I will be addressing issues related to the following materials in my fourth paper. The paper will concern why the "loudness war" needs to come to an end. It is useless in modern context, does not help record sales, and can permanently damage or fatigue the human ear from extended exposure. Here is a great example of exactly how "hypercompression" is accomplished (ie by raising the average level of the track, thus minimizing the "crest factor", or the difference between the loudest parts and the softest) and what it does to the quality of the sound:
Loudness War Example
Next is an example of how the human ear hears different frequency ranges, which explains why "hypercompressed" tracks can fool the ear into thinking the track sounds better simply because the mid range frequencies are more audible in the track (the human ear hears mid and mid-high range frequencies more easily than very low or very high frequencies:
I just have to wonder, will the loudness war ever end? Will people in the music industry ever turn back to promoting and making music that is actually good as opposed to promoting music they know will make money? I wonder also how hearing this loud music effects the way we hear everything else. Has this lead to raising the levels in movies as well?
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your presentation. It reminded me of reading of the differences between analog and digital recordings a few years ago. It seems that with time, we just compress audio files more and more.
ReplyDeleteOf course, much of society's perception that "loud = better" is pretty humorous. Totally nonsensical.
I really enjoyed your presentation as well; you gave an explanation for something I had always wondered about but never really took the time to research.
ReplyDeleteThe compressing of files seems inevitable as technology strives to make media more and more portable every year; mp3 files allows thousands of songs to be stored on a small mp3 device. But can industry professional find a balance-compress files without forfeiting so much of its quality?