'stripped down'. The problem with that for this album is that now everything sounds too harsh. There is way too little reverb on the vocals and drums and they just sound too bare. The EQs are also off. There were a few places I heard where things walk all over each other and get muddy. With the money Metallica has, I have no idea why they seem to continue to use mix engineers that seem to not only not know how to mix a hard rock album, but dont even seem to have graduated from any form of audio engineering school. The mistakes made on here are elementary. I should give you a copy of some mixes I id for a friend a few years ago. Just basic rough mixes of an album came out light years better than this.

However, the writing and performance on this album is I think the best they've done since And Justice For All. Out of the first 5, there were 4 I liked. I'll give the rest of the album a listen tomorrow.

[SteveR]

On another note;

The mastering can also play a big part in the finished product. Once the mix is done, it'll go to a mastering engineer that basically adjusts the level between songs, the level of each song, basic eqing, etc. so that the album sounds cohesive. It's also possible that the mastering engineer contributed to the squashing of the songs too.

[BonzoHansen]

that was actual cd, as is this:

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7461/2716142zq4.png

[79CamaroDiva]

.... lol.

thats all i got.

[SteveR]

LOL thats funny

Ride the Lightning actually looks a bit low. Wherever I May Roam looks good.

[SteveR]

PS- what are you using to get those waveforms?

[BigAls87Z28]

All Nightmare Long is a loud song...real loud.

[BigAls87Z28]

All Nightmare Long is a loud song...real loud.

[Savage_Messiah]

All Nightmare Long is a loud song...real loud.

All Nightmare Long is a loud song...real loud.

Doubly loud?

[BigAls87Z28]

Double Mint Gum!!

[Knipps]

http://www.rubbermag.com/news/0508/imgs/050816_wrigley.jpg

[GP99GT]

all nightmare long is my favorite on the album.....but yes i have also noticed the quality is crapola

[shane27]

i got my 5 dollar tee shirt which can be seen here
http://photos-d.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-snc1/v313/127/38/33700694/n33700694_31754931_7666.jpg
also pictured: amanda gorun, and my goofy smile :D

[Savage_Messiah]

shane you look 12 there

[BigAls87Z28]

shane you look 12 in every picture of you that ever exists, but what do I know, Im a fidget.

Fixed, and fixed. :nod:

Metalica sold half a million records from Friday to now, debuting at #1 for teh 5th time in the charts, more then anyone has ever done before, or at least thats what the chick on the Sirius radio said.

[maroman88]

picked it up on sale for 9.99 at best buy.... #6 is my fav so far

[HardcoreZ28]

What I want to know is why Shane's wearing a buttondown under a Metallica t-shirt. I bet if I sent that to Hetfield he'd personally come kick your azz! Hahah kidding man...just sleep with one eye open.

By the way I got GA tix for the Jan 31 show...can't wait.

[Savage_Messiah]

What I want to know is why Shane's wearing a buttondown under a Metallica t-shirt. I bet if I sent that to Hetfield he'd personally come kick your azz! Hahah kidding man...just sleep with one eye open.

By the way I got GA tix for the Jan 31 show...can't wait.

:roll: :roll:


You mean this guy?


http://picsorban.com/upload/het.jpg

[BonzoHansen]

^no t-shirt over a button down....


There are some good tunes on this cd...too bad it sounds like drunk monkeys recorded it....

[BonzoHansen]

For SteveR:

Engineer disowns Metallica's 'Death Magnetic'
Metallica fans have been complaining about the quality of the CD recording of the band's new album, 'Death Magnetic', with many saying the version available on the 'Guitar Hero' computer game is better.

A YouTube clip comparing sound on the two formats can be viewed by clicking on the video below.

Fans have complained on internet forums that the dynamic range heard on the CD version is not as good as the 'Guitar Hero' version, reports Musicradar.com.

While many fans have blamed the mastering process used on the album, Ted Jensen of Sterling Sound, who mastered the album, has reportedly written a forum post about the process.

"I'm certainly sympathetic to your reaction, I get to slam my head against that brick wall every day," he wrote. "In this case the mixes were already brick-walled before they arrived at my place.

"Suffice to say I would never be pushed to overdrive things as far as they are here. Believe me, I'm not proud to be associated with this one, and we can only hope that some good will come from this in some form of backlash against volume above all else."

