Why are some iM@S songs victims of the loudness war?

[altuixde]

Why are some iM@S songs victims of the loudness war?  Here's an Audacity waveform of Shinku from Master Special 06:

Do they play idolmaster music on the radio in Japan?  If not, there's not much of a reason to max out the volume.  Not all songs on the iM@S CDs are like this, but I wish none of them were.  Shinku could sound so much better!

[Maka]

Well, Shinku is a cover so that would be something up with the original. Even though the covers are often different from the original when it comes to the music- compare Tsuki no Waltz and Sorairo Days' originals with the covers for a good example- they're not really that different.

What are some other examples?

[altuixde]

Flower Girl from Master Special 04 is pretty maxed out too, but it sounds fine.    I'll look for some more examples.

[altuixde]

Arcadia from Master Special 03 looks like it's pretty loud, but it's not completely maxed out.  That's one song where I wish I could hear more of the different instruments (Arcadia is one of my favorites right now), but that problem may not be due to the dynamic range compression.  I looked at Hibiki's and Yukiho's Overmaster tracks from the Master Special series and, except for the beginning, there's no dynamic range.  However, those two Overmaster tracks sound fine to me too.  I guess the consistently loud dynamic of Flower Girl and Overmaster suits those songs.  The rest of the songs I looked at appear to be pretty good: they've got a decent amount of dynamic range.

I watched a music video of Shinku on YouTube and you're probably right.  Except for the voice of the singer, the music is almost exactly the same.

[altuixde]

Here's one that I overlooked yesterday: Shocking na Kare.

This is one song where I think the quality really suffered due to the dynamic range compression.

The karaoke version looks like it's slightly less compressed and it sounds slightly more awesome to me than the version with Miki's voice in it.

However, the lack of a vocal part in the karaoke version makes somewhat of a difference in the appearance of the waveform and it also makes a difference in the song's awesomeness.  Removing Miki's voice should make the song less awesome.   

[chikorita157]

Since you brought it up, I decided to check some songs out myself and open the waveform. For instance, TRIAL DANCE is pretty loud for most of the song, but doesn't sound bad by any means...


Probably the more dynamic track I open is Yakusoku... Big difference from the waveform above. It's probably the same case with the softer songs like 9:02pm, Massugu, etc.

[JNiles]

I dunno how to check the waveform, but RESTART seems pretty packed with sound.  I have to turn the sound on my headphones down sometimes.

[chikorita157]

I dunno how to check the waveform, but RESTART seems pretty packed with sound.  I have to turn the sound on my headphones down sometimes.

Just download and open it in Audacity... but still, you should use a lossless copy opposed to an MP3 since it's close to the original CD quality you can get...

Since you mentioned it, here is the waveform for 自分REST@RT.... Not nearly as loud compared to Trial Dance, but still...