The 'Power' of Compression
Here is an interesting post on the 'Ask E.T' forum of the website of Yale professor and infographics guru Edward Tufte, regarding perception of loudness. Perceptions are changed dramatically by listener bias as the result of the recorded version, using compression. At the deeper levels, it is more evidence of the power of the musician and composer to play with perception at both the compositional level and performance levels. Alfred Hitchcock used to say he 'played the audience like an organ." Compression is now one of these tools, and the listener is playing the organ.
"...Since the early days of recording, music has been compressed to fit onto the records or tapes they were recorded on. This compression dramatically reduces the dynamic range of the music. (Dynamic range is the difference between the softest and loudest parts of a recording.Compression increases the level of the soft parts and lowers the level of the loud parts.) It is further compressed to be broadcast on radio or TV. The result is music that varies in volume very little. The album Californication by the Hot Chili Peppers is reputed to have a 4db difference between the soft and loud (music in clubs and concerts is in excess of 100db) parts of the album. When musicians perform in clubs the audience wants them to sound like the record. The extent to which you sound like the record is how you are judged. If you sound just like the record, you're terrific; if you sound unlike the record, well...
Because of this pressure to sound like the record bands compress their sound too. In the old days we did it with sheer volume. When you play really loud the ears of the audience supply the compression internally. It's part of the ear's self defense mechanism. Today we use electronic compressors. The band I play in today has about 15 db of dynamic range in live performance. Without compression it would be more like 40 or 50 db. Audiences love us. They say all the time that we sound just like the record....Don't blame the band, don't blame the engineer, don't blame the venue. The audience (at least the undiscriminating majority) is getting exactly what they want."
"...Since the early days of recording, music has been compressed to fit onto the records or tapes they were recorded on. This compression dramatically reduces the dynamic range of the music. (Dynamic range is the difference between the softest and loudest parts of a recording.Compression increases the level of the soft parts and lowers the level of the loud parts.) It is further compressed to be broadcast on radio or TV. The result is music that varies in volume very little. The album Californication by the Hot Chili Peppers is reputed to have a 4db difference between the soft and loud (music in clubs and concerts is in excess of 100db) parts of the album. When musicians perform in clubs the audience wants them to sound like the record. The extent to which you sound like the record is how you are judged. If you sound just like the record, you're terrific; if you sound unlike the record, well...
Because of this pressure to sound like the record bands compress their sound too. In the old days we did it with sheer volume. When you play really loud the ears of the audience supply the compression internally. It's part of the ear's self defense mechanism. Today we use electronic compressors. The band I play in today has about 15 db of dynamic range in live performance. Without compression it would be more like 40 or 50 db. Audiences love us. They say all the time that we sound just like the record....Don't blame the band, don't blame the engineer, don't blame the venue. The audience (at least the undiscriminating majority) is getting exactly what they want."
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