Evidence That The Loudness Wars May Finally Be Over

For way too long mixers and mastering engineers alike have been forced to squash songs before their final release, first in an effort to sound louder than everyone else's (especially on radio), then to just keep up in level with what's already out there.

But squashing a song to within an inch of its life may finally be counterproductive, as most digital services are now each employing their own brand of normalization in an effort to make all songs the same volume level for a better listening experience.

Here's a great video from UK mastering engineer Ian Shepherd that explains how it all works using a number of hits from U2 as an example. You can check out Ian's blog for a lot of great audio information at productionadvice.co.uk.

Let's hope that this is the first step in the return to dynamics in music.

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