A Place For Us

[The_Metallurgist]

...various governing bodies are actually legislating the maximum RMS values of radio content to make the listening experience more consistent.

i think this needs to be more accurate, otherwise myths might propagate. it's not "maximum RMS", but:

"measurement of the average loudness of a programme (‘Programme
Loudness’) for the normalisation of audio signals".

please note well, this has NOTHING to do with Peak Normalisation; this was abandoned many years ago because of it's inherent limitations.

the use of compressors on the Master Buss isn't only engaged for loudness purposes [in order to compete], but to tame exuberant transients - the ear responds to average loudness, not short transient peaks like a raw snare drum hit, say. it is possible, in the right hands, to reduce them without any audible degradation in the delivery of the material, and thus enable the overall volume to be raised - this should NOT be confused with the loudness war because that's a different matter entirely. so, if you have an untamed peak which occurs only once in your song at say -2dB, applying peak normalisation will only raise the volume by 2dB (assuming 0dB is the target....but that's another discussion). now, by applying correct compression, this transient could be reduced without acoustic consequences, i.e. implemented entirely transparently, to say -6dB where the next transients in the source material might occur. so, if you then applied Peak Normalisation to this newly compressed source, to 0dB, you'd gain 6dB in apparent loudness (apparent loudness? not quite true, but let's keep it simple), rather than only 2dB in the previous example. this, in essence, explains why Peak Normalisation is utterly useless....and of course, that's why it's been abandoned, and why compression on the Master Buss is your friend.....but you gotta do it right, yeah?