http://musicmachinery.com/2009/03/23/the-loudness-war/ see the stats..

´for those who qualify dynamic range as ..." , well, sound is modified, that´s all what I can say and yes, that´s the answer why remasters of older recordings are sometimes worst than original.

And for new recordings, okay, why it is? Because loundess makes the music more acceptable for listening with a poor phones and mp3 players?

I still stand by preferring digital over analog, but we are now beginning to address some of the biggest issues most producers have with digital. Too many commercial mastering houses like to run anything and everything through the same "Magic Presets", and I think this ruins the uniqueness of the individual artist. As much as I really respect Andy Sneap and Fred Nordstrom (and I do have major respect for those guys), I often find it difficult to tell the difference between some of the "younger" bands that they've produced until I hear the vocalist, or unless the band really does have a very unique and idiosyncratic sound.

Dynamics and overcompression are also the other big issues with digital. I've also been told that some of my mixes are a bit low compared to most commercial recordings. I have to agree. I don't like to master/mix with everything super-compressed. It ruins the dynamics, and I've noticed that even the stereo imaging seems to be affected by severe compression.

I prefer my mixes being a little bit lower in overall volume. I think I retain the dynamics between louder/softer parts better, and I don't get any digital clipping (which ruins the sound). I think most of my mixes sound pretty good (for an amateur). So turn the volume up a few more notches.

Speaking of Nordström... The new CODE is a perfect example of what you're mentioning, DimX. It just sounds like any goddamn metal album from anywhere in this age! Why on earth did they chose to mix it at Fredman? And why did they chose Adrian Erlandsson? Now it just sounds like... Cradle Of Filth, more or less, soundwise etc. A major step downwards compared to the début, just talking about the production. The only dynamics is when the distorted guitars & drums disappear, because they're all over the place all the time. Bah!

I agree with that, some bass lines deserve to be listened to more clearly (even if it sounds loud enough), and some guitar riffs just sound like a uniform wall of sound. Anyway, the album rocks, but I also would have left Erlandsson out... and chosen a more 'organic' production.

Yeah, that dynamics thing makes sense to me too. Although the extreme of the idea would also be not right, to make albums like they do with nowadays "terror" films, to put a volume peak when you are supposed to jump on your chair (for sure I jump, motherfuckers, put your "terror" where it fits...).

I guess there are albums that fit a more compressed sound, but the top loudness thing and to put everything above 0dB or whatever is fail.

Les Paul, the inventor of THE Les Paul guitar, (actually he built the FIRST solid electric guitar ever), multi-track recording, studio reverb, etc., died on August 13, 2009.

Forget the digital/analog debate. Without him, we wouldn't have had ANY multi-track recording.

Maybe you should change your stereo or something? When I listen to this album I can hear the drums, the bass, the guitars and the vocals all in relation with each other. It sounds "massive" and "detailed". I admit the bass could be louder on some parts, but it adds to the mystery.

I can relate to your feeling but I love the album, including the sound of it. What I like about Adrian's drum sound is how flowing it is. Its a natural playing drum. Neither overdone nor too technical. Just simply groovy. I have come up with an explanation seeing that its not everyone on here who enjoy it. 'Resplendent' I believe is a pop masterpiece. If you can't stand pop there are good chances you are not going to enjoy the emotional level of the record. For me pop doesn't mean cheesy (though it can), it means catchy and straight-forward. In my sense its also a very perverse record, as it uses pop bands technology to come up with something, yes, catchy and straight-forward, but also strange and different. Why I like it, I think, is because I never listen to pop metal, or to overproduced metal. This probably explains why I never had the feeling that the album was produced like every other band around. As a matter of fact, compared to what I listen to, this sounds very different! The Fredrick's sound I don't even know it, I've not been following big metal bands for years. Too bad if the new CODE shares too much with that 'sound'. But name me ONE of the Fredrick's sounding bands which comes even just close to the kind of music found on 'Resplendent'. I mean, to take slightly offbeat and dissonant metal scales, beautiful and grim vocal harmonies, kick-ass thrash dynamics, and compose pop songs within that framework is I think very unique and rarely done. And the sound needed to be clean, big-sounding, professional, i.e. "poppy", in order to achieve that. It couldn't have sounded different, just like the last Mayhem couldn't have sounded different even though many fans have complained about the sound of it. I think the intention of the music asked for a pop sound. But that's just me...

