[vorbis] 24/96 ?

[Greg Wooledge]

Merijn Vogel (merijnv at sci.kun.nl) wrote:

> [snip]
> > In pop music, the worst problem now is the fad of compressing the
> > dynamic range to death to make the average volume higher. 
> 
> Which has no point if the DJ is taking care. When playing cd's, a DJ
[...]

CDs?  DJ?  Perhaps the Netherlands still use these things.  Many US radio
stations don't use them any more -- especially the CDs.  The "show" is
produced at one location nationally, and then sent to regional broadcast
towers.  I'm not sure what technology they're using for this distribution,
but it's probably lossy.  If they use music in the show, it's typically
MPEG Layer II (.mp2) format from a computer, not from CDs.

And yes, they're compressing the waveforms to raise the average volume
level.  It's extremely noticeable.

> I think songs that are
> recorded louder are not broadcasted louder (maybe except for the times 
> no DJ is in the studio).

That's a secondary reason why they use waveform compression.  It actually
comes in handy since most radio listeners are in (moving) cars, and the
ambient noise can make the low-volume parts of the signal hard to hear.
So they simply make sure there *isn't* any low-volume sound in their
signal.

The larger US radio stations don't employ disc jockeys.  They employ
people who talk on the air.  The radio programs are (more and more often)
talk shows that have a bit of music every once in a while.  (In the case
of Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh, this is carried to the extreme.)


-- 
Greg Wooledge                  |   "Truth belongs to everybody."
greg at wooledge.org              |    - The Red Hot Chili Peppers
http://wooledge.org/~greg/     |


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