Fortissimo!
June 10th 2007 08:17
One of the things many people complain of at our church is the overloud music, music that's blasted out through more speakers than are needed and does nothing for the ears or the soul. I'm not personally averse to loud music: a full-on orchestral noise is marvellous and stirring, but thumps and wallops through speakers (and let's not forget: they used to be called 'loud' speakers) is just unpleasant.
As we get older our ears don't cope with as wide a range of sound, however well we've looked after them, and as a result, in a crowded room with many people talking, it becomes harder and harder to distinguish the conversation you're involved in from the others around you. Amplified music has a similar effect: you can't hear the subtleties as it gets louder.
There's a concern that many young people are becoming slightly deaf because of the loud noise they allow themselves to endure day after day when listening to music, or their need to amplify everything beyond a sensible range.
However, it's now been revealed that much pop music is being produced in such a way that loudness is the only criterion. Sound levels are being artificially enhanced so that the music punches through when it competes against background noise in pubs or cars.
It's not the artists who are doing this, and the engineers are only doing it under sufferance. In fact, they're now campaigning against the techniques that make all the highs and lows of music the same, and at one level: LOUD.
A technique called peak limiting squeezes the sound range to one level, and in the process removes the peaks and troughs that would normally separate a quieter verse from a pumping chorus. But the effect has been to distort the music and often create an unpleasant buzz that can cause nausea in some listeners. Loudness on its own can cause nausea.
For more on this subject, check out this article from the Times Online.
As we get older our ears don't cope with as wide a range of sound, however well we've looked after them, and as a result, in a crowded room with many people talking, it becomes harder and harder to distinguish the conversation you're involved in from the others around you. Amplified music has a similar effect: you can't hear the subtleties as it gets louder.
There's a concern that many young people are becoming slightly deaf because of the loud noise they allow themselves to endure day after day when listening to music, or their need to amplify everything beyond a sensible range.
However, it's now been revealed that much pop music is being produced in such a way that loudness is the only criterion. Sound levels are being artificially enhanced so that the music punches through when it competes against background noise in pubs or cars.
It's not the artists who are doing this, and the engineers are only doing it under sufferance. In fact, they're now campaigning against the techniques that make all the highs and lows of music the same, and at one level: LOUD.
A technique called peak limiting squeezes the sound range to one level, and in the process removes the peaks and troughs that would normally separate a quieter verse from a pumping chorus. But the effect has been to distort the music and often create an unpleasant buzz that can cause nausea in some listeners. Loudness on its own can cause nausea.
For more on this subject, check out this article from the Times Online.
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