The "Loudness War"

[whojamfan]

Sums it all up perfectly:
http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos ... +mastering

Exactly on the money there Wes!

[ram]

concur completely Wes.

[winston]

Thanks for posting that Wes. It says it all.

[loves4003]

Long live MFSL!

[winston]

Thank you everyone for your PM's with respect to the thread drift. I have cleaned this thread up so we can return to the original discussion.

[kiramdear]

Thanks, guys, from me too. I appreciate the consideration.

[Tarrbot]

Brian, I didn't see much thread drift.

I have listened to a lot of rap over the years and in particular when it is played on high wattage car stereos and boom boxes, the trait I describe is most certainly there.

I just want to point out that most of those cars you see have a propensity of woofer to tweeter ratios bordering on 5:1 or so. Seriously, I've seen setups that have 8 12" woofers and like 2 4" tweeters. Nothing for midrange and always overblown with a tendency for the THUMP over everything.

Anyway, what can be done about this Loudness War? Have a large covert group that has an operation team that is funded by the rest of the group to go buy 1 CD of everything as soon as it comes out and reports back to the group if it's squared music so that sales can be lessened and people stop buying based on that?

I don't really see what can be done from our end.

[rictified]

I bought an 'authorized' King Crimson live bootleg LP called "Indisciple Mining Rocks" at Bleeker Bob's many years ago...it's a recording of a show they did at SUNY Stonybrook. Between tunes, audience members at the back of the hall can be heard screaming "Louder!"...finally Fripp, in his best academic/librarian voice, says into the mic: "We've had some requests to play louder...if I might make a suggestion, perhaps you might try listening more attentively."

Boy, those days are long gone...

A friend of mine saw them live during the 70's and said they were very very soft, sitting in chairs attentively watching each other. The audience was also yelling for them to play louder and Fripp pretty much said the same thing, explaining that to play that music they have to hear each other and communicate musically very well, words to that effect.

[akhv]

Anyway, what can be done about this Loudness War? Have a large covert group that has an operation team that is funded by the rest of the group to go buy 1 CD of everything as soon as it comes out and reports back to the group if it's squared music so that sales can be lessened and people stop buying based on that?

I don't really see what can be done from our end.

Spread the word. I think it's the only way, it's painfully slow, but it's already happening. Several years ago only some audio pros talked about it, and now loudness war is noticed even by mainstream media. It's a very good sign, things are going to change sooner or later.