‘The Loudness War’ refers to an ever growing trend of mastering tracks louder and louder. While this may at first glance appear as a positive, mastering in this way leads to a decreased dynamic range. Almost all streaming platforms require -1 dBTP. When increasing the volume of track through compression and limiters, you keep this true peak at the same level and in doing so decrease the contrast between the quietest and loudest points of the track. This means that a track mastered to -10LUFS for example will be much less punchy and expressive than one mastered quieter. There is a fine line between a track being too quiet and too flat and it is a delicate measure to maintain.
An example of this flattening of dynamics is the track ‘Bring Me to Life’ by Evanescence -Produced by Dave Fortman. In an attempt to make the track louder it was mastered to around -6 LUFS (8 LUFS louder than the standard) and in doing so, has become louder but at the cost of its dynamic range. The snares are unable to punch through the mix and because of this are less prominent than they could be if mastered to a lower LUFS
“Chris Walla, who produces albums for indie rock groups in addition to his own, doesn’t want to follow the trend of recording albums as loud as possible simply because other bands are doing so. The music loses something when pushed to extreme volumes, Walla said, sacrificing its nuances and emotion for attention-grabbing sound.”(Para 3, Masterson, 2008)
If we compare the waveform of Bring Me to Life to the song ‘I will follow you into the dark’ by Walla’s band ‘Death Cab for Cutie’ we can see that there is much more expression and nuance in the waveform
Researching the loudness wars has been useful to me in learning about this desired balance between volume and clarity. When trying to master my work I will definitely keep this in mind. With the track for this module, I would definitely like to keep the dynamic range in tact as the guitar is expressive through certain harsh notes and phrases and I wouldn’t want to compromise this in an attempt to make the track louder. I will definitely need to experiment and find a balance.
MASTERSON, K., 2008, Jan 01. Loudness war stirs quiet revolution: Bands have turned up volume to get noticed; audio engineers lead battle to crank it down. Chicago Tribune, 4. ISSN 10856706.