Loudness Wars?

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Retrology
Posts: 438
Joined: July 17th, 2015, 2:45 am

Re: Loudness Wars?

Postby Retrology » April 21st, 2017, 3:48 am

You know what doesn't have as big of a loudness wars problem as modern music? VIDEO GAMES!!! Sure, some of the earlier ones had limited range, but I'll give them a pass because the resources were primitive. This is especially true for the GBA.

But for many video game soundtracks, they sound so fleshed out and multi dimensional in comparison to modern music. Even SNES titles like the DKC trilogy and WaterWorld have more clarity and emphasis on atmosphere and space than say Death Magnetic.

Perhaps this is because video game composers are less motivated on cashing in, rather trying to create the best atmosphere for a game. I wish the music industry could do the same.

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Stalvern
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Joined: June 18th, 2016, 7:15 pm

Re: Loudness Wars?

Postby Stalvern » April 21st, 2017, 9:45 pm

Retrology wrote:Let's try something else. Can anyone give me examples of albums with GREAT mixing, mastering and overall production values?

Easily the most beautiful-sounding album I've ever heard is Sonic Seasonings, by Wendy Carlos. It's a double album of four pieces, one for each season, all structured around building, shifting atmospheres that are almost disturbingly vivid, from the thunderstorm in "Spring" to the wind and wolves in "Winter''. It's from 1972 but completely blows away all of Brian Eno's "ambient" music from the following decades (and I like Brian Eno). When I first heard it, I made a point to turn the lights off and do nothing but listen to the music for all 86 minutes, and it turned out to be more than justified. If there's an album that deserves to be heard through good speakers or headphones, this is it.

Retrology wrote:But for many video game soundtracks, they sound so fleshed out and multi dimensional in comparison to modern music. Even SNES titles like the DKC trilogy and WaterWorld have more clarity and emphasis on atmosphere and space than say Death Magnetic.

Perhaps this is because video game composers are less motivated on cashing in, rather trying to create the best atmosphere for a game. I wish the music industry could do the same.

This is a meaningless point. Even if the SNES could compress its audio signal (it can't, certainly not while running an actual game), it predates the loudness wars by almost a decade; dynamic compression wasn't even used in mastering at all until Oasis's What's the Story, Morning Glory? in 1995. Games in the 21st century definitely have compressed music.

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Retrology
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Joined: July 17th, 2015, 2:45 am

Re: Loudness Wars?

Postby Retrology » April 22nd, 2017, 3:49 am

Idk if I can completely agree with that. While I do agree 21st century games have had compression, I own a good amount of VG albums, many of which do not have compression. Do you know of any major examples where VG music was compressed? (not judging just curious)

Anyway, I was listening to "Last Plane Out" by Toy Matinee and it sounds fantastic on stereo. Listened to that song a lot back in the 90s.


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