Zappa.com

Its time for this thread. What are your thoughts on In-the-box, Out-of-the-box, Plug-Ins, 1/8" Headphone Cables feeding your Amps, 1-Bit Audio, Compression, ProTools, Mastering, Remastering, IPods, Filters, Loudness, Tubes, Headroom, aac, wmp, mp3, Sub-Woofers, Multi-Channel, all that shit. Maybe you are bringing this stuff up in another thread and don't want to sidetrack that thread by getting technical. Get technical here, or just say why you prefer this or that. Either way, more and more people are using these terms, so we might as well know what we are talking about.

I'd like to start with...

COMPRESSION - Its not all evil. The jist is that it makes the loudest sounds quieter and the softest sounds louder so that once you set the volume, you don't have to keep changing the volume to hear well. Some compressors are better at it and they all need to be used properly to not end up with a bad result. The interwebs are full of people who scream like a baby every time some chart shows them that an album they probably otherwise would have liked has been compressed. Nearly every recording you've ever heard has been compressed in a variety of ways. Compressed vocals, compressed guitars, drums, any instrument, compressors used to make a guitar to feedback, to keep amps from being overloaded, compression as an effect... Like anything, it can be overdone, but that doesn't mean that its overdone simply because you've discovered that it exists. What exactly do you hate about compression? Where do you listen? How often are you actually listening to something critically as opposed to just enjoying something with the windows down in the car? If I'm in the car with the windows down I WANT compression so I can still hear the song at 70mph! If I am in a recording studio or even listening to a well-setup home stereo my needs change. Sure, I want the best if I have the time of day and money to do so, but I can enjoy music from a 2-inch mono speaker if that is all that I have on hand at the time and there are MANY steps between that and As-Good-As-Possible.

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Don't Be Stupid Unless You Want To

All things in moderation. Any manipulation is okay if the goal is to make the sound from your speakers, or whatever, more "natural". Overuse causes grief which generally manifests itself as "listening fatigue".
Autotune is never a good idea. If you can't sing in tune, don't.

If you can't sing in tune, just don't use autotune. Dylan doesn't use it and Zappa didn't use it.

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

some people has complained about Buffalo was to much compressed, i dont care it sound good on my system. The album i know is the more compressed is Metallica death magnetic, i just lower the volume, i never listened to it with head phone to see if it has distortion but it sound fine.

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Keep the great work!

here is my system:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl ... 1138079081

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Keep the great work!

So, I don't want to turn this into a Speaker Thread, but I think there are a few things relevent here. I listen to alot of different kinds of speakers. I generally am glad to have some tunes on wherever I go, and if that means listening to sub-par audio, thats better than not. Here are how the speakers change through the day:

First thing - During Breakfast, I'll watch/listen to a mismatched pair of full-size speakers out of an old JVC amp.
Shower - Pair of Radio Shack speakers mounted flush with the ceiling. Kinda cool that it turns the ceiling into a woofer. If Miss Kitty is still in bed, I'll play an old cell phone which has a mini-sd card for just such situations.
Car - Decent stereo with subwoofer and input for IPod. Miss Kitty has a Pandora Account. Lately been doing some books on cd.
Truck - Less decent stereo. Has a tape converter for the IPod input and an old unused satellite receiver. Tape converter won't work in cold weather until the truck heats up, so radio or cds mostly.
Work - Headphones or a Mackie Mixer into either a DVD audio setup for casual monitoring or a Crown amp into NS-10s for critical listening.
Living Room - An old pair of Fischers. Still sound damn good, originally made in the 70s.
Back Yard / Garage - Share a pair of full size speakers, each bussed to be a mono output so I can hear every instrument even though I may not be anywhere near the speakers at the time. I'd rather have a complete sound than a full sound any day.
Kitchen - My Ryobi tools have batteries that also run a portable speaker that I can plug my IPod into.

If I'm playing stuff on any given one of the above setups, sometimes I'm more or less concerned about whether a tunes is this format or that, whether its compressed or not, whether eq was used on the vocal or reverb was added to the drums. But, when I'm doing the dishes, compression is a fine thing! If I'm watching a movie Loudness is good thing. If I'm camping and listening to the Ryobi, I'm glad that my IPod is able to boost the bass frequencies. I'll try to make the best out of any listening environment and often wonder how I can enjoy the shrill output of a verizon cellphone first thing in the morning, but am glad that the cell phone has a bass boost function too.

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Don't Be Stupid Unless You Want To

OMG. Is there one moment of silence in your daily life?

Th.

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Active forum member since 2005 - R E T I R E D from public forum activity in 2013

Um, sometimes?
I did accidentally leave out the computer monitors (lame), the mono broadcast amp/speaker (Tascam, very reliable), the Tannoys in the dining room (standard bookshelf) and the recording room monitors (2 pair, mismatched)!

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Don't Be Stupid Unless You Want To

Pretty much the same here.
Car & Truck: Factory CD players with upgraded speakers and subs, no MP3z here.
Office: Vintage Marantz receiver, about a dozen to choose from, on Large Advents, or ADS L500 speakers.
Preferred location: Dahlquist DQ-10 speakers driven with NAD power amps.
mowing the lawn: small player with FLAC files, once again no MP3z, and Woodies earphones, under Peltor isolating ear protection.

I almost always have music playing. It quiets the voices in my head....

Hahahaha... same here, except that I think for me, its something for the voices to talk about!

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Don't Be Stupid Unless You Want To

Some More Talk About Compression...

Sure, if you are seated in a perfect listening environment, you don't need compression for a well-made mix. So, I was just listening to Carnegie and trying to hear FZ's dialog in Call Any Vegetable. I'm currently in very large room with fans going on. So, if I crank it up so that I can hear the dialog, then when the band kicks back in, the volume is way too loud. Enter compression. I had to push the compressor up approximately 15dB in order to get the dialogue to be understood without having the band too loud.

For the people who hate compression, in this situation would you:
a) Not try to hear the vocals
b) Have the band ridiculously loud in order to still hear the vocals
c) Never listen to this music in this environment
d) Compress

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Don't Be Stupid Unless You Want To

I do not hate dynamic range compression.
However I would prefer the music to be stored without too much of it in order to preserve the signal accuracy, which should be a piece of cake in the digital era.
IMO it is the role of the rendering/playing device to be tuned adequately according to the environment and/or the user preferences.
Whatever, we can face the same kind of issue with sound equalization, pictures color calibration, and so on.
And I suspect some idiot copyright owners and music majors may also sometimes decrease quality on purpose, for instance if they do not want their customers to use material that is too close to the master.

LMAO

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Keep the great work!