Firstly, rip Les Paul and a few empty lines of silence for him.








Now, the 'pop' thing is right, I think most people has anything to complain about the album because the first one was so 'underground out of the underground' that this new one, with its poppy approach (in your face, short songs, and even a solo!). Anyway, what I have to complain about Erlandsson (I don't like to call him Adrian because that is MY name ) is, apart from some stylistic issues, is the sound he gets always. Those drums sound too everywhere, too compressed and nothing dynamic. Not synthetic but could seem synthetic with a worse sound, because of all the compression I think. And with the guitar sound I think we have the same or similar issue, fill so many space that I cannot listen to them so comfortably. And the problem is not my stereo nor my earphones, I think (but maybe my mp3 -bad boy- as I have yet to buy this one). Anyway, I love the album, too. And agree that it is very poppy, haha.

well, is the same valid for Solstafir's album Kold ?

i posted an article about the whole louder than thou modern aesthetic a while ago here......the magic presets...compressor abuse.....the typical extreme metal production...that leeches individuality outta every goddamn album

but as far as analog goes, i grew up in the 80's and i love them and eveyrhting about them: the trading, the mix tapes, the finding of rare treasures, piracy...all of it.....my crowning acheivement before 14 was having 500 rock and metal tapes.....now its having 300 gb of select metal and rock...how times change

but i have been recording my own stuff on cheap laptops, with pirated or freeare softwrez and distributing it as mp3 on the net for the last 8 years...so i can say i adore digital....bringing the studio to a budget limited metalhead...yayy...

not to mention the amount of rare stuff i get off the net

Vinyl, cassettes vs CD's...

I went with Vinyl and cassettes from 1979-1997, what happened was all my tapes started to warp, even though I bought new cassette players every 6 months. this started to happen really badly around 1995, it was mostly the bands that rate a 8 ( above average), you know the bands you purchased because it had the Megaforce, Music For Nations, Combat, Metal Blade, Enigma, Banzai, Noise, RoadrunneR logo on it.

Around this time the same thing happened to alot of the vinyl I owned. Then around late 1996 early 1997, alot of my personal favorites on vinyl & cassettes were losing data, warping, speeding up, slowing down. I remember when my Combat # MXT 8014 Abattoir " Vicious Attack " got destroyed in 1997, something which lasted for for a dozen years, and when I went to my local METAL store, no only was Combat Records dead and gone by 1993, Abattoir only did 2 releases during there original era of there career. So I had to dig through this big barrell of cassettes they though they would never sell, and there was Abattoir " Vicious Attack" but it was on Banzai/ Polygram, and I was grateful to find it. And that one only lasted for a couple of years. Then a couple of Mercyful Fate and tons of my favorite Metallica cassettes were dying off one after another. My original Venom " Black Metal" casstte got eaten really badly.



I had collected alot of CD's during starting when Megaforce starting doing the first one's Metallica "Kill em All" and Anthrax "Fistful of Metal", and only got the ones that "flipped the scrpit" for me, as what I considered important to metal's evolution. Faster and heavier with better riffs and original songwriting.

I waited way to long to make the change over from vinyl/ cassette over to CD's. With CD's in 1997 I thought this would be a total perfect and stable format, but I got in the habit of buying 2 over everything on CD, one as a "beater" copy and one in Mint Condition for the collection.

With CD's, they have a tendency to develope scratches, causing skips, so even CD's are not totally perfect.

I do agree with the argument that Vinyl is superior to Cassettes and CD's. But with Vinyl if your Diamond Head " Lightning to the Nations" Vinyl does not survive, it is a total pain in the ass to find the Woolfe Pressing. So you might have to settle for the Metal Blade/ Relativity 1992 Cassette and CD Version.

The mistake I made in 1997 was I sold all my cassettes (except choices ones Halloween "Dont Metal With Evil" the 1984 pressing with the original band promo as artwork. Medieval "1983 Cassette Album" Medieval "All knobs to the Right") and all my vinyl. I was totally shocked, that personal favorites such as Dark Age on Gnarly Records, circa 1984 and Hammers Rule "Show No Mercy" were not released during the CD age.