Source: nme.com (http://www.nme.com/news/metallica/39816)
Youtube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRyIACDCc1I

[SteveR]

For SteveR:

Thats awesome. Sterling Sound is a very good facility and they dont employ amateurs. I need to look up the credentials on the mix engineer.

[BonzoHansen]

FWIW, the song on the new GHIII cd is supposedly better soudning. Why I do not know.

[camaroracer1992]

after they started the BS with napster i am all about NOT buying or suporting metallica. they also suck in concert the one time i saw them. bunch of washed up old heads if you ask me :)

[SteveR]

FWIW, the song on the new GHIII cd is supposedly better soudning. Why I do not know.

They could have done it two different ways; they could have taken the pre-mix tracks and handed them over to another studio to take the tracks and create the session for GH3 with a different mix and code it for video games (I forget the coding name, Coding for Mixed Media is the next class at Berklee). This would result in a totally different mix, as well as the coding to allow for each section of tracks (drums, vocals, bass, guitar) to be isolated for the game.

Or, they could have taken the post-mix tracks and sent them off to a different studio and re-processed the mix to add dynamics. I did this a few times for situations like this, and it's a bit of studio trickery. What you do is consider the post-mix tracks as say 0db, or at the digital peak level. Then record them into Pro Tools at say -10db. This would take the 0db clipped mix and bring it back into Pro Tools at a lower volume, but, it still wouldnt have dynamics. So, what you do then is either sent it back out to be processed externally (to the computer) or you can do it in the box as well. You could run the mix through reverb to add a little life to it and run the reverb returns to a set of aux tracks and mix the levels. This will add some dynamics. Then run the summed outs to a transient modulator and set it high to try and pull some of the transients out. This will increase the attacks, or wave peaks, and synthetically add dynamics. Now, you have to address the issue from when you re-recorded the tracks back into Pro Tools at a lower volume (half actually, as -10db is half perceptual volume). You can use a perceptual level modifier, like the Sony Inflator that increases perceived volume, while keeping the electrical level the same. Now, you wouldnt want tot just push the volume fader up to make it louder, because that would result in the same outcome of what you were trying to fix, as the wave peaks you just created would get clipped as the RMS level got closer to the peak level of 0db. So, what you would do is use something like the Sony Inflator to increase the perceived volume level, while keeping your wave shapes the same. Magic, now you have the new Metallica album with more dynamics. Unfortunately, this wont fix the mix, only make it more listenable and add more dynamics to it.

One of the first things I was taught was appreciation for all forms of music from an engineering stand point. The one thing the teachers all said was take this from funk and R&B; everything in these styles is groove, and groove is the fundamental for a catchy song. Funk and R&B are full of it, and as an engineer, you know you have a song that grooves if you can look at your stereo master level indicators and you see them bouncing up and down with the rhythm, and your head is following them. If you squeeze all of the dynamics out like they did here, it kills the groove.

[Squirrel]

http://imagechan.com/images/bd5f702a49292c8d06405917a8ed221b.png

[shane27]

What I want to know is why Shane's wearing a buttondown under a Metallica t-shirt.
cause i make my own style 8-)

[BonzoHansen]

Saw this elsewhere, I laughed

End of session day, Rubin works away:
I'm your source of song-destruction
Tunes that hurt you ear, poor sound engineer
Leaving spikes on my instruction
Trust me you will see
Volume’s all you need
Dedicated to
How I'll limit you

Compressing faster
Limit your Master
Your albums sell faster
With a loud Master
Master

[NastyEllEssWon]

http://www.encycmet.com/news/jason-and-voivod.jpg



its sad when this is what you do to avoid being embarrassed :rofl::rofl::rofl:

[BonzoHansen]

Even the Wall Street Journal thinks it sounds like ****. A cover story on it today:
************************************************** *
SEPTEMBER 25, 2008 WSJ
Even Heavy-Metal Fans Complain That Today's Music Is Too Loud!!! T
hey Can't Hear the Details, Say Devotees of Metallica; Laying Blame on iPods
By ETHAN SMITH

Can a Metallica album be too loud?

The very thought might seem heretical to fans of the legendary metal band, which has been splitting eardrums with unrivaled power since the early 1980s.

