Wired USA - 03.2020

an ASMR rush of esses by a soprano who
misses a beat can be distracting. Light noise
reduction to eliminate the sound of a page
turn is also permitted.
And then there’s pianissimo. Classical
music engineers need these passages to
be both preciously soft and clearly audi-
ble. Rather than smash down the signal
like a pressed panini, classical engineers
do something called “gain riding.” Gain is
the term for how loud your input is, where
volume refers to the loudness of the output.
When you ride gain, you adjust the deci-
bel levels while a piece is being recorded
to avoid signal overload.
But none of this prevents Alexa from
having her way with Berlioz and his sen-
sitive temperament. And even if a stream-
ing service purports to be lossless, it still
pulls in electrical noise from routers and
Ethernet cables. Thus, the final revelation
for classical listeners: Nothing beats CDs,
which were created with dramatic classi-
cal music, especially Beethoven, in mind.
Though the gravity-blanket warmth of
vinyl will always hit the spot for diehards,
CDs offer better “punch, slam, tonal color,
finesse,” according to the audio equipment
reviewer John Darko. Fifty-three percent of
classical listeners prefer CDs to streaming
and other formats.
Time to haul out an old CD player and
order the Symphonie Fantastique disc. Ah,
at last. The druggy longing. The freaky pas-
sion. The tilt into hallucination and psy-
chosis. That’s dynamic range for you, and
passages in Berlioz, as I listen to the CD,
bring to mind an outtasight too-muchness
akin to that other high-dynamic ranger,
“Stairway to Heaven.” When you finish with
Berlioz, put in that old CD and just give in. A
cappella! Fortissimo solo! Corny-sexy leer
of “bustle in your hedgerow”! Your head is
humming and it won’t go / In case you don’t
know / The piper’s calling you to join him ...
The zany operatics of Led Zep, Berlioz,
and all tempestuous evergreen musicians—
you just gotta let them fly. Big emotions
need big sonic landscapes. Loud bass is
fine when you have your life together, but
where would we be without the wide-
ranging dynamics that alone can give
voice—and thus solace—to the bipolar
youth in ecstatic anguish?

CHARTGEIST

BY JON J. EILENBERG

EXPECTED REACTIONS TO PIXAR’S ONWARD

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Nature-based design

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VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN (@page88) is a
regular contributor to wired.

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