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Originally Posted by Glice
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I couldn't find a thread for this, which surprised me. I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but it's something that a lot of audiophiles are getting quite excited about, bless 'em.
Basically, a lot of records are being mastered to the point where they sound like shit. Thoughts? Opinions? Glib horseshit non-opinions based on spurious notions of 'humour'?
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I hevent read all the posts yet, so here is my non-biased opinion on it:
the loudness war seems to never end.
I think almost everybody tends to be louder then the next artist.
I also think a lot managed to let it sound good, squashed to the limiter ceiling, like flying lotus, madlib etc. it fits their style. they also get it done to let everything breath despite the squashedness. or to say it better they create motion inside their music with the stilistic technique of overcompressing.
but there multiple examples of how to do it completely wrong. (like metallica).
to keep this short:
it depends. electronic music, can gain something from it when its used right. but loudness just for loudness sake is just wrong. I can turn up the volume levels by myself, but I cant restore destroyed musical information which hurts my ears.
the biggest problem which argues me the most is clipping (metallica (cymbals // hi hats)) and cutting of the lows to much that they loose their punch (kickdrum). of curse its easier to make shit louder which doesnt have to create a lot of force in the bass region (cause there is the most energy needed to become audible), but I prefer a kick where it belongs: in my stomache and/or the chest, not just the low mids of it which leave me wanting more.
most of the time it isnt an artistical decision (again FlyLo, Madlib), its just the decision of the labels which tell the mastering engineers to make it louder (Metallica, thats th ereason why the version on the Ps2 sounds better, cause its the version before overlimiting).
the problem isnt the loudness, its the sacrifices that needs to be made to be the loudest.