who's gonna win the loudness war (Page 1 of 2)

I can still see some blue in there, they can do better!

sausage

where is point in that war!!

I understand standards now and then...
BUT where is point of music without dynamics ..??!!!

and dont ppl have volume knob on their AMPS??

I'd expect no less from the band that recorded "I love it loud" almost 30 years ago.  True visionaries.

the real war is telling label owners that it doesn't have to be this loud. there are a few smart ones out there that go for quality over loudness, but the vast majority of them only want one thing: volume.
same goes for producers: these days i sometimes get "uncompressed" tracks to be mastered that are already so pumped up that in reality nothing can be done with it anymore.

i've read a few articles about this over the past few years, it's interesting that a lot of the argument for maxing shit out is due to the ipod and the fact that a vast majority of people don't listen to records anymore but playlists. and no one wants their track to be the weak track in the mix or playlist so labels push for mastering engineers to max it out.

i'm not defending this tho, i have no problem using a volume knob and appreciate dynamics.

actually metallica's death magnetic record was so over the top hot that fans put together a petition to have them remaster the record properly cause it sounded like shit.

actually on a similar topic, over here in the states commercials on tv are always way louder than shows, i'm sure it's this way in other countries too. but our gov't apparently passed a law that will force networks to run shows and commercials at the same level. it's gotten so bad there are companies selling basically tiny limiters from your cable box to tele to keep the volume level the same. haha.

@ronin, oh yeah mainstream radio, how could i forget, oh wait it's easy to now with IFM around.

the dynamic range of a tv broadcast is in the region of 4dB. i imagine it's easier to max out a 30 second commercial thereby reducing that range to more or less zero. i don't think the commercials are actually louder, just louder per second with no drop outs.

Looks like Bob Katz is a lonely soul nowadays...
I remember a "lecture" he made at Denmarks Radio in 2009 about the loudness war... the lecture was aptly titled
"20 db in 20 years, here are the YT links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EgamkLkXW8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97bJ5J_mY14

and

enjoy

a.

@ZeHa, haha yeah i know IFM uses compression, it was more a comment about not listening to mainstream radio anymore cause it sucks so much. 

@mule driver, chris does great work! he just mastered a single/b-side for us and it turned out fantastic. also hell of a nice guy, those articles are a great read!

I just compared "Head Like A Hole" from the first Nine Inch Nails album, original version from 1989 and the 2010 remastered version:

Then I reduced the volume of the new version to match the volume of the old one, and of course it immediately becomes rather obvious how much stuff there's missing in the remastered version.

And if you hit "Play" now and switch between both versions, the newer one sounds as if it got recorded in the bathroom or toilet or whatever...