The Loudness War

[MRhet]

Don't these people know sound systems have volume controls. No need to make the music so loud. Put out a great product and the listener will handle the volume.

Yea . . . see it's that whole "great product" thing that's the problem.

[Matus]

it shows as soon as you put it on a decent stereo

Decent stereo? What's that?

The only things that I'm aware of are the speakers attaching to a computer, or those little white ear-thingys that attach to some invisibly-small device that everyone uses nowadays.

Maybe if someone had one of those so-called "stereos", then they could probably buy one of those black, round disks that look like dinner plates-- I hear they still have good ol' "sound quality"... like a such a thing even exists (yeah, right)...

[S.P]

Yeaaaah!!! That's awesome!

[john lamb]

Don't these people know sound systems have volume controls. No need to make the music so loud. Put out a great product and the listener will handle the volume.

Yea . . . see it's that whole "great product" thing that's the problem.

OUCH. Its competition to make money that's the problem. Its the same thing in Best Buy. If you walk into Best Buy to look at speakers, the one they have turned up the loudest in the one that sells the best. They'll sell more of that one than of all the rest put together.... it makes moving old stock pretty easy, and one of the reasons you don't see fire sales on stereo equipment that often. It doesn't really matter if you have the best stereo equipment if people only buy what is the loudest.

The research is crystal clear - people like it loud. Live, too, unless they are planning on talking over you the whole time. So the issue becomes making it louder than the next guy. The only solution I can see is to have a standard set for loudness.

[Josiah]

sure, but nobody who is interested in serious audio quality is purchasing at best buy. true enough though it is the lowest common denominator.

it took me months for my local vinyl guy to find the needle I wanted, the speakers pricey for sure, the amp, my girlfriend still bitches at me about, but the end result is well worth it.

I would have to agree with whoever mentioned it being the CD media as a restrictive factor. in time, a new media will be prevalent, most likely a digital one. FLAC is more and more popular everyday, lossless audio is becoming more a standard as the average consumer has larger storage capacity, greater bandwith and better audio systems...

again, that lowest common denominator rises slowly, but surely. we still have come leaps and bounds from not that long ago.

[amoergosum]

>>>

[amoergosum]

Quote by Tim Young >>>

in 1992 I did an album for a British heavy metal band. I got a panic-stricken message from their A&R man in America, saying 'We're really worried, the new album, it's not as loud as Aerosmith' or something. That was the start of it.

Link to article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/jan/18/pop.music

[Gavin Harrison]

Interesting topic and one which is very close to my thoughts. When I started attending mastering sessions I got really freaked out how much the drum sound could change (for the worse)...and the relative mix could be altered. It almost felt like a re-mix. I thought surely - we want it to sound just like the mix that we've agonised over for weeks right?

If we wanted it brighter or more compressed the we would have done that. We hit a crunch point with the mastering of Fear Of A Blank Planet. A well known mastering engineer did the job and sent us the result. Yes it was loud but the drums (in particular) were destroyed!! So we did ourselves and were happier with the result.
For the Incident - I auditioned 3 big mastering engineers. I sent them all the same track and all the same email. PLEASE DON'T MAKE THIS ALBUM LOUD. We really don't want to lose any dynamics - and we don't want to find any 'squared off' wave shapes when we zoom into the wave forms.

After all we're not trying to compete with iPod shuffle tracks of Britney Spears.

One guy sent back the classic 'over mastered' mix. Told me that he'd turned it up 8db. Then a few hours later sent it again up another 3db! I could hear the attack of the drums had changed - I zoomed in and there were plenty of squared off waves in the mix. One guy got it absolutely right and we've used him ever since.

Surely the first thing you do when you press play - is put your hand on the volume knob and adjust to the volume you want to hear it at.
I don't listen to every album (every day) at the same volume - who does? So if a mastering engineer tells me that he's turned up the volume of our record by 12db - the first I do when I listen to it is turn it down 12db with my volume knob. But then I'm listening to a crappy version of it.

cheers
Gavin

[Matus]

One guy sent back the classic 'over mastered' mix. Told me that he'd turned it up 8db. Then a few hours later sent it again up another 3db! I could hear the attack of the drums had changed - I zoomed in and there were plenty of squared off waves in the mix. One guy got it absolutely right and we've used him ever since.

And we SO thank you guys for that

[amoergosum]

Here's an article with a list of examples (scroll down) >>>

Katy Perry's Teenage Dream is louder than Megadeth.

Link:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... oudnessWar