who ever made this video completely misunderstands the "loudness war". death magnet was made in 2008, well after dynamics were taken out of most music recordings.

I agree, but the point is, this is one of the most egregious, mainstream examples of it.

Maybe you could explain to us who don't really understand, what's the big deal? It sounded like the drums and cymbals were clearer on the GH version. What's wrong with a slightly different mix?

um, it's extremely nerdy and requires at least a minor understanding of recording techniques.

let's see.

dynamics is the difference between the quietest sounds and the loudest by amplitude. recordings with a lot of dynamics generally sound more natural and detailed because it leaves the transients more or less intact.

compression in audio is the reduction of those dynamics which generally has the effect of making the recording sound louder by RMS amplitude or the recording which is at the cost of the transient details.

the "loudness war" is basically the conflict between sound engineers that try to make a recording sound good and producers and labels demanding that the recording sounds loud so that it stands out from other recordings. this is done by compressing the recording and limiting it's dynamic range. to give you an idea of how much recordings are compressed vinyl records have a dynamics range of about 50dB (i believe) and CDs have a dynamics range of 90dB. pop recordings and especially pop rock recordings have a dynamic range of 3dB. jazz and classical records will generally use most of the available dynamic range and will be compressed very little if at all.

the ideal for most music is a well compressed recording that still retains the transient detail. something that is very difficult to do well.

the loudness war started approximately in the early 90s (i believe) and mainstream recordings have gotten more and more compressed to try and stand out from their contemporaries by sounding louder. what you're actually hearing in this video is the difference between a CD recording (with a dynamic range of 90dB, and probably using about 2-4dB) and a DVD quality recording (with a dynamic range of 144dB and probably using about 6-12dB).

i'm a little rusty, but i think that's fairly accurate. if you're interested in further reading i just found out that wiki has a good page on the loudness war. and interestingly enough the album this song is from is listed as an album that has been criticized for sounding like crap for the sake of sounding loud which basically makes this example completely useless and confusing for anyone who's not already familiar with the loudness war. to really understand the differences you need to listen to something that was recorded before the loudness war and a remastered version after.

here's a decent example of what the difference is. you can see how much info is missing by the graphical representation of the sound too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v6ML2DsBfA

http://www.videosift.com/video/Loudness-War-Education-Video

Moving this video to RedSky's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

*beg

Sending this video to Beggar's Canyon to plea for a little attention - beg requested by original submitter RedSky.