This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Karlchwe (talk | contribs) at 06:56, 31 December 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 06:56, 31 December 2005 by Karlchwe (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)This article may meet Misplaced Pages's criteria for speedy deletion, but no reason has been given for why it qualifies. Please ensure that your reason is based on one of the speedy deletion criteria. Replace this tag with {{db|1=some reason}}. NA
If this article does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do not remove this notice from pages that you have created yourself. If you created this page and you disagree with the given reason for deletion, you can click the button below and leave a message explaining why you believe it should not be deleted. You can also visit the talk page to check if you have received a response to your message. Note that this article may be deleted at any time if it unquestionably meets the speedy deletion criteria, or if an explanation posted to the talk page is found to be insufficient.
Note to administrators: this article has content on its talk page which should be checked before deletion. Administrators: check links, talk, history (last), and logs before deletion. Consider checking Google.This page was last edited by Karlchwe (contribs | logs) at 06:56, 31 December 2005 (UTC) (18 years ago) |
This refers to the practice of recording music at progressively higher and higher levels, to create a CD that is as loud as possible. (Louder CD's sound louder when played with the same equipment at the same settings.) One reason may be that when comparing two CD's, the louder one will sound better on first impression. Another may simply be that rock groups just want to make bigger, badder sounds.
This practice often results in a form of distortion known as clipping (see Clipping_(music)).
It is unnecessary, since if listeners want to listen to loud music, they can simply turn up the volume on their playback equipment.
The loudness wars have reached a point in which most pop CDs, and many classical and jazz CDs, having large amounts of digital clipping, making them harsh and fatiguing to listen to, especially on high quality equipment, ironically.
Further, current compression and limiter equipment allows engineers to create a recording that has a nearly uniform dynamic level (which, incidentally, creates an emotional flattening effect and destroys any impact that loudness might have.) When that level is set very close to the maxmimum allowed by the CD format, this creates nearly non-stop distortion throughout the disk. The music has been flattened against the ceiling, so to speak.
This situation has been widely condemned. Some have petitioned their favorite groups to rerelease some CD's with less clipping. Others have even said that recording engineers who knowingly push their recording equipment past clipping should be blacklisted and not allowed to "victimize artists or music lovers."
It should be made clear that this distortion is different from other kinds of distortion such as overdrive or feedback (see Overdrive_(music)), which is created by electronic musical instruments, not by the recording process, and which and can be intentional, and even an integral part of the performance (see Jimi_Hendrix.) Digital clipping is created by recording engineers, not by musicians.