Tom Fine wrote:
Mike, I dig your page on the death of dynamics!
http://www.mindspring.com/~mrichter/dynamics/dynamics.htm
this paper, co-written by Bob Orban (who certainly should know a thing or three about FM radio
audio processing), shows the falacies of "toothpaste" super-compression.
http://www.omniaaudio.com/tech/mastering.pdf
However, I believe the trend is probably permanent in this country because so much of the "target
audience" for what passes for popular music today do most of their listening in loud environments
with earbuds, so toothpaste compression is actually a big benefit for them, and for their future
hearing aid manufacturer.
Any half-decent audio editor now includes "cruch" and "maximize" tools. So any fool with a PC can
squash any digital audio file to their heart's content.
Thanks for the note and for the link. In some broadcasts offered by many sources, one can easily
hear the different sorts of compression provided. As an opera aficianado, I have just about given
up on U.S. broadcast and webcast of the Met; there are clean European sources, particularly on FM,
which make the stations here sound variously bad and incomprehensible. The effect is that many
voices become unrecognizable or show non-existent faults due to the excessive processing.
Mike
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mrichter@xxxxxxx
http://www.mrichter.com/