Dynamics

My experiences in the world of Hi-Fi have provided quite an education. One of the things I have learned that has really surprised me is how poor most of the popular CD recordings are. I believe I have mentioned this in a previous post, but I recently read an article written by recording engineer Bob Speer that talks a bit about *why* most modern CD releases sound so bad. I encourage you to read the article, but his basic point is that there has been a misconception that louder=better, and the music industry raced to see whose CDs could sound the loudest. This race for volume has caused recordings to be compressed and has left little room for any range of volume within the recording.

Now I will agree with Mr. Speer that many modern recordings do not have much in the way of dynamics, but I am not convinced that it is totally the recording industry's fault. I have been to a number of live performances by modern bands, and they are not particularly dynamic either. At these live performances the emphasis has been on loud as well. I would posit that the recording industry has followed the lead of popular music on this one instead of leading it. The problem here is that many engineers have let this emphasis on loud carry over to recordings that should have more subtlety, and in these recordings the dynamics are lost. But those are just my thoughts. Read the article, listen to music, and if you have comments feel free to leave them!

I found Mr. Speer's article linked from a short article over at 6moons.com in which Srajan gives some advice about how to deal with the problems of most modern CD recordings. I found the 6moons article quite interesting in its own right and I encourage you to read it as well.