From the Control Room: What?? I Can't Hear You!

There's has been a War going on in music over the past 30 years. And I don't mean the one between mainstream and indie music, West side and East side rappers, or the never-ending feud between Megadeth and Metallica. This war is over your stereo.

Go into your music library right now and play a song, any song made in the past 10 years. Adjust your volume setting so that it is comfortable for you. OK, now that you've done that, go and play a song recorded in the 60's. Play some Doors or maybe the Beatles (how about that new remastered box set if you're lucky enough to get it?). But don't touch your volume knob! I know you want to right now.

Want to know how I knew that? You probably lowered the volume when you played the first song because it's so loud. Now that you're playing something at a normal sound level, you cannot hear it. Yes, that's right, I said “normal.”

When you see a live band at a bar or small venue, it sounds natural. The kick drum thumps the room, the bass shakes the floor, and the guitars floating high above them both. Everything has it's place in the musical spectrum. When you listen to a recording done the right way, this natural sound is what you get.

However, when you listen to a recording done the new way, everything is as loud as it could possibly be. The thumping kick drum has nowhere to go, the bass is flat and plain, and the guitars sound boring. There is no dynamic range anymore (dynamic range: the ratio between the loudest and softest sound your ears can hear), there is just one setting: loud. And it cannot go any louder, digital recording won't allow it.

So lets say you've got a recording of 2 guitars, a bass guitar and drums. The 2 guitars and bass are maxing out the available amplitude (the correct term for “loudness”), now throw some drums into the mix. It didn't get louder though because you already maxed it out. So what happens? When a drum is hit, it sucks out the other instruments. Listen carefully to the first song you listened to. When a drum hits, suddenly you cannot hear the other instruments as well for that second. This is called pumping or breathing, the instruments go in and out throughout the recording. And it sounds terrible.

This loudness war actually goes back farther than the past 30 years. It first gained momentum back when jukeboxes filled with 7” vinyl singles were the mainstay of every bar/diner/bowling alley/wherever in the United States and abroad. The volume of the jukebox was set by the bar owner and very rarely touched. Recording artists soon realized if they cranked up the amplitude of their recording on the vinyl itself, their song would be louder than the others in the jukebox and therefore be more noticeable. It's the same motivation that continues the loudness war today.

However, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing back then. Vinyl and other analog media are very tolerant of high amplitude, you can go louder than it is “designed for” and it will still sound good. In fact, people intentionally do this on their analog recordings to get a desired effect. This is called “tape saturation” or “tape distortion.” It is distortion, but a “good” kind.

Digital recording does not have that benefit. When you get to peak amplitude, you now have bad harmonics, sour tones and distortion. If it breaks the 0dB barrier (the highest amplitude a digital recording will go), things are simply cut. Here's an example of Rush's song Tom Sawyer, released in 1981.

Now, let's artificially boost the same song by 9dB to approximate the amount of amplitude boosted in modern recordings.

See how the the tops and bottoms of the waveform are completely flat? That right there is called Peaking. And it sounds like shit. Modern recordings are generally like this. Here is the newest single That Was Just Your Life off of Metallica's most recent album, Death Magnetic:

Where's the wave? I can't see it, it's just one giant block of distortion. Needless to say, it sounds terrible. So bad that the mixing engineer refused to put his name on it. This was all the record labels' fault.

It's not just rock music that suffers from this. Here is Jay-Z's newest single D.O.A. (Death of Autotune) off of his newest album The Blueprint 3. The title of the song is something I can definitely get behind (though that would take it's own article), but the method makes me cringe:

I suppose you have to tackle one problem with the music industry at a time...

There is another problem with the loudness war. Have you ever listened to music for long periods of time? Two or more hours? Did your ears hurt? I bet they did. That is called Ear Fatigue. Listening to recordings that loud physically damages your hearing. And we certainly don't need any more damage to our ears, daily life does that enough!

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ESSAY--Hiking the Seward Range: Geriatrics and Gorp

By JON HOCHSCHARTNER--

I figured if a couple of geriatrics could do it, than so could we.

My friends Jackie, Tiffany, and I were planning to conquer the Seward range. But a pair of elderly women was holding us up. In the parking lot. They kept chatting—enthusiastically, endlessly—how they were going to climb the same four peaks: Seward, Donaldson, Emmons and Seymour.

Sweet Osteoporosis, they wouldn’t stop talking! But like some nursing home Houdinis, we eventually made our escape. And the captive audience hit the trail.

