Over at Gearslutz there is a thread called “Vote on the Solutions for Loudness” and although I applaud the effort, there is no practical means by which one can thwart the loudness war. I’ve said it time and time again but nobody is understanding the nature of why the contention for loudness exists. Such a contention that compromises musical fidelity is by all means rooted in something else other than what it is apparent. It’s not to be taken at face value. Let me put it this way: any convention or behavior found in cultures is based on a deep psychological force. Until that force is addressed itself, the convention will continue to exist so long as it feeds the underlying will to empowerment, no matter the stupidity involved. If doing one thing either empowers through belief of something assumed to be true or directly creates a brute force result that invokes primitive or visceral excitement, no rule or practical solution will stop it. In other words, devise ways to suppress the loudness wars and you are giving the masses more incentive to defy it. The only thing that can even touch the onset of a solution for loudness is like what I mentioned in my “Loudness Pandemic” blog. A profound and psychological persuasion is the sole weapon. The sense of empowerment used in aiding the detriment of implementing unyielding loudness, which in short is a type of influence really, can also be used to mold the logic (or whatever is left of it) into realizing or at least lauding the prospects of perhaps producing not such loud masters but to show more concern for musicality. Then with time people will start to realize “wait, this non-crushed master does sound better and there is less harshness”, etc…
First and foremost to achieve this, the most influential and and prominent individuals in both the creative avenues of our industry and the most technically proficient must set this bar. The individuals that are looked up to in which young minds would follow suite (because following those at the helm is a sense of empowerment) are the individuals that will create the model in how we must approach music production. A sense of “Man, that’s just dumb making it sound that loud and crushed” coming from the creative and technical leaders would create perhaps a scurvy of implicit shame for any person who would dare revert back to creating squashed, lifeless, harsh sounding music. Incidentally, this is the same recursion record labels/A&R/big name producers had created that started toppling a few pebbles turning it into a loudness avalanche. Why? Again, because following those at the helm gives a sense of empowerment. Rules, methods of enforcing loudness control, and the like will only create more defiance. These types of methods are associated with administration and bureaucracy: precisely the antipodal world to creativity and art. Not a good way of getting people on board.
