Dynamic Range Day is March 25th!

I meant to mention in one of my last Loudness War entries that there seems to be a little progress being made. Bands like Pearl Jam, Weezer, and Iron Maiden have dialed the compression down on their most recent recordings compared to some of their earlier work. That makes it all the more sad when I hear something recent that's significantly louder than its predecessor. Take Kanye West for example. I think most of his CDs sound decent by modern day standards, but his latest one, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy", is significantly louder than "808s & Heartbreak" from 2008, or any of his other CDs for that matter. When I listen to my Kanye CDs in the car, I have to turn the bass and treble down a little bit, mostly the bass. The new one is so shrill sounding that I turn the treble all the way down to 0, while the bass is is probably at 3 or 4 (The highest I can go is 7, with the lowest being -7). Another example are the Dethklok/Metalocalypse CDs. The first one wasn't exactly audiophile quality, but wasn't bad by modern Metal mastering standards. The second one is significantly louder. It's nowhere near Death Magnetic bad, more like closer to your average Metal CD.

Some good recent Loudness War articles:
1.Loudness means NOTHING on the radio.
Debunks the myth that louder CDs sound better or louder than less loud songs on the radio, and in fact they just sound worse.
2.Loudness War vs. Sales - The Truth
3.Up to 11: The problem with modern music
A good overview of the Loudness War. My only gripe is the mention in this and other articles about "Songs For The Deaf" by Queens Of The Stone Age as being one of the worst. It's not.

One thing I want to do in this entry is mention pre-Loudness War CDs in my collection that are really loud and compressed, in this case I'll go by stuff released before Guns n' Roses' "The Spaghetti Incident?". I've had some of these since the early 1990s, while others have been bought more recently. I'll admit, the ones that I've had for a long time did sound pretty good on the Sony boombox that was my first CD player. I'll try to list these in order of release, and I'm judging them more by actual sound quality than the appearance of the wave forms. And NONE of these are remasters!

1991
Fishbone - The Reality Of My Surroundings, released April 23, mastered by Wally Traugott.
I bought this last year, I expected it to sound way better than it did. This is one of those that I'm not entirely sure can be blamed on the mastering. Their cover of "Freddie's Dead" from 1988 has a similar sound, so it's possible that they were going for a really compressed sound. It's no wonder that the records don't do their live show justice at all. Below is "Sunless Saturday" and "So Many Millions."

Skid Row - Slave To The Grind, released June 11, mastered by George Marino.
One of the first CDs in my collection. I think I had to turn down the treble a little in my car when I listened to it recently. Here's "The Threat".

1992
Godflesh - Pure, released Spring, no mastering credit.
Another one of my early ones, and another one that I have to turn down the treble for. Could use some more bass. Earache Records had a bad habit of not listing mastering engineers on their CDs. We'll see more from Earache later. Here's "Mothra."

Black Sabbath - Dehumanizer, released Summer, no mastering credit.
I snatched this up a couple of years ago because it wasn't a remaster, and thought there was no way it could sound bad. Boy, was I wrong. I don't know if the 2008 remaster is any better or not. The deluxe versions of Black Sabbath's albums that have come out more recently are said to be the best on CD, and supposedly "Dehumanizer" is no exception. I've heard from at least one person that the deluxe edition does indeed sound better than the original. But back to the original, here's a "typical" track, "Letters From Earth".

Here's a slightly louder, faster track called "TV Crimes.:

Alice In Chains - Dirt, released September 29, mastered by Steve Hall and Eddy Schreyer.
This one looks more typical of a 1994 release, like it was digitally limited. If so, then it would probably be one of the earliest examples. I rarely ever factor clipping into my judgments, but I swear I hear some clipping on the title track. Overall, it still sounds way better than "Black Gives Way To Blue". Here's "Dam That River".

And here's "Would?"

Compare that to the version of "Would?" from the Singles soundtrack below.

The "Dirt" version doesn't sound horrible, but I can hear more "there" there in the drum hits on the "Singles" version.

1993  - All three of these releases are from Earache Records, released during the time that Earache was being distributed by Columbia Records. None of these have mastering credits.
Cathedral - The Ethereal Mirror, released February.
Here's "Midnight Mountain".

Fudge Tunnel - Creep Diets, I think it was released in the Spring.
Relatively lo-fi, suffers from the compression. Here's "Grit".

Compare that to a track from their 1991 release, "Hate Songs In E Minor." This one's "Gut Rot".

 It's virtually the same sort of sound quality as "Creep Diets", just without all that nasty compression.

And last, Entombed - Wolverine Blues, I think it was released in the Summer, possibly Fall.
I think this one doesn't really sound too bad. Here's "Hollowman".

I apologize for the spacing in this entry, it was kind of a bitch to try to format.