Music Quality

Ever sit there listening to a CD and you wonder why it does not sound as dynamic as vinyl? Don't remember vinyl? How about your listening to something and you wonder why the different pieces of the drum kit sound equally loud or mushed together?

Why does the sound of a CD feel smashed together? Why does it sound so damn loud even in the soft spots?

Blame the overuse of sound compression and extensive overuse of other forms of sound manipulation.

David Bendeth, a producer who works with rock bands like Hawthorne Heights and Paramore, knows that the albums he makes are often played through tiny computer speakers by fans who are busy surfing the Internet. So he's not surprised when record labels ask the mastering engineers who work on his CDs to crank up the sound levels so high that even the soft parts sound loud.

Over the past decade and a half, a revolution in recording technology has changed the way albums are produced, mixed and mastered — almost always for the worse. "They make it loud to get [listeners'] attention," Bendeth says. Engineers do that by applying dynamic range compression, which reduces the difference between the loudest and softest sounds in a song. Like many of his peers, Bendeth believes that relying too much on this effect can obscure sonic detail, rob music of its emotional power and leave listeners with what engineers call ear fatigue. "I think most everything is mastered a little too loud," Bendeth says. "The industry decided that it's a volume contest."

Now producer David Bendeth is talking about the tinkering with, and degradation of, audio. This is the man who single-handedly took four Elvis Presley songs, remixed them for the dance market and created the funky version of "A Little Less Conversation" that was added onto the exceptional "30 #1 Hits" so he knows a bit about sound manipulation --good and bad.

For my money I don't think Bendeth differentiates clearly enough between the tool of compression and the hideous overuse of it (which is the heart of the problem) that plagues modern sound recordings.

Update 01-02-08

From our friend, Cuddlefish, there is an excellent analysis of the overuse of compression here.