iTunes

[heartofdavid]

I've noticed that a few artists reissued some of their catalog on vinyl, those seem to be done from the original master tapes (since they first came out prior to CD format) - Tom Waits, Can and the Pogues most noticeably, at least that's what I see in the shops. That new Yoko Ono album on which Steve Wilson and Fripp guest has had several 12" singles, but I haven't seen one yet with either of those two artists.

I miss the posters, pics, booklets, stickers and various other goodies that often came with albums - you get some of that with CDs but in miniature.

I like the smell of vinyl too, very distinctive.

Ever notice that CDs aren't mixed the same for volume? There are some CDs that I have to crank up the volume but when I put the next CD on I have to turn the volume way down or I'll blow out the speakers - it's a weird discrepancy.

[godisinthesilences]

Heart.... I have noticed that too with cd's and volume. I wonder what that is about????

[heartofdavid]

I now wish I had bought the Sylvian stuff offered on Samadhisound on LP. Man is hindsight 20/20

I believe Blemish on vinyl is still available at Samadhisound.

I wish David (and Steve) should clean out their closets and attics and make some of their 'junk' available - like Steve did with the prints. Bet they have a copy or two of old goodies that are gathering dust...

[heartofdavid]

I wonder what that is about????

It's like the engineers on some projects are hard of hearing or something.

[sisterlondon]

I've noticed that a few artists reissued some of their catalog on vinyl, those seem to be done from the original master tapes (since they first came out prior to CD format) .

Dunno about the ones you mentioned, but Porcupine Tree LPs are done from the digital recording, everything goes straight to and from Mr. Wilson's Mac. So don't know about other musicians, but definitelly in many cases the LP sound comes from the CD source.

Edit: We discussed the loudness of cds right now on the PT forum as well. It seems they distort them a lot! Shame on some engineers! It's like a battle of sound!

[heartofdavid]

It depends on what the original method of recording was at the time, I think. PT have been around since CDs have been the main format release.

I don't know what David did with Blemish (vinyl), but the mix does sound different to me than the CD - maybe it's just that I play around with the equalizer, that's why I can hear a difference. The CD doesn't allow me to do that to the same extent so there has to be something different in the transfer of sound beyond the format.

[heartofdavid]

We discussed the loudness of cds right now on the PT forum as well. It seems they distort them a lot! Shame on some engineers!

I've never noticed distortion, but I'm not sure what you mean by that. Are you referring to crappy mixes, where something is either buried or brought too far forward in the mix?

Edit to add: I think it's often deliberate nowadays, a decision by the artist or between them and the producer, to make the sound muddy or bright (don't know how to really describe the latter, but it's a sound I hate, when everything is on the same level).

Second edit: Metal bands, particularly black and death metal ones, have primitive (for lack of a better word) production on their early albums - I don't know if sometimes that's an issue of cost or lack of expertise, but it's often expected. Yet when they spruce up the production, they get often trashed by the fans for selling out. I think that low-fi production often works well, adds to the chaos of the sound.

Now I'll shut up.

[sisterlondon]

Distorsion: tae the latest Level42 album, for example. All the instruments are so loud and crampled (is that a word?) together that you barely can hear them all separatedly, at least in a few tracks. It's like a huge wall of sound that isn't too clear

[heartofdavid]

Distorsion: tae the latest Level42 album, for example. All the instruments are so loud and crampled (is that a word?) together that you barely can hear them all separatedly, at least in a few tracks. It's like a huge wall of sound that isn't too clear

Got it. Yeah, that's similar to what I meant by bright - where everything is on one level so it all just blares into one big noise - shove-it-in-the-pot production.

[sisterlondon]

Exactly, and it's a total pity because the album sounds good, but could be so much better... pity!

[John Trevethan]

OK, here it comes - another lengthy tome from me.

I master CDs for a living and this problem is one of the biggest issues in the field. We call it the "Volume Wars" and it has become a growing problem over the years, particularly since digital audio has come to the mainstream.

