" The phrase loudness war (or loudness race) refers to the practice of recording music at progressively higher and higher levels, to create CDs that sound perceptibly as loud as possible or "louder" than CDs from competing artists or recording labels. While the overall maximum amplitude of a CD cannot be increased, reducing the dynamic range of the signal using audio compression will cause the ear to perceive the overall signal as being louder, when in fact merely the difference between loud and quiet portions of audio has been reduced. " ( Loudness war wiki )
And I will suggest these two fine articles :
The loudness wars seen by mastering engineers : http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_big_squeeze/
On the death of dynamic range : http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicdeath.htm
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Do you think it is happening right now in dubstep ?
Do you feel that certain artists or mastering engineers are purposefully trying to make their dubstep tracks louder, " hotter " ( the " wall of sound " ideal, the perfectly squashed waveform ) in order to squash (
) the competition ?Do you feel that dubstep production " in general " is a reaction, a protestation against the loudness race as we see it happening, for example, in drum and bass ?
Do you feel that dubstep producers who possess a breakbeat / dnb background have a tendancy to make their tracks louder than those who have a garage / urban background ?
Post your thoughts !
