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DreamOfDarkness
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Joined: Wed Apr 25, 2012 4:09 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 8:11 pm 
 

I am a little surprised how little this is discussed among the metal community (or music community in general). So here we go...
After the CD as a digital medium got popular in the 80's, new possibilities opened up to producers and musicians. Because the human ear superficially rates louder music as sounding better, a "race" for the loudest mix started. But as the CD is digital it has a maximum level that cannot be exceeded, so producers started to use dynamic compression (i.e. making quiet parts louder and loud parts quieter) in order to raise the average loudness. However, this caused an irreversible lack of dynamic range which caused the music to sound flat and soulless. Since metal usually doesn't have that much dynamic range, the effect wasn't as prominent on metal releases at first (only the drum hits got cut out). But many producers pushed it more and more to the point where even metal releases started to sound crappy.
If anyone wants more information on that, on youtube there are enough example videos to explain the effect which can be visualized very well in sound editing software like Audacity.
Examples for especially badly mixed albums are Death Magnetic and the new Black Sabbath album '13'. But also most of the modern extreme metal releases suffer from this (pretty much all death metal albums for example). Sure, everything is supposed to be "loud" there, but that's why there is a volume knob. Dynamic compression beyond a certain point (which is individual for each genre or even recording) destroys the mix and makes listening stressful.

What are your thoughts on this? Why are you (i.e. most music fans) so oblivious of this?

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Desperta_Ferro
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 9:12 pm 
 

In my case, out of ignorance. I don't even know what "dynamic range" is, and why metal has few of it.

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ChineseDownhill
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 10:16 pm 
 

I had never heard the term "Loudness War" until I saw it tossed around repeatedly by people explaining why the already mentioned Death Magnetic sounded so bad. But when I actually listened to DM, I thought it sounded OK. So I didn't know if it was my untrained ears, my lack of any technical knowledge about the recording process, or my not exactly state-of-the-art speakers and headphones that prevented me from noticing this problem that so many people were complaining about. But I figured, "If DM sounds acceptable to me, should I even care about this debate?"

That album came out 5 years ago, so apparently I elected not to care about the Loudness War. :)

None of this should be interpreted to mean I'm incapable of thinking an album sounds like shit, of course. For example, I had the misfortune of being introduced to Suffocation through Breeding the Spawn, which I thought sounded so terrible it made me write off the band for a while. (Now I own most of their discography.) I also didn't like the sound quality on any of the Immortal albums from before Abbath switched to guitar. Oh yeah, Ageless Venomous by Krisiun is another death metal album I thought had weak sounding guitars and clicky drums. Then there's Failures for Gods by Immolation.....

Now, if the Loudness War can be blamed for any of those albums, then I guess I should have been caring about it all along. But I think it's more likely other factors were at play: BtS sounds bad because RoadRunner didn't feel like paying for Scott Burns (and they fixed this on Pierced from Within), early Immortal just has that 'raw' black metal sound I'm not a fan of, etc.

Dammit, this post is way too long, but I will say in closing that I'm trying to keep an open mind about this. If you can recommend a specific Youtube video of reasonable length that explains the problem, I'll try to watch it. Maybe it'll get me to reverse my apathy. But I just searched YT for 'loudness war' and one of the top results is over 50 minutes long - yikes. If I watch something like that, it's gonna be in 2 or 3 sittings.
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Crick
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 10:39 pm 
 

The loudness war is ruining the production jobs on many of my favorite bands. Gargoyle's latest album sounded awful productionwise because it was ABSURDLY LOUD yet all the instruments still managed to sound muddy and muffled. Its absurd. We don't need to make music this loud, the volume we were at at like 2000 was perfect (and what came before that often wasnt remotely "quiet"). It's a better strategy to produce your music so everything is clear and at a reasonable volume than to push everything into the red, get rid of any dynamic range and just absolutely ruin all the instruments.
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AppleQueso
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 12:20 am 
 

Metal Fi has a good explanation about the loudness war stuff and heavily compressed albums:
http://www.metal-fi.com/about-page/dynamic-range/

The loudness war is honestly on its way out. More and more fans, labels, and bands are aware of it, and more and more of them are opting to master their material at more reasonable levels and preserve more of the dynamics. Dynamic range is important, even in stuff like death metal.

