Backlash against the Loudness Wars

[The_Laughing_Man]

Finally

http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/sh...fpart=1#656094

[josephjobling]

Fair - you'd think such a seasoned band would know better..........

[p_brane]

its shocking that there are still releases from established names that are squashed to high hell. its a big turn off when i load a track into ableton and see the black block.

[force]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_War

[The_Laughing_Man]

I do a fair amount of mastering now, and it pains me when an artist or band asks for the music to be louder and louder.

I will only go to a point before I tell them to take what I have done, and just run it through Waves L3 themselves if they want to kill it.

Mastering is supposed to be about balancing and levelling, and enhancing what is there. Not destroying.

Music is about light and dark, quiet and loud, dynamic change.
Dynamic change is what produces responses.
If everything is loud all the time, you lose perspective and it may as well be quiet all the time.

[rhythmtech]

good to see this subject really getting about the web. i was one of the many many that originally thought volume=loudness. how wrong was i.

listening to a well mastered track with dynamics intact and some headroom is a whole differant world to listening to some loud smashed crap.

even when doing home mastering (on my own tracks to play out) im much more aware of getting the loudness thru good use of a compressor and a well represented frequency range.

get it right in the mix and the amount of limiting needed is negligable.

[The_Laughing_Man]

good to see this subject really getting about the web. i was one of the many many that originally thought volume=loudness. how wrong was i.

listening to a well mastered track with dynamics intact and some headroom is a whole differant world to listening to some loud smashed crap.

even when doing home mastering (on my own tracks to play out) im much more aware of getting the loudness thru good use of a compressor and a well represented frequency range.

get it right in the mix and the amount of limiting needed is negligable.

It`s frightening to see/hear how much ridiculous limiting is happening in the mainstream world today.

I buy a lot of CD`s, but it`s mosly arty poncey music, bjork, sigur ros, and so on, where the audio fidelity is much more respected by the artist.
My girlfriend does however buy a bit of more mainstream, jamelia, robbie, new metal and shoreditch rock etc
and it is frightening to me sometimes to hear on the hi fi just how crushed this stuff has got, especially as I have paid more attention to what my girl plays now.
Even she has noticed the horrible crush of some stuff.

[rhythmtech]

ive had the new kings of leon album on heavy rotation for a month now and i have to say its one of the most beautifully recorded and mastered albums ive heard in years.

its a pleasant surprise to have to use the volume knob to make it loud :-)

[The_Laughing_Man]

I think the Kings of Leon have always taken a rather old skool approach to their choice of recording and mastering engineers no?

[rhythmtech]

yup. latest album was recorded at ocean way, nashville. great write-up in last months SOS on the recording.

[DannyBlack]

Metallica suck balls anyway these days. So badly mastered or not, it still sounds like bollocks.

[DannyBlack]

Bloody hell, check out the waveform analysis!
before it hits the shops:


Retail:



hahaha!

[djfilthmonger]

thats not music thats just noise! ha ha

[mattboyslim]

mnml makes me laugh. you load a track up in ableton and its like 'where is this space you were talking about? I can't even see any gaps between peaks!'

[djfilthmonger]

mnml makes me laugh. you load a track up in ableton and its like 'where is this space you were talking about? I can't even see any gaps between peaks!'

Are you imlying mnml is a joke ? +1

[The_Laughing_Man]

mnml makes me laugh. you load a track up in ableton and its like 'where is this space you were talking about? I can't even see any gaps between peaks!'

Tha whole point of minimal is that there is less sound there, so you can push what is there really hard.
Minimal Sounds, maximal impact.
That`s why it works so well on a soundsystem.

[DannyBlack]

You should here Minimal played in waterford Steve, bloody awful. They're house heads that jumped onboard the minimal bandwagon. Unfortunately, they mix it like house. Terrible, soulless, unimaginative tripe.

[djfilthmonger]

You should here Minimal played in waterford Steve, bloody awful. They're house heads that jumped onboard the minimal bandwagon. Unfortunately, they mix it like house. Terrible, soulless, unimaginative tripe.

ye im actually sick to my teeth, nothing worse going to a club and sitting there bored out of ur mind, that kind of minimal is for home, how can u dance to minimal i dont understand.
but i have to say when i was in germany i was dancing me wellies off to some minimal.

[The_Laughing_Man]

Well, variety is the spice of life.
I don`t consider arguing over the validity of any particulr style worth bothering over.
I`m not a huge fan of minimal but I understand why people dig it, in the same as house, dub, dubstep, drum and bass, gabba, breaks, 2-step, techno, acid techno blah blah.

If there was only one limited sound of 1 genre in dance music, how boring would that be?

I`ll dance to whatever depending on my mood.

[aphex_hn]

http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=QPu0DKyGgZI
check it out, mastered by puppets, ride the clipping etc :)