CHAPTER 9Achieving Loudness
This chapter is about achieving loudness—ideal loudness, extreme loudness, and everywhere between. The subject is actually quite sensitive in mastering because of extreme loudness trends called the loudness wars. As a result of the loudness wars, the loudness of recordings has been pushed in a way that has seriously degraded recording quality. When mastering is performed best, recordings are set to a loudness level that is the highest possible without negatively affecting tone or dynamics. However, mastering engineers may be called on to produce loudness anywhere from ideal to extreme, so it is an important part of the mastering knowledge set.
Apparent/Perceived Loudness
The way the human ear perceives loudness is ...
Get Complete Audio Mastering: Practical Techniques now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
