On Fri, 15 Dec 2000 10:50:39 +0100, Gabriel Bouvigne wrote:
You're thinking lossless compression here, 'cause you won't get a signal different from the original with lossless compression such as Monkeyaudio.
No, I'm speaking of the original CD, without any compression. Some users are telling that there is some clipping on the CD itself. I personnaly think that it's impossible, but wanted to know if I was missing something about it.
They're right unfortunatly. The RED BOOK standard does say, "No more than five clipped samples on the entire CD", but people avoid that by pulling down clipped material to -0.1 to -0.5 dB. Black Eyes Peas is a very bad example, where the album was clipped by at least 2 dB and then leveled down by 0.5 dB. If mr.joe consumer don't hear, the mastering engineer might do it.
The normal job of mastering engineers is to iron out any extremes and errors as well as making shure it doesn't sound too completly different to other records of the same genre. This is most evident if you simply apply an EQ of +6dB to the mids and turn it on and off a couple of time. Mastering engineers also compress the audio to optimize it. Unfirtunatly the clients want their material to be as loud as possible and those are usualy inept executives at record companies or the producers. These are people who believe they know what they're doing.
Well, they don't in many cases. It's down to personal preference in the end. If you still like listening to it, then it doesn't matter and that's the case with most people.
The extreme nature of the compression means that peaks are likely to pop up when lossy encoded material is played back again.
To me material that has been dynamically compressed too much sounds boring. The ear gets used to it, same as it gets used to too much treble boost and you yawn after a few minutes. That's why I only listen to Robbie Williams material occasionaly, 'cause that was killed by the mastering engineer. It might play loud on MTV but it fucking bores me after a while, and even though I like the songs, I turn 'em down after while. DOWN!
You might want to remember that a certain amount of compression in needed tough. Who wants siginificant dynamics in a club tune. Not too much any way. A rock song doesn't need too much dynamics anyway and distorted guitars usualy have almost none. Hey, it's why lots of people like live music too :). They compress stuff there too but only so it can be heard better.
Tony