It’s a 5.4-mile, mostly flat walk to Ward Brook Lean-to, where we ditched our sleeping bags, ground mats, and all the other excess weight we didn’t want to haul unnecessarily. With that, Jackie and Tiffany were ready to go. But the bottomless pit that is my stomach was growling. So we stopped for brunch.

Unfortunately, I'd forgotten most of the sandwich fixings. "Does cheese go with peanut butter?" I asked, removing two slices of bread.

Tiffany made a face.

But Jackie insisted they were a great combination, made even better mixed with gorp. So I sprinkled raisins, peanuts, and M&Ms on top, and inhaled my crunchy creation.

"Lets make like a prom dress," Jackie said, "And take off."

Seward Mt. was named after William H. Seward, one of the founders of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State, and a former Governor of New York. While trails in the Seward range are officially unmaintained, they’re generally easy to follow. But due to their status, the “Guide to Adirondack Trails” does not even include mileage estimates in their description. So the best I can say is that it probably took us about two hours.

“This is pretty burly,” Tiffany observed after a particularly steep, blow-down covered section.

The summit itself was fairly modest. Just a blank yellow trail marker, with “Seward” scribbled over it announced our arrival.

That, and the old ladies from the parking lot.

“We beat you,” they crowed. Repeatedly.

And I thought grandmotherly types were supposed to be so sweet.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jackie responded casually.

But out of earshot, we began to wonder aloud how it had happened. With their gray hair and aged muscles, how had they beaten us? You’d think we were having an existential crisis.

Ultimately, Jackie and Tiffany agreed it was my food break that had done us in. With that in mind, Jackie proposed we put off lunch until after we reached the next peak, in order to outrun the old ladies. Not wanting to shoulder the responsibility for another retiree whupping, I readily agreed.

Mt. Donaldson gets it's name from Alfred Lee Donaldson, the author of what the “Guide to Adirondack Trails” describes as “the first and most complete history of the Adirondacks.” I’d estimate it took us less than an hour to reach it.

Secure in our first place finish, we settled down for a leisurely meal of hummus and cheese sandwiches. I’m not much of one for food with ingredients I can pronounce, but they tasted fantastic.

We hung out on the summit much longer than we would have normally. The hope was that the old ladies would arrive and we’d be able to rub our stunning victory in their wrinkled faces. We’re pretty mature.

Finally, we gave up and headed on toward the day’s last peak. Mt. Emmons is named after Ebenezer Emmons, a geologist who led the first recorded ascent of Mt. Marcy and dubbed our area “the Adirondacks.”

From the distance, the path to Mt. Emmons appeared to be an easy walk along a ridgeline. But the trail dipped much further than we expected. I’d always hated descents like that, knowing that we’d only have to regain the altitude. We reached the summit in about an hour. After a quick rest, we started retracing our steps toward the lean-to. On the way, we ran into the old ladies as they pushed along the range.

“I think we beat you,” I said, with a bit too much pride, given that they were at least three times my age.

One swatted at me playfully with her hiking pole. But they were laughing, so it clearly wasn’t the crushing blow we planned.

Tiffany joked that we weren’t hiking three mountains that day, but six. And there was some truth to that as we descended back down Emmons, up and down Donaldson, and up and down Seward before returning to the campsite.

Once there, Jackie began cooking us up some stew, while Tiffany and I enjoyed our tired feet. We scraped our bowls clean, crawled into our sleeping bags, and went to bed.

The next morning, we started up Mt. Seymour at 8:30. The peak is named after Horatio Seymour, another 19th century New York governor.

The “Guide to Adirondack Trails” says that, “that the going is easy.” Maybe we were just dead tired.

As we reached what must have been the third false summit, Tiffany groaned.

“Seriously,” I said.

Once we reached the top, we didn’t stay long. Any view Seymour might have offered was completely hidden in the morning fog.

Plus, it was chilly.

Clutching her chest, Jackie exclaimed, “It’s cold! What are we on, Nippletop?”

So we headed back down to the lean-to and packed up our stuff. The five-mile slog back to the parking lot felt endless. When we finally got there, we all collapsed in a heap.

Unfortunately, there was no cell reception there to call our ride. And it was another six-miles to the highway. We had no choice but to keep walking.

I stopped cars Tiananmen-shopping-bag-man-style. But they either didn’t have enough room or were headed the wrong way. It was beginning to rain.

