Albert_M

why cds are "louder" now?

Why is there such a discrepancy from a title printed in the 80s/early 90s to later 90s/now. The difference in tbe volume can be astounding.

John Watson

Because bigger is better

Sofas are too fat, burgers are too big, engines are too powerful, and the music is waaaay too loud.

I remember buying the Sade "Greatest Hits" package a few years ago, thinking it would make a nice complement on the cd carousel to the 2 albums of her's I had, even though there was a bit of duplication among the songs.

WRONG! The Hits disk was like twice the volume of the earlier cds.

If the RIIAA had any use at all, it would have lead in the establishment of meaningful standards that only the most idiotic companies or obnoxious bands would have ignored.

Another example of lack of useful standards is on DVD vs VCR vs TV broadcast volume levels.

I dislike having to jigger with the volume control when I switch mode because there is such serious discrepancies as to sound level among these media.

However hoping that these issues will ever be resolved is like expecting Microsoft to create an easier to use operating system

Mike Broadman

It's done that way to make it seem to sound better on the radio.

My awesome music collection

imported_Brian L

Is there not a difference between "loud" and "compressed"?

I personally don't much mind if a CD uses up all or most of its possible dynamic range. Theoretically, maximizing the level should pay some (although in the CD world, perhaps negligible) dividends in signal to noise ratio throughout the signal chain.

Back in the day, I made it a point when dubbing cassettes to run the levels up as high as I could, but just shy of clipping or tape saturation.

What IS a problem though is when a disc is masteretd such that everything is squashed, compressed, and maximized so that there is no dynanmic range (for reference see Rush: Vaopr Trails). The difference between the quiet parts and the loud parts is deminished, and the life of the recording is sucked clean.

Isn't that whats really the issue?

Now, why do that? As Mike said, so it sounds good on the radio, and by extension in the car. No one wants to put in a CD with a wide dynanmic range and play it in a noisy car. You will have to crank the volume so that the quiet parts are not drowned out by the ambient noise, then when the band gets rockin', you get blown out of your seat.

Try playing the CD of Dire Straits, Love Over Gold in a car that is anything less than Lexus quiet...you wiill know what I mean half way into Telegraph Road.

Of course, that all means that those of us that like to listen to music in a quiet room on a nice system are going to find that a huge percentage of what we buy sounds like crap.

I seem to recall that some of the early car CD players had user selectable dynamic range controls. I suppose most users would have not had a clue what to do with it, so they fell from favor. But given the choice between piss poor CD mastering and having a little button on the CD deck that would address the problem, I vote for the button!

BGL

Albert_M

Well I welcome it in the respect that you don't have to crank it up as much, but it's not like the older cds were quiet. I too, used to maximize the loudness short of distortion when making tapes. But since this is digital, I feel that it should be uniform. I have a lot of cds from some of the same people, like Van Morrison and older ones mixed on a disc with some of the newer stuff and it's annoying that you can get blasted if a new track follows and old one - it's not like a tape where you can set the recording level.

Actually Brian, you mentioned Rush. Put something from the 90s with something from their Mercury cds and it's ridiculous.

pitchman

Not to open a can of worms, but I think the big factor is how some modern mastering techniques are abused during the digital mastering process. "No Noise" is used extensively by labels when remastering older catalog titles. This special EQ is designed to remove analog tape hiss, but almost always at the expense of high-end. The next overused process is "compression." Once again, compression results in fidelity loss. Today, the majority of all recorded music winds up on devices like mp3 players or minidiscs, so the loss of dynamic range is less of a factor there. Finally, now that all of that nasty hiss is gone, they can crank the hell out of the track and "maximize" it so it will blast better out of the car stereo. Bear in mind, this explanation is an over-simplification, but it gives you the general idea...

A smarter approach is to always start with the best analog source possible and then transfer the music as transparently as possible to the digital domain. Way back when in the early days of CD's, flat transfers were the norm. Now, unfortunately, they have become the exception.

Gary

John Watson

Albert, some of the cd burning softwares do provide for equalizing volumes as between tracks on a cd you are going to burn.

I wasn't optimistic about it, and don't know how it chooses what volume to "normalize" to, but the Nero I have just now does it, and satisfactorily to me.

The earlier version of Nero I had did not have that feature, and in order not to end up with those jarring volume differences between tracks, I had to select the contents for a planned compilation from disks that I knew were of similar volume.

TedT

I know what the original poster means and I have the same question.

The problem is with the volume levels. I can use some of the CD burning software and "volume maximize" and the older CDs are still maximized at 100% yet they are not as loud as the newer CDs. I can even set the RH(? or is it RM? whatever you use in Goldwave to "make levels more uniform between songs") levels to those of newer CDs and they are STILL not as loud.

I think it has to do with mastering. But if that's the case, then how come they didn't do it right the first time around? Was it just a case of doing something half assed in the beginning so they can make everyone buy the re-masters (or in some cases, re-re-masters)?

ElevSkyMovie

What you are referring two is that music has peak levels and average levels. Older cds can be normalized so that the peak (loudest) part of each song hits zero full scale, but the track hasn't been compressed so that the average level is louder.

Modern mastering houses have compressors similar to what radio stations use to make the music loud all the time. No radio station wants to be quiter than the others in their market. These compressors break the music down into 3 or 4 bands by frequency and compress each band. It can literally suck *all* the dynamic range out of a song.

It can be a real problem, but there is not much you can do about it without some great audio software or outboard audio gear (and the knowledge of how to use them).

You mentioned GoldWave, try opening the wav file and going to the Effect menu, then Dynamics. On the dropdown list pick soft clip. You may have to move the limit up or down depending on how loud the music is. Try processing the file with different limit levels to find one that suits you. Once your happy with that and the dynamic range is reduced, then normalise the track. That will get you closer to current cd mastering.

Ike