How to end the loudness war

CryojenX
CryojenX Posts: 32
edited January 2010 in Other Music
Does anyone here know if there has ever been an attempt to end the loudness war via class action lawsuit? I feel like the only way it's going to stop is if the RIAA is forced to by the courts, for selling defective product and accelerating the already rapid pace of hearing damage in music listeners, especially the young.

Has anyone heard of this tactic being tried?
Crystal

Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • HeavyHands
    HeavyHands Posts: 2,131
    While I like where you're going with this I have two counterpoints. One is subjective, the other is objective. :)

    Subjective first:
    What people actually hear varies from person to person as does their opinion about the level of its quality. While one person may appreciate hearing the intricacies of a non-over-compressed, supremely produced and mastered recording because they are fans of listening as much as they are fans of a particular recording, others merely view music as a commodity and don't really care about loss of quality and over compression. Who is to say that the opinion of one person is more valid than the other?

    Objective:
    People have the ability to control the volume of their music. Hearing loss is more attributable to a person exercising poor judgment by having the volume loud than it is to a Producer or record company who merely deliver a product to consumers.

    I think in this case you would have to show that
    A. The Producers or record companies either intend to cause hearing damage
    or
    B. They are aware of peoples tendency to turn the volume up on over-compressed albums more than normally-compressed albums, yet willfully disregard the damage it causes consumers.

    How would you counter these two points?
    "A lot more people are capable of being big out there that just don't give themselves a chance." -Stone Gossard
  • Johnny Abruzzo
    Johnny Abruzzo Philly Posts: 12,741
    So, I don't think I understand this issue all that well. I know a lot of music sounds much better on vinyl, but I have trouble telling the CD & MP3 versions apart.

    Does anyone have the Foo Fighters alubm Echoes, Patience, something or other? Some of the songs are so annoying. They start out so quiet you can't even hear them, so you turn the volume up, and by the end, all the instruments have kicked in, and you're getting blasted to the moon. Is this an example of an "uncompressed" album? It's almost unlistenable.
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  • CryojenX
    CryojenX Posts: 32
    I can see some of your points, I suppose the best way to reverse this trend is going to be only if dissatisfied artists are willing to come together in a coalition and take a stand against their labels. Not entirely unheard of, but I'm not holding my breath.
    Crystal

  • CryojenX
    CryojenX Posts: 32
    i suppose it's something I can live with, as it's usually not as severe as the worst case is. It's just that they completely butchered b0th vapor trails by rush and black gives way to blue by Alice in chains. Granted they didn't quite get the death magnetic treatment, but they come close. I can always buy the vinyl I suppose, but paying more for a format that is more of a pain in the butt to work with, when CDs are more than capable of handling the kind of dynamic range which you can only find on the vinyl release seems pretty ludicrous. :roll:
    Crystal

  • DewieCox
    DewieCox Posts: 11,432
    Johnny Abruzzo wrote:
    So, I don't think I understand this issue all that well. I know a lot of music sounds much better on vinyl, but I have trouble telling the CD & MP3 versions apart.

    Does anyone have the Foo Fighters alubm Echoes, Patience, something or other? Some of the songs are so annoying. They start out so quiet you can't even hear them, so you turn the volume up, and by the end, all the instruments have kicked in, and you're getting blasted to the moon. Is this an example of an "uncompressed" album? It's almost unlistenable.

    That sounds uncompressed, which is what you want(surprises me about that album). Dynamics are a good thing. When the quiet guitars are as loud as the big full band parts that is bad.

    Compression takes the peaks and valleys in the volume and pushes them closer together, so to make the loud raucous parts as loud as they should be you crank it and when it returns to the "quiet" parts its blaring and causes an unpleasantness to the ear.

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