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Acidgobblin
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 4:21 am 
 

Desperta_Ferro wrote:
In my case, out of ignorance. I don't even know what "dynamic range" is, and why metal has few of it.


Put simply, its the difference between the loudest and softest parts. Classical music generally has a very wide dynamic range; rock generally doesn't.

FWIW, the idea of a volume ceiling is not just confined to CD; both Vinyl and cassette have limits to how loud music can be recorded onto them. In fact, a great way to compress music to give it awesome sounding overdrive is exceeding the 'maximum' level that a tape can clearly playback. Its just with digital, exceeding volume sounds pretty awful- very harsh and fatiguing. Which is really the end net negative result of over compression on CDs; the music literally becomes tiring and almost painful to listen to.
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BasqueStorm
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 5:09 am 
 

DreamOfDarkness wrote:
I am a little surprised how little this is discussed among the metal community (or music community in general). So here we go...

I knew about this and, in fact, I would say it's a repost (if I could be sure about reading it here, in the Metal-Archives).

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drterror666
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 9:42 am 
 

Maybe this is why a lot of people are going back to vinyl? Just a thought...

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lurkist
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 9:45 am 
 

It may help the layman to understand the issue if they consider this:

You're listening to a familiar piece of music. A quiet segment (perhaps an intro) builds up gradually towards the crescendo when *BOOM* the rest of the band kick in with a crash. Except this time, on your brand new shiny remastered CD, the *BOOM* is more of a dissatisfying *plonk*. You know how it should sound, you know precisely how loud that crash should be based on the volume of the build-up, but it's just too quiet. The fist you were about to pump in the air (with optional horns) falls limply at your side. They've ruined it!

This is very poor mastering, and to be fair it (thankfully) doesn't happen very often. Death Magnetic is a high-profile example, I can't say I noticed on the one occasion on which I listened to it, as I was too busy thinking that I could be listening to Justice instead. The one album that really disappointed me in this regard was the remaster of South Of Heaven. Title track. Unforgivable.
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DreamOfDarkness
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 4:40 pm 
 

Today I listened to "Too Late" by Black Sabbath, and it's exactly this build-up that lurkist mentioned. I think most modern albums lack - due to the Loudness War - the quiet moments. If you don't know a proper master of a specific song, it can be hard to tell if it suffers from heavy dynamic compression because you don't have a comparison. So most people won't notice a difference until someone creates a "good" master that shows how bad the original one is.
This is similar to the quality of speakers or headphones. Most people are satisfied with cheap ones because they haven't heard good ones yet. If you don't know how much more there is to a recording, you won't start to search for it.

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Nameless_Rites
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 2:46 am 
 

Exactly. I can't even listen to most modern metal recordings because I do most of my serious listening on a high end component system from the early 80s. Most 21st century metal has a cold, punchy ProTools sound that makes every instrument sound at the exact same volume(i.e. the loudest volume). Thankfully, some current bands are realizing how awful it sounds and opting for vintage recording equipment(Agalloch did this on "Marrow of the Spirit" for example).

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Nameless_Rites
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 2:50 am 
 

drterror666 wrote:
Maybe this is why a lot of people are going back to vinyl? Just a thought...


Could be, but a vinyl recording of an overcompressed ProTools metal album is just gonna sound the same as it did on CD. If it's recorded in full digital then there's gonna be no difference. The vinyl difference is when you're listening to something recorded on analog equipment... i.e. shit from the 80s and before or especially classical music. Try listening to Anton Bruckner on iPod headphones sometimes, it's a fucking joke... 20 minutes of near-silence followed by this huge crashing overture that came out of nowhere.

