Breaking News: Local Man Wants His Music Mastered Loud

Part-Time Audiophile

I had an article sent to me recently about how streaming has ended the volume wars. It was so factually incorrect that I’m inspired (agitated?) to offer my perspective to this and mastering for loudness, in general. I think I’m qualified to speak on this cause it’s actually my job. As a mastering engineer, I’m one of the guys (and girls) responsible for delivering that latest musical masterpiece at sometimes speaker melting levels. Here’s my Q&A on Loudness, Today. Has streaming ended the loudness wars? Nope. Not remotely. Is the latest Billie Eilesh album wonderfully dynamic and is that because of the futility of crushing the dynamics in a volume normailzed, streaming world? Nope. It’s as crushed as anything else. The sense of dynamics is from the arrangement and spectral content of the mixes that very skillfully imparts a feeling of dynamics even though the loud parts are as smashed as most other things out there. Would it sound better if it wasn’t so limited? I seriously doubt it. I think it sounds rad just the way it is. So why do we do it? Because that’s what people want. By people, I mean the artists and members of the […]

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