The Loudness Wars

Posted on a bus stop bench on Nashville’s Music Row, “Louder isn’t better. It’s just louder”. Someone took a sharpie and wrote under it, “And better”. Yes, the loudness wars are alive and well. If you’re a musician, producer, engineer, or even a music lover, you know what I’m talking about. It’s the ongoing battle to have the loudest mix on the radio. Or an indie CD that’s as “loud” as a major label release. Behind closed doors, mastering engineers complain about the fact that dynamic range is a thing of the past. They hate having to squeeze the life out of a great mix just to gain a few decibels of apparent volume. Some think that loudness wars are a recent phenomenon. It goes back much further, and CD’s are not to blame. From the earliest 45 rpm singles, artists and labels have been trying to have their product be the loudest record in the stack at the radio stations. Even back then, record companies would send out compilations of new singles to radio stations on a single LP. Once artists, labels and producers listened to these, if their song wasn't the loudest one on the record, they would call the mastering engineer and have them raise the level so it could be competitive. CD’s should have made it better, not worse. CD’s increased dynamic range. The absence of rumbles, ticks and pops, and the fact that the needle would never jump out of the groove, caused the artistic community and engineers to embrace this format. At first there were many dynamic titles produced. Several record companies even went as far as to put disclaimers on CD’s released stating that they were not responsible for speaker damage caused by the extreme dynamic range of that particular disk. Now, mastering engineers have more tools, and better sounding tools, at their disposal, to make things even louder. No one wants a client to say, “I love everything you’ve done, but could you just make it louder?” So, engineers reach for their favorite compressor and mastering limited and crush away. Once things reach 0dB full scale, you think that would be it. But, I’ve taken commercially released CD’s and gotten 1.5 to 2 dB more out of them through SADiE without them distorting. Yes, I can make your tracks louder. But, is that what they really need? Maybe what they need is simply to take what is best about your unique sound and polish and enhance it. Louder is only one aspect of what a mastering engineer can offer. But more on that later.

Make a Joyful Noise-

Chad