[●]'ing a quietly intents wall uv noize during loudness wars w/ schizo- mineareyes d-zzz when ∀ll amps go to 11 |
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11/25/19 2:57 a.m.> Woke up w/ bad vertigo + ringing ears so we's gunna record [●] our food/drink intake from the few last dayzzz + going fwd [>>] to git to the bottum uv what's triggering our mineareye's episodes (4 any 1 intrested in such self-dieagonysis... utterwise [>>] a head):
11/26> Yesterday ate serial w/ blueberries, quesadillas, a few handfulls uv p-nuts (50% salted) + 7-8 black bean tacos w/ cheese, poblanos, scallions, avocado, salsa. No alcohol. Slept a little bedder than last nite, but still feeling groggy, head spinning, ears ringing. May-b just a carry-over from episode yesterday. Clear morning, 29.98 Hg. Had sum dream at 1 a.m. we can't toetilly recall cuz we din't wanna git up to [●] her, but we was mastering our album in sum control room/execution chamber, surrounded by observing sighingtists + we hit a curtain point where we [●]'d ova a spot + ∀ll the sighingtists (who'd become prison guards/executioners) stood up, ℝeelizing they'd bin duped, dat we (now a convicted felon on death row) had found a loophole in the «up for parole» [●]'ing system dat cd expand the inner walls w/ sound + allow us to s-cape... if we wantid to, bud we just sat dare smirking. We was akin to Richard Feynmann at Los Alamos (cracking top-secret safes), wanting to [▶︎] a joke on the guards just to expose a weakness in the capitol punishment system. In post #578 when we confessed we herd things unℝeel we also tocked about the current climate uv noize saturation—how we struggle to keep our sensus w/∀ll the chiacchiera chatter, mashene noize, electromagnetic waves, etc., flooding the air, specially in Rome folks gotta parlay louder + louder to bee herd. Lo stesso vale in the music moondough, bands ratcheting up volumes past 11 cuz utterwise u git lost in the super-marketed mix (to quote The Clash). Dis current climate + our mineareyes has maid mixing + mastering our 4th-coming Sound ƒuries album (3.3 x 3.3 = S.S.) challenging, but we's getting dare... almost dun, we think. [<<] to the biginning uv track #1 V-dubbed), dat's Richard Burton saying «how a bout a quietly noisy relaxed intensity?» witch sorts uv set the preseedent for the album gong [>>], or at least the sound we strive 4. Problem is perhaps we [●]'d her t00 quiet cuz when our bedder-½ was [▶︎]'ing back a 1st take uv a master demo on a plane to Lundone last week + s/he cd barely here nada. Shore, u can blame the jet ingenes + noize uv the plain, bud fact is it's hard to compeat in the nu musicle pairodime uv sensory overlode. Musicians need to crank amps + scream louder + louder to bee herd, escalating [●]'ing levels 2 absurd proportions. We don't god menny eggsamples uv current pop music on our computer in MP3 format to illustrate our pt, but hear's sum sample waveforms uv popalure/contemptorary music we do halve on file as illustration (u can [▶︎] 'em in the above mixtape we maid for the occassion): Crazy thang about the last 2 is dat they is quiet bands, mellow music u ain't inklined to crank to 11, but dat u want to here in high fidelity, no? We love Beach House but would 7 bee even bedder if re-mastered quieter, a bit more breathing room between highs + lows? Bands nowadayz compress dare tracks so mush dat they flatline into blocks uv squished noize w/ no definition left in the wave, flatlining the max threshold uv -0 db into super-saturation. Most bands halve embraced this, like we wonder if Bloc Party is named cuz uv how dare waveforms look? Or is Δ (Alt-J)'s 2012 song «Breezeblocks» also a [▶︎] on how the song looks on screan? Other bands halve not onelie caved into the «if u can't beat em, join 'em» mentollity, but halve exploited such compression tech-neaks to intresting FX, like Crystal Castles or NIN: + from the likes uv Norwegian death metal band Dimmu Borgir u might not xpect anything less from dare waveforms: Bud true noize-sculpting afficionados [●]'ing in the current climate know dat u don't gadda toetilly flatline yo waves to sound loud + good. To bedder understand how we arrived to these current loudness wars, we need to consider the hystorickle evolution uv sound ingeneering. [<<] to the '60s/'70s... we was born before digitoll music, when u listened to albums on vinyl or cassette. In dem analog dayz the rule uv thumb was to record well b-lo –1 db... –3db was