Whose Idea Was Compression?

[Tero]

Compression is the same as the LOUD setting, chopping off highs on the graphic representation so lows can be brought up higher. There are Youtube videos of it. One album that is currently only available in LOUD is
http://www.amazon.com/Some-Girls-Rollin ... 395&sr=1-1

play the samples there.

Where did this start? Now all remastered songs are sharpened, cleaned up and then, in the final step RUINED by compression.

[Tero]

This is the official BS: Compression is often used in music production to make performances more consistent in dynamic range so that they "sit" in the mix of other instruments better and maintain consistent attention from the listener.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression

[Xamonas Chegwé]

It's so all songs played on the radio sound similar in volume, both between songs and within songs, so you don't have to fiddle with the volume on your car radio. It was not created with audiophiles in mind!

[Tero]

And they couldn't just have a switch at the radio station that says "compression?" I once had a car stereo with a LOUD button.

[BarnettNewman]

If you've ever made a mixtape in the old days you would adjust the level of each track before you recorded it. I had a friend who who a rudimentary compressor/limiter and noise gate to suppress the crackling from vinyl between tracks (the the good ole days of sitting around for an afternoon making mix tapes). In the old days, you wouldn't notice the difference in mastering between albums because of the time taken to swap them out. Nowadays pretty much everything is a playlist. Current mastering pretty much ensures consistency for this purpose.

[cronus]

Always be cautious with remastered versions. Some are improvements most are not.

[Brian Peacock]

Where did this start? Now all remastered songs are sharpened, cleaned up and then, in the final step RUINED by compression.

Then you hear it on the radio, and it's compressed again by the broadcaster, and your digital radio compresses it again, and all you can here is the backbeat and the wubwubwubs and the reverb wafts in and out of focus squashed into the gaps between the peaks. One big mushi-mush-mush.

And yet it can be used creatively. Listen to the vocals on this (sorry, it's a YouTube) from the days before autotune (and don't get me started on autotune!)...



This crisp and balanced vocal effect is achieved by chaining a number of compressors together, all at very low settings, each one feeding into the next.

The compression I really object to is that used on adverts which makes them sooo much louder than the programme and has you diving for the remote.

[JimC]

Robert Boyle.

[Brian Peacock]

Gerhardt Kwaftwangler.

[laklak]

Moshe Ben Judah. He was the 3rd century B.C. police chief of Bethlehem, and found that you could elicit a very loud noise from a prisoner if you sufficiently compressed his goolies.

[klr]

Lossy compression of audio goes back to the days when portable storage space and Internet bandwidth were still relatively scarce and expensive commodities.

Even today though, lossy video compression is still essential.