Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Fun with Audacity - Dynamic Compression

I need to fire up my Audacity.

On a side note, if you remember about a month or so ago I was referencing listening volumes and my hearing condition. These graphs offer a visual for what I was explaining regarding what happens when mutliple conversations are going on around me. Compression

Well I have one disc with me right now, David Gilmour - On an Island. One of the better tracks is Pocket of Stones. Here is a graph of it, as well as a zoom of the peak we see.

Not to bad for rock music.

Thanks JohnK. And Jim, too!

I find this fascinating how bad recording techniques are the new norm. It's frustrating, also. The double-edged sword is that now I am much more aware of dynamically compressed recordings.

I can see how dynamic compression is misconstrued as a good thing. Living with roommates makes me aware of the volume level. Listening to music with a good dynamic range makes me sit there with the remote handy to turn down the peaks. There is no adjustment needed for dynamically compressed recordings because the music more or less stays at the same level.

I've got to say, the dynamic music has much more impact emotionally. It's like being on a rollercoaster with a killer loop or giant drop--you're going to remember that thrill. Take, on the other hand, a roller coaster that is nothing but loops and drops, sure it may be exciting at first, but it becomes too much after awhile. You need the lulls to enjoy the highs.

Now I know why some of my older CDs sound quiet--it's not that they're bad, just recorded well. A couple of weeks ago I put on Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and felt it was a good recording. I've read other message boards where people have complained about this particular CD, but, to me, it sounded clean and balanced with the loud parts where the loud parts should be.

I find this fascinating and it makes me want to run all my CDs through Audacity. But, then, I know if I do that I won't stop thinking how bad a CD is when I listen to it. Argh.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

That Gilmor looks pretty good Mark.

This thread is quite interesting. So, dynamic compression can be a function of the original recording as well as remastering. I wonder how heavy distortion on guitars effects dynamic range?

I finally listened to Dire Straits live after posting the other night and it sounded so clean to me compared to stuff like Led Zeppelin. I wonder how much of this has to do with techiques during the original recording? ... and how much is influenced by the waveforms I just looked at.

On a related note, is there any way of telling when a CD was produced by looking at the info on the slieve? I have been looking at copyright dates and noticing that it can vary a lot. For instance, on my last purchase I had a choice between two used copies of Wish You Were Here. One had a copyright date of 1971, the other of 1992.

If possible, I want to be able to pick up earlier productions of a CD because it is more likely to be less compressed.

Fred

Of course, there are also older recordings (see Joshua Tree) that are simply terrible, and are much improved on re-release.

I'm not talking about any of that new stuff.

Given that they weren't making CDs in 1971, it might be worth finding out what the real date of the pressing/mastering for CD--it may well be that these are the same CDs.

Oops, typo... meant 1975, though they weren't making cds then either.

They are definately not the same disks as the publishers were completely different. The one I picked up was produced in Japan.

I wonder about disks with copyright dates in the 80s and 90s from materials originally produced in the 70s.

Too much thinking...

How would guitar distortion affect this. Probably not intuitively

Distorted guitar music can be dynamic or compressed. A lot of that is a function of what is generating the distortion.

Over-riding the input of the amp (either "hot" pickups or a booster or compression pedal)
Pre amp distortion
Power amp distortion (even the rectifier type comes into play, so we could say portions of the power amp)
Speaker distortion

Can you tell I play guitar

As a for instance, you could play the same guitar into different amps of the same apparent distortion into the same speaker cabinets have have a pretty good difference in compression.

Say a Marshall JTM 45 versus a Soladano SLO

I will see about graphing the Jeff Beck tune I was thinking of (CWEAL)

Well, definitely some clipping in the remaster of Blow by Blow. Here is Jeff Beck Cause We Ended as Lovers