{"id":1219,"date":"2008-02-12T22:54:16","date_gmt":"2008-02-13T03:54:16","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-08-21T17:11:46","modified_gmt":"2010-08-21T17:11:46","slug":"i-summon-homefront-radio-to-further-disc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/i-summon-homefront-radio-to-further-disc\/","title":{"rendered":"I SUMMON HOMEFRONTRADIO TO FURTHER DISCUSS MATTERS OF COMPRESSION"},"content":{"rendered":"
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No disaster here!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In last week’s Carl Newman thread<\/a><\/strong>, our passionate and highly knowledgeable friend Homefrontradio<\/strong>, the Thunder Down Under, wrote about his disgust with modern-day dependence on compression. Among other things he wrote:<\/p>\n

Basically, as you play the song loud, there’s a random noise field being generated on top of the song that’s a is physically-disturbing to how our ears are designed to hear music.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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A digital waveform representation of Billy Corgan’s Look?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Maybe that’s not his most representative comment from this thread, but it struck a chord with me. It reminded me of our ongoing examination of Lou Reed…as his music was meant to sound!<\/a><\/strong> Seriously, I highly recommend going back and checking out what Townsman Homefrontradio has to say on these issues of compression. It’s great stuff that musicians and fans of new and old music can get into. And learn from. And trust me, Homefrontradio’s displayed a gear geek side, but he’s got a sense of humor about his quest and he’s what we call Good People<\/strong>!
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\nAs a man possibly unfamiliar with our rock legal system, we chatted a bit off list about the implications of this RTH SUMMONS. It was important that he understood that this was an opportunity to better explain himself, teach us, and most likely learn something himself. He wrote of an old recording project he’d been revisiting with a friend:<\/p>\n

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Check it out.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A mate and I were recently passing back and forth pictures of song waveforms with our comments, (I’ll see if i can find them), and learning from the process what makes songs work and not work, and why some remasters sound worse than original cd releases.<\/p>\n

Our experimentations with remastering our own songs lead to a lot of confused emails along the lines of “Vocals suddenly take up so much space!” and “Wow! I played bass piano in the bridge? I’d completely forgotten!”<\/p>\n

The end result, he remixed almost *everything* he’d done recently because he was so impressed with the sound difference not clipping makes. As for me? I’m glad i learnt this at the *start* of the project i’m embarking on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m sure I’m not alone in wanting to learn more about his experiences and how they might be applicable to my own home recording efforts. I’m sure Homefront’s not the only one in the Halls of Rock who’s wrestled with compression, waveforms, and the almost insurmountable challenge of discussing this stuff in a public forum while retaining a social network outside one’s extended music nerd community.<\/p>\n

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Here’s what came to mind for me, and you may have your own questions for Homefrontradio to answer. Most likely, Homefront, will have questions of his own.<\/p>\n

Interesting stuff, Homefront. I wish I better understood what I should be liking based on the natural construction of my ears. As an essentially low-fi, ’60s pop-based fan and musician, I wonder what it is my ears desire. I’m always skeptical of the stuff I read from obviously knowledgeable and passionate guys like yourself regarding compression and loudness. I like hearing an old vinyl release of “Satisfaction” as much as anything. I believe, in technical terms, that record may be considered to sound like shit. But I like it. Loud and in no way remastered! <\/p>\n

Am I missing something? Am I cheating my ears of what they truly need to hear? What’s an example of an album that meets your expectations regarding these issues that I might like among some of my favorite artists (eg, Beatles, XTC, Elvis Costello, Pere Ubu, Marvin Gaye, The Stooges, Crowded House’s Together Alone album, etc)? Similarly, is there an album I might love that offends your research in this area? What does an examination of the soundwaves on a favorite Lou Reed album, say, tell you? I’d really like to know so that I could better assess what it is I may or may not like. Thanks!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No disaster here! In last week’s Carl Newman thread, our passionate and highly knowledgeable friend Homefrontradio, the Thunder Down Under, wrote about his disgust with modern-day dependence on compression. Among other things he wrote: Basically, as you play the song loud, there’s a random noise field being generated on top of the song that’s a […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[126,304],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}