From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V13 #12 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Friday, January 19 2007 Volume 13 : Number 012 To unsubscribe: e-mail ecto-digest-request@smoe.org and put the word unsubscribe in the message body. Today's Subjects: ----------------- best of 2006 [Dave ] Re: best of 2006 ["Mr. P. Kulawec" ] loudness wars - interesting article ["Karen Hester" Subject: best of 2006 okay, finally getting around to this.. some of these might be 2005, takes me a little bit to get caught up on my buying, especially with imports. Best album of the year, no contest.. it's Guapa by La Oreja de Van Gogh. Standout songs are Muqeca De Trapo (Rag Doll), Dulce Locura (Sweet Insanity), and Mi Vida Sin Ti (My Life Without You). Here's a video from it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=MK5QqrIly0s Second on my list would have to be Twarze(faces) by Polish band Milczenie Owiec(Silence of the Lambs). Contains a nice cover of Madonna's "Frozen". Video of Czesci(Parts) http://youtube.com/watch?v=tkv_Ruza7cM Other favorites: Laura Pausini - Io/Yo Canto(I Sing) Laura Pausini - Live In Paris 2005 (with DVD) Natasha St-Pier - Longueur D'Ondes(Wavelength) Nolwenn Leroy - Histoires Naturelles(Natural History) Soraya - Herencia(Inheritance), a latin spokesperson for breast cancer awareness, she lost her battle with it in 2006. If you like country music, American Idol contestant Kellie Pickler's "Small Town Girl" is pretty good, they even worked the word calamari into a song. Picked up a couple of good DVDs: Lara Fabian - Un Regard 9 Live (excellent) Varius Manx - Ona Ma Sile, a nice collection of both videos and live performances. VM are rather popular in Poland, pop/rock with a little jazz influence. Video of Orla Cien(Eagle's Shadow) http://youtube.com/watch?v=ffaBDKu-RnE ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:12:43 +0000 (GMT) From: "Mr. P. Kulawec" Subject: Re: best of 2006 > Best album of the year, no contest.. it's Guapa by La Oreja de Van Gogh. > Standout songs are Muqeca De Trapo (Rag Doll), Dulce Locura (Sweet Insanity), > and Mi Vida Sin Ti (My Life Without You). It is very good indeed - have you heard the new double CD version? > Nolwenn Leroy - Histoires Naturelles(Natural History) Also a favourite of mine - worth it for the sleeve alone :) peter ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 08:32:22 +1300 From: "Karen Hester" Subject: loudness wars - interesting article How CDs are remastering the art of noise - http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1992325,00.html has anyone noticed this in their own collection? snippets: "Everyone's chasing immediate impact," he explains. "What happens is all the loud parts of the album have to be as loud as the opening track. So you get a fatiguing effect. There's no light and shade in it." "Young has first-hand experience of the "loudness wars", where studios compete to make ever louder CDs. "When CDs emerged as a format in the mid-80s, there wasn't a great deal you could do to make them louder. In the first half of the 1990s, various [electronics] boxes started to appear that meant you could get more apparent loudness. Mastering engineers, initially in America, started using these to make CDs louder. The impact travelled across the Atlantic," he says." Karen ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:03:47 -0800 From: Greg Bossert Subject: Re: loudness wars - interesting article it's always nice to see this getting some attention in the popular press (even if, IMHO, the article was poorly written and researched)). it's been a topic of discussion within the Audio Engineering Society and other trade organizations for a couple of decades now. note that the issue is not limited to -- or even an artifact - of CDs. in fact, the CD offered a much wider dynamic range than vinyl and cassette, and the oft repeated arguments about the harshness of digital audio have been proved nonsense over and over again. in fact, the real culprit is radio, which has an extremely limited dynamic range, particularly in the target listening environment of moving cars. and radio is all about the cheap easy sell (i, needless to say, exclude any radio shows by fellow ectophiles -- good taste it turns out that the mp3 codec (and several other popular audio encodings) handle clipped signals very poorly, so digitized versions of poorly mastered audio sound even worse. famed mastering engineer Bob Katz keeps a list of well mastered albums. here's the list, along with a discussion of good and bad mastering: http://www.digido.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=45 On Jan 18, 2007, at 11:32 AM, Karen Hester wrote: > How CDs are remastering the art of noise - > http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1992325,00.html > > has anyone noticed this in their own collection? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 00:09:19 -0500 From: "robert bristow-johnson" Subject: Re: loudness wars - interesting article > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Greg Bossert" > To: "Ectophiles [place]" > Subject: Re: loudness wars - interesting article > Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:03:47 -0800 > > > it's always nice to see this getting some attention in the popular press > (even if, IMHO, the article was poorly written and researched)). it's been > a topic of discussion within the Audio Engineering Society and other trade > organizations for a couple of decades now. note that the issue is not > limited to -- or even an artifact - of CDs. in fact, the CD offered a much > wider dynamic range than vinyl and cassette, and the oft repeated arguments > about the harshness of digital audio have been proved nonsense over and > over again. in fact, the real culprit is radio, which has an extremely > limited dynamic range, particularly in the target listening environment of > moving cars. and radio is all about the cheap easy sell (i, needless to > say, exclude any radio shows by fellow ectophiles -- good taste on radio, unfortunately it's all about squeezing as many listeners per transmission watt as possible. to do this radio stations do several nasty things. the first (that ectophiles are acutely aware of) is the selection of program material: commercial drecht. the second nasty is the present subject: level compression. given that the FCC puts a limit on the peak level of modulation (essentially how loud the audio is allowed to be applied to the frequency-modulation), they apply level compression to make it sound (relative to the neighboring channels) as loud as possible to grab you. the classical stations don't do that which is one reason they sound so quiet. classical music CDs have no level compression that i know of and they have a lot of dynamic range. the third nast is applying the concept of compression to **time**. there is a program called "Cash" (why would they name it that?) that is used by radio stations to speed up the audio content so there is more time left in the hour for, surprize surprize, commercials. http://www.langston.com/Fun_People/2000/2000AAT.html it's all evil and these people have forfeited their right to live on this planet. > it turns out that the mp3 codec (and several other popular audio encodings) > handle clipped signals very poorly, so digitized versions of poorly mastered > audio sound even worse. > > famed mastering engineer Bob Katz keeps a list of well mastered albums. > here's the list, along with a discussion of good and bad mastering: > > http://www.digido.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=45 back in the 90s, when i lived in NJ, Bob once came to the NYC AES section meeting and played this Ricky Martin CD, that when displayed on an audio track editor was one big solid black band of data virtually right up at the rails. maximum level compression. pure AGC. zero dB of dynamic range. (disgusting on a variety of levels.) - -- r b-j rbj@audioimagination.com "Imagination is more important than knowledge." ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V13 #12 **************************