Loudness war. Your thoughts?

[rebelready]

Over the past decades music has been getting much more louder than before for the record label's beliefs of competitiveness.
It is problem for those who like dynamics in their music. What are your ideas or opinions about all this?

UPDATE: I should've wrote better poll questions, but oh well. Thank you all for your insights.

 

[RedDog]

LOUDER IS METAL


/THREAD

 

[Chainsaw Calligraphy]

I think it depends a lot on the genre. Some tracks work much better with that squashed sterile sound.

 

[botus99]

Some tracks work much better with that squashed sterile sound.

I think that's one of the bigger contributing problems, personally. Music shouldn't be constructed with zero dynamics in mind right off the bat. And yet...

Of course, I'm probably in the minority of thinking that way (in terms of the general public's opinion, I know you guys are smarter )

 

[Clark Kent]

Depends on the measure of what is loudness war and what's not. I think music is ideally mastered when it's somewhere between -7dB RMS and -10dB RMS. Basically if it was mixed good enough it'll still sound good at -7dB RMS but that's just my opinion.

You know.. I'll choose a different route in this debate. This is one of those questions like global warming etc. where people think they know "the correct answer". The truth is that 90% of people say loudness war is bad but 90% of people have never heard any other form of music. I challenge you guys to listen to those early Beatles songs where all drums are panned to the left and guitars right etc... listen through a record like that and tell me how your ears feel. Now... do the same thing with a "loudness war" album. I'm pretty sure you'll change your mind and now you actually know what you're talking about. It's not about how it feels to listen 10 seconds of it. It's about how it feels to enjoy an album.

The problem is that if you want to hear every instrument clearly without loudness war you'll find yourself cranking the volume up which means the vocals and snare are most likely quite ear piercingly loud. A song that is mastered in "loudness war" can actually be listened to on low volume which is how the majority of people hear music.

Now... this is just my opinion and I honestly hope you guys try it out and then make a statement rather than just saying something you read on wikipedia.

 

[RedDog]

This > Metallica. To loudness war? No verbs, sorry. fingers to ears.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/reallyloud.mp3

Loudness win. Link should be dead and you all should thank me.

 

[Uros]

@Clark:

Let's just keep it to metal music - listening metal on low volume simply doesn't make sense (tbh, I don't think that any metal head would disagree with this statement). Distortion and punchy drums need to fill the room for a proper listening experience.
One of bad characteristics of many really loud masters is that they fart out at high volume. Not to mention the lack of natural dynamics (which is important for a music that's at least supposed to sound like it's been played by humans) and other stuff.

 

[Mutant]

Some metal genres are good loud and not dynamic and other genres are good with more dynamics.

Voted "i don't care".

 

[~BURNY~]

Speaks volume (no pun intended)



If you're not a fat ass retarded blob, you should be intelligent enough to use the volume knob of your hifi if you want it louder.

 

[53Crëw]

I prefer more dynamics, myself, and agree with Burny's comment about using the volume knob.

I've been listening to a lot of 80's mixes lately and really like the fact that the mixes are not so squashed.

 

[crillemannen]

Loud is great and rock shouldn't have that much dynamics but it shouldn't be squashed to hell either. If they would all agree to lower the RMS about 2db or so the music would benefit from it.

 

[infectdsniper]

i dont care. i like masters however as long as the artifacts can be ignored and the music can be enjoyed. i can very much get into either and its not a deal breaker in either direction as long as its not to dynamic or too squashed.

 

[LeSedna]

I think squashed is good ONLY for listening on the radio, in a car. I honestly think in this case it's a very good thing, all the records who are really brickwall limited are so better to listen to in the car or in difficult environments.

Other than that, I just can't see how or why someone would prefer a squashed version over a dynamic one with a proper hi-fi system, would it be metal or rock or classical. Not that I don't enjoy modern mixes, just I like it even better when it breathes way more.

 

[Clark Kent]

Yeah, if it's the mastering of a CD you don't have to be too loud but if it's a master for radio or MP3 players etc. then I'd say -10dB RMS minimum or your mix will sound inferior to other mixes because of the volume difference.

But honestly except for that Metallica album there aren't that many albums that are "ruined". The sad part is that many radios and mp3 players etc. have some kind of auto-mastering which will change the sound for sure.

 

[Uros]

That's what are radio edits for. Metal doesn't get much of radio airplay anyway, so no point in doing them.

 

[Star Ark]

it would be nice if the listener was in control of the mix limiting using digital limiter presets in the same way we use eq presets. my sony surround sound receiver has a few different limiting modes tailored for watching movies but nothing for music

 

[egan.]

I think it's important but exaggerated. Certainly there are examples of crushed masters, but with a lot of modern metal you'd increase the crest factor but not the actual dynamics.
My mantra on this is that good converters do a much better job of operating at the top of their range, reconciling intersample peaks and dealing with clipping. If every mastering engineer made their client listen to the mix on ipod converters we'd probably end up with quieter masters. On the flipside if people would buy decent converters they would suffer less from (too) loud masters.

 

[egan.]

I challenge you guys to listen to those early Beatles songs where all drums are panned to the left and guitars right etc... listen through a record like that and tell me how your ears feel. Now... do the same thing with a "loudness war" album. I'm pretty sure you'll change your mind and now you actually know what you're talking about. It's not about how it feels to listen 10 seconds of it. It's about how it feels to enjoy an album.

Your opinion is reasonable but this is poor advice since we can easily listen to two different masters of the same album from the last 15 years and compare results. That's a much better way to judge. Some records really change, others don't.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I think the war has long been over and anyone still fighting it is doing so to ease the butt hurt.

 

[RedDog]

I think the war has long been over and anyone still fighting it is doing so to ease the butt hurt.

True story bro.