Quote:
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Originally Posted by Rob Instigator
recording engineers have, for the past 8 or so years, been mastering most new albums at a very high level, and doing so to re-issues as well. This is done to make the music sound "better" whne played through shit-ass ear buds or shitty MP3 players. Essentially, mastering everything at such a high level helps (they think) to maintain the "oomph" that is lost when songs are scrunched down into an MP3 format.
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The mastering war started before the widespread advent of mp3s, but instantly-transferable digital formats have compounded the problem.
Wiki article
This (
from this) illustrates perfectly how the dynamic range is lost in ridiculous mastering.
Article
I think Savage Clone knows a fair bit about this subject.
Personally, I have problems with records that substitute dynamic range for surface 'loudness'. My problem with metal, in my desire for 'loud' sounds (when I was at that naif-sociopath stage of teenhood where you want aggression in sound), was that once they peaked, that was it, just a drilling constant 'loud' that went no-where. I turned to noise, which quickly bored me. Nowadays, I'm of the opinion that if you want dynamic range (which is, on an acoustic level, more affecting than sheer 'loud') you'll have to look to the classical world. I have a recording of Babi Yar by Shostokovich which goes from
unbelievably quiet to absurdly loud - pop/ rock/ noise [or whatever] artists don't seem to understand that
dynamic range is much, much more aggressive than sheer volume. The whole of the musique concréte world, your Xenkises, Penderecki (of 'threnody...' fame) or even Beethoven or Tchiakovsky can be much, much more devastating than a record which is mastered to 'industry standard'.