Good reading, good research. Now can we get some A&R guys to believe it?

stop the madness...

It's insaine. Alot of Rock now is rolling off the low end just to make it louder. Where has the bottom gone?

And the bands that come in here want it to be as loud as so and so.

I am growing up, sonically speaking, in this digital age and daw's have made it possible ($$$) for me to quit my day job (so to speak) and focus on my first love.

This paper verifies my thoughts about hard limits versus aranging and mixing to deliver dynamics. But a few questions I have are: How does the hard digital limit "damage" the audio?
1.) Is there audible evidence of damage?
Or
2) Is this simply the digital version of analog hard limits? i.e., are those apparrent "clips" in the diagrams really clips or are they fast compression as you might find in digital limiters?

Are those mastering engineers just tricking our brains into thinking that these hit songs sound better louder; an auditory illusion?

Thanks for the reference, I'll be using it often when I'm trying to explain why my mixes aren't as loud as others'.

I didn't read it as I already read a very similar article, but I looked at the waves - it's hard to believe someone cripples a song that much! That was way more than a lot of compression and a lot of limiting (at least what I'd rate "a lot")

As there's no date, I guess this article was initiated by Prorec's article "Over the limit"... you'll find it on the main page at http://www.prorec.com it's a bit more detailed, I think!

Let's keep some dynamics :)
azpey

If you follow the electrical signal as the wave pushes through your system, those "flat tops" are clipping of the signal.

As you view a non clipped wave, the electrical signal to your loudpeakers follow each positive 1/2 wave as a PNP [polarity through the amp to the speakers) and the bottom half is NPN from the amp to the speaker. The sharp corners of clipping, invite DC into the signal chain (not DC offset...that is something entirely of it's own) and this DC of the squared off wave causes excessive heat in the amplifier, excessive heat in the voice coils of your speakers (due to DC osscillation in the signal path) and "asks" a loudspeaker to "freeze" in mid motion. This does burn out tweeters if their is approachable current and causes for a raspy, nasty sound, even under lower volume conditions. The signal chain only can do what is fed into it and if clipped waves are fed into it, the amp and loudspeakers and the sound quality will suffer.

It is unprofessional, unmusical at best.

(It is also being a fucking idiot and not an engineer)

Hope this helps!

Can you imagine what overdriving that garbage would sound like!

...LOL..

On some systems, the wave of overdriving that trash inverses itself to either a normal look but with hash or to a triangle (urrrhhhggg) wave!

In any case, it is not representative of the source recording...at all. Even when you put a pure square wave (intended) into the mix, it needs to not be altered to clip level beyond the source sound or original wave shape.

It needs to be proper to begin with.

Trash in, trash out. (don't you just loathe the simplistic term of that?)

How soon until we have CD's that just sound like white noise generators?

That was a great article by the way!

Hey Bill, we could use a little input over at tech talk on posts:

Slightly OT-What I've Been Up To
and
DIY Monitors

Both are March 25 threads at this moment

Thanks!

Thanks Bill,

I'd love to see how some of the cd's for which I love the mix, compares (like chris boti's latest). Is there a specific kind of software used to view this kind of detail or can I simply use an editing software like wavelab, peak, or soundforge to view waveforms.

I think I'm gonna take another look at the recommended reading section.

Thanks again,
Guidance,
G. Scott

CLICK ME--->[="http://onsidered.envy.nu/PINNED.JPG"]OUCH[/]="http://onsidered.en…"]OUCH[/]<---CLICK ME

This heads up I got from [[url=http://="http://www.recordin…"]this[/]="http://www.recordin…"]this[/] thread over at the Recording Website's forums.

IMO, It's literally a sin to bastardize music this way. I'd be pissed beyond measure if I was anywhere in the production chain that produced something like this.

Looks like the amplitude zoom was used. It would be more meaningful if the dB scale was used instead of samples.

Also, when you drop to your .wav editor, you need to open the sample from a .wav file that is converted from the .cda first to the hard drive.

If you use winamp and your record mixer is above 50%, you are boosting gain in the record range and that is inaccuate of the true value. One computer I used had true unity gain with the record mixer set to 33%.

Take the CD and open it with http:// and save as .wav Make sure the normalize funtion is set to "off". Then reopen the .wav file in Cool edit pro and see what you have.

Anytime I am dropping a real time source into the wave editor on the fly, my record level is at less than 50% (or unity gain for win mixers)

The givaway is how short the fade was......

Not a good represntation of proper gain management on the posters part.

The poster knows what he's talking about. He uses EAC, *THE* tool for getting .wavs from CDs literally bit-for-bit, even by rereading erroneous parts over and over again.

There wasn't any fade - the music just ends with one last beat - the fading off is actually just the reverb of that last beat.

I've got the MP3 now, and it sounds like ass. Granted, MP3s aren't the best way to judge quality, but this one was encoded without all that auto-normalize/compress crap. The pumping is very very noticable, and the bass has gone down the drain.

At any rate, it sounds bad.

I bet all the 13 year old little children adore it.

Teach quality of our art.

Perhaps one day, this crushing will be considered an artform gone wrong for the sake of science and organicability.

The following was found as an explanation within RO:

"As you view a non clipped wave, the electrical signal to your loudpeakers follow each positive 1/2 wave as a PNP [polarity through the amp to the speakers) and the bottom half is NPN from the amp to the speaker. The sharp corners of clipping, invite DC into the signal chain (not DC offset...that is something entirely of it's own) and this DC of the squared off wave causes excessive heat in the amplifier, excessive heat in the voice coils of your speakers (due to DC osscillation in the signal path) and "asks" a loudspeaker to "freeze" in mid motion. This does burn out tweeters if their is approachable current and causes for a raspy, nasty sound, even under lower volume conditions."