With vinyl records you were limited by how wide of a groove could actually be cut in the disc. Wider was louder, but also reduced the playing time. A technique known as compression has been around since the beginning of audio, and it basically reduces the loudest volume levels and also raises the quietest. This makes the audio apparently louder, hence it raised the "apparent loudness" of an audio track. This began to be used when cutting vinyl records to make the music sound louder, but still keep the groove narrow and the playing time as long as possible per side.

Once we got into digital audio and the Compact Disc, compression had advanced to be able to make audio sound as loud as anybody wanted. Thus began the volume wars - everyone wanted their records to sound louder than everyone else's. Labels got on this bandwagon and figured that they would make all of their artist's records louder than any competitor. They also (incorrectly) figured that their records would be louder on the radio.

The reason that this is incorrect is that radio stations have also been engaged in their own volume wars for years. Every station wants to be the loudest, the scheme being that as you go through the dial the loudest station will jump out and you will be hypnotized by the glorious, powerful sound - thus freezing in your tracks while sitting there listening to all of their sponsor's commercials. So the radio stations were playing leap-frog with each other by adding compression to their broadcast signal. An added benefit of compression was that it made every song sound exactly at the same level. The result of this is that the overly compressed discs that the labels were sending to the radio stations were being "double compressed" by the stations themselves. This has the effect of actually reducing the level and power of the audio. (Reason #4,138 as to why record labels are big and stupid.)

Add to this the proliferation of inexpensive and powerful digital audio tools being used even by kids in their bedrooms and the problem becomes even more compounded. I have been asked by rock bands to master their CD so loud that it will actually distort the consumer CD players that the disc will be played in. When trying to explain this I usually get the "yeah, but it has to go to eleven, man!" attitude.

The problem is that now that everyone has pushed the volume levels up to this point, no one seems willing to let their records be quieter. It appears that there is no turning back. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the result of squashing all of the loud and soft levels into one constantly loud level is that the dynamic range of the music is reduced to almost nothing. In other words, no dynamics - a crucial element of music which has been utilized to great effect for thousands of years.

[heartofdavid]

I've read some comments from artists and producers about the issue of length versus sound quality, the point of diminishing returns with that. Wouldn't hurt for artists to pare down the length and go for the 'all killer no filler' concept. I wonder how many people who download a tune ever go and check out the rest of the album, or develop a mindset that if it isn't on iTunes then it isn't worth checking out. Just talking here, I know squat about iTunes or how it can be used to check out the full catalog of an artist.

Volume over quality is sad, and stupid.

I suppose it could be said that it's up to discerning listeners, that there's responsibility there with purchasing power, but I think for the majority of music buyers today music is a disposable commodity - fast-food music culture. Easy access, relatively cheap. Perhaps it's always been like that.

I need another cup of coffee.

[VaporTrail]

To bring this thread back to David's work, and from what John T described, I was wondering if anyone else here noticed that Snow Borne Sorrow and Money For All suffer a bit from being too loud? It may just be my ears, but those records always seem harder to listen to for me because of that. One example is in Get The Hell Out, when David sings "Caroline...you're breaking my heart" it distorts quite a bit on my system.

But yes, hearing some of my favorite band's works absolutely ruined by these volume wars stinks. Prime example would be Rush's Vapor Trails, when looking at the graph of the audio, all you see is one big block of noise, no dynamics at all. It's absolutely unlistenable.

[heartofdavid]

SBS is loud, I notice it most on my car stereo. But the sound is very clean, there are a lot of open spaces so everything comes through clearly, imo.

[lastgoldstar]

I've noticed SBS's loudness, too, especially when listening to it on my mp3 player. Darkest Birds is really the one I notice most, as it sounds rather loud and a bit distorted, even when it's on the lowest volume setting. Creative's software supposedly can analyze it and level it out a bit, but typically, it won't run on Vista so I guess I won't be trying it.