Loudness War

Buy older LPs. I assume you are complaining about the CD remastering and just new mastering of ROCK music. Nothing will be done until no-one buys the crap anymore. THEN maybe, they will realize thier 'vision' of perfection is wrong.
In the meantime.. consider getting into music streaming, high resolution feeds, and buying OLD CDs. Or, buy old LPs.
I have been buying lots of used CDs.. and have noticed the rise in compression as they get newer. Current rock Cds have one level: LOUD, with no dynamic range to speak of.
Get used to it, or stop buying new stuff.
Write the music business companies..

I tried a software called SeeDeeClip

It works but it cannot create sweet sound of uncompressed music from much of the crap put out today. IMHO the improvement is around 5 to 10% - so some of your worst clipped stuff may just become bearable.

Not a perfect solution but if it really bothers you a vintage dbx 3BX, 4BX, or 5BX might be able to medicate the issue to some extent.

I have a 3BX but have not been using it since I added the ARC sp16 pre-amp. Not that it makes dynamic range where there is none to start, but it does seem to present everything, old, new good, bad in a most digestible manner.

Hi Vaughan,

Sony Sound Forge Pro, at U.S. $337, is a Windows-based professional audio editing program that includes what they call a Graphic Dynamics function. It can perform dynamic range expansion with essentially every parameter adjustable by the user in a very flexible manner. For instance, you can set it so that 0 to -12db input (or any other input range) results in 0 to -24db output (or any other output range); and you can set the same or different proportions for any other parts of the dynamic range, down to -72db, with any number of break points in the overall curve. You can also set attack and release times, overall gain, etc.

I have used Sound Forge extensively, but not for that kind of purpose. Once you get through a fairly straightforward familiarization process, it is fast, stable, and easy to use. You may want to give the trial version a whirl, and see what it can accomplish for you.

My instinct, though, is that although the program is really excellent, you would have to put a lot of effort into finding the optimal settings for each recording, and in the end it will not be able to make a sow's ear into a silk purse.

They also offer a much cheaper consumer version of the program, Sound Forge Audio Studio at $55, but I don't know whether or not it includes a comparable function.

Be aware that the trial version puts intermittent beeps into anything that is saved with it, so if you open a file with the trial version you should save it under a different file name before doing anything else, to prevent the possibility of inadvertently putting beeps into your original file.

Best regards,
-- Al

Elizabeth...i don't think a few audiophiles not buying newly released music or writing the studios will do much. Music is compressed or mastered hot because the bulk of the music buying public is playing that music on midfi systems or more importantly iPods. So I don't know that we can do anything about it to be honest. It's interesting though that there are some music producers/mastering engineers/etc...who are beginning to question current mastering wisdom. Check out this discussion moderated by Greg Calbi, mastering engineer at Sterling Sound, and including Steve Berkowitz (Sony SVP), Michael Fremer, Kevin Killen (mastering engineer), and Craig Street (Producer). While the whole discussion was not solely focused on the "Loudness Wars" it did figure prominently in the discussion. Hope this is interesting to folks.