flint wrote:
What I don't get is why you think that a louder CD is better than turning
the volume up on the amplifier. Why go through all this work of copying the
CD to your computer and processing it and burning a CD when all you are
doing is turning the volume up?

OK. First of all, I do not go about ripping and normalizing my WAVs
only to then burn them back to CD-Rs. I own over 2,100 compact discs -
most but certainly not all of which belong in the pop/rock category. My
current task at hand is to rip and encode MP3s of every CD in my library
so that I can carry most if not all of it with me in only one or two
large Case Logic zipperbooksful of home-burned CD-Rs.

As I am doing this, I also make duplicates of each US Top 40 hit that I
encounter. These duplicate are then given unique filenames containing
year, month, date, peak, artist and title information so that as I go
about doing all this work, my "hits" will automatically be sorted
chronologically regardless of the order in which I've encoded any given
file.

Please click he http://www.mykec.com/?page=AT40

Over time as more and more "hits" were added to my MP3 library I became
increasingly frustrated in how so many of them were either significantly
louder or quieter than each other due to their having been encoded from
so many different source CDs. Enter "normalize".

As soon as I began using "normalize", I also began noticing how "weak"
and "bad" nearly all of my previously encoded files were sounding in
comparison to the newer, "normalized" ones. Further experimentation
revealed that a significant number of my older, non-remastered CDs could
be "batch normalized" quite safely - usually by a good 5-8 decibels - in
turn making them sound (to my ears) using a single, typical level of
volume virtually as "strong" and as "good" as any of my 24-bit digitally
remastered CDs do. From this I've concluded that the simple process
which I've come to know as "normalization" (by way of this little
"normalize" application) almost certainly plays a significant role in
the digital remastering process - including, of course, all of the other
obvious elements (e.g. higher resolution source material, EQ'ing,
sometimes remixing, etc.) that also usually occurs which is beyond my
individual control.

You keep calling the Gold CD inferior simply because the volume is a touch
lower.

It's not just a touch lower. It's a lot lower. And it sounds bad
because of it. When I first bought Capitol's 1994 remaster, I couldn't
believe the difference between those two CDs. But now that the
amplification issue is within my ability to digitally correct, I think
it might be a fun exercise in boredom now to re-evaluate the relative
fidelities of the source materials used to produce these 2 CDs once
their levels are safely equalized.

Your argument is weak and you are conviced that you have solved the problem
with every older CD every pressed.

At least as far as my common pop/rock CDs are concerned, I am thrilled
now to be able to create MP3s from all of the older ones which sound
approximately equally as loud as my newer remastered discs, yes.

Think of it this way... Instead of just taking 15-20 songs from various
individual CDs and having to equalize their levels prior to burning them
to a new "mix-CD", I am over time creating a "mix-LIBRARY" of more than
2,100 full-length albums. So, just as it is a "good thing" for the
songs of a mix-CD to all share relatively similar levels - it is also a
"good thing" for all of the MP3s created from my older CDs to have
relatively similar levels with those that are made from my remastered
discs. Before I discovered "normalize", this was for me not possible.
How's that for an explanation?

But why try to force the rest of us to agree with you?

In nearly every discussion somebody always has to say something like
that. I don't understand why, because I personally don't care what you
or anyone else might choose to do with your time/life/music/whatever -
unless, of course, you/they have some valid information that could help
me with mine.

If I enjoyed messing with my CDs by altering their sound with digital
processing, I would keep it to myself and enjoy it.

As a musical/noisical recording artist in my own right, I do not believe
in recreational file-sharing. Nearly 100% of everything I've ever done
with my personal music library has never been heard by anyone other than
my wife, my boss and my closest friends and/or relatives.

But screwing with the intended results of the producers is nothing
I would be proud of.

Well, if it means having to choose between (1) once again enjoying an
older CD that's been "normalized" to -10dBFS or (2) stashing it away
forever in a drawer somewhere because I think it sounds like ****, I
think I'll choose the former.

Because until last night when I finally decided to do these tests with
both of "Dark Side Of The Moon" CDs, my MFSL disc hasn't seen the light
of a laser even once in the past 5 years. What good is it to have a CD
that you know you'll never play again? I'm actually surprised that I
hadn't already taken it to a pawn shop or something to get rid of it
before now. After all this, though, I'm really glad I didn't!

Myke

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Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
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