on 1/6/07 5:02 PM US/Central, Aaron Levinson at aaron.levinson@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
The Loudness War is
really the result of radio stations compressing things to death and to
place the blame on the labels alone is really just a facile answer to a
more complex problem.
Well, we might disagree there.
Most of the mastering sessions we do are attended, and most clients insist that their CDs be as loud as the one they bring with them for comparison, without regard to the preservation of transients.
As for radio processing, see http://www.masterdigital.com/24bit/radioprocess.htm.
What radio stations do is much more than compression. Few audio engineers have ever heard of phase rotation, yet virtually all audio you hear on the radio undergoes this process.
Many years ago it was grounds for rejection at the CD pressing plant if there were too many 0dBfs samples in a row. Now, it's not uncommon to see 20 or more in a row on commercially released product. And these CDs are being mastered by first tier mastering facilities, with international reputations, as well as in house mastering engineers at record labels.
Instead of radio, many people think the loudness war in CDs was created by the CD changer.
Nevertheless, radio processing is also driven by the quest for loudness, but rock CDs (for example) when broadcast are made much worse by being clipped during the mastering process.
Radio processing lessens the level differences between various program sources; it doesn't increase it.