Dynamics in modern music

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Outside of classical type stuff, it seems to me that dynamic contrast is essentially gone... I listen to metal mostly, and it always annoys me when there is a soft interlude of some sort that is the same volume as the rest of the song. I've never really noticed much contrast in pop stuff played on the radio either, the times I've listened.

It's more than just dynamics that is missing in modern music. It's a pity too, I feel, and have always felt, that it's one of the most powerful things you can add to music.

you can tell by looking at an oscilloscope trace that modern music has had the life compressed and brickwall-limited out of it, all in the pursuit of loudness. it sounds awful IMHO. they've even done this to elvis! when you do such to musical recordings it has the nasty side effect of psychoacoustically boosting frequencies in the upper midrange which are most unmusical in their exaggerated proportion, it gives it a nasty hard and ringing sound.

One of my peeves about modern music is modern metal. All the bands growl now. What's up with that? The music sounds fine. The production is okay. They have nice progressions, etc. But as soon as the vocals come in it goes south from there. Too bad. I really want to get back into metal because of the aggression, but the growling I can't stand.

it seems too many music makers have forgotten that music is supposed to be musical.

I actually like the growling, but there are good bands that don't often or have a decent mixture. Not so much when it gets to the really extreme stuff though. Iced Earth, Symphony X and Protest the Hero and Affiance all are mostly singing and quite good. Soilwork and Scar Symmetry have a lot of singing or toned screams.


Indeed. It seems they just take certain things that people like and abuse them (e.g. "people like/remember loud, let's make it all loud!") It almost reminds me of fast food; it sounds good (sometimes...) on the surface but there is no depth/substance. Most of it isn't something you can listen to over and over again and get something different out of each time.

when I tell people about my collection of carillon music, they look at me like I had 2 heads or something.