ewwwwww....

Saw and Saw 2 are on tv tonight....

ewwwwwww.....

T-Bones, I spent half the day watching a Deadliest Catch marathon. lol! I so enjoy watching those crab fisherman. lol! What a nasty job!

hybes,

you don't need to understand the dB thing right away, what you need to understand is... that if a record is way too loud, you will end up not hearing its subtleties, because every instrument on it is loud, mastered loud, at the same level. That means that a flute will be as loud as a kick drum.

I will take for example, "Oriental Melody". When the drums starts it kicks it right away, when the solo guitar comes in you notice that it is louder that it was supposed to be, because that solo guitar has been mastered at a loud level. You will hear the guitar plainly, but that will hinder you to pick the subtleties as tamburines, subtle cymbals. When a record is plainly loud, there are no dynamics - Dynamics is when each instrument is supposed to sound at their appropriate volume level.

You can do a comparison listening to Surfing with the Alien, (old edition) with the new "remastered" Surfing with the Alien legacy edition. The first issue has a average level of 88dB. Very well mastered. In the new version, the levels were pushed +9dB. So the songs have an average level of 97,5dB. (which is the same as saying the track has a replaygain level of -9,5dB - Because ReplayGain referece level is around 89dB). Listen to both records, the old and the new one, and you will notice that making the record louder does not improve anything, on contrary, it kills all subtleties of the record, because now everything is flat. Please check the page in Youtube: [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ[/url] It's easy to understand... Loudness race is just a disease, without a cure at the moment...

I'm a few days behind on posts...let's see how many I get through tonight. I see there's a bit of a discussion about the "loudness war"...I have some stuff to say about that but I may wait until my next post... In general though, I'll say there's a difference between what the loudness peak is on an album and how dynamic the recording is as a whole. Also, it's possible for an album to sound great regardless of what any waveforms look like. Yes, PSATMOR is "louder" overall than many of Satch's other albums...but I think it still sounds OK. There aren't a million instruments fighting for space or anything like that.

About my journalism career (hmmm, it seems weird saying that), I really looked at my time in sports as an opportunity to do something I hadn't ever really done before. When I worked at my school paper I did a lot of news and arts/entertainment, and a bit of opinion stuff, but not too much sports. So it was nice to spend nine months getting a taste of that...and I do love sports.

But I love the news side of things much more. I like how it's so unpredictable, and how the front page can change several times over the course of the night. As cool as sports is, at the end of the day it's really just event coverage...it's not quite interesting enough for me.

No, I'm not disappointed; it's good to hear you gave it a listen though. There's a lot of music out there, and there's still plenty that we both like.

Your question was directed to Igneousiceman but I wanted to throw my two cents in. I think he was always clean. He's been tested hundreds of times during the Tour and those tests have never been positive. If he was cheating, it would have come out by now. It doesn't matter how famous you are...that stuff always comes out.

But I think the strongest evidence is in the other riders. When Armstrong was a Tour regular, there weren't many high profile riders who tested positive. I'm sure on the "inside" riders know who dopes and who doesn't. They knew Armstrong was clean so they had to stay clean. Once he stopped doing the tour, it seems to me the doping incidents increased a bit. I don't think that's just a coincidence.

Go Cadel Evans!

Go Greg Norman!

I have just returned home from a great weekend in New Plymouth (New Zealand). I live 6 hours north (by bus) in Auckland. I attended Club Joe as well as his stage performance last night at the TSB Stadium.

It was the first Satriani concert that I have ever been to and it was definately worth it. During the show it felt as if there wasn't enough preperation before the show for the band to sound test but still a great show considering. The turn-out was great (in my opinion) and everybody was reasonably well behaved. Thanks to Club Joe I now have my beautiful Ibanez guitar signed and I will forever be playing it day after day.

To all those who havn't yet had the chance to see Joe in concert I really hope the time comes when you can. He does such a great job at entertaining and manages to express through his music the way that he feels and has felt at times.

Its late now and I have work in the morning but I couldn't resist posting some feedback in the hopes that during Joe's busy schedule he may stumble across this message because I'm sure all the positive feedback and encouragement will help keep him inspired so that we may all continue to enjoy his music for years to come.

I sure hope Satriani does come back to New Zealand because I would very much like the chance to see him perform once more.

Thank's Joe for Inspiring me to play. Through your advice I will overcome my nervousness and I hope to share my music with the rest of the world as you have done.

H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y

DTS> some random led zep info regarding the song BLACK COUNTRY WOMAN. which you might or might not know. i apologise if you do.

The Black country is an area in the midlands, Uk. Namely dudley, wolverhampton, stourbridge, etc. possibly named because it was the most industrialised area of the UK many many years ago and was rich with coal. so it either got its name from the polution of all them old factories or the coal seams. so obviuosly the woman in song comes from that area.it has zippo to do with skin colour either.

my fiances a black country woman, but aint got no sister and doesnt sound so mean as the lady in the song.

my next information quest is bron-yr-ar whihc im guessing is gaelic.

Skippygirl - Ah, cool. What do you think of Is There Love In Space? That's my favorite Satriani album...

The higher the peak when you're recording, the more room you give yourself for differences in volume. And that just makes things sound better. For simplicity, let's say when recording you can go up to 10. If you record an album that peaks at 3, you only have a few sounds...0 (no sound), 1 (quiet), 2 (medium), 3 (loud). But if you're doing that, you're limiting yourself...it's like you have a guitar amp that goes up to 10, but you keep it down at 2 or 3 so you never get to hear all the sounds it makes when it's wide open.