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DreamOfDarkness
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 6:27 am 
 

Vinyl has actually less dynamic range than a CD. A regular vinly can reach about 50dB DR, under perfect conditions (with super-high-end equipment) maybe 70dB. A CD on the other hand has over 90dB DR and even most cheap CD players can reproduce the full range. Also, a CD has less distortion and isn't as sensitive to physical damage as a vinyl. The only reason vinyl often sounds better than a CD is because you can't put a "brickwalled" master on a vinyl - you have to preserve at least some dynamic range. So usually there are two different masteres created: One for the CD and one for the vinyl.

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Scorntyrant
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 7:36 am 
 

DreamOfDarkness wrote:
Vinyl has actually less dynamic range than a CD. A regular vinly can reach about 50dB DR, under perfect conditions (with super-high-end equipment) maybe 70dB. A CD on the other hand has over 90dB DR and even most cheap CD players can reproduce the full range. Also, a CD has less distortion and isn't as sensitive to physical damage as a vinyl. The only reason vinyl often sounds better than a CD is because you can't put a "brickwalled" master on a vinyl - you have to preserve at least some dynamic range. So usually there are two different masteres created: One for the CD and one for the vinyl.


You say "usually", but you might be surprised how many vinyl versions are just a tweak on the brickwalled cd master. Earache, for instance, have promoted it as a selling point that they occasionally do a proper remastering job (ie the bare fucking minimum to justify the exercise. I think they market them as "full dynamic range" records) - everything else is like owning a cdr transferred onto wax. I know that GZ pressing plant in the Czech republic will do a "transfer master" for you rather than insisting on a properly EQ'd master. Which is why we insisted that before we submitted any of the 5 releases we have had pressed there that we do our own vinyl-specific master.
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BasqueStorm
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 8:03 am 
 

Nameless_Rites wrote:
Exactly. I can't even listen to most modern metal recordings because I do most of my serious listening on a high end component system from the early 80s. Most 21st century metal has a cold, punchy ProTools sound that makes every instrument sound at the exact same volume(i.e. the loudest volume). Thankfully, some current bands are realizing how awful it sounds and opting for vintage recording equipment(Agalloch did this on "Marrow of the Spirit" for example).

Wow! Some days ago I tried listening to the Nile albums (from recent to old) in my Logitech Z-5500 and I realized how awful is NOT having a DECENT stereo with middle range!
The Sony MHC-NX1 that I have attached to my computer sounds WAY better!

Nameless_Rites wrote:
Could be, but a vinyl recording of an overcompressed ProTools metal album is just gonna sound the same as it did on CD.

OBVIOUSLY format is NOT the problem.

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GTog
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 12:09 pm 
 

I never liked loudness, even going back to the days when it was just a button on a stereo, and nobody really knew what it did. I had a friend in high school who was a serious audiophile, and even he had trouble explaining it. All we knew was that pushing the button made music sound muffled and kind of fuzzy, but certainly louder, I guess. I never knew what the button was for, or why anyone would want their music to sound that way. I just assumed it worked better for some other kinds of music.

So, is there any software that the average not-a-sound-engineer type could use to fix "loudness"?

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InnesI
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 4:07 pm 
 

GTog wrote:
So, is there any software that the average not-a-sound-engineer type could use to fix "loudness"?


No, there isn't. what is printed on a record is already printed. With equalizers and the like you can bring forth different aspects of whats already on a record but you can never change whats on it. If a record is recorded to loud, or mastered to loud it will be that way whatever you do. In the mastering case it can be fixed with a remaster though.

Death magnetic is the most high profile record people seem to complain about. Elsewhere I have seen complaints about some Red Hot Chili Peppers album as well as one of Rush's albums (can't remember which).

