Random Noise Or Dynamic Range?

I have just completed an extended mixing and mastering project on the latest Canabrism album, entitled ‘Random‘. The tracks are mostly electronic with quite a lot of energetic percussion, heavy samples and no vocals; precisely the sort of music that lends itself to strong compression, as is common in other examples of the genre. However, an initial mastering that brought the average track RMS levels to about -10dB proved to be effectively unlistenable (and this is nowhere near the loudest recordings out there)…

There has been quite a bit of noise lately about the detrimental effect the loudness war is having on the quality of modern recordings; once you become aware of the difference between a squashed recording and one with decent dynamic range, it is very difficult to endure the former. As a result, I dropped the average RMS levels of the album to between -13 and -14dB, which made everything more open and ‘dynamic’ (hear some sample tracks from ‘Random’).

Here’s a video which illustrates the basic premise involved in brick wall limiting and (over)compression.