Most CDs released in the 80s are essentially straight transfers from vinyl...if we stick to my 10 scale, I'd say most of them peak around 6 or 7. That's good, but it could be a touch better.

Take a song like Led Zeppelin's Stairway To Heaven. If you were recording it, maybe you'd do it like this: The intro would be at 1 or 2, and once the vocals come in maybe you're up to 4. In the breaks between the first verses maybe you only go down to 3 instead of back to 2. When the drums kick in maybe your'e at 5, and you increase that to 6 until the solo. The solo would probably be at 8 or 9, and then you'd dip down to 7 for the ending verse ("And as we wind on down the road..."). The vocal line that the song ends on would probably be back down at 2 or 3.

Not all songs change as much as Stairway To Heaven, though. There are a lot of punk or metal songs out there that are only 3 minutes long...they start at 5 and work their way up to 10 over the course of the song. That's fine, because it's the style of the music.

So let's say you have an MP3 player and you listen to 10 of those punk songs, and then Stairway To Heaven comes on. Your first five minutes of that song will be quieter than the quietest parts of all the songs you've just listened to.

So what happens? Out of fear that you'll no longer like Stairway To Heaven because it's "quieter" than your other music, they re-release it and change the levels. That intro that was at 2 is now at 6...it goes to 7 when the vocals come in and doesn't dip back down during the instrumental breaks. The drums make it 8, the solo goes up to 9, and the outro is back at 8. The last vocal line is at 6.

This approach isn't any better than the 0-3 approach I first mentioned...it's just as limiting. The only difference is these numbers are at the top of the scale and 0-3 are at the bottom, so the music is louder. But then the 6 is too quiet, so the next CD to come out starts with 7 as the lowest point...then 8, and so on. Eventually you're at 10 and you're left with two options, "no sound" (0) and "sound" (10). Ugh...

This bugs me because they're deciding how loud our music should be (I guess it doesn't matter that we have our own volume controls on stereos), and they're sacrificing musical quality when they do it. It makes things sound horrible.

To answer the questions at the end of your post using my over-simplistic examples, the songs that sound normal on your MP3 player are probably recorded in a 7-10 range. The songs that sound quiet are probably older and from an early (1980s) CD...they may have a wider range, something like 0-7. But even though they're better, when compared to the louder music they sound "worse" because they're quieter. It's a mental thing. In reality, the 0-7 song is done correctly and the other one is much louder than it should be. But we're at a point now where more songs are done "wrong" than the ones that are done "right"... It's sad...

Listening to: Shinedown - If You Only Knew

Do the Stu,

Very good explanation on the loudness war. I was listening to "Flying in a Blue Dream" today, on my relatively decent stereo. It sounds so great. I am not sure what you mean by "some 80's CD's are a plain vinyl transfer" - although there might be something like this out there, I believe that most of CD's do come directly from the master tapes.

Professor Satchafunkilus lacks so much. Take Super Colossal. Super Colossal is an average album, it is loud, but it has some dynamics in there, the punch of the drums. I would say it is a "well mastered loud album" (although I think quieter would have been so much better). If you compare SC with PSATMOR, it's a huge huge difference. You can feel it. Satchafunkilus sounds so flat, the cymbals sound dim, there is no bass guitar, something is definitely wrong.

This is not to say PSATMOR is unlistenable, it is. And there are thousands of horrible loud albums out there which are totally distorted. Not PSATMOR. Take an example, Depeche Mode Playing the Angel, or Red Hot Chilli Pepers Californication - these albums are the "absurd" of loudness comparing to anything else. PSATMOR is no way near them, although a little close.

I've been following with interest the discussion on 'loudness' on different recordings, and although much of what is being said is over my head I had of course noticed that some CD's are louder than others, and some were of better quality of others. Eg, I have 'Bonfire' CD thats poor and might be, as Do the Stu said, recorded straight from vinyl.

Tuesdayschild,

It is possible that a remaster will enhance your listening experience. For example. Jean Michel Jarre's new Oxygene 2007, in contrast with 1976 issue (commonly 1988-1992 CD pressings), offers a different experience. Of course that the new issue is loud, not absurd, but loud (as loud as Super Colossal). But I have heard both issues and I can tell you that the new remastering has different effect mixes on stereo, while preserving the original sounds from the old recording. Though in a very decent stereo system, the old recording will sound much better because of its higher dynamics.

Another example of a nice remaster is Depeche Mode's Speak & Spell debut album in 1981. The 2006 re-issue corrected a few things, like synths getting out of tune (1 glitch that was there for years), the voice is not well centered, leaning to the left in the old version. The new version corrects all this, of course it is louder, but not so loud. (-5.00dB) vs (-0.20dB) original. So the loudness is acceptable. So this is also another case of the benefits of remastering.

But the most majority of remastered CD's, unless the artist or a very reputated engineer works this for the better, is just a crank up in the volume. That's what I can say about "Tears for Fears Songs from the Big Chair" re-issues of 1999 and 2006. The new remasters are just plain louder and distorted. It doesn't benefit anything at all from the remastering. It all seemed like they re-recorded the same mastertape with absurd volume levels.