Dynamic Range Compression of Music files

I just read an article in Rolling Stones Magazine (Ref 1) about how much audio compression is going on in modern commercial music recordings.

That prompted me to re-install Audacity (Ref 2) and look at some of my favorite music and see how it compares.

I have uploaded brief samples of some of the songs for illustration.

Important Note:

• Dynamic Range compression makes the music sound louder, particularly the soft passages are increased relatively compared to the louder passages, which might actually be a good thing if you were listening to music in a noisy environment such as a car of a night club. When abused, it makes the music generally less enjoyable and has been reported to give headaches. The YouTube video linked below (Ref 3) illustrates the point very well. Ideally, it would be best if music was distributed without artifacts, as faithfully as the artist played it in the studio or on stage, and car radios and personal music players (MP3 players or iPods) had an option (which the user could choose to activate or not) to compress the music as it plays back. One can dream...

• Audio File compression aims to reduce the size of digitally encoded audio files with a minimum of signal degradation. You can read more about Audio File compression formats at Panos Stokas' page (Ref 4).

Jacques Brel, encoded from vinyl record This is an old record, one of my favorite songs of all times, by an artist who was known at the time for spirited vocals. Since I made the mp3 from the vinyl record, the 3dB margin with respect to the full scale is my doing. However, the interesting part is how low so many passages are, preserving the dynamic range for the more dramatic moments of the song. This song was recorded in 1972. Click here for a brief sample.

Dave Brubeck, Take Five This is from a Ken Burns record, very well mastered. The song was originally released in 1959, but I do not know when this particular version was recorded. Click here for a brief sample.

Bob Dylan, Lay, Lady Lay This song was originally released in 1959, I do not know when this recording was made.

Norah Jones, Don't Know Why. Interestingly, this record has been generally referred to as an example of "clean" mastering: Quote: "I find it quite interesting, and I think its instructive, that if you focus on one area of the music business you could generally call it music for people over twenty-four and you look at the last ten years and look at records that have come out of nowhere, that no one's putting any money behind and have takes off, the two things that come to mind are the Buena Vista Social Club and Norah Jones. And those records were made in the most old-fashioned ways you can imagine." Joe Boyd, producer of several Richard Thompson albums and R.E.M.'s Fables of the Reconstruction Unquote But I had noticed obvious distortion from clipping in several places while listening to it. Distortion is usually more noticeable on voice than instruments, mostly when the singer has a pure, crystalline voice like Norah Jones. It's evident from this plot that the dynamic on this record has been increased and that clipping occurs in several places.

AC/DC, Night Long Good old fashioned Rock band, one of my favorites, and quite restrained :-)

Evanescence, Daredevil

Carlos Santana and Michelle Branch, The Game Of Love. This one also as a bit of a surprise, because I enjoy the song a lot, and there was no obvious sign of distortion or clipping like on the Norah Jones album.

Atomic Kitten, If You Come To Me This is a British female group that is not distributed in the US (that I know of). I wanted to see if the trend was also noticed across the Atlantic. I guess it is... Click here for a brief sample.

Arthur Brown, I Put A Spell On You I don't think anyone will be surprised that it takes the 1st prize, but the sheer magnitude of the compression and clipping is mind boggling. At least, I am pretty sure that is exactly how the artist wanted the song to sound, as opposed to being that way as a result of music studios pressure against the artist's preference. Click here for a brief sample.

Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon (entire album) This is an example of something you probably will never see again. Pink Floyd was a rock band extremely famous in the 1970's and one of my all times favorite band. This piece was originally designed to fit on one side of a vinyl LP record. It is made up of several songs which blend into one another for a total duration of over 40 minutes, and the recording level shows absolutely no clipping and there is no sign of compression. The music has incredible dynamic and requires a good audio system and a quiet room to appreciate the low passages which can easily be buried in the noise, ambient or electronic. Quote "The album's complicated and precise sound engineering by Alan Parsons set new standards for sound fidelity; this trait became a recognizable aspect of the band's sound and played a part in the lasting chart success of the album, as audiophiles constantly replaced their worn-out copies." Wikipedia Unquote

Links:

1. Rolling Stone Magazine, www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity/print
2. Audacity, audacity.sourceforge.net/
3. YouTube video showing the effect of compression, well done, www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ
4. Audio File compression formats compared by Panos Stokas, ekei.com/audio/
5. The Loudness War, blogspot.com, funl.blogspot.com/2007/06/loudness-war.html
6. Wikipedia, Loudness War en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war