Compression & Digital Clipping on “The Compass Point Story”
Strut Records are a UK label that has released some excellent compilations, including the Disco Not Disco series and the two CD set of Larry Levan live at the Paradise Garage. After going out of business for a while, they recently returned with “Funky Nassau - The Compass Point Story 1980-1986.” It’s a fine selection of tracks with liner notes and everything. But the mastering… I was listening and noticed the sound was crunchy, opened one of the tracks in Audacity and this is what it looked like. The waveform peaks are scrunched against the ceiling, which - although I’m far from an expert on these things - I’m pretty sure is digital clipping, and it’s even worse than overloading a tape when it comes to the sound. This is the hard-to-find Guy Cuevas track “Obsession” which many people probably bought the CD for. I can’t find any reference to this online in any reviews of the compilation, which makes me wonder if this is just standard now (I’ve seen the same issue with downloaded WAV files from Beatport). Some of the tracks also sound more compressed than others, the other bane of recent music releases.
What’s particularly painful is that Alex Sadkin is one of the best producers that’s ever lived. If you ever need to check out a hi fi system, I’d recommend anything he laid his hands on but particularly Grace Jones “Living My Life” LP.
I realized I could do an experiment. The top picture is the WAV file of the 12″ version of My Jamaican Guy that is on the Strut compilation. I think, based on what I’ve been reading recently, this is pretty typical of how digital files are mastered these days. The second picture is the WAV file of My Jamaican Guy from the original Island CD, released in 1982. Note the undulations that represent the dynamics of the original master, much closer to the way Alex Sadkin recorded it. Finally I’ve included a youtube video that explains this miserable phenomenon, I had no idea how widespread it was becoming.
Edit 4/19: To be fair to Strut, I checked the same track on the CD compilation Grace Jones - The Compass Point Sessions from 1998 and it’s even worse:
Resources:
Wikipedia - The Loudness War
Turn Me Up - non-profit organization campaigning for musician’s rights to avoid “smashtering,” has an excellent list of article links on the main page.
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July 2nd, 2008 at 7:44 am
Without going into grand detail…
This type of compression is usually referred to as “brickwall” or “brickwalling”. It’s been fairly standard since the late 90’s. When done correctly (with the right analogue or digital compressors) it shouldn’t be noticable to the ears - other than it is louder than its source. Check out a variety of musical genres, such as: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication to most modern house or r&b tracks. This type of compression is common place, these days.
You might say, it’d be easier to turn up the amp instead? But, in the advent that someone forgets to do that, this is just the artists’ (safer) way of making sure their track always sounds loud N proud on the radio, in the club etc.
Having said that, almost all radio stations have their own compressors too - to squeeze more decibels out of the music and, thus, make their station sound LOUD (supposedly, in a good way). This would mean the music you hear on the radio has been compressed once again (not a good thing!).
If you hear distortion or clipping, on a recording. Be it cd, dvd, vinyl or mp3, this is a sign of a bad mastering engineer. He or she must be reported, locked in isolation, and made to listen to a 1,000 hours of a tap dripping water slowly.