Depeche Mode - Another victim of the loudness race

Rudy wees me op een heel boeiend artikel over het nieuwe album van Depeche Mode. En over hoe het compleet ver** is door de editors/producers, omdat deie het “hard” willen laten klinken.> […] as it’s not my intention to criticize the band, but illustrate how modern “louder is better” CD mastering methods have spoilt what should and could have been a great album. Having listened to the CD a few times I was satisfied with the quality of the songs, but it was nagging at me that something didn’t sound right. I’m not talking about musical style or if the vocals and instrumentation were up to scratch, but the overall sound quality of the recording. Having heard with my ears that something wasn’t right, I decided to use my eyes to see what what could have gone wrong…

Zijn conculsie is dat de vinyl versie een stuk beter gemaakt is. Niet dat vinyl zelf beter is, maar dat ze die versie gewoon wél goed hebben opgenomen. > I’m not one of those people who cling on to the belief that vinyl (analog) is a superior format to compact disc (digital).[…]The vinyl recording was normalized to maximum peak value. Comparing the two waveforms, it’s abundantly clear how much sound detail was sacrificed (on the CD edition) for the sake of MAXIMUM LOUDNESS. Is that progress?!Ik heb het album voorlopig even van mijn allofmp3 wishlist afgehaald (die rippen immers direct vanaf CD) en zoek wel een gedigitaliseere versie van het vinyl.