Lately I was gravely disapointed with the new Black Sabbath release. The sound is awful on that one. I also feel that the new Ghost suffers from the same problems. I just dont understand why producers go for this or why the artists accept it. Its just stupid.
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Erotetic
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 5:46 pm 
 

only time I'm really bothered is when people get the volume wrong when they rip a CD so much so that it clips and crackles, distracting from what you should be hearing.
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Woolie_Wool
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 8:27 pm 
 

InnesI wrote:
GTog wrote:
Lately I was gravely disapointed with the new Black Sabbath release.

Rick Rubin is a terrible producer and most of what he touches sounds like shit.
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Pyroclasm
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 3:15 am 
 

Manowar automatically wins the Loudness War.
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crises79
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 10:03 am 
 

Especially since you can see soundlevels on Soundcloud (yeah, it's been around for a while, but the not since before the start of the Loudness War) and other sites, I became increasingly aware of the lack of dynamic... Especially the more extreme bands suffer from it, but even in pop music (or some singer songwriter like Chelsea Wolfe) you notice less snd less dynamic.

And I have to agree with Gtog, even when it was still a button on your stereo, I never like to use it. Tried it a few times, but I thought it was absolute rubbish. I like playing my music at a lower level, because nuances are more pronounced and you have to listen more intently. Thankfully I still have a few records from before the war. (Unfortunately too little, but the various analog recorded DIY Black Metal bands can actually help here.)

(Don't you just love to be able to use 'from before the war?' I know I do. :) )
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DreamOfDarkness
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 7:22 pm 
 

Just to clear it up: The loudness-button on a stereo has nothing to do with the loudness war/dynamic compression. The button simply puts an equalizer on the signal which increases the low and sometimes high frequencies. It is meant to be used on low volumes to give the music more "power" (this has to do with the non-linearity of the human ear in connection with the volume). Even relatively expensive hifi amps often have a loudness button, and when it's done well it can actually be useful (I don't use it, though).
Another example of a terribly compressed album would be the new Immolation album "Kingdom of Conspiracy".

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Nameless_Rites
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 1:33 am 
 

AppleQueso wrote:
Metal Fi has a good explanation about the loudness war stuff and heavily compressed albums:
http://www.metal-fi.com/about-page/dynamic-range/

The loudness war is honestly on its way out. More and more fans, labels, and bands are aware of it, and more and more of them are opting to master their material at more reasonable levels and preserve more of the dynamics. Dynamic range is important, even in stuff like death metal.


I hope so because I honestly cannot stand most metal recordings from after 1998-1999 for production reasons alone. It's the combination of excessive volume and that sterile, digitized ProTools sound which just KILLS the raw, living spirit of classic metal, dead in the fucking water. Although you're right, I've noticed a few current artists going for a more "vintage" analog production, like the last Agalloch album.

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Nameless_Rites
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 1:37 am 
 

Pyroclasm wrote:
Manowar automatically wins the Loudness War.


Manowar are some of the worst-produced metal I've ever heard. They were using full digital recordings (and sounding like shit in the process) a decade before everyone else was. The last one of their albums I actually listened to was Warrior of the World... i remember the silly "Viking Ballad" with processed vocals that sounded like fucking Nine Inch Nails...? It was just so clinical and sterile compared to something like Sign of the Hammer. I think Manowar's problem is their attitude - they seem like the kind of band who automatically assumes that any new recording technology automatically = AWESOME so they rush to utilize it without knowing how.

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the_raytownian
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 2:37 am 
 

DreamOfDarkness wrote:
I am a little surprised how little this is discussed among the metal community (or music community in general).


Every couple of months isn't enough for you?

EDIT: Well, I see this is a bump from early last month. I assumed this was a new thread, my mistake. Still, these discussions happen often around here.

Woolie_Wool wrote:
Rick Rubin is a terrible producer and most of what he touches sounds like shit.


