The Loudness War - A Real Example!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G4PZ1HnlEk&fmt=18 Click for HQ stereo.
I noticed that all of the other loudness war examples on here have been created by the user.
The first clip I didn't create myself, I did nothing more than reduce the volume, it is the version from Massive Attack's best of album Collected, the second is the original version from Blue Lines. The difference isn't that obvious mainly because of the general crappy nature of the sound quality on Youtube and because its not an extreme example.

This treatment makes almost no effect on record sales, on iTunes the original version is the #2 best selling Massive Attack song while the compressed version #7

Fair use is assumed as it is a short clip.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Loudness
• war
• Compression
• Massive
• Attack
• unfinished
• sympathy
• Collected

[miragedone]

hi @ajuk1, again in response to listening to the A and B - the B (where your money's on) still is recording higher peaks. Mastering and compression basically brings the average level of sound to a higher level whilst maintaining all the peaks (at the same level). I fail to see how B is better than A considering it's 9dB louder (in terms of peaks)

[ajuk1]

@miragedone I've gone off this video, it's not a very extreme example and I think the second half maybe unintentionally louder. My Radiohead video is my favorite.

[plague1715]

orangesquish, i think all Christian rock bands get their albums mastered in a top secret underground FBI/FCC missile silo, where Moses comes down and pulls all of the dips in the waveform all the way up to heaven. it's a government conspiracy.

[BigNickontheDrum]

that's the opposite, 'warm' refers to soft clipping like what happens in tube amplification, it's a pleasant sound that can actually enhance natural harmonics. what's happening in the loudness war is "cold", flatline clipping which is typical of isometric digital recordings (like CDs and WAV/MP3). if sweetassour is referring to the first clip as warmer, listen again and focus on the strings, how they bloom and have body in the second clip. these are the details we are losing in the loudness war

[gaylordfaggatron]

war sounds pretty good 

[PolishCatholic1]

Zwei bei Kalwaas^^

[MrMultiMindControl]

I'm sorry but i dont think they play muisic on the radio in the middle of a fucking war T_T

[AgentHomer]

The second version is not an uncompressed version! There is no uncompressed version of this song. The second version is actually compressed quite a deal already. The first one is just overcompressed, that's all.

[mm071018]

@desbest4 its "unfinished sympathy", off their first album "blue lines" from 1991 :)

[desbest4]

@padda4 The song is by Massive Attack. I don't know the name of it.

[TimpBizkit]

It's harder to explain on a low quality video. A lot of youtube videos have CRISHP SHOUND instead of CRISP SOUND.