From: "Glenn Meadows" 

With the stations doing this, there has never been a reason to do it at the
mastering stage.

As Radio got louder, the thought that the mix had to sound like what the
radio sounded like is what started this drive.

--

Glenn M.
"mike"  wrote in message
news:imnvp2tqbplo5buugd630o4sm9crg3l1ls{at}4ax.com...
>
> Another aspect of all this.
>
> Radio stations do a similar thing, i.e., compress the dynamic range of
> the music, in order to sound "louder".  Before CDs, there
was a limit to
> how much compression they could use because of the rumble and other
> assorted noises associated with vinyl albums in high usage patterns.
>
> When radio stations started to use CDs, I thought to myself, ahhhh...
> all that background noise is going to go away.   In reality, what
> happened is that the radio stations turned up the dynamic range
> compression even more because now they were not raising the level of the
> clicks, pops and other vinyl noises to a more audible level.  So the
> result of the lower background noise of CDs was a very noticeable
> increase in the dynamic range compression of radio stations.
>
> There was one FM station in NYC WPLJ (95.5, the old WABC-FM) that used
> so much compression that the VU meter needles on my reel-to-reel
> recorder barely moved for minutes at a time.  I could place them at 0dB
> and they would just vibrate within a range of a couple of dB's, even
> through commercials and song announcing.
>
> It is sad.
>
> /m
>
>
> On Sat, 6 Jan 2007 11:00:21 -0600, "Glenn Meadows"

> wrote:
>
>>And, unfortunately, the dynamic range capability of CD is gone, simply by
>>production techniques, in trying to fit everything into the top 6-10 db of
>>the possible dynamic range.
>>
>>It will ONLY change if the consumers keep returning CD's complaining about
>>the quality.
>>
>>Stranger things have happened though.
>>
>>We've been complaining about this for close to 12 years now, but it just
>>gets worse.

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