I’m always arguing for balanced dynamics rather than loudness for it’s own sake, but some people have a different opinion - high loudness is important, and even beneficial.

Nick Di Lorenzo is one of them - he says that loudness is important regularly on his YouTube channel. So in this episode I invited him on to explore that idea in more detail, and really get into the nuances of the topic. Do you need to be mastering loud ? Topics include:

• The practicalities of loudness
• What makes things sound loud anyway ?
• Record labels versus loudness
• Why loudness IS important
• Why LUFS don’t matter, and
• The difference between loudness and LUFS

Links

Our previous mastering discussion on Nick’s channel

TMS #31 - What IS loudness ?

Higher LUFS - do they REALLY always sound louder ? (Includes the examples Nick mentions)

It's not how loud you make it, it's how you make it loud

So: How loud ? The simple solution to optimizing playback volume online - and everywhere else