Loudness War

[Pedro]

An interesting post from 64Guitars made me create this thread.

"The phrase loudness war (or loudness race) refers to the music industry's tendency to record, produce and broadcast music at progressively increasing levels of loudness to create a sound that stands out from others. This phenomenon can be observed in many areas of the music industry, particularly broadcasting and albums released on CD and DVD. In the case of CDs, the war stems from artists' and producers' desires to create CDs that sound as loud as possible or louder than CDs from competing artists or recording labels.[1]"

Taken from Wikipedia's article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war


What are the pros and cons of having loud recordings? Do you prefer maximizing your recordings volume or keeping the original volume and dynamics intact?

[Pedro]

I must say I like my music normalized and loud mainly because I don't like to adjust the volume knob on my speakers a lot of times.

On a side note: I hate that TV commercials always are a bit dB louder than real content.

[Mr. Scar]

I've run into the loudness wars while listening to AM radio. At night I like to listen to the Coast To Coast radio show on the AM dial. The problem is the commercials. Their volume level is much louder then the show's level. Very annoying. I'm losing this battle, anyone know of a radio with a volume  limiter so I can get a constant volume?

[Pedro]

I don't know of any Radio like that but there should be something. I remember hearing about a law that limited the volume of commercials. I wonder if this is was ever applied.

[Mr. Scar]

I wonder too. It's a shame, I end up turning the thing off cause it's so bad.

[Oldrottenhead]

listen to the bbc stations, no adds except for programmes on their schedule go to www.bbc.co.uk/radio/

6music is my fave channel is as if someone made a radio station for me.
but there is something for everyone

[Pedro]

Yes, that is a good alternative. I don't listen to radio anymore though, only when I'm driving and thats only when the MP3 player doesn't have batteries. I lost my interest in radio after a program I really like ended.

On side note: I remember to read that music on the radio is highly compressed and maximized. As it seems it is a way of "optimizing" the sounds to be broadcast.

[betzq]

I hate these records which sound too loud, expecially if it cuts something from the sound, like in this example:

Vinyl version vs CD version of one red hot chili peppers song, it has been mastered for way too loud:

http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/6905/peppe508fr.jpg

[Gertok]

The result of that is excessive compression, all instruments sound the same, everything is in your face.

[guitarron]

Dynamics give recorded music life-thats what i like about jazz-although a lot the jazz stuff out nowadays is starting to get that hot mix treatment too