The Death of High Fidelity
Rolling Stone discusses the increase in compression (audio level and digital) in music production.
We are in the midst of a “loudness war” and I’m fairly sure chart radio stations are at least part of the cause. How loud is Radio 1 vs Radio 4? The music is compressed to within an inch of spitty crackling, kick-drum and bass lines audibly duck the vocals during what would have been the quiet parts of a record. At least you can hear it in the car…
I believe we went through a period around 2-5 years ago where music producers deliberately used high pitched percussion in pop or hip-hop records with the intention of making MP3 versions of the tracks sound poor; they were working to prevent people using the format and committing piracy. Today, now that compressed audio files are exchanged for money and it’s a business that’s better understood, engineers are apparently working on original mixes and compensating for the bits that MP3 leaves out, leaving the CD version over EQ’d, very loud and a bit ridiculous.
Ironically, the iPod and the white-buds that come with it have done a great deal to improve the listening experience for your average listener since in-ear headphones provide a much more capable platform for experiencing dynamic range and frequency reproduction since they’re in your head and you lose less of the low/quiet sound (maybe that’s down to the way I jam them in sideways when I want to listen to something properly, others may disagree).
…wanders off to listen to In Rainbows on a tin-can and string speaker set.
