Garr Reynolds just pointed me to this video.
I have been working as as sound designer, so I just had to share it. And as always, Mr. Reynolds has put it into a bigger picture and gives you some good advice on presentation skills.
Related post: The Amen Break
eirikso 
As a hobby musician I have to say; that’s pretty darn interesting! And not to say pretty darn noticable too!
And by the way, Ravel’s Bolero is the classic High Dynamic Range piece…
Shouldn’t *any* sound engineer know this? I probably should check out this “loudness war” thing he is mentioning, but it is too late now.
How come these morons at the record companies do this anyway?
I don’t know. Back in the days when I worked as a sound engineer this was important, but the PA people seemed to have a problem with stuff like this. (The PA people is the ones in charge of the sound on concerts etc… “public adress”). Traditionally there have been some kind of dispute between studio engineers and PA people.
Maybe this war has expanded into some kind of loudness war….?
I read the article it was based on ( ) and it seems the PR people thinks it is important to make the CD sound louder for some reason. Magically making it sound better then or something.
I already have a pretty low respect for people working in PR as they only seem to wreck excellent products, and then turn around and sell boatloads of crappy products. And this doesn’t help much.
Authentic qoute from the music studio, music exceutive talks to sound engineer:
“Hm…. It’s not right there yet. I know what it is… It needs more EQ. On all frequencies.”
The morons do it because of radio. Radio stations must adjust the levels so that the snare drum is at or below maximum output. This makes the rest of the band band sound pretty weak compared to whatever else that’s being heard on the station. Which is no problem for a concert transmission, but it is critical for a hit single wanting heavy rotation.