Why do certain songs sound louder than others even when they’re played at the same volume?
In: Technology
I don’t know much about history, but, in digital sound, there is a fixed amount of maximum loudness in any song. E.g. In 8bit audio, there would be 65535 levels. When you adjust volume, you define what that 65535 is.
In a song, different instruments and vocals will be in different loudness levels. So you set the recording level so that the loudest part of the song doesn’t crackle. That would mean most other stuff would be at a lower volume than max possible.
e.g. if drums are the loudest instrument, then it would have the loudness of 65535. That would mean vocals maybe 30000 or something.
Over time, songs evolved to make use of the levels and instruments so that loud parts composed more of the song. So the average loudness of the song can be different according to amount of different instruments etc.
And some songs might not even use the max possible volume, that would be quite than other songs.
To better understand, look at any song in audacity. You can clearly see different loudnesses and max loudness.
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