Now, I don't mean to be insulting, but if anybody cares, this is fraught with misunderstandings. I especially got a kick out of the oxy-moron 'DC oscillations' :-) Peace

Nothing Oxy-Moronic about DC-O.

It happens when the top 1/2 of the sine has positive DC applied to it and the bottom half has minus DC applied to it.

This DC is applied to each of the AC waves, as the signal is chopped off. A strait line at amplitude is DC. It is oscillating back and forth during each cycle of the wave.

DC offset is when their is more of the positive DC than Negitive DC or more of the negitive DC than the positive, throwing the center point or zero crossing above or below zero for that wave.

Do you not understand basic electronics?

What is your point? Makes perfect sense.

Understanding basic Electronics? That might be a toughie since it HAS been a while since graduating with my EE DEGREE, and designing electronic circuits all my cognizant life. Let me think about that one for a while.

I guess it just seems a little counter-intuitive that a direct current (which is fixed and unchanging, by definition) would also be considered as oscillating (which is an alternating current, AC, by definition).

By the reasoning that "A strai[gh]t line at amplitude is DC", a square wave could be considered alternating DC. Oh, wait, that's AC; point taken?

Looking at the timeline of the signal, the period of time that the wave is squared off, be it positve or negative is DC within the duration of the AC.

What else would you call 1/2 wave of a square wave? DC.

That this direct push is locked in time, makes it DC.

That this DC occurs within the AC signal due to clipping of the wave, this is where the damage of the signal occurs.

The sine of the wave is postponed due to the clip, this postponement is pure DC. The timeline is disturbed due to clipping.

Well, you certainly see things differently than an EE would. In our world, half a square wave is just that, not DC. There is a tool known as Fourier analysis that reveals components in signals. (time domain <-> frequency domain) If one were to transform a (symmetrical, inherently) square wave, it would be evident that there is no DC component. The same would be true for a symmetrically clipped sine wave, or any wave that had no DC component to start with. No additional DC component is generated by clipping, unless it's asymmetrical. I can see why one might come up with the reasoning you did, but sorry, I'm seeing the engineering side of it.

It can always be argued that taking any arbitrarily short period of time, a changing entity can appear unchanging. The whole story is that it is, however.

Clipping is asymmetrical.

Clipping contains many DC components..especially if it is amplifier induced. Power supply ripple for one. inductance and capacitance of a cable, reluctance, reactance, resistance. Nothing about clipping is symmetrical.

In a textbook VS real world, their are differences. We have not even entertained the thermodynamic properties.

From the Source signal through all of the components to the transducer, clipping behaves differently in each.

That opens up another can of worms. You seem to be confident of your vast knowledge. Perhaps you may elaborate:

Why can't clipping be symmetrical?

What are the components of DC?

Amplifier-induced DC is different from what other kind of DC?

What kind of DC is power supply ripple?

How does "inductance and capacitance of a cable, reluctance, reactance, resistance." cause clipping?

What thermodynamic properties need entertaining when comparing DC to AC?

You are the one with the EE.

Howabout a call to your professor, afterall you paid for it.

Not to be rude, but that was my point - you don't have the answers. I'm trying to show in a nice way that you are off-base with your descriptions, yet you speak as if you were some authority on the matter. Perhaps you are self-taught? You may want to investigate those questions yourself prior to delivering additional errant explanations. Unless, of course, you already know all that! :-)
Peace

I have the answers as they pertain to this subject but as you said, not to be rude, I really don't think you would understand them anyway.

As plain as I have made this, you made the choice to question something that goes against the way you understand it.

I think you should learn some electronics therory in the technicians realm, perhaps get some test equipment in real world conditions and deduce the findings for yourself, as I have over the 30 years I have been working with electronics design and implementation.

It most likely is beyond your comprehension. I cannot pack tens of thousands of hours of research into a few lines here.

You can also choose not to believe as well.

That perhaps may be your best agenda.

Afterall, I don't think most engineers that make "hit" records really give a fuck.

Yes, you have the answers alright, about like the guys in Radio Shack! Got a few technical terms memorized and they are now experts. YOu're right about one thing: I wouldn't understand your answers any better than I've understood what you've provided thus far. Perhaps I'm the only one technical enough to challenge you, or to even care, as you so eloquently alluded. Maybe that's why you've gotten away with such erroneous presentations, and possibly fooled thousands. But, as plain as you made it, it's just plain erroneous!

I don't think electrons or theory behave any differently whether you are a technician or an engineer. But misconceptions are more rampant among those who haven't had the engineering theory classes, so the two might see things differently. However, I think you're barking up the wrong tree telling me to get some experience. Let me respectively inform you that I've been at it longer, done more, been educated to a higher level, and continue to make my living designing circuits. A person could learn from me, or pretend to know more than I ever could and remain at their level. And it's a bit presumptuous to claim that the concepts we've been referencing would likely be beyond my comprehension after I've earned the BSEE degree. Do you have some accomplishment that would seat you in a position to legitimately make that claim? Hmmm... And yeah, I also have a technician's AAS degree, general radiotelephone certificate, and journeyman electrician's - is that practical enough for ya?

And no, I won't be choosing not to believe the truth. How about you?

Cheers

Ok guys, this started out as a nice informative discussion but has turned to hell. either get back on the topic at hand and lay off the personal digs or i'll shut it down.