What is the Loudness War?
The Loudness War is a sonic arms race where every artist and label feel they need to crush their music onto CD at the highest possible level, for fear of not being competitive and in the process removing all the contrast, all the light, shade and depth ruining the sound.
In order to achieve these super-high levels, the music has its dynamic range reduced roughly speaking, thats the difference between the loudest and quietest moments in the music.
(Actually, its more complicated than that. Loudness War sound suffers from limited crest factor, low RMS variability and in the worst cases distortion. Weve chosen limited dynamic range as an intuitive way to describe all this for Dynamic Range Day, but for a more rigorous technical analysis, click here.)
What is Dynamic Range Day ?
The Loudness War is built on the idea that louder is better. However this concept is fatally flawed. The goal of Dynamic Range Day is to reveal this flaw and spread an alternative message.
Click here for more: DYNAMIC RANGE DAY
Where did the idea for DRD come from ?
Dynamic Range Day is organised by Mastering Engineer Ian Shepherd, a long-standing opponent of the Loudness Wars. DRD is also supported by Allen Wagner from TurnMeUp.org.
The Loudness War is a sonic arms race where every artist and label feel they need to crush their music onto CD at the highest possible level, for fear of not being competitive and in the process removing all the contrast, all the light, shade and depth ruining the sound.
In order to achieve these super-high levels, the music has its dynamic range reduced roughly speaking, thats the difference between the loudest and quietest moments in the music.
(Actually, its more complicated than that. Loudness War sound suffers from limited crest factor, low RMS variability and in the worst cases distortion. Weve chosen limited dynamic range as an intuitive way to describe all this for Dynamic Range Day, but for a more rigorous technical analysis, click here.)
What is Dynamic Range Day ?
The Loudness War is built on the idea that louder is better. However this concept is fatally flawed. The goal of Dynamic Range Day is to reveal this flaw and spread an alternative message.
Click here for more: DYNAMIC RANGE DAY
Where did the idea for DRD come from ?
Dynamic Range Day is organised by Mastering Engineer Ian Shepherd, a long-standing opponent of the Loudness Wars. DRD is also supported by Allen Wagner from TurnMeUp.org.
