It's only been a year since my last rant on rampant compression...? Well, I just read a more detailed account of that horrible procedure (thanks to Slashdot for bringing this to our attention.)
Over this weekend, I sat down and slashed my meager "rock, pop and metal" material on iTunes down, again, and could not fail to notice that of what remains, it's mostly old old 80s things. Not that Metallica's opus Magnum, Master of Puppets (first album on my first iPod!) does not need re-mastering- it sounds like $hit- but if they were going to make it sound like ze Black Album, then no thanks. Even such strange casualties as bunch of Nick Cave albums- Let Love In, for once- there was so much compression, they had to go. I can't listen to them any more , it's just physically oppressive, like trying to read Anne Rice vampire novels.
The article in IEEE (which also comes in cute multimedia version) makes a good and valid point of new media formats going to waste. But one memory I took from reading it is that, as usual, Sony was somehow responsible for the mess. Duh. SONY. Yee of rootkits and warring, inter-suing divisions. Oh, I have my own Sony stories. How about this: having acquired Sony's own PlayStation recently (the only console that my household was missing thus far), finding out that the sound from blue ray discs would get clipped and generally screwed coming out at the other end, on Sony's own receiver? And that Sony's own Super Audio CDs will NOT play on PlayStation? After half an hour of configuring the PS for SupCs, using the available menu item, disclaimer pops out, something about this format "not being supported". Granted, I only own three SupCs, one is Harnoncourt's freaky take on Mozart's Requiem which was released as hybrid/dual format; the other two I got by accident when trading CDs on LaLa. So, no great loss there, just a snigger at the royal sarary chrysanthemum mess that is Sony. (Can you tell I just read this book?)
Showing posts with label Compression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Compression. Show all posts
Monday, August 27, 2007
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Compression Oppression and Equalizer for All
I read this excellent article, courtesy of Sasha FJ/Alex from The Rest is Noise, which finally explains why most of the recent non-classical albums I have been subjected to sounded so... oppressing is the word, methinks. Ha! I knew they were up to something, just didn't know the details. Alex has a fascinating picture of what can only be called a brick of sound in his follow up post. He also mentions the tricky issue of safe shuffle use on iPod when playing a mix of classical and these souped up tracks. Well, gee, there's an easy fix for that. Getting the bands and sound engineers off the Compressed Till Your Ears Bleed wagon- that'll take some time.
First of all, let it be known that I heart them iTunes very much, except that buggy new version no 7 which made every piece of music on my PC sound distorted, hissy, overamped and totally unlistenable. I had to resort back to version 6.5 and that was a painfully messy operation, but at least I can again listen to my sprawled collection. The back and forth update also wiped out the customized equalizer settings I had for certain albums, so I had to go back to working these sliding thingies again, to assure peaceful shuffle times on the Washington Metro Second Circle of Hell (ie morning commute.) I use these settings mostly to bring down the levels of rock, pop and Bollywood songs, but also to fix up other audio issues. Seems like this is not a very well known feature, strangely- if you ask me, that's one of the best things about iTunes. I figured I will post it for the good of the mankind and aural stability of folks like me who have, shall we say, very eclectic collections of music. I don't mean eclectic as in "not just pop, but also rock and country", I mean mix of classical- Gesualdo, Reneissance lute songs, mostly Mozart everything, 1950s Wagner recordings, 1902 Moreschi and such, along with Indian, Polish and global village music, plus Bjork and loosely defined rock, heavy metal, death metal and symphonic death metal.
The equalizer on iTunes, that neat little thing, allows you to set up customized equalizer presets for any particular album or individual songs and save them as default for these tracks- and these settings can include volume up or down.
To simply squash the volume, let's say on these fabulous screaming Soundgarden songs: pull up the equalizer, best if the songs in questions are playing so you can hear how different settings affect the volume, choose the Manual setting from the drop down menu on the top, and set the left side "Preamp" bar lower to reduce the dB level. This goes from -12 db to +12 and allows for quite a range. Whenever you think it's low enough, click in the drop down menu again and select "Make preset" to save your preset under a given name (QuietGarden, for example.)