The upside to cassettes if you can find your favorite album that does not have the warped sound, is that they are excellent for all those Punk partys, and insane thrashing drinking session. Vinyl is no good if everyone, is thrashing all around. For that headbanging/ thrashing cassettes rule over all.

No matter what format you choose there is always a downside. For example I always wanted to get Coven's " Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Soul". I am a supporter of Metal maidens and Sonic Cathedral webzines.(The Gathering, Madder Mortem, Tristania, The Crest, Atrox, The 3rd and the Mortal, Sunseth Sphere, Dismal Euphony) I could never find this on Vinyl or cassette when it was released by Mercury Records. So I got the CD, and aaaarrrrrggghhhh, the CD skips during track 8 I am not even sure if it was caused by getting a "lemon" disc, from the manufacturer of if this is a permanent mistake by the transfer process.

Since I started with CD's in 1997 full throttle, by 2003, I noticed a somewhat planned obsolence by the CD process, alot of my CD's started to develope jewel tabs and jewel indentions, due to no fault of my own, the paper gets destroyed so you have to buy the reissuses. Because who likes looking at a destroyed front cover insert booklet.

No matter what usurpes CD's I am sticking with CD's because most of the distrobution networks that were around circa 1979 - 1995 or so are totally gone. So I am sticking with CD's and I started to get cassettes again, as a second back up of those MUST HAVE CDs.

Every Sunday instead of backing up your computer, Back up the Record collection instead

Well, if you take care of your cd's and if you make sure not to thrash around them during wild parties, I think they're gonna stay alright for a long while. My oldest cd was bought in 1995 and it's still perfectly playing, but I must say that for years I was a maniac when it came to taking care of my cds. What you experienced with cassettes, though, also happened to me. For instance when I was drunk or too enthusiastic I would accidentally press on "record" instead of play, only to loose like 5 seconds of a song. Now that was shit.

Ha...Cassettes do have the problem that people can put tape over the top, and record over them. Yes always becareful to NEVER press the play button, if the cassette tabs are still present.

I have been having another problem with cassettes this year. My cassette player is just chopping clean off the tip of the play head. Has anyone else experienced this situation. Alot of those cassettes are really old, circa 1981- 1986, and just glad to use them for so many years. Is this because the format is totally more unstable than I originally thought, I do get new CD players every 2 or 3 months, and new tape players every year. In the mid price range. Does top of the line mean longer life for cassette tapes. Since those tips of the play head are cut clean off, has anyone ever had any success of just super-glueing those things back on, or do I need to hunt down those old tapes again.

Also with cassettes, I have made the mistake of buying tapes, without the tape head, because I got too excited to find a title that was on my want list for along long time.

Before the advent of the CD-R I always bought two of everything,but with the CD-R and backing up my record collection on Sundays, along with important computer data. I have been buying more music than ever before. To bad the record companies that make CD's do not give away a back up copy with the purchase of the original CD. Put that would probably hurt the sales of all those repressing collectors editions.

I never used those IPODS that stores tons of albums. Are those stable, or is there a planned obsolence in those things, so you would have to go buy another one, a few years later. Are the ipods a excellent way to have back ups of the back ups of favorite/ classic albums, compared to CD-R's.


No matter what back up method I use. I still buy multiple copies of my favorite top 200 or so albums, especially if I see that in mint condition at the local second hand record store. It is a huge mistake to pass on those, because you never know if your copy somehow devolped a jewel tab or jewel indention on the booklet.

I think the warmth of the sounds has more to do with the amplification and the speakers then the medium its on. Let me first state that in the end of the day if someone feels LP is superior, there is no use arguing this opinion as there is no such thing as "factually better" when it comes to audio. But to me for practical and economy's sake ill have to go for digital.
I've heard music sounding absolutely stunning on the right setup while the medium the music was on is the cheapest CDR sold with some MP3's on it at a rather damaticly low 128kbits to preserve space.

My ideal setup would be some sort of tube Amp with a decent pair of Klipsch floor speakers and the sound quality my CD's collection would be able to give would surpass the silliest of my dreams. Unfortunatly i don't have the money for that sort of thing, so im making due with a THX pc speaker set and 320kbit MP3's.