Upon reaching the mastering stage of my audio project I came to the realisation that more consideration would have to be put into the process than first thought. Through research into mastering I found that I would have to make a choice between mastering my songs loud to compete with other commercial music in the Reserve Lounge at the sacrifice of dynamic range, or master the songs to feature more dynamic qualities yet risk customers loosing interest due to my work being perceived as quieter than other releases. To understand the reasoning behind this we must first understand exactly what mastering is and what this entails.

“Mastering is the last creative step in the audio production process, the bridge between mixing and replication (or distribution). It is the last opportunity to enhance sound or repair problems within an acoustically designed room, under an audio microscope.” (Katz, 2007. p12)

Mastering, often referred to as ‘The Black Art’ in simple terms is the process that gives recordings a polished, cohesive and professional sound, best described as “Photoshop for audio” by mastering engineer Ian Shepherd (2010). Mastering audio commonly consists of 3 different creative techniques to help create a professional sounding track: EQ, compression and limiting, when each process is used subtlety they tend to make a huge overall difference, but at the same time the overuse of just one of these can have a detrimental effect on the audio. The most commonly abused technique is compression. Compression is a technique that takes the loudest and quietest parts of a song and reduces the difference in dynamic range between them. This technique can be utilised in a varied number of different circumstances, from smoothing out the peaks and raising the quieter parts of a vocal take so that it sits consistently within the mix and remains audible, to adding extra punch to a kick drum or bass guitar or even in the mastering process to give the perception of power and punch. Like anything in the audio processing world the sensible and subtle use of this technique can have some extremely positive and rewarding effects on a final mix or master. Unfortunately this process can also warrant some negative implications if used incorrectly. The term hyper-compression is used to describe the excessive use of this tool and how it is utilised to push the waveforms of music closer to the 0dBFS (decibels to full scale) limit to make the song sound louder. Unfortunately through doing this you sacrifice dynamic range, therefore erasing the light and shade of the song. Everything tends to hit you at the same level in a wall of sound throughout the song rather than alternating between loud and quiet which in turn, can cause a fatiguing effect on the listener. The main reason for the use of hyper-compression is a desperate attempt for the artist’s track to be louder than their competitors. This all stems from the ‘Louder is better’ theory, in a way that the louder something is, the more frequencies our ears can detect within that audio, giving an improved listening experience. However loudness is a completely subjective effect, in other words, the loudness of a sound is completely dependant on the person experiencing it. Unfortunately not everyone believes this, Record labels and artists have been pressuring mastering engineers into adopting the ‘louder is better’ concept.

“Every Year CD’s seemed to be getting hotter. When a new loud benchmark was reached, somebody else figured out a way to go even louder. It was nothing less than a Loudness War.” (Milner, 2010, p. 243)

The concept of the Loudness War has a dramatic effect on the way music is mastered in the modern age, and now i must face the same choice. Due to the vast dynamic qualities of the music I have written for my client and the way it is designed to effect its listeners emotionally and subconsciously, It is important that it is mastered to enhance these dynamic qualities, rather than crushing them. Mastering these tracks too loud could cause a fatiguing effect on its listeners and cause the Reserve Lounge to loose customers, the exact opposite of what the project was originally intended to do. However at the same time, for music to be considered quieter than its competitors is considered commercial death, meaning my product will have to be perceived at the same loudness as the other commercial releases in the Reserve Lounge’s playlist. Luckily, upon investigation of the Kaleidovision music playback system that the rooms audio runs from, I found that it featured a loudness normalisation option, similar to the iTunes soundcheck function. Apple’s popular media playing software ‘iTunes’ introduced the Sound Check feature in 2002 within its software and hardware devices. The utilisation of this facility was to bridge the gap between volume changes when listening to tracks in shuffle mode.

“The idea behind Sound Check is essentially avoiding the annoying (and potentially even dangerous) volume changes that can occur if you play list moves from, say, a quiet jazz ballad into a full on screaming metal track.” (Robjohns, 2014, p. 23)

Sound Check mode uses a loudness normalisation algorithm to calculate the louder songs and compare them to the quieter songs and brings them to a similar playback volume. The reason this feature closes the question of how to master my work for the Reserve Lounge is because it eliminates the need to hyper-compress commercial music as the iTunes Sound Check feature will use its algorithms to adjust the playback volume accordingly anyway. “All music will be standardised to an average playback level, so the “loudness” of your music will have no effect on its playback volume” (Shepherd, 2012). This also means that no matter how dynamic or potentially quiet my product is mastered, it will still be played at the same level as the other commercial releases within the Reserve Lounge playlist. My next post will include a walkthrough of how I will master my music and will include comparable audio samples.   Sources: Katz, R. (2007) Mastering audio. 2nd edition. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Focal Press. Shepherd, I. (2010). What is Mastering?. [online] Available at: http://productionadvice.co.uk/mastering-as-photoshop/ [Accessed: 19 April 2014]. Milner, G. (2010) Perfecting Sound Forever. First edition.London: Granta. Robjohns, H. (2014) The End Of The Loudness Wars. Sound On Sound, Volume 29, (Issue 4) Shepherd, I. (2012). The best loudness metering plugins money can buy – and my favourite alternative (for only 9 dollars !). [online] Available at: http://productionadvice.co.uk/the-best-loudness-metering-plugins-money-can-buy/ [Accessed: 19 Apr 2014].