[Slight OT] TDPL in Russia

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Walter Bright" <newshound2 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:i69vov$o6e$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> "Walter Bright" <newshound2 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message
>>> Secondly, people ought to read contracts before they sign them. It's 
>>> their own fault if they don't.
>>
>> Until recent years, if you wanted to be a successful musician (aside from 
>> scoring, and there's really only so much demand for that) you *had* to 
>> sign one of those constracts. There was no choice - they had an oligopoly 
>> on the entire market, and if you wanted in they had you by the balls.
>
> Of course there was a choice. You could go with a major and get a tiny 
> cut, or an independent with a larger cut, or do it yourself and keep 100%.
>

100% of nothing is still nothing. Only the labels had all the means of 
largescale marketing and distribution. These days there's internet.

>
>>> Contracts with children aren't legally binding because children are not 
>>> considered legally competent. Adults are.
>>>
>>
>> I've seen very few adults I'd consider "competent", but oh well ;)
>
> A marketplace is impossible without the ability to make binding contracts. 
> Nobody is going to invest in you or lend you money if you can just walk 
> away from it later if you change your mind.
>

I wasn't arguing against contracts, I was diving further off-topic by using 
"competent" as a springboard for bitching about...well, general lack of 
competence among most people.

>>> I always get the old versions of CDs before they were remastered :-) as 
>>> I don't care for the audio leveling.
>>
>> I've always been unclear on what that is.
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression#Marketing
>
> And here's why I shoot for the old ones:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cd_loudness_trend-something.gif

Ahh, yea, that's what I thought. Maybe it's gone too far with CDs, I dunno. 
Never noticed a difference between original and remastered myself (but I've 
never gone and compared them side-by-side). I do think DVD Video creators 
have gone waaay to far the other way though, because of the 
"Volume-fiddling-test" reason I mentioned before: If I set the volume to a 
comfortable level, and the damn volume keeps changing anyway, enough that I 
have to re-adjust over and over back to where I had it, then there's too 
fucking much dynamic range.

I once recorded an Elvis Vinyl my dad had to put on a CD for him. There was 
one song (forget what it was) that had a spot in the middle that was SO 
quiet in relation to the rest (and you could tell it wasn't just from it 
being an old album) that it was completely imperceptible without boosting 
the volume all the away up. But being as quiet as it was, there was SO 
little actual data there that the quality turned to shit when it was loud 
enough to hear. Avoiding low dynamic range seems to be all the rage these 
days (among consumers), but people never seem to learn "more is not always 
better".