Fact.
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AcidWorm
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 13, 2013 9:37 am 
 

I blame Rick Rubin and Andy Sneap. Why bands choose to do this is beyond me as it makes it sound flat and boring. The 90s is when this began. Thankfully there has been a throwback to the 80s over the past 5 or 6 years. First it was thrash and then death metal. Death metal has always been about being loud and modern brutal death metal is all about that. Unfortunately it sounds like rubbish to my ears. I don't care how good the riffs are, or how fast and technical the band is when it is all loud and flat. Completely destroys all appeal for me. I remember being all excited for the Evile debut back when thrash was having its resurgence and then I heard it and never listened to it again as it was so boring.
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AppleQueso
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 13, 2013 10:33 am 
 

AcidWorm wrote:
I blame Rick Rubin and Andy Sneap.

Loudness war isn't just limited to metal though, it's an industry wide problem.

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AcidWorm
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 11:58 am 
 

AppleQueso wrote:
AcidWorm wrote:
I blame Rick Rubin and Andy Sneap.

Loudness war isn't just limited to metal though, it's an industry wide problem.

Maybe, but all I care for is industrial and metal.
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Kveldulfr
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 10:46 am 
 

Let's also say that many people hasn't a quite developed ear, so anything that sounds marginally louder = better for them.

Now, when you're recording and you listen the result in the studio through the hi-fi equipment it does sound way better than the mp3 version with cheap headphones combination. Still, bands and producers are struck in the thought that louder = heavier. The heavily compressed stuff is not new in metal (distorsion in guitar is pretty much a form of compression by itself) but now they're just simply trying to blow the speakers with the 'best' production possible.

Many artists, as they grow change their minds about a lot of stuff: they try to play tighter, cleaner and have the best tone as possible, which in many cases it's a detriment to the overall delivery since the dynamics are totally erased from the equation.

From modern production what I hate the most is the drum sound, which has become totally the same. It's like every band is recording in the same studio with the same kit or using the same soundbanks to sample (Superior, Steven Slate, Addictive). Sneap's works are specially guilty of this.
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somefella
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 1:42 am 
 

Still, what's wrong with wanting to PLAY perfectly? Unless be perfect you mean every note sounds the same with no dynamics or feel, then yeah that's boring.
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Woolie_Wool
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 10:16 am 
 

Nameless_Rites wrote:
Pyroclasm wrote:
Manowar automatically wins the Loudness War.


Manowar are some of the worst-produced metal I've ever heard. They were using full digital recordings (and sounding like shit in the process) a decade before everyone else was. The last one of their albums I actually listened to was Warrior of the World... i remember the silly "Viking Ballad" with processed vocals that sounded like fucking Nine Inch Nails...? It was just so clinical and sterile compared to something like Sign of the Hammer. I think Manowar's problem is their attitude - they seem like the kind of band who automatically assumes that any new recording technology automatically = AWESOME so they rush to utilize it without knowing how.


It's hard to take "Guyana (Cult of the Damned)" seriously when the bass and guitars sound like the slap bass licks from Seinfeld, and that was all the way back in 1984. :lol:

EDIT: Not to mention the palm mutes in "The Oath" which sound like puffs of steam. Heavy metal choo-choo train.
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Kveldulfr
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 10:46 am 
 

somefella wrote:
Still, what's wrong with wanting to PLAY perfectly? Unless be perfect you mean every note sounds the same with no dynamics or feel, then yeah that's boring.


That's it. It's so compressed and processed that you can't say who's playing at all. Ol' metal albums have their flaws sometimes in performance, but those 'mistakes' or 'not- that-tight' performance adds a live feeling that's almost absent in modern times. Can you imagine Pleasure To Kill or Darkness Descends recorded with a perfect performance and production?
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DreamOfDarkness
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 11:41 am 
 

I have to agree that a non-perfect production or performance can be a good thing. It makes everything feel more "organic". Especially in metal the recording and overall sound of an album is very important (that's why we have the "Gothenburg sound" or the "Florida DM sound"). However, this has little to do with dynamic compression. The reissues of Pleasure To Kill which have considerably more dynamic compression than the original pressings still sound and feel similar.

