The Loudness War, continued

It should be noted that Rock and Pop music doesn't really need the amount of dynamic range that genres such as Classical and Jazz require, they really just need enough dynamic range to keep from causing headaches.

When I said at the end of my last Loudness War entry that Fear Factory's "Demanufacture" was loud enough to not need a remaster, I meant to say that it didn't need a remaster that was even louder and more compressed. IMO it could use a less compressed remaster. (Update, July 15 2012: From what I've read, the remaster supposedly has more bass, which kind of makes me wish I still had my remaster to compare with, but I still think the old CD sounds fine.)

One of the reasons for the Loudness War was supposedly so CDs could sound better in cars, boom boxes, and other low end stereo equipment. I'll admit, with all the road and car noise going on, a lot of compressed CDs do sound better in the car than "quieter" CDs. While I don't really regret selling my remastered copy of Fear Factory's "Demanufacture", I almost do regret selling my remastered copy of their first album, "Soul Of A New Machine", just because it sounded better in the car than my original master does. I might even buy the remaster for Nine Inch Nails' "Pretty Hate Machine" because the old CD is too quiet for car listening. However, I'm keeping my old copy for home listening.

But a lot of modern CDs are barely even tolerable to listen to in the car. The worst and most documented case is Metallica's "Death Magnetic". Song-wise, I think it's the best album Metallica has put out since "...And Justice For All." I'd even go so far as to say it's one of my favorite Metal albums of the 2000s. But sound-wise, it's absolutely atrocious! There are no dynamics, and it's distorted as all get out. Not even road noise can cover up ALL of the clipping! It's one of those cases I referred to in my last Loudness War entry as being jacked up in  every step of the process. They recorded everything too loud during tracking, the mix was jacked up if not compressed all to Hell, and the mastering was the cherry on top. Mastering engineer Ted Jensen claimed that the mix was already jacked up when it got to him. Whether he did any further compressing or not, he could at least have let the sound peak at something lower than 0 dBFS. The wave forms for it remind me of a fake porn title used in the movie Clerks, "All Holes Filled With Hard Cock." "Death Magnetic" is arguably the all around worst sounding CD in my collection, but it's almost saved by the fact that the music isn't as extreme as some other Metal CDs that are only marginally louder or quieter.

Metal is the biggest victim of the Loudness War, the more extreme, the worse. I'm mostly referring to Death Metal, Black Metal, and Grindcore. It's like, "Let's take something that's hard to listen to, and make it totally unlistenable!" No wonder I'm so jaded when it comes to newer Metal. I occasionally like to see Metal bands play live, and as long as the mix is okay and you're wearing earplugs, it usually sounds pretty good. The CDs don't really capture the sense of live dynamics though. The bad mastering is especially sad since modern extreme Metal is so much better recorded than the extreme Metal of the late '80s/early '90s. (Hardcore can be just as extreme and badly mastered, but I don't really care for most Hardcore made after 1986 anyway.)