considered safe, to stay out uv the red. Especially w/ vinyl u wantid to master below –3 db cuz utterwise the record might skip. Usually on (good) stairios u onelie had to putt the volume at 5 (out uv 10)... dare was always headroom to turn her up more. Not sure how we got the b-lo MP3s... the Led Zep was likely normalized when we x-ferred from vinyl or tape, bud the Pink Floyd is probly ℝeelisticaly how most vinyl looked [<<] back then (no peaks going over –3 db). Since 1 usually [▶︎]'d whole albums (or singles), watt mattered most was relative levels b-tween trax + w/in the song herself, to build crashendos. If u mixed a mixtape for a friend or loved 1, u usually had to adjust levels b-tween records. Radioplay became a consideration [<<]'ing even further to the '50-'60s, witch informed Phil Spector's infamous «wall uv noise» approach. We don't god MP3 eggsamples uv any uv his productions (unless they've bin remastered) to vu, but even those we imagine probly had perty healthy waveforms. Contrary to the «wall uv noise» monniker, Spector's approach din't amount to just cranking the faders so much as augmenting + layering instruments/voices to acheive a rich, lush density, where u cd make out the melody even on shitty supermarket speakers. Here's what Spector did for Ramones (likely a remaster dat we bot digitally)... the waves surf close to 0 db but don't flatline into neighboring waves: Speaking uv Ramones (they stole their name from Paul McCartney, who used to check into hotels w/ the name Paul Ramone), McCartney wasn't a fan uv what Phil Spector did to Let It Be, so re-released the album more like how they originully intendid her to sound, as Let It Be... Naked, reminding us a bit uv the Carver/Lish controversy—dat fine line uv how heavy-handed editors/producers shd bee. Continuing chronologically [>>], here's the wavform for «Banned in DC» by Bad Brains (also speaking uv Ramones, from whom Bad Brains in turn stole their name, from 1 uv dare songs), the Ric Ocasek produced version from Rock for Light (1983) (+ to dive 1 degree of seperation deeper, the classic Songs for a Blue Guitar by Red House Painters serendipitously has 2 covers, 1 by McCartney («Silly Love Songs») + 1 by The Cars («All Mixed Up»)): The next 2 eggsamples are from EPs dat we member we used to play (sticking the needle down, not hitting no [▶︎] btn) ℝEELLY LOUD, ova + ova + they soundid great, not n aota uv (unintended) distortion (helps dat they played at 45 RPM stead of 33). 1985 was also the year uv Pyschocandy by Jesus + Mary Chain, hoo took a unique approach dat guess u cd call «wall uv noise» but not in the Phil Spector sense (tho their sound did halve a sorta bubble-gum Beach Boy pop sensibility), but more as if u was listening to them on a shitty AM raydio in a car parked at the end uv an airport runway. Not sure if ever we told the story hear on 5cense.com, how once upon a time we wint to shcool to bee a sound ingenear? We spent a year or 2 at sum place called the CPMBA (California Professional Music Business Academy). The cupple dat ran the shcool was strait out uv Spinal Tap, curly long-haired cokeheads dat tried to maintain a professional air. It was housed in sum strip mall in Sunnyvale or Santa Clara. After taking classes for a year or 2 we was doing our internship at a [●]'ing studio + almost done w/ our degree/certifictation when we wint to shcool 1 day + the offices was completed gutted + empty. This cokehead cupple dat ran the joint fled town to avoid bankruptcy, w/ no warning to any uv the students or even the teachers! Not dat we gave a shit cuz we din't want to spend our lives inhaling smoke in sum dingy niteclub (what most folk w/ sound engenearing degrees end up doing), tho it was a waist uv sum $3,000 dollhairs. This was in the 80s, before CDs even, so sensibilities was Δiffrent. Folks was ℝeelly into fat reverby snares... we member our stewdio instructor's ideal uv a perfect high-fidelity [●]'ing was Scritti Politti... dat was what we was sposed to strive for! As a final project we was sposed to bring a band into the stewdio to [●], so we roused up our housemate + another friend w/ simalure industrial sensibilities + lugged ∀ll our found musickle objets (oil drums, railroad springs, pipes, flea-market guitars w/ filed down frets dat we played w/ drumsticks, etc.) into this tiny studio in a stripmall in Cupertino, CA (circa 1986, before Apple turned the town into dare «campus»). We called ourselves