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Originally Posted by shabbray2.0
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.
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This post made me think about whether this thread really has any bearing on most people on this forum - Metallica are a
huge band, and by their very nature, incredibly commercial. The whole thing with the mastering wars, at its most vulgar and preposterous (Death Magnetic) is that it's about competing for space on the radio. I don't think forum this is some great Mecca of underground music, but it's largely not dealing with the sort of people who are seriously competing with the Metallicas of this world. Quite a lot of the c95 dnb tracks had massively rattly bass drums, but that's not quite the same as mastering things to sound like shite; like Shabbers says above, plenty of people can use limits to their advantage.
Yeah, basically, I'm wondering if this thread even applies to bands who mostly aren't going to be heard on drive-time radio.