The Loudness War - Dissertation research

[eleven8]

hi all

im doing my Dissertation on the Loudness War, and looking into the effect of over compression & limiting.

What do you guys think about this?

Have there been any situations where you have heard a track and thought it sounded like it was clipping badly?
Or is it not much of a big deal?

I've also done a track comparison - Mix 1 has a larger dynamic range, with not much compression or limiting on the master channel, and Mix 2 is the opposite.
If you want to have a listen (and any comments on which track you prefer would be appreciated) it can be heard here:

Soundcloud



Cheers for your time!

[eleven8]

Oh, and if you like that track and want a copy its out on Digital Tunes as a free release

http://www.digital-tunes.net/releases/face_of_the_earth

tarrr

[gnome]

I have never heard a professionally released track that has been clipping. Loud and squashed yeah but I havnt heard any clip. AC/DCs new album was hella loud. Too loud I did'nt enjoy it not to mention all there stuff sounds the same.

[eleven8]

Really?
have you heard Death Magnetic by Metallica?
the whole thing is one rather large clip lol.

Also, the Alix Perez album 1984 (the digital version) has been ruined in my opinion, the tunes and the production is great but whoever mastered it clearly just wanted to get it as loud as possible..
theres some examples in this thread if you wanna hear.
http://www.dogsonacid.com/showthread.ph ... genumber=1

[gnome]

God that track has been heavily pushed haha.

The track in your sig is gret btw.

[eleven8]

Yeh it's a pity when tracks that are genuinly good get ruined by poor mixing / mastering..

And thank you! glad you like it mate

[Bodega]

As I mention in my post on compression in my production blog, anybody looking at it these days has to read what Steve Albini has to say on the subject.

He's like a bright, shining beacon in a sea of squished tracks.

[eleven8]

Thats a cool blog post mate, nice one for the link to that
The Shlohmo track is great n all!

[nitz]

Here is a great example, which am sure you have allready seen, nevertheless :
Q

Really good example of the loudness war.

Much of the loudness war arguments are about the the loss of dynamics and the overall feel of the song. I personally prefer dynamical in a mix over loudness any day, dont get me wrong in my time i have squaded the life out of a song, mainly because to conform with other levels out there, everything was so loud... However, after a while you will get to understand how much better a mix with dynamics are over loudness so you say fuck it... i keep the output level as what i want, regardless if other are brick wall liming it or not.

However, there are lots of "uneducated" people out there, that don't think about things such as these. Back in the days I could listen to a song on my mp3 nicely set about 60/65% of the way, but nowadays i dare not to be in that range because of damaging my ears because everything is so compressed...!

Part 1 of the song btw, the 2nd one has loss all space and dimensions in the mix by pushing it so much.

[nitz]

One more thing to add, as i said before lots of people think that having music compressed and limited this loud is "normal" now, this is probably very true, but very sad at the same time that... people who don't over do there masters do generally not get picked up for there work compared to other artist. You may not like it, but its quite true... not everything, because dubstep is generally a very open and no judgmental music scene, but it does happen.