Why do certain songs sound louder than others even when they’re played at the same volume?
In: Technology
During the mastering process of a song you apply a tool called a limiter which in short is a tool used to bring the percieved loudness to the highest it can be without distorting the sound or ruining the dynamics of the song. at that point the decibel levels are not what you’re counting, but you count RMS and LUFS.
Equalizers in the 2000s made voice as loud as the music to give the impression they are more powerful
Dynamic audio compression.
It levels the audio throughout the track, so that every sound is equally load, and then amplified it to the max.
If you search for it on YouTube you’ll see some informational videos.
A culture obsessed with over-compressing music to make it louder and shittier. Listening to mixes/masters from the 90s is a world apart from more contemporary stuff.
Music naturally has quiet bits and loud bits. If you strum a guitar chord, it starts off loud and then gets quieter as the notes die away.
Now imagine if you had your hand on the volume control, and you turned up the volume as soon as the chord started to fade out. It would make the chord sound louder for longer, which would make the whole thing sound a lot louder.
Music producers have access to computer software (and hardware devices too) that will perform this process automatically. They can tune this software to either have a big impact, or a subtle impact, and this will affect whether the end result sounds louder or not.
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