As many will already know, the loudness war refers to the continuous trend of music being produced and mastered as loud as possible. It began with mastering engineers trying to cut vinyls as deep as possible to get their tracks to stand out on radio, but this trend has continued into the digital realm, where mastering engineers are expected to push every possible dB out so that their clients music will stand out on not just the radio, but also on the likes of itunes and myspace. You only need to compare a modern recording with one from 10 years ago to get a clear idea of the changes that have taken place..
For a mastering engineer to make a track louder, he must apply dynamic processing (compression/limiting/maximization). Dynamic processes can be used for a variety of purposes; not all destructive, but its compression to achieve loudness which i will focus on in this article. To understand compression, its easier to think of it as an automatic volume control. So for example, if a track is being played through a compressor, and the audio signal goes above a pre-defined level (the threshold), the compressor will automatically turn the level down. When the music goes on to a softer passage and the level drops below the threshold the compresser will turn the volume back up to its original state. In effect, the compressor manages to squash the track into a smaller dynamic range, which leaves more headroom on the signal so that the overall level can be brought up. When over-abused, this can take all the life out of a recording, and continuously loud audio can fatigue your hearing.
With limiters and compressors becoming more advanced and in effect more transparent, mastering engineers are able to achive a much greater loudness without any obvious degredation of sound quality. This said, over-abuse of the limiter is very widespread, and all too often a producer or mastering engineer can practiacally destroy a good quality recording with heavy-handed compression.
At Earwax Audio Mastering, the importance of loudness to compete with commercail recordings is fully understood, but compromises are not made when it comes to retaining dynamically rich audio. That said, each and every client has their own needs, and if loudness is your priority every effort will be made to produce a loud and great sounding CD master. If your considering getting your next project mastered at Earwax Audio Mastering, please state on the track sheet what your after, or creative decisions will be left to the engineers discretion.
