If It's Too Loud You're NOT Too Old!

Are you sick and tired of shitty, blaring, over-compressed records? Not data compression, not MPEG or anything, I'm talking good old fashioned audio. Peak-limiting, where digital audio is slammed to the limit to make it louder. But at what cost? Well, by making all the loudest bits QUIETER and the quiet bits LOUDER. What does this do to the music? In moderation and on individual instruments compression can make it sound better. But it is NOT being used in moderation, it's being abused. The entire mix is being crushed to the max. So yeah it is louder, it's in-your-face, but it has no power, it has no teeth. It's not so much a buzzsaw blade as it is a fine sanding disc. They've robbed you of the sound of the real world and made it into this artificial, flat thing with all the life squeezed out of it. At best you'll just have lame-sounding albums of otherwise good music, at worst you'll prematurely wreck your hearing by beating your eardrums to death with this crap.

Loudness is good, but loudness without quiet is only a ying without the yang. Hopefully like-minded people can stem the idiot tide. These folks are fighting the good fight:

Turn Me Up!
LOUDNESS WAR!!!

The most vulgar and offensive thing about this issue is that it built on a fundamental lie; that listeners choose music based upon volume. This pre-supposes that all listeners are COMPLETE IDIOTS! Are you an idiot? I doubt it. Are your musical tastes based upon volume? I don't think such a person exists. There are many idiots in this world but I don't think anyone has ever bought a record based solely on how loud it was in comparision to another record. This is nonsense and anyone who promotes the idea that their record will not be as successful as band "X" because it's not as loud IS a COMPLETE IDIOT! That is a non-existent issue that absolutely does not work in the real world. It's absurd theoretical nonsense! It does not apply, everyone and their grandmother understands the concept of a volume control. Everyone knows that THEY control the level. I don't care how crappy your taste in music might be, but I do know that you aren't choosing what to listen to based on loudness.

These idiots act like making music is the same as competetive sports. This isn't the long jump or a car race, you don't achieve success in the music business because you are the loudest. You achieve it because people like the content. You achieve it for a myriad of reasons, but one of those reasons is NOT loudness. Record industry insiders might care about this shit, but the consumer just doesn't.

The existence of software controls to combat average level disparity between albums in iTunes is evidence that overcompressed albums are a PROBLEM and an ANNOYANCE to the user, not a positive benefit. People don't actually want huge jumps in average level between songs. They want a fairly consistent baseline. That doesn't mean a string quartet has to be as loud as a rock record, it just means that people get spooked when something comes on that blows down the walls and they have to scramble for the volume knob.

So what is your loud-ass mastered record reduced to when the consumer takes things into his own hands with the volume knob and Replay Gain? A WEAK, QUIET RECORD WITH NO BALLS. Way to go music industry, you just did the exact opposite of what you wanted to do. You might as well go work for a federal agency! Sheesh!

You've already lost the race anyway as Exit-13 already released the loudest track years ago, with a completely clipped, over-level noise bed, breaking the Redbook standard and having a warning label on the disc that it could damage your stereo. It was a silly stunt. They beat you. Great. Can we go back to the days of proper technique now? Thanks, sure do appreciate it.