Loudness War

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The Loudness war is the reason for the increasingly reduced dynamic range of every successive Muse album [1] with the exception of Hullabaloo. The Loudness war is basically all of the volume fluctuations of music being removed by bringing the volume of every instrument up so it is constantly loud. The only problem with this is that it doesn't actually make the music really any louder, thats what the volume control does, it just means that the music will be constantly at a level of the listers choosing, removing the up and down fluctuations in volume that all music naturally has, while this initially captures the listeners attention, it will soon have a fatiguing effect [2] While many accept this sound quality, others prefer a much higher quality.

Overdue demo waveform
Map of the Problematique Rich Costey mix waveform
A typical early 1990s waveform, this one Primal Scream's Higher than the Sun.
Invincible album version waveform. Clipping is highlighted in red.

References