Then go to Library, highlight the Soundgarden song(s) and right click on "Get Info"; once you are there, select the "Options" tab and choose the "QuietGarden" from the Equalizer Preset drop down menu.
If it's just less volume you want, you can also use the Volume Adjustment slider right above the Equalizer Preset, but I find that this one is a very blunt and tool and can squash the sounds too much with just a slight slide to the left and so I use it less often, or, lately, not at all.
If you pick the custom preset- and BTW this can also be used for albums and other collections, just select the whole lot and click get Info- then just click OK and voila, it's saved as the default equalizer setting for that Soundgarden song from now till kingdom (or new iTunes update, God help us) comes and it's safe to shuffle at will.
Even during time on Washington Metro Third Circle of Hell (afternoon commute.) And for all these people with their portable players who listen to their oompa oompa music on such loud settings that the whole Metro car can hear it out of their headphones: "F&CK YOU RIGHT IN THE EAR< YOU STUPID< SOON TO BE DEAF GITS!" Ah, the sound of silence... and Fretwork and Kirkby doing Byrd...
First of all, let it be known that I heart them iTunes very much, except that buggy new version no 7 which made every piece of music on my PC sound distorted, hissy, overamped and totally unlistenable. I had to resort back to version 6.5 and that was a painfully messy operation, but at least I can again listen to my sprawled collection. The back and forth update also wiped out the customized equalizer settings I had for certain albums, so I had to go back to working these sliding thingies again, to assure peaceful shuffle times on the Washington Metro Second Circle of Hell (ie morning commute.) I use these settings mostly to bring down the levels of rock, pop and Bollywood songs, but also to fix up other audio issues. Seems like this is not a very well known feature, strangely- if you ask me, that's one of the best things about iTunes. I figured I will post it for the good of the mankind and aural stability of folks like me who have, shall we say, very eclectic collections of music. I don't mean eclectic as in "not just pop, but also rock and country", I mean mix of classical- Gesualdo, Reneissance lute songs, mostly Mozart everything, 1950s Wagner recordings, 1902 Moreschi and such, along with Indian, Polish and global village music, plus Bjork and loosely defined rock, heavy metal, death metal and symphonic death metal.
The equalizer on iTunes, that neat little thing, allows you to set up customized equalizer presets for any particular album or individual songs and save them as default for these tracks- and these settings can include volume up or down.
To simply squash the volume, let's say on these fabulous screaming Soundgarden songs: pull up the equalizer, best if the songs in questions are playing so you can hear how different settings affect the volume, choose the Manual setting from the drop down menu on the top, and set the left side "Preamp" bar lower to reduce the dB level. This goes from -12 db to +12 and allows for quite a range. Whenever you think it's low enough, click in the drop down menu again and select "Make preset" to save your preset under a given name (QuietGarden, for example.)
Then go to Library, highlight the Soundgarden song(s) and right click on "Get Info"; once you are there, select the "Options" tab and choose the "QuietGarden" from the Equalizer Preset drop down menu.
If it's just less volume you want, you can also use the Volume Adjustment slider right above the Equalizer Preset, but I find that this one is a very blunt and tool and can squash the sounds too much with just a slight slide to the left and so I use it less often, or, lately, not at all.
If you pick the custom preset- and BTW this can also be used for albums and other collections, just select the whole lot and click get Info- then just click OK and voila, it's saved as the default equalizer setting for that Soundgarden song from now till kingdom (or new iTunes update, God help us) comes and it's safe to shuffle at will.
Even during time on Washington Metro Third Circle of Hell (afternoon commute.) And for all these people with their portable players who listen to their oompa oompa music on such loud settings that the whole Metro car can hear it out of their headphones: "F&CK YOU RIGHT IN THE EAR< YOU STUPID< SOON TO BE DEAF GITS!" Ah, the sound of silence... and Fretwork and Kirkby doing Byrd...
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