Re: [ARSCLIST] fwd: Everything Louder Than Everything Else : Have the loudness wars reached their final battle?

[Don Cox <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 01/10/06, Bob Olhsson wrote:
> Tom Fine wrote:
>> It's just disgraceful how 50 years of progress in sound recording and
>> reproduction -- to where at least a few recordings each year were
>> truly life-like -- is being erased in less than a generation.
> 
> The production values of singles started being applied to albums. A
> major cause of this has been artists and their managers starting to
> require "complete creative control" in their recording contracts
> because the press tells them that's what they ought to have. Even when
> label executives know better, they are obliged contractually to choose
> between releasing the recording as it is or not releasing it and
> eating the advance and production expenses.
> 
> The traditional reason for "cutting hot" was to make the greatest
> impact in a distributor sales or a radio programming meeting. What
> typically happens in these meetings is that the first 15-30 seconds of
> a track is played and the people in the room vote to either add the
> title to what they are working with or to throw it in the trash. This
> happens before anybody outside the industry gets to ever hear the
> record. (Payola only bought you getting into the pile of records being
> considered.) At the very least one never want to be too much softer
> than the competition.
> 
> The sad part is that with the exception of misguided souls who think
> that they are being trendy, it's the fans who buy the CDs that are
> getting screwed by this process. In the old days many hit records
> practically sold themselves by word of mouth. I very rarely hear of
> that happening today. Likewise music radio's "Time Spent Listening"
> ratings have been dropping like a rock for more than ten years. All of
> the ear fatigue certainly can't be helping sales. The redeeming grace
> of lossy coded music is that it often makes crushed digital audio
> sound much much worse.

Has anyone done surveys on what listeners actually have on their iPods?

It might not be what you assume.

Regards
-- 
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx