Man I'm tired of loud music. I'm not talking about the "get out of my yard", "kids these days" kind of loud. I'm talking about music with no dynamic range, that sounds like crap and is impossible to listen to without three ibuprofen. This video perfectly illustrates what I mean:
The process of increasing the overall volume of an audio clip as described in the video above is achieved through a technique call "hard limiting". If an audio engineer raised the volume of the waveform above, the loud drum peaks would exceed 0 db, and you would hear nasty digital clipping and distortion. Hard limiting basically chops off all those loud drum peaks that stand above the rest of the waveform, thus allowing the rest of the track to be turned up without digital clipping.
Hard limiting destroys the dynamic range of music, creates ear fatigue, and makes music much less enjoyable to listen to. I don't want to name any names, but some of the worst offending recently released albums include: Supernatural by Santana, Vapor Trails by Rush, and Death Magnetic by Metallica. I can hardly listen to them in their entirety - they are just too loud. By contrast, listen to original mixes of Led Zeppelin or the Beatles (or anything mixed before 1990, really) and notice how much easier it is to "understand" everything, and how much more enjoyable and less tiresome the listening experience is.
LET ME PUT IT ANOTHER WAY: BRICKWALL LIMITING HAS THE SAME EFFECT ON YOUR EARS AND BRAIN AS READING WORDS IN ALL CAPS HAS ON YOUR EYES AND BRAIN. WHEN YOU READ TEXT TYPED NORMALLY THE EBB AND FLOW OF CAPITAL AND LOWER CASE LETTERS ALLOWS YOUR BRAIN TO YOUR EYES RECOGNIZE THE "SHAPES" OF THE WORDS. YOU CAN SKIM TROUGH A BLOCK OF TEXT FASTER, WITH LESS EFFORT, AND WITH BETTER COMPREHENSION. YOU DON'T HAVE TO CONCENTRATE AS HARD TO INTERNALIZE THE MESSAGE, AND YOU CAN RECALL IT LATER WITH MUCH BETTER ACCURACY. WHEN YOU LISTEN TO MUSIC THAT IS HARD LIMITED, YOU ARE ESSENTIALLY LISTENING IN ALL CAPS. THERE IS NO "SHAPE" TO THE AUDIO. EVERYTHING IS JUST AS LOUD AS EVERYTHING ELSE. IT IS VERY FATIGUING TO THE EARS AND TAXING ON THE BRAIN.
Hard limiting destroys the dynamic range of music, creates ear fatigue, and makes music much less enjoyable to listen to. I don't want to name any names, but some of the worst offending recently released albums include: Supernatural by Santana, Vapor Trails by Rush, and Death Magnetic by Metallica. I can hardly listen to them in their entirety - they are just too loud. By contrast, listen to original mixes of Led Zeppelin or the Beatles (or anything mixed before 1990, really) and notice how much easier it is to "understand" everything, and how much more enjoyable and less tiresome the listening experience is.
LET ME PUT IT ANOTHER WAY: BRICKWALL LIMITING HAS THE SAME EFFECT ON YOUR EARS AND BRAIN AS READING WORDS IN ALL CAPS HAS ON YOUR EYES AND BRAIN. WHEN YOU READ TEXT TYPED NORMALLY THE EBB AND FLOW OF CAPITAL AND LOWER CASE LETTERS ALLOWS YOUR BRAIN TO YOUR EYES RECOGNIZE THE "SHAPES" OF THE WORDS. YOU CAN SKIM TROUGH A BLOCK OF TEXT FASTER, WITH LESS EFFORT, AND WITH BETTER COMPREHENSION. YOU DON'T HAVE TO CONCENTRATE AS HARD TO INTERNALIZE THE MESSAGE, AND YOU CAN RECALL IT LATER WITH MUCH BETTER ACCURACY. WHEN YOU LISTEN TO MUSIC THAT IS HARD LIMITED, YOU ARE ESSENTIALLY LISTENING IN ALL CAPS. THERE IS NO "SHAPE" TO THE AUDIO. EVERYTHING IS JUST AS LOUD AS EVERYTHING ELSE. IT IS VERY FATIGUING TO THE EARS AND TAXING ON THE BRAIN.
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