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Kveldulfr
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 11:53 am 
 

Yeah, but the performance is the same. If Mille and Co were to re-record those tracks, they would sound tighter but also way less ferocious.
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soul_schizm
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 11:46 pm 
 

I think it's a matter of degree. A little dynamic compression to achieve a certain loudness is OK with me. It's metal after all -- and when I'm playing something on a less-than-ideal system, I like to still be able to achieve some volume.

After a certain point, it gets ridiculous, as others have noted. All the nuances of the performance disappear, and you are left with a pegged, tiring track to listen to.

The real question for me is, how much is too much? Difficult question to answer; I guess it's a matter of personal taste.

When I mix down one of my own recordings, I limit those tracks that tend to clip, so that I can safely bring the rest of the mix up. That's the beginning of "loudness" right there. But I never bring it to an extreme -- and consequently, if I play one of my tracks next to commercially produced music, it usually sounds softer. I'm comfortable with that.

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PostPosted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 11:54 pm 
 

A lack of dynamic range pretty much destroyed World Painted Blood. The guitars sound so fucking awful on that thing that it's almost laughable the CD was spit out like that. I think there's albums like Southern Storm, while artificially loudened, doesn't seem to clip and isn't compressed to hell and back.

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AcidWorm
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Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2010 11:37 pm
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2013 10:28 pm 
 

How death metal should sound.

Cemetary - Where the Rivers of Madness Stream.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_nDYQlNDYc

Nothing flashy in the technical department but the riffs are very memorable and the atmosphere is very dark and morbid. With a modern production this could not be achieved.

Krisiun - Violentia Gladiatiatore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKZWY6SsMQs

Krisiun is a good example of modern death metal that is not considered melodic or brutal. The guitars aren't as bad as they could be but they still sound a little weak. They do have a little grit. The solos in particular suffer, and the drums are a good example of one of the biggest problems for death metal today for me. They use a lot of blast beats and they sound weak as hell with how flat and compressed they are . This is meant to be menacing? The vocals also sound a little monotonous with the growls. Cemetary are far more memorable to me and the dynamic range gives a much more visual and morbid experience.
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Last edited by AcidWorm on Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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ChineseDownhill
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Joined: Tue Apr 30, 2013 11:19 am
Posts: 1113
Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:08 pm 
 

You posted the same link twice.
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AcidWorm
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Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2010 11:37 pm
Posts: 3277
PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:11 pm 
 

Fixed. I didn't cut and paste properly.
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In reference to Baby Metal
tanabata wrote:
I heard one of the moderators blacklisted them because of his subjective opinion. Well If that is the case, you sir have shit taste and you ain't my nigga!

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thrashinbatman
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Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 6:31 pm
Posts: 1534
PostPosted: Sat Jul 20, 2013 12:19 pm 
 

I feel like one thing that should be said is that modern =/= bad. It's not necessary to go full analog to get that old-school sound. If you were to give me a Pro Tools rig, we could make a record that sounds just like an old-school record, it's just that we wouldn't need to use a lot of the fancy modern tools, like quantizing and sampling. Digital allows you to do a lot of things, and I don't have a problem with that sound in general, it just depends on your music, and what it requires. Like a lot of death metal doesn't really benefit from the full modern production, but I'd be damned if I said Overkill's recent albums didn't fit that squeaky-clean production they got.

As for loudness? I'm fine with loudness to an extent. I myself have nothing against Andy Sneap's mixes, but any louder than that and it gets ridiculous. Angelus Apatrida's Clockwork is a perfect example. In order to keep it loud, the guitars get pulled down with the drums come in, and the drums are so heavily compressed they're as flat as a piece of paper. I checked the loudness on it, -5dB RMS. If you don't know, a Sneap mix typically clocks in at around -7, and your old-school death metal album is around -10 or lower. If your mix clips too, well, you had best redo it, because that's just unacceptable.

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