Naked to the Wolves... here's a clip uv dat [●]'ing (we made up the song on the spot): At the time the only medium we cared about was cassette tapes, dat we [●]ed on 4-track + traded w/ other like-minded tapeheads like Daniel Johnston (R.I.P.). Here's a 4-track [●]'ing we did dat never maid it on an official cassette release, bud we inkloot hear cuz perhaps the liarics reveil dat even way back when we was xpressing cathartic data dat our mineareye's d-zzz (witch we wouldn't ℝeelize we had til 30+ years later) was wether related: Mostly we [▶︎]'d tapes in our car (a '66 VW Bug whose backseat we ripped out + replaced w/ speaker cabinets), or w/ a Walkman. U'd put on a tape + adjust the volume for dat pertickler album. We resisted the transition to CDs, always thought they sounded flat + glitchy + when they skipped it sucked far worse then when vinyl skipped or a tape got eaten by your cassette deck. Around 1987 we sold our vinyl (3 crates worth) cuz we needid cash + lived in a camper-shelled pickup truck so din't halve room for 'em. When we moved to Arizona for graduate shcool (in 1991) we caved in + got our 1st CD [▶︎]er... this was at the beginning uv the loudness wars, w/ the target medium being the CD. db thresholds started creeping up, but still not so bad cuz most stuff was still [●]'d analog. [>>] to the mid-1990s bands + producers we're pushing the envelope louder + louder, [●]'ing digital w/high-flutin tricks to squash waveforms into surreel ceilings uv max headroom. [>>] a few more years to the advent uv MP3, squashing waveforms even further into redonkulus proportions. ... + this brings us up to this deckaid, uv witch the 1st few waveforms we showed we're prime eggsamples (2009 – 2018), representative uv how things halve flatlined into f*****-up super-saturated blocks uv squishy sound... + hear we is now typing dis in the hear + now, 11/26/2019 + we's fixing to release our album (3.3 x 3.3 = S.S.) on 12/24/2019... why we wint thru this hole exorcise uv righting this post, b'way. [<<] a year to our 1st album, un (2018), dat we mastered uncompressed, w/ no peaks higher than –1 db. Our target medium was vinyl (even tho we onelie pressed 2 copies uv dat record) + we was still stuck in our ol shcool wayz, from what we gleened in [●]'ing shcool in the '80s (but now using modurn digitoll technologee (GarageBand + Adobe Audition incase u's wondering)). Hear's what the opening track uv un looks like: Ditto the 4-track tapes from the '80s dat we re-masterd in 2017 (re-released as the unheard tapes, under the auspices uv unknown artist 22/11/66), w/ the target medium being cassette: Wile a pard uv is stubborn, unwilling to partake in these head-bangingly absurd loudness wars, an udder pard uv us ℝeelizes dat u godda adapt at least a bit, cuz utterwise if ever u gits inklooted in a mixed playlist they'll [>>] thinking you're dead air, or if sum1 don't gots such a great sound system (most folks nowadayz listen on their dumbphones, dat mos def don't go to 11) then they'll barely be able to here. So we're mastering 3.3 x 3.3 = S.S. w/ such modurn noshuns uv max headroom in mined, while at the same time paying homedge to Phil Spector (if anything for his hair, yo... speaking uv max headroom). [<<] 2 clicks to post #683 when we maid a Portishead-seedid mixtape, wear all sew we inklooted sum lo-fi tracks from the likes uv Dirty Beaches, Smog + Ariel Pink cuz we appreciate dat approach as a nice releaf from glossy high-def... at least in disguys. Hi-fi lo-fi, or lo-fi hi-fi or sumwhere in b-tween. We dig it when no singul instrawment stands out, when they ∀ll blend together w/ the voix to create 1 unified wall uv sound, loud but lush. We've god to resist the temptation to use these high-flutin' tools at our disposal, to go overboard, utilizing noise-reduction, d-SS'ers, etc. (+ don't get us startid on auto-tune) or overcompressing the shit outta her til she flatlines... just enough dat we get herd, w/out losing integrity for the originul waveform. So w/o furthear a due, hear's the waveforms for the mastered tracks on 3.3 x 3.3 = S.S., witch u can ether [▶︎] by following the links (if we've leaked 'em yet) or by waiting, [>>] to 12/24/2019 when we offishally release the album. |
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# 684 <(current)> 685 > The compittent blown-up presshore uv our dizzy d-zzz diarhea + a free Calamari liebury box to boot | ||
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