Do you NEED to be mastering loud ? - Episode 93 | The Mastering Show Podcast

[@johnthorpedidge]

Loudness has nothing to do with sound quality but has everything to do with competition, marketing and profits. I've been listening to music for decades on a good hifi system and loudness of recordings is meaningless in this sense. If I want loud music I simply turn up the volume. Isn't that obvious? Nowadays I have to turn the volume right down because the loudness has been cranked right up. Some mastering engineers are competitive and like to beat their counterparts with louder masters. Competition exist everywhere, including the music industry. It jumped on 'louder' as it's a great marketing tool for more profits. Apart from a few, the music industry, like a lot of things, is a money making machine whose power determines the set trends, which these days is loudness. Though it is just a trend. Fashions come and go. And there is some effort already to change it and/or change our perception of it thanks to your efforts too (Ian). The mass market of mobile phones these days means that a lot of people listen to music on a mediocre audio device. Nothing wrong with that but it also means that sound quality isn't so important. Poorly recorded music sounds better on a phone than a decent hifi system If loudness sells, then that's going to be the route of the music industry. To think that some mastering engineers hanker over louder and louder masters is quite crazy really., when all that's important is the music quality and the subjective bias of the artists. But it seems that artists have bought into it too, or at least sold it, that 'louder'is better or maybe not in that they may have more sales. It seems that the industry has gone down that rabbit hole, at least for a while.

[@lovely-shrubbery8578]

perceived loudness incentivizes destruction of audio information for higher relative perceived loudness when listening between tracks without adjusting volume knob.

[@ItsMetabtw]

For me it’s less about my personal opinion on which sounds better, loud vs dynamic; but more about honing my skills to deliver loud masters when that’s what the client requests. I am just as happy delivering -12 or -5. I just want them to sound great, given my parameters, and have repeat business

[@ProductionAdvice]

That’s absolutely fair enough, hopefully it came across in our conversation that I’d do understand that. Personally I struggle to enjoy -5 LUFS in any genre, and prefer not to work that way.

[@ItsMetabtw]

@@ProductionAdvice yeah absolutely. I think you guys are carrying on the discussion in a very friendly manner and great points are being made on both sides. A lot of it boils down to discussions with the artists/labels etc. and offering suggestions on what we think best suits a song or album, but also walk that line because I’d rather not lose a client by saying “I can’t” when in reality I’d just personally prefer it another way.

[@normalizedaudio2481]

Quamon Fowler just got a good mixdwn and master on "Heart and Soul of A Champion Music Video." I think they had an engineer because it sounds good. Very loud ; but, -1.6LUFS. Good job on this master.

[@ProductionAdvice]

You mean it's -1.6 dB below KZbin's Distribution Loudness, so -15.6 LUFS overall, right ? I agree it sounds pretty loud when normalised, but personally I'd have pushed it a little more, to get more depth and weight in the low end and density overall.

[@martijn_nl]

If it sounds good it is good (Duke Ellington) Different genres allow for different mastering and loudness before breaking up or just sounding good! Would Skrillex sound like Skrillex with a large dynamic range, less denseness?

[@ProductionAdvice]

Great question - I did some tests (including Skrillex) to try and figure this out, let me know what you think: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eIGmoKCXat57b9k

[@brooks1700]

it's really frustrating how so much of this seems to come down to deficiencies in how labels and clubs actually handle their own playback systems and so mastering is left feeling they have to cope with fallout by smashing everything

[@Durkhead]

Why is it so hard to get that neither louder or more dynamic is better but thers a fine line.

[@lamentistriangle281]

Also, it is possible to release 2 versions; one is "out of necessity" loud/ relatively loud one and the uncompressed, full dynamic range edition. The fact that people can't, ever be able to access such versions, such potential of many given music is a tragedy imo.

[@marshallore6869]

It seems to me like transients don't contribute to the punchiness of a sound, at least not much... so what is the benefit of having them? Maybe dynamics add depth to the sound stage?

[@ProductionAdvice]

For me I hear more depth, space, life and snap - plus it’s possible to make the low end much bigger and more impactful without extra distortion

[@Studio22mix]

A great song is will always be a great song even without a great mix or master, nobody listens to music and says; that's a great mix or master, only engineers do 😉

[@XtremeKremaTor]

On youtube normalisation is not working even if enabled. Plus adverts just SCREAM

[@ProductionAdvice]

It can’t be disabled on KZbin, and in my tests adverts have always been normalised. They don’t turn quiet material up though, so if you go from something uploaded well below the Distribution Loudness you’ll still hear a jump up, maybe that’s what is happening in the examples you’ve heard ?

[@maximilianmustermann5763]

It can be a matter of taste unfortunately. I have this trainee who is 20 years old and makes his own hard style techno tracks. It seems to me he is so used to overly compressed material that he actually thinks -3 dB of dynamics sounds the best for his tracks. And for what it's worth, I can't argue with him because it's completely artificial, electronic music anyways. So if he thinks it sounds best heavily compressed, who am I to tell him it doesn't.

[@maximilianmustermann5763]

PS: I don't mean "artificial" in a bad way. It's just that techno, electro, whatever is by any meaning of the word artificial. It doesn't involve real instruments and it doesn't need to be rooted in reality. It can be whatever it wants. And if all 20 year olds think it sounds best with -3 dB or less dynamics, well that's what they like.

[@ProductionAdvice]

I hear you but I think it’s a stretch to say that all young people feel this way. The dense, distorted sound can also be achieved at lower LUFS, giving “the sound” but also with the benefit of more peak-to-loudness in my experience (space, depth, snap and life, louder bass etc). There are certainly some clients who can’t be persuaded, but I always like to offer both alternatives and let them choose