Our aim is to improve the sound quality of music in its various recorded formats – including data compression methods such as MP3 – as well as music destined for radio broadcast.
Only music that provides a positive musical listening experience has real market value. The Foundation's aim is to increase the value of music within the creative production process for the entire music industry.
The Pleasurize Music Foundation is a global umbrella organization that integrates all music related groups. The PMF represents specific interests of music listeners, musicians, composers, producers, engineers, music instrument manufacturers, consumer electronic manufacturers, proaudio companies, record labels, retailer and broadcaster. On the one hand we create quality marks to reestablish trust into the product "music" and support consciousness for high fidelity sound experience through education on the other hand. This supports a healthy basement for the whole audio related branch.
We are not surprised by the fact that music listeners are losing the willingness to legally acquire music, because of the fact that contemporary releases are mercilessly over-compressed* – a situation that turns off even the biggest music fans. For example, no natural dynamic can be heard in recent CD releases from groups such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers (for example: Stadium Arcadium). The masterful drum performance by the drummer in the band Garbage (Bleed Like Me) is totally distorted. Madonna's Hard Candy generates aggression and leads to distortion when played on disco sound systems. With Metallica (Death Magnetic), the level meter needle permanently sits in the red range!
The same applies to the so-called quality criteria of surround sound recordings. Nine out of ten surround releases sound worse that the original stereo mixes or are cheap up-mixes with surround simulation – this is no way to entice music listeners to move to a new high-resolution format based on Blu-ray technology.
(* here we speak about dynamic compression and NOT data compression! Please be aware about the difference)
We provide the conditions for:
- natural and dynamic sound on current releases, just like during the age of vinyl and the very beginning of the introduction of the CD (DYNAMIC RANGE)
- a label of quality for audio surround mixes, providing listeners transparency and trust in the products they buy
We educate and inform all interested parties about the advantages and disadvantages of data compression and provide the basis for an intelligent application of high resolution formats.
Beneath the collection of research results in the domain of psychoacoustics within a PMF knowledge database and the support of PhD researches through our Board of Research be will establish an interdisciplinary research center. The aim is to combine medical and audio researches to answer numberous questions about the interaction of audio in it´s different formats and consistency with the human being in regards of stress, concentration, loss of hearing, tinnitus and other phenomena.
Together with the Recording Industry: Putting an End to the Sound Crisis
Transforming the Loudness War into a state of healthy competition for dynamic sound can only work if the recording industry is part of this process.To accomplish this we have developed a two-phase plan:
The DR logo provides a quality label recognizable by everyone inside and outside the industry. The logo is already available on this site for download and license-free use until 30 June 2009. Up from 1 July 2009 the logos are exclusivly and license free available for Active Members. It exists in several variations and will be visible on the back side of CD jewel cases (on the inlay cards) and tells the consumer how much dynamic range the album contains.
At the same time record companies which have already signed the voluntary Commitment 1 begin to furnish CD releases with a small info sheet (b/w, booklet dimensions) and will print the DR logo on the back of the CD. This way music consumers will be able to see how much music they really have in their shopping cart.
For example, if an album with DR8 is released, it will also be labeled with DR8 and given 6 dB of headroom, so that it will be as loud as DR14 releases. In this way, different releases will have the same loudness when played. Producers and record companies have an incentive to really use the available dynamic range in the next release.
Contact
The Pleasurize Music Foundation was founded by Friedemann Tischmeyer in
January 2009 and is based in California / USA
Pleasurize Music Foundation
615 Mission Street
Santa Cruz CA 95060 USA
websites: http://www.dynamicrange.de http://www.pleasurizemusic.com/
