| I have recently read a pretty resourceful thread on music mixing and recording (https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=29283). A related piece of info from there is that rock/metal music is supposed to be loud: drums blasting away, amps cranked up. But when recording and mixing you take all that loud sound and energy and put it into an audio file that will most likely be played back with lower volumes on all kinds of devices. This is one of the main problems of mixing this kind of music: making music that is supposed to be LOUD sound good at low volumes. So probably if that goal isn't achieved in a perfect way then cranking the volume up will make it sound better. Another important thing I learned from that thread is that in general for us humans "louder" is perceived as "better". Good example, a demonstration of a compressor plugin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6D9WvwMNr8 Plugin quality aside, you can easily hear that "on" parts are all louder than "off" parts, and that really makes the demo "unfair" in that they sound better simply by being louder. And a related theory I've read long ago (sorry, don't remember where) is that experiencing music at damaging volumes gives us some kind of masochistic pleasure. This is why there are always people hanging right next to speakers at loud shows, be it rock or EDM. |
I could see this being the case, sort of like how some people (me) enjoy torturing themselves with extremely spicy peppers and foods.