<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Hi everyone,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">As is so often the case now, I’m mastering an album where the mix engineer has premastered it for their client’s “listening references” SO loudly, and the client expects me to at least match it.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">By far, for me the loudness wars are the worst they have ever been and now it isn’t so much the artists or A&R, it’s the mixers themselves.<br class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I’m doing this new album, the engineer sent me his crushed “listening refs” and his “less compressed mixes”. </div><div class="">In addition to matching his level (with hopefully a more clear sound), I also did one with <u class="">some</u> dynamics, about -1dB less compressed. These were labeled “even louder” and “loud” !! </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Here is a comment I just got from the artist:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">"Between ‘skip rate data’ and being ‘loudness normalized’, Spotify really needs to give everyone a break. Jeez louise, soooo laaaaaaame!!!!!!!</span><o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""> </span><o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class=""><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;" class="">I don’t actually know what to suggest. Especially now I know that whatever loudness I want my music to be, Spotify are just going to turn my shit down. That sucks. I still have Bob’s “louder and even louder” mixes and I’ve always gone straight to “Even louder”, feels obvious, no? This is probably part of the reason why I felt what he sent most recently was that bit <b class="">less</b> impactful. To cut to the chase, I don’t want this music to exist at anything other than Bob’s “even louder” level. That gives it the better brightness too, for me.</span><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-size: 15px;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p>”</span></font></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class=""><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;" class="">This makes me ill</span><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="">…</span></font></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;" class="">Bob L.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class=""><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt;" class="">PS. please don</span><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="">’</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;" class="">t quote this any </span><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="">place</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;" class="">, it will get back to the artist </span><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="">eventually</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;" class="">.</span></font></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""> </span></p></div></div></body></html>