Louder is Not Better…

There is an editorial on the April ‘08 issue of Recording Magazine (available now to Taxi members) from Scott Dorsey which I feel highlights the lack of interest the recording industry has taken towards achieving top quality sound recordings. In the article, Dorsey talks about “how louder is better when it comes to mastering your albums”. Dorsey suggests that it’s ok to sacrifice the dynamic ranges in recording mixes for the sake of getting your mix to sound louder.

This is a concept that is heavily shared today by just about all the major record labels and most independent companies as well. The idea is to get your song as loud if not louder than the songs on other albums. This process involves heavily compressing and limiting the signals while at the same time eliminating almost all dynamic ranges that are found within the actual performances of the songs. This procedure takes place at the mastering stage of an album, where in many cases it actually the record execs that tell the mastering engineers that they want their album to sound “louder”.

The reasoning behind this “louder is better” philosophy (as explained by Dorsey) is that since today most people listen to music on the go through small ear buds and low quality mp3 players, it’s ok to master your music as loud as possible so that the listener doesn’t have to bring up the volume on his/her player to compensate for the noise around them. Dorsey and the record companies have failed to realize that it’s that same dynamic range that they’re eliminating which actually helps to prevent ear fatigue. Not the same type of ear fatigue that engineers contend with when listening to loud music for a long time, but the subtle type of fatigue that occurs when listening to music at the same non-dynamic levels.

If you’re old enough, you might remember the days of vinyl records. It was common back then to listen to an album from beginning to end and experience a type of sonic journey. One of the reasons for this type of enjoyment came from the subtle dynamic ranges that occurred during the performances of these recordings. True there is also the factor that music back then was created for albums unlike today where it’s a singles market. But the fact remains that we could not have had nearly the same type of enjoyment if the mastering of those albums were done as they are today.

For those who think that I’m probably just reminiscing on the past, take a look at the recent interest in vinyl recordings. Warner Bros reported  earlier this year a 30% increase in vinyl sales, while small mom and pop stores which specialize in vinyl are starting to spring up in the U.K. and U.S. This new interest in an old media is not just some nostalgia thing. Kids and adults are discovering (and re-discovering) how much better music sounds when it’s not compressed to the max, even with the hiss and scratches.

What really disappointed me the most about Scott Dorsey’s article was the fact that such a lack of interest in maintaining quality was coming from a magazine which is read by so many up & coming producers and engineers who look at Recording magazine as one of their resources for top quality equipment and new mixing and recording techniques. I know from reading different recording forums for several years now, that professional engineers cringed whenever they read stuff like this.

It is our responsibility as music recording specialist, that while the recording project is in our control we provide the highest quality recordings we possibly can. Once the project (final mix) leaves our hands, if the record label execs want to screw it up by killing the dynamics to make it as “loud” as possible, then let them assume that responsibility, not us. We should never take the attitude that says “well no one cares about quality so lets just follow the heard”.