Re: [ARSCLIST] fwd: Everything Louder Than Everything Else : Have the loudness wars reached their final battle?

[Bob Olhsson <olh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tom Fine wrote:
>It's just disgraceful how 50 years of progress in sound recording and 
>reproduction -- to where at 
>least a few recordings each year were truly life-like -- is being erased in 
>less than a generation.

The production values of singles started being applied to albums. A major cause of this has been artists and their managers starting to require "complete creative control" in their recording contracts because the press tells them that's what they ought to have. Even when label executives know better, they are obliged contractually to choose between releasing the recording as it is or not releasing it and eating the advance and production expenses.

The traditional reason for "cutting hot" was to make the greatest impact in a distributor sales or a radio programming meeting. What typically happens in these meetings is that the first 15-30 seconds of a track is played and the people in the room vote to either add the title to what they are working with or to throw it in the trash. This happens before anybody outside the industry gets to ever hear the record. (Payola only bought you getting into the pile of records being considered.)  At the very least one never want to be too much softer than the competition.

The sad part is that with the exception of misguided souls who think that they are being trendy, it's the fans who buy the CDs that are getting screwed by this process. In the old days many hit records practically sold themselves by word of mouth. I very rarely hear of that happening today. Likewise music radio's "Time Spent Listening" ratings have been dropping like a rock for more than ten years. All of the ear fatigue certainly can't be helping sales. The redeeming grace of lossy coded music is that it often makes crushed digital audio sound much much worse.

-- 
Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
615.385.8051    http://www.hyperback.com