[MoonWalk]

The high-frequency "swishiness" the usual giveaway.

But sadly today most popular music is ruined beyond repair with dynamic compression, not data compression. The craven stupidity of the loudness war may be unequaled in the history of art, and yet even the artists often don't seem to understand what the problem is. You see legendary artists complaining about modern sound quality (Dylan, Neil Young, and so forth) but then cheerleading for absurd sampling rates and bit depth. NO. That isn't the problem. I have 45-RPM records that sound better than their "lossless," "remastered" incarnations on streaming services.

The biggest problem in popular music (and I would say this probably pervades everything but classical at this point) is dynamic compression.

[Slow_Hand]

It’s not so simple.

Today “loudness” is an aesthetic choice and good mixers and producers know how to craft a record that is both loud and of good sonic quality.

There is a place for both dynamic records (in the sense of classical or old jazz records) and contemporary loudness aesthetic.

Can inexperienced producers/mixers do a hack job trying to emulate the loud mixes of pros? Yes. The difference comes down to taste and ability to execute with minimal sonic tradeoffs.

Source: I have a long history producing, mixing, and mastering records and work among Grammy winners regularly. Very much in the dirt on contemporary records.

[MoonWalk]

From my observations and from industry people I've read opinions from, the early '90s were the peak for mastering quality. Digital was well-understood, but wasn't being abused.

Listen to the original pressings of songs like "Creep." That guitar noise punched through because there were still dynamics back then. Music was fun to listen to, especially with headphones. The soundscape of an album sometimes led me to give music a second chance that I might not have bothered with if it didn't sound so good.

Now, even very catchy music is tiresome and quickly abandoned because of dynamic compression. It's fatiguing (if not grating) to listen to. Yes, there are a few exceptions here and there. "Gives You Hell" by the All-American Rejects comes to mind. But in general music sounds like ass now. Take Coldplay... regardless of what you think of the content, this music should sound great. But it's sonically dull trash.

[Slow_Hand]

The thing about mastering is that unless you're a part of the production team and get to hear the before/after you'll almost never know what the mastering engineer's contribution actually was. Done well, their role is invisible.

Mastering engineers work with the record that they receive from the mixer. It's entirely possible that the smashed (over-limited) record was handed to them by the mixer and approved by the artist. In that case the ME's hands are usually tied. They work with what they receive.

Likewise, the mixer may receive a reference mix (from the producer) that is smashed. The mixer has far more ability to influence the sonics than the ME (waaay more), but they too can have their hands tied if the artist is really attached to the vibe of that rough producer mix.

Professional mixers and ME's are well aware of the negative effects of the loudness wars. It's well understood by any working professional today. Ultimately the buck stops with the record's producer and the artist. They're the ones seeing the project through from beginning to end.

The difference falls on them, between a "loud" record that sounds like lifeless trash and a "loud" record crafted with skill, taste, and intention that has depth and impact. As I said, amazing "loud" records do exist when all stages of the record's production team are aligned. But it requires restraint and taste on the production team and the artist.

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You're not wrong that something changed around the mid 90s. Until the late 80s records were being mixed primarily for vinyl. The limitations of the medium (namely the needle would skip out of the groove if you tried to print a loud or bass-y mix) kept the loudness in check. You simply COULDN'T make a record that loud. This limitation acted like speed bumps. But perceptual loudness has always been an objective of recording engineers since the dawn of recording.

What happened is that in the 90's digital tools (particularly digital limiting) in combination with digital playback mediums (CDs) opened up the door to squeeze greater loudness and new sonic aesthetics out of records. As such, these tools have been abused and over-cooked. In some cases that abuse may be the objective.

Today we're well aware of the trade-offs and to some artists it just doesn't matter. They WANT it smashed. It ultimately comes down to restraint, taste, and good technical know-how to get a flavor of loudness that doesn't have too many tradeoffs.

[MoonWalk]

Good observations.

The question is what's going on with the mass "re-mastering" of entire back catalogs. I very much doubt that labels are going back to source material and crafting a judicious result. Aren't they, in most cases, just running their previously-released material through a compressor and barfing it out?

[Slow_Hand]

Not in my experience. The mastering engineers I know and work with care deeply about fidelity to the original work and not "crushing the baby".

Not to say it can't happen, but it's rare for an album of any consequence to be given to a mastering engineer who hasn't proven themselves to be a good steward of the music.

If a major label decides to re-master a part of their old catalogue (especially popular albums) it will be given to an ME with a proven record of good work. And that means NOT overcooking the album.

As an ME, the best way to get hired back is A) to be a pleasure to work with and B) to not strangle the production team's hard work on the final leg of the race.

[SoleilAbsolu]

Agreed regarding the audibility of (data-) compressed audio, just put on some classic jazz with trumpets and lots of cymbals and the artifacts are immediately apparent.

Not going to argue with you regarding dynamic compression, but after backing away from the worst excesses of the volume wars by mastering engineers in the mid '00s, things are sounding better to my ears. Dynamic compression can sound good (even in the extreme) if done for artistic effect. Like here's Beck's Ramona where the drums & cymbals have the tar squashed out of them with serious limiting, which to my ears nicely tames the sonics of Joey Waronker's spirited performance, while fitting well dynamically into the rest of the song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3yZ9OVjzbE

That said, maybe the engineers responsible for some of the worst dynamic squashing could be pressed into TV/film audio service where in 2026, there are still extreme volume imbalances between on-screen dialogue and everything else (hint the dialogue isn't loud enough and the everything else, especially crashes and explosions, are wayyy too loud).

[MoonWalk]

Sure, compressing individual elements judiciously is a valid and even necessary choice. But the so-called "remastering" that has ruined our whole pop/rock heritage as represented today on streaming services is a heinous, lazy hack job that ruins people's enjoyment of music... even though they can't put their finger on why.

When I was a little kid, I'd ride my bike to the record store and buy my two or three favorite current songs on 45. I noticed that they didn't sound as "fat" as they did on the radio. So I got an equalizer. But that of course wasn't the answer.

Over time I realized that I liked the sound of the records better. They were more fun to turn up loud. Likewise I realized that the oddly-quiet station on my FM dial (WXRT in Chicago) sounded the best. All because it, like the records, was less dynamically compressed than the other stations.

A huge number of people alive today have never heard good-sounding pop music, which is disgraceful. Near-perfect sound reproduction is within everyone's reach now, but the recordings themselves are ruined before we get them.

It's all even more stupid when you consider that compression could have been (and was) done ON THE PLAYBACK DEVICE. My 1996 Ford CD player has a button on it labeled "Compress."

Duh. People aren't getting smarter.