Health

It's Too Loud, but You're Not Too Old

by Jordan Yerman | June 9, 2007 at 01:28 pm

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CDs are getting louder! (Hang on, let me turn down the AC/DC for a sec)
The following article is about peak limiting, in which nuances of the recording process are lost in the mastering phase, resulting in a louder but less detailed recording. The segments that would normally be loud now go up to eleven, as it were, which can result in buzzy, vague sound quality from your average set of speakers (A friend of mine calls this effect "[the] bass fart").
Inevitably, perhaps, a movement has begun to defuse the high-volume arms race.

That distortion effect running through your Oasis album is not entirely the Gallagher brothers’ invention. Record companies are using digital technology to turn the volume on CDs up to “11”.

Artists and record bosses believe that the best album is the loudest one. Sound levels are being artificially enhanced so that the music punches through when it competes against background noise in pubs or cars.

Britain’s leading studio engineers are starting a campaign against a widespread technique that removes the dynamic range of a recording, making everything sound “loud”.

“Peak limiting” squeezes the sound range to one level, removing the peaks and troughs that would normally separate a quieter verse from a pumping chorus.

The process takes place at mastering, the final stage before a track is prepared for release. In the days of vinyl, the needle would jump out of the groove if a track was too loud.

But today musical details, including vocals and snare drums, are lost in the blare and many CD players respond to the frequency challenge by adding a buzzing, distorted sound to tracks.