But even though Metallica's ninth studio release, "Death Magnetic," is No. 1 on the album chart, with 827,000 copies sold in two weeks, some fans are bitterly disappointed: not by the songs or the performance, but the volume. It's so loud, they say, you can't hear the details of the music.

"Death Magnetic" is a flashpoint in a long-running music-industry fight. Over the years, rock and pop artists have increasingly sought to make their recordings sound louder to stand out on the radio, jukeboxes and, especially, iPods.

http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-CK075_loudPr_D_20080924160023.jpg
Compare the sound quality from two Metallica clips: from "Death Magnetic" and "…And Justice for All."

But audiophiles, recording professionals and some ordinary fans say the extra sonic wallop comes at a steep price. To make recorded music seem louder, engineers must reduce the "dynamic range," minimizing the difference between the soft and loud parts and creating a tidal wave of aural blandness.

"When there's no quiet, there can be no loud," said Matt Mayfield, a Minnesota electronic-music teacher, in a YouTube video that sketched out the battle lines of the loudness war. A recording's dynamic range can be measured by calculating the variation between its average sound level and its maximum, and can be visually expressed through wave forms. Louder recordings, with higher average sound levels, leave less room for such variation than quieter ones.

Some fans are complaining that "Death Magnetic" has a thin, brittle sound that's the result of the band's attempts in the studio to make it as loud as possible. "Sonically it is barely listenable," reads one fan's online critique. Thousands have signed an online petition urging the band to re-mix the album and release it again.

Metallica and the album's producer, Rick Rubin, declined to comment. Cliff Burnstein, Metallica's co-manager, says the complainers are a tiny minority. He says 98% of listeners are "overwhelmingly positive," adding: "There's something exciting about the sound of this record that people are responding to."

Key Witness

But the critics have inadvertently recruited a key witness: Ted Jensen, the album's "mastering engineer," the person responsible for the sonic tweaks that translate music made in a studio into a product for mass duplication and playback by consumers. Responding to a Metallica fan's email about loudness, Mr. Jensen sent a sympathetic reply that concluded: "Believe me, I'm not proud to be associated with this one." The fan posted the message on a Metallica bulletin board and it quickly drew attention.

Mr. Jensen regrets his choice of words but not the sentiment. "I'm not sure I would have said quite the same thing if I was posting it to the bulletin board," he says. But "it's certainly the way I feel about it."

The battle has roots in the era before compact discs. With vinyl records, "it was impossible to make loud past a certain point," says Bob Ludwig, a veteran mastering engineer. But digital technology made it possible to squeeze all of the sound into a narrow, high-volume range. In addition, music now is often optimized for play on the relatively low-fidelity earbuds for iPods, reducing incentives to offer a broad dynamic range.

The loudness war began heating up around the time CDs gained popularity, in the early 1980s. Guns N' Roses' "Appetite for Destruction" upped the ante in 1987, as did Metallica's 1991 "Black Album" and then the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Californication" in 1999.

Less to Hear

Music released today typically has a dynamic range only a fourth to an eighth as wide as that of the 1990s. That means if you play a newly released CD right after one that's 15 years old, leaving the volume knob untouched, the new one is likely to sound four to eight times as loud. Many who've followed the controversy say "Death Magnetic" has one of the narrowest dynamic ranges ever on an album.

Sound engineers say artists who insist on loudness paradoxically give people less to hear, because they end up wiping away nuances and details. Everything from a gently strummed guitar to a pounding snare drum is equally loud, leading to what some call "ear fatigue." If the listener turns down the volume knob, the music loses even more of its punch.

But many musicians, producers and record-company executives "think that having a louder record is going to translate into greater sales," says Chris Athens, Mr. Jensen's business partner and a fellow engineer. "Nobody really wants to have a record that's not as loud as everybody else's" in an iTunes playlist, he adds.

Mastering engineers are caught in the crossfire. "I've had lots of people -- I mean lots and lots of people -- try and push a record to a place I thought it didn't belong," Mr. Athens says. "We try to deliver something that mitigates the damage the client wants. I drag my feet and give them something a little louder and a little louder."

Albums by some of the biggest names in rock, including the most recent by U2, Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney, have drawn flak. Bloggers last year singled out Mr. Ludwig, the veteran engineer, for the sound on Mr. Springsteen's "Magic," which some thought was tinny and loud.

