Sound Forge

Well, its been quite a long long time since I wrote my last post. The last semester was probably one of the most hectic ones I have experienced in college life , although I have only completed 3 semesters here, so it would be more qualifying to say that the last sem was by far the most burdening sem. The TA201 course wasn't less than a nightmare! 2 labs a week doing metal-working, welding, and the occasionally getting hit in the groin with a sledge hammer, can wear down even the most accomplished and battle-hardened warriors. And I am only a science geek! :D Fortunately, the Signals and Systems course and the Data Structures and Algorithms course were a huge relief and provided for my intellectual appetite to some extent.

Now, getting back to the main theme of this post. I was actually inspired by this Rolling Stones magazine article to write this post - http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity/print
But wait! I suggest you to stay here. That link is dangerous. No, ofcourse its not. But possibly because I can lend you some insight from a more mathematical perspective about what we are going to discuss.

Let me start by asking if you have ever wondered about or questioned the quality of the music being produced today. Since, we're all living in a world of mp3s and freely, albeit sometimes illegally distributed audio, most of us don't even recognize today's music to exist in the highly generically modified, monotonous, and well, overly loud state that it actually exists in! And no, I am not quibbering about the quality of musicians today because as long as the homosapiens sprawl in the bowers of this earth, extraordinary musicians will be born time and again , and will exhibit their sheer talent and we will all gather around and be wide eyed and hopeful and dream about wooing chicks with that type of musical talent. No, its actually the sound engineering that is to be blamed.

What is it that I am talking about? Well, its something like this. We all know how we like our music loud. It gives us a more exciting, dynamic experience, and most certainly a more environmental, immersive feeling when we get to hear the slightest of details; when the high pitch squealies of Dimebag hit us at full volume and when the bass pounds on every muscle of our body, yes its an incredible feeling. The music industry seems to have taken an extreme obsession in trying to capitalize on this loudness phenomenon and in my opinion, and many others' , this has led to a forever degrading quality of music.


Yes, Yes, you're to blame as well!

Music is characterized by variations in pitch, rhythm, timbre, and loudness. That's what makes music exciting. Its the dynamic range, the panache, the little fluctuations, the moods that are played around with by changing scales. But as of today, most records that are produced ,compromise on this dynamic range, to make everything seem louder. When you take out this dynamic range, the whole song seems to be running on the same loudness level, which may seem amazing in the first hearing, but tends to get monotonous after subsequent repeats. The chorus, the verses all seem to be at the same volume. If you take out this variation, the emotional punch of even the best climaxes is lost since its all at the same level! Its really funny how people are trying to buy more and more expensive sound systems, covering their room walls with limestone or clay and what not for a better acoustic experience when all they are really gearing up for is listening from loud, depth lacking, and less than deserving stored media.

Its not My Fault !!!

Lets have a little look into what really happens. When recorded sound files are compressed via mp3 compression algorithms which at modest best involve fourier domain filtering of the frequencies of sounds that tend to be least perceivable to human hearing. These frequencies may be the ones that are too high for human perception or too low, or the ones that occupy less energy in the spectrum. This doesnt seem so bad and actually it isnt. After all, its fine enough to remove stuff that we cant hear. Then who IS the culprit? Well, its the record labels whose sound engineers try to "deck up" the music. How do they do that? Well, in order to make everything louder, these people simply amplify the less voluminous sounds and well, since you can only amplify everything to a certain maximum, this tends to decrease the gap between the originally loud and quieter portions since the louder portions are left as they were! That sound bad to you? Yes, it is! Its a complete degradation of sound quality and certainly something that most of us dont enjoy. Some of us, know this, when they feel a conscious urge to skip a song, and some of us who are, well much brighter, actually skip over. :D

You can actually get a little feel of this yourself by trying out the following thing - Just go to your
Windows XP/ Vista volume control device and notch up the wave equalizer. Do this once, and then revert the change and this time notch up the volume. Next, notch up both. The both notched up version is what you get and you can see now easily see that you are being cheated!

Me! Pick Me ! :P

Some artists have realized this degradation of sound in stored media, and have consciously tried to avoid such sound engineering that tends to woo listeners in short term, but most have given in to this so called "loudness war". Here is a youtube video I found that, sums it all up quite well. DO have a look at it!

Well guys, me waiting for your comments!