We were about to give up hope, when a friendly forest ranger picked us up. Bouncing along on his tailgate, he drove us toward cell phone reception and our ride home.

All I know is we beat those old ladies.

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BRIEF THOUGHT--Why so much hate for Love?

By JON HOCHSCHARTNER--

People adore hating Courtney Love.

My favorite story about the former Hole front-woman took place before she was famous. She was 12 and trying out for the wholesome Mickey Mouse Club. For her audition, she read the suicidal poet Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy.” Can you imagine the looks on the faces of those Disney representatives as this little girl, this future punk princess, recited, “Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time…Daddy, Daddy, you bastard, I’m through”? Priceless.

In high school, I used to hate Courtney too. Brash, washed up, she seemed to be constantly flashing her aged breasts at unappreciative audiences and fighting for custody of her daughter from a drug-induced coma. More than that, I was a fan of Kurt Cobain, Courtney’s late husband. Among Nirvana lovers, she’s regarded as a grunge Yoko Ono: taking Cobain away from his music while he was alive, and hijacking his legacy after his death. It wasn’t until the past few years that I actually listened to her band Hole’s music. Listening to “Live Through This,” their 1994 album, completely changed my perspective. It’s a beautifully raw record that should have earned Courtney a place in the (regrettably small) pantheon of the greatest female rockers ever. When she sings, “Kill me pills, no one cares, my friends,” you can feel that she means it; it’s not the manufactured teen angst of say, Linkin Park. It’s the kind of music that makes you feel, even at your loneliest and most self-loathing, there’s someone who understands. Not to sound too pretentious, but that’s art, to paraphrase a definition that Meg Ryan, of all people, offered. So shove it, haters.

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BRIEF THOUGHT--Previewing Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are"

By JON HOCHSCHARTNER--

Here's a good article on the making of the film from NYtimes.com. Is anybody as pumped about this film as I am? Wikipedia says it's due out Oct. 16.

Trailer:

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BRIEF THOUGHT--"Stephanie Says:" pleasant wake-up music

By JON HOCHSCHARTNER--
Good morning world! It's 6:45 and I'm about to carpool to mi escuela. I think this is as good a song as any to wake up to. It's by the Velvet Underground (photo above), possibly the most overrated band ever. But this song is mighty soothing.

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ESSAY - Driving Lessons

By HANNAH POCOCK-- Driving without dying in the mayhem of Phnom Penh seems to involve a series of precise mental calculations, or else sheer force of will and an optimistic determination that verges dangerously on lunacy. Stop signs are scarce and studiously ignored. Motorbikes dart around Land Rovers and pick-ups, kneecaps nearly scraping against polished doors and heavily laden truck beds. At an intersection, traffic flows simultaneously in eight directions, without the aid of lights or any apparent laws. Vehicles weave around each other seamlessly, and my tuk-tuk slides through the fray like a shuttle through a loom.

As we putter to a halt at a rare stoplight, a little boy sidles up to the tuk-tuk, a baby tied to his front with a grungy red-checked krama.

"Madame," he mumbles. He does not look at me. His voice is not pleading, but softly matter-of-fact, even disinterested. He places his hand, palm up, on the seat beside me. I look at the baby's fingers curled around the threadbare scarf, then down at my own: pale, ringed, holding two baguettes I've just bought for lunch. My mind is firing out NGO phrases like cycle of poverty and fueling dependency. The bread is fresh and warm in my hands.

"Madame," he says again, and I hand him a baguette, trying unsuccessfully to meet his eyes. He takes it in his small, dark hands and disappears into the throng without a word.

"Thank you?" I mutter, then hate myself for it. Expecting gratitude from a child whose eyes are beyond hope. A lesson in the challenge of true selflessness. The light turns green and we lurch away.

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RETRO MOVIE REVIEW--"Spirited Away"

By JON HOCHSCHARTNER--

When I first saw “Spirited Away”, a 2001 animated film, I watched it with my then six year old sister, and was expecting typical children’s fare. Not so. It’s a surreal, often disturbing fantasy, in which a young girl visits an abandoned amusement park with her parents. There, her mother and father are literally transformed into pigs, and she is forced to take refuge in an enchanted bathhouse where strange creatures come to wash. She takes a job alongside an aged six armed man, and a toweringly monstrous baby, as she tries to return her parents to their human state. Drawn by hand and with a perfect English dubbing, “Spirited Away” is a richly imagined, beautifully rendered film by writer/director Hayao Miyazaki. Give it a try.

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