Mr. Ludwig wouldn't discuss the instructions he was given, but said, "Bruce doesn't let anything out unless it's exactly the way he wants it to be." Mr. Springsteen and his manager, Jon Landau, declined through a spokeswoman to comment.

As for the deafening "Death Magnetic," it struck one fan as fitting for these tumultuous times, thanks to songs like "Broken, Beat and Scarred" and "All Nightmare Long," says Metallica's co-manager, Mr. Burnstein. He says an investment banker emailed to say that "the album and its song titles have just become the soundtrack of Wall Street for fall 2008."

[SteveR]

That's a very good article. It really shows how there is a constant huge struggle between clients, engineers, and labels as to 'what sounds good.' The engineers know exactly what technically is correct (for those engineers that know what they are doing), the clients don't usually know or care for that matter and just want things like "I want it louder" or "I want my voice to sound like so and so's voice" and all other unhelpful comments. The labels never really know what the public wants. So what they do is push some outdated over played ideal out to the masses. Look at it like this, bands come out that are unique and sell records, like Pearl Jam. What happens for the next 15 years? The labels release cds with 8 trillion Eddie Vedders singing on them. Or Kurt Cobain's, or Maynerd's, etc. They push something so hard that the public gets sick of it. The labels turn people off from music in some ways. What sucks and often happens is you get a new young band with crazy talent and a fresh contract, and the label assigns some idiot corporate producer to come in and transform the band into some cookie cutter BS and the cd comes out and the label wonders why it doesnt sell like the Spice Girls. The industry really is a bunch of over paid insecure clueless childish adults for the most part. The hand-holding involved should make me qualified to run a pre-school.

This one paragraph is incorrect though:

"Music released today typically has a dynamic range only a fourth to an eighth as wide as that of the 1990s. That means if you play a newly released CD right after one that's 15 years old, leaving the volume knob untouched, the new one is likely to sound four to eight times as loud. Many who've followed the controversy say "Death Magnetic" has one of the narrowest dynamic ranges ever on an album."

Perceptual loudness is measured in dbu, or decibels-unterminated, and is the professional reference and measurement for perceptual sound levels while the signal is still inside a system. Perceptual loudness is measured in human hearing as a +/- 3db change being a perceivable change in volume to the average listener, and a +/- 10db change is an increase/decrease in sound by a factor of 2, or twice/half the volume. When it says that "likely to sound four to eight times as loud", that's an increase of 40-80db, which is not possible. dbu is also not measured by percentages either. Say your dynamic range is 50db. A 25% decrease in dynamic range is 12.5db, not 40. The dynamic range is certainly smaller and it very well could be an eighth to a fourth as wide, but it's not going to sound four to eight times as loud solely based on dynamic range adjustments. There is a lot more technology available today than 30 years ago that allow you to adjust perceptual loudness without affecting dbm- or the actual loudness as a measurable electrical signal in a system referenced to 1 milliwatt across a 600 ohm load. There are also a lot of studio tricks to do the same using hardware instead of software. The best way is an old way from the early days of recording that I don't think anybody even knows about anymore.

I was actually going to post in this thread today with some new info I got from some friends last night. I was talking to a few people about what's going on in the industry and I heard that the record companies have big plans. There was about ten years ago a huge plan to introduce the next step in music distribution to the masses that would dramatically increase the crap quality of cds (and replace them). It was a great idea and I was in on it from the start and just as it was coming out in the pro world, napster happened. With this new idea in the public that music should be free and screw paying for music etc., I heard that the industry canceled the program. The mindset is that if people are going to steal it, screw giving them tens of millions of dollars worth of R&D in a new high quality product, let them deal with crap quality mp3s. So because of all these selfish assclowns, we won't be getting 96Khz, 24 bit, streaming uncompressed 5.1 surround music to your local music store. Thanks, ****heads.

[SteveR]

Here's the future of music folks. If you're going to steal it, don't expect it to get better.

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20080922/TEC.Music.on.Memory.Cards/

Summary:

Because everybody steals music, we'll just throw some crap quality mp3s on a thumb drive and copy protect it and call it an album. Enjoy.

[BonzoHansen]

I read about that yesterday in the WSJ.

Bring back vinyl.

[Savage_Messiah]

death to teh interwebs!

[shane27]

album sounds good to me