Knife Party and the Loudness War

[Attila]

Cancer sucks

/cancer

[NinjaEdit]

You sound ironic.

[hasezwei]

the more squashed your tune is the less punch it has
so you have to find different ways to give people the feeling of hearing something punchy -> 200Hz everywhere
even on a shitty system you can tell how a tune was mixed down by how the sub hits. if really hits you in the chest rather than being a flabby constant hum you know its the real deal. fuck buzzing fuzzy humming subs, i want shit that makes me move, that gives me a physical experience.

also, silence between the notes.

[noctuidae]

I mean if there's a genre that would be squashed it would definitely be whatever you'd classify knife party as. You know what album is really over compressed tho, Porter Robinsons Spitfire EP. its almost unlistenable

[mthrfnk]

I mean if there's a genre that would be squashed it would definitely be whatever you'd classify knife party as. You know what album is really over compressed tho, Porter Robinsons Spitfire EP. its almost unlistenable

Yet he's had a string of hits on various labels, and has been consistently touring the world for like a year.

[Ocelots Revolver]

I mean if there's a genre that would be squashed it would definitely be whatever you'd classify knife party as. You know what album is really over compressed tho, Porter Robinsons Spitfire EP. its almost unlistenable

Yet he's had a string of hits on various labels, and has been consistently touring the world for like a year.

What does that statement have to do with compression? It's completely irrelevant.

[mthrfnk]

I mean if there's a genre that would be squashed it would definitely be whatever you'd classify knife party as. You know what album is really over compressed tho, Porter Robinsons Spitfire EP. its almost unlistenable

Yet he's had a string of hits on various labels, and has been consistently touring the world for like a year.

What does that statement have to do with compression? It's completely irrelevant.

It's not irrelavent, although it has little to do with compression specifically. A lot of posts in this thread are people complaining about "the loudness war", and they're quite entitled too - listening preferences are obviosuly a very personal thing, I myself don't like when tracks are pushed to the limit badly however I don't mind Knife Party's stuff, especially in clubs and regardless of the content/genre the tracks are well put together, are surprisingly melodic and have a good amount of energy. It's obvious that the likes of Rob Swire know their shit having produced music for over ten years.

However the fact is that most artists that are getting dicked on in this thread because of either over compressing or over limiting their tracks are highly succesful in terms of label signings, releases and tour dates etc. - therefore it's only logical that either they're processing the tracks in this way (self-mastering) in order to make the tracks "seem as loud" next to other EDM tracks in a club/on beatport/in podcasts or their label's are ordering that from the mastering house they are using for the same exact reason. Either way imo it's obvious that what a lot of people describe as over compression/over limting/lack of dynamic range is unavoidable in terms of commercial electronic music (I'm talking brostep, electro-house, prog-house, 110bpm stuff etc. - shit that sells shows of like 1,000's of tickets) because 90% of your audience is only going to be listening from either their iPods, radios or at a club, and "louder" is going to seem a lot better.

Before people start rinsing shit I've said, I realise it's all been said before but the fact is the people supposedly creating unlistenable tracks are the ones raking in the money - and yes I realise a lot of people aren't in this for the money & bitches

[Swelly]

Do you people watch movies on VHS or Blu-ray? When technology gets better, EVERYTHING gets better. Why does it matter if your music is super crisp and loud and high definition or not? How many of you use cell phones? If you have an iphone, or any cell phone for that matter, and you are totally against the loudness war...just piss off.

[deadly_habit]

louder ≠ better

[wormcode]

Do you people watch movies on VHS or Blu-ray? When technology gets better, EVERYTHING gets better. Why does it matter if your music is super crisp and loud and high definition or not? How many of you use cell phones? If you have an iphone, or any cell phone for that matter, and you are totally against the loudness war...just piss off.

What do mobile phones have to do with it? Are you suggesting people should be listening to music via their mobile's speaker????
And what's wrong with VHS? Not everything needs to be 3D DTS HD XL, and the medium doesn't make a film any less good, and sure as hell doesn't make a shit film good. That's like saying a vinyl-only release is shit just because it's not available as MP3. Benny Ill knows, here's a screenshot I just took

[Maccaveli]

Do you people watch movies on VHS or Blu-ray? When technology gets better, EVERYTHING gets better. Why does it matter if your music is super crisp and loud and high definition or not? How many of you use cell phones? If you have an iphone, or any cell phone for that matter, and you are totally against the loudness war...just piss off.

I nominate this for most retarded DSF post of 2012.

[Swelly]

i'm just saying with better technology comes ways of pushing things further than they were able to go before.

[Toolman4]

lol. wow.


(useless contribution, I know..but then again, lol )

[Maccaveli]

But the technology really hasn't gotten any better, digital formats always have the same hard limit to how loud they can be. All this compression and limiting is doing is taking steps backwards in terms of quality and dynamics. Analogue technology in the early 90s could probably do the same thing, but they didn't cos it's pointless. Also: the Blu-Ray/iPhone comparisons make absolutely no sense.

[deadly_habit]

i only view the finest of laserdiscs

[Swelly]

I surrender. You guys win.

[Maccaveli]

[Ocelots Revolver]

I mean if there's a genre that would be squashed it would definitely be whatever you'd classify knife party as. You know what album is really over compressed tho, Porter Robinsons Spitfire EP. its almost unlistenable

Yet he's had a string of hits on various labels, and has been consistently touring the world for like a year.

What does that statement have to do with compression? It's completely irrelevant.

It's not irrelavent, although it has little to do with compression specifically. A lot of posts in this thread are people complaining about "the loudness war", and they're quite entitled too - listening preferences are obviosuly a very personal thing, I myself don't like when tracks are pushed to the limit badly however I don't mind Knife Party's stuff, especially in clubs and regardless of the content/genre the tracks are well put together, are surprisingly melodic and have a good amount of energy. It's obvious that the likes of Rob Swire know their shit having produced music for over ten years.

However the fact is that most artists that are getting dicked on in this thread because of either over compressing or over limiting their tracks are highly succesful in terms of label signings, releases and tour dates etc. - therefore it's only logical that either they're processing the tracks in this way (self-mastering) in order to make the tracks "seem as loud" next to other EDM tracks in a club/on beatport/in podcasts or their label's are ordering that from the mastering house they are using for the same exact reason. Either way imo it's obvious that what a lot of people describe as over compression/over limting/lack of dynamic range is unavoidable in terms of commercial electronic music (I'm talking brostep, electro-house, prog-house, 110bpm stuff etc. - shit that sells shows of like 1,000's of tickets) because 90% of your audience is only going to be listening from either their iPods, radios or at a club, and "louder" is going to seem a lot better.

Before people start rinsing shit I've said, I realise it's all been said before but the fact is the people supposedly creating unlistenable tracks are the ones raking in the money - and yes I realise a lot of people aren't in this for the money & bitches

IMO with that kind of thinking we'd all be trying to sound like cash cow popstars like Nicki Minaj or Lady Gaga, and not these small fry EDM acts which make 3% of what they make.

I respect Swire and if his tunes are compressed so harshly its probably because he knows something we don't, not because we know better. Start taking notes.

[Maccaveli]

What he knows is that all the other tunes that get played in sets alongside his tunes are also smashed to the max, so if he doesn't keep up his tracks will sound quieter than everything else. They all brick-wall the shit out of their tunes like dogs chasing their own tales and it's all completely pointless. This shit needs some sort of world wide conference to put a stop to it.

[Today]

i wish they'd just slowly incrementally raise the output of every stereo system's max volume
then we could master shit properly, and it would still be getting "louder"
and all the mixes that were driven too hard in this decade, would have to be trimmed back