Pirates of The Caribbean Soundtrack problems ...

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-01-11 02:07pm

I just bought the soundtrack for Pirates of The Caribbean. It's no doubt excellent, but it has some issues in the recording, I think. Throughout the music, there are little "flecks," is the only way I can think of to describe them. They're subtle, but I catch them every time, and they repeat consistently in the same places on different computers (I haven't tried playing it on a normal CD player yet). This is an original, store-bought disc that I just got yesterday, so it hasn't been scratched at all.

Does anyone else have the soundtrack to verify this? There are a lot of the little flecks in track 13. If you listen closely, you'll know what I'm talking about. I don't see the soundtrack listed anywhere as copy-protected or anything like that.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-01-11 02:45pm

Hmm. I'm catching a few, too.

On the subject of the soundtrack, anyone else think it's another victim of "the loudness wars"?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-01-11 03:18pm

Watermark, maybe? I don't have the track to listen to here ...

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-01-11 03:46pm

Uraniun235 wrote:Hmm. I'm catching a few, too.

I'm seriously considering returning it to Best Buy for a refund. This CD is clearly defective. Average listeners may not notice, but those little flecks are distracting and degrade the listening experience.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-01-11 04:10pm

Have you tried ripping it to MP3's and then listening to the music? That would expose any sort of watermarking or copy protection instead of a damaged disc.

Also, some of the more exotic anti-piracy schemes simply do not work well in a PC CD-ROM. The music industry has no plans to fix this which leaves PC music listeners out in the cold.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-01-11 04:27pm

Yes, I've ripped the tracks to AAC audio files with iTunes, and they have the same problems. This happens on my work machine, too, as well as the one Windows box I've tried. I'll try it in a bare bones CD player when I can. If it's an issue only with PC CD-ROM drives, then the product is clearly defective. If I can't play or rip a CD to my computer without problems, then it's useless to me.

EDIT: Also, trying to rip it with iTunes' error correction gave me the same results, as did trying to rip it with Nero's jitter correction.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-01-11 04:54pm

Find a PC with EAC and rip in Secure Mode and see if errors occur.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2004-01-11 05:28pm

Or play it in a regular CD player. If it plays fine in a regular CD player, then its definitely copy protection.

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2004-01-11 10:37pm

Didn't they just re-use the Gladiator soundtrack with that movie? That's what it sounded like when I watched it, anyway.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-01-11 10:42pm

No, not at all. Different composer, actually, although IIRC he studied under the composer for Gladiator.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-01-11 10:43pm

Drooling Iguana wrote:Didn't they just re-use the Gladiator soundtrack with that movie? That's what it sounded like when I watched it, anyway.

It was over-produced by Hans Zimmer (whatever that means), but it's more piratey.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-01-11 10:47pm

Durandal wrote:
Drooling Iguana wrote:Didn't they just re-use the Gladiator soundtrack with that movie? That's what it sounded like when I watched it, anyway.
It was over-produced by Hans Zimmer (whatever that means), but it's more piratey.

Over-producing usually means making it have a lot more bass, usually some sort of dynamic range compression, etc. Quite popular nowadays.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2004-01-11 10:58pm

Uraniun235 wrote:Hmm. I'm catching a few, too.

On the subject of the soundtrack, anyone else think it's another victim of "the loudness wars"?

I don't have the disc but from the sound discription that's what I'd guess. Sounds like someone in production set the volume up too high and clipped the peaks, or it could be from running it through a bad dynamic compressor and fucking up the peaks. If you have CoolEdit run the "Statistics" check on the wav file, if you see peaks right at the max & min sample values, clipped samples, or the difference between peak and mean sound level is <10dB I'd say something got fucked up when they were mixing & mastering the CD.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-01-11 11:55pm

If it's fucked up, I'd bet it was done deliberately.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-01-12 12:20am

Uraniun235 wrote:If it's fucked up, I'd bet it was done deliberately.

Agreed. I find it hard to believe that someone Disney would hire to master the soundtrack to the biggest movie of the Summer would be so incompetent and miss the clipping. I'll have to try and find a regular CD player to see if it's some sort of copy-protection bullshit.

EDIT: Just for fun, I downloaded an MP3 from the CD off of Kazaa. It has the same problems, so it's not just me.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-01-12 12:35am

I've posted a sample clip from one of the more offending tracks from the album here. You should be able to play it directly through your browser if you have QuickTime installed. If not, then you can download it and change the extension to .m4a to play it in WinAmp, I believe.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2004-01-12 03:03pm

Talk about compression & clipping artifacts. Some dumbass in production compressed the fuck out of it and set the level to max. I took a listen to it and instantly knew that's what they did, converting it to .wav with foobar2000 and then running the statistics check with Cooledit confirmed it. Check this out:

Clipped samples galore, a pathetic peak to average difference of under 4dB, and the sample values and peak RMS power are maxed out. In other words, some idiot wanted to make it as loud as they could and killed the sound quality in the process.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-01-12 03:06pm

*sigh* Another victim of the loudness race.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-01-12 03:24pm

Start bitching, post reviews on Amazon warning other purchasters and see if you can get a recall going. It clearly is a defective product.

(In another example, Universal re-issued the Jurassic Park DTS DVD, because the original version did not have an LFE track(!))

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-01-12 05:31pm

Well I E-mailed the guy over the LoudnessRace.Net and gave him the link to the sample, and I encouraged him to add it to his list. We'll see what he says. I've also posted a review to Amazon.com. Aerius, if you'd like an uncompressed sample, I can provide it.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2004-01-12 05:36pm

Damn and I was going to get this soundtrack after seeing the movie last week. Is this becoming common now? I don;t think I've run across this on any of the soundtracks I have.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-01-12 05:59pm

Stravo wrote:Damn and I was going to get this soundtrack after seeing the movie last week. Is this becoming common now? I don;t think I've run across this on any of the soundtracks I have.

This is the first soundtrack I've had audible distortion problems with, but the problems of reduced dynamic range are quite common. If you look at a level meter while playing a CD, a lot of the tracks will keep the level in the red, and the only time it leaves that level is when the track stops playing. It's sad, really.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-01-12 06:28pm

Hmm. Took me a couple listens to hear what you were talking about in that sample, but its there all right. Perhaps the subwoofer was covering it. *Lowers the bass level.*

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-01-12 06:36pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Hmm. Took me a couple listens to hear what you were talking about in that sample, but its there all right. Perhaps the subwoofer was covering it. *Lowers the bass level.*

Try listening with a decent set of headphones.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-01-12 06:43pm

Right. My sound system is kickass, mmkay?

Comes of being a bass player. Need to hear the bass lines in stuff. If you insist, I'll try hooking up the ol' Bose radio to the computer now. But I already heard what you're talking about.