Madeleine Peyroux released a new album and I really love it. I can’t help but hear what I can only describe as a raspy compress sound that is most notable in her vocals. It doesn’t seem to sound smooth and 100% clear like I think I hear in other vocal-centric songs. Is there a name for this phenomenon?
She is maturing, no longer the 16 year old phenom and you do hear it in some songs. Is this mp3 on spotify?
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Yeah it was on spotify. Tidal carries the same quality.
All vocalists age and lose range over time. You can hear it in Tony Bennett circa 1950s then 1970s then 2000s. Frank Sinatra. Lena Horne. Etc. Etc.
Rock vocalists often grossly abuse their voices. Compare James Hetfield of Metallica in the 1980s versus “recently.” Perry Ferrell of Jane’s Addiction went from singing in the early 1990s to squeaking like a little mouse. Etc. Etc.
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Careless love (came out in early 2000’s) is a highly compressed album vs. her 90’s album dreamland which has very little compression.
A lot of it is the recording and what they were trying to achieve however much we don’t like it as audiophiles. I wish it wasn’t as compressed for sure.
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Years ago, you could buy an audio expander that was supposed to undo some of the compression. They didn’t work very well, but one would think that the technology would be amenable to digital processing. The old expanders sometimes threw away quiet segments that did exist. I would think that the sandpapery and highly sibilant S sounds that compression brings would be something that intelligent processing could fix.
Anybody know of any modern method of reducing compression? I do figure that once the damage is done, any processing is fair game.
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Even the 24/96 version of Careless Love on HDTracks has a DR of 4 … It is what it is.
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