A few weeks ago my friend Brook sent me a link about the war between sound quality and compression.

I thought this was really interesting and I shared with a few people. This morning I signed into Rhapsody and there was a rave review about a new(ish) R&B singer, Rihanna. I decided to give her a try. It sounds like her album is produced by Jay-Z, because he is on the first track and also some of the drum tracks and production sound like Jay-Z’s other projects.

Anyway, to get to the point, I was listening and found that the sound, not the song, was very boring and uneventful. I then thought of the following video which Brook sent me. The short of it is that with compression all articulation and dynamic is covered over or removed from a track. I am listening to her album right now and it is putting my to sleep because there is no definition and no dynamic change.

Some of this is due to the nature of Rhapsody, but when I put on Vocal Sampling right after this Rihanna girl, the clarity is like stepping into the spotlight from the shadows. It makes the Rihanna album sound like it was recorded in Mono. Ahhhh, the joys of stereo recording, where have you gone in recent years?

This makes me think of some of the early stereo albums, by the Beatles or Cream or the like, the drums would be almost completely in one channel and the guitar all the way in the other. This was the record industry stretching its new found stereo wings. Now there is a counter-movement back towards the mono. I don’t think this is the record companies’ intent, but in the attempt to be more and more radio and instant gratification friendly the sound of many new mainstream records are so undynamic as to put my ear receptors into a state of uncaring numbness.

We need to come up with a name for the ruling record companies like Big Oil is for the large oil companies that run our government and economy. Maybe, Big Audio. Big…….. I don’t know. It needs to be something that oozes anti-establishment.

Ok enough blabber…. here is the video.