Re:Mastered for iTunes: how audio engineers tweak tunes for ...
by te_chris on Wednesday February 22, 2012 @11:04PM
(#3623749)
That's because music listening has traditionally been about source reproduction and I hope this remains the case. Sure you can apply compression or whatever if you want, but you're going to destroy the sonic quality of the recording even more, and, as an audio engineer, I hope software manufacturers keep "limiting" your freedom in this regard (sorry for the pun...).
Re:Mastered for iTunes: how audio engineers tweak tunes for ...
by barrkel on Thursday February 23, 2012 @08:47AM
(#3624884)
Reproducing source audio level doesn't help when you're e.g. listening to something on a plane, with a large amount of background noise, and you want to actually hear the damn thing. Users' opinions count for something too.
I wouldn't mind so much that an album is quiet, if any MP3 player actually allowed me to turn it up to a reasonable level (letting me sacrifice the listening experience on my own terms, when and if applicable.) Why is VLC the only* piece of software to combine volume level and compression-gain into a single output slider?
* Amusingly, the iPod's software knows how to apply compression just-in-time--but it only does it if you've applied a "volume adjustment" pragma to the song in iTunes. And then whenever the song comes up, you have to turn down your volume slider from 80% to 30% to avoid having your ears fall off, because "loud" on desktop speakers is a very different thing than "loud" on in-ear headphones.