![]() ![]() ![]() It's bewildering to think that the audio format that offered the greatest dynamic range potential ever made available to the consumer is now routinely used to store music deliberately processed with the least possible dynamic range in the history of recorded music! The audible consequence has been that the 'volume' of pop, rock and other music recorded and released on commercial CDs has risen steadily since the late 1980s, with a corresponding reduction in dynamics and, in many cases, a trend towards a more aggressive and fatiguing sound character - all in an attempt to make each track as loud as or louder than the perceived competition. Unfortunately, digital recording removed such constraints - a CD, for example, is playable regardless of the amplitude of the encoded audio data - and that simple technical freedom facilitated the 'war' that has been raging with (arguably) ever more musically destructive power over the last 30 years. Thankfully, there's a physical limit to how loud a vinyl record can be cut without making it unplayable, so even the loudest-cut records managed to retain quite reasonable dynamics. This long-standing practice of competing to make one record sound loud in relation to others is usually claimed to be the consequence of an observation made in the 1950s that people tended to play the louder-cut records in jukeboxes more often. The Loudness WarsĪnyone who has contemplated putting their own music onto a CD or online, even if only for family and friends, will be all too aware of the 'Loudness Wars'. Some new technologies are involved and some new terminology too, so I'll also explore those elements, as well as suggesting ways of moving forward in the brave new world of loudness normalisation. Mastering engineer Bob Katz, who has long campaigned for the end of hyper-compression in mastering, and who recently declared the loudness wars to have been won - by the right side!In this article, I'll explain what the new standards entail, and explore what the practical implications of all this will be for the way artists, mixing and mastering engineers - from bedroom producers publishing their tracks online to full-time music-industry and broadcast professionals - create and shape music in the years to come. Katz's declaration of victory is rooted in the recent adoption by the audio and broadcast industries of a new standard measure of loudness and, more recently still, the inclusion of automatic loudness-normalisation facilities in both broadcast and consumer playback systems. In essence, the idea is that if all music is played back at the same perceived volume, there's no longer an incentive for mix or mastering engineers to compete in these 'loudness wars'. In a surprising announcement made at last Autumn's AES convention in New York, the well-known American mastering engineer Bob Katz declared in a press release that "The loudness wars are over.” That's quite a provocative statement - but while the reality is probably not quite as straightforward as Katz would have us believe (especially outside the USA), there are good grounds to think he may be proved right over the next few years. Visit Article.As the nails are being hammered firmly into the coffin of competitive loudness processing, we consider the implications for those who make, mix and master music. The Absolute Sound November 2021: Cover 1 ![]()
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