sorry guy's, i'm out of sync with the discussion and missed Olli's reply....and most of the other posts following.
it's wayyyyyyy tooo early in the morning!
thanks Olli for the overview of your loudness matching process. i respect the fact that you are aware of the issues of loudness when referencing, because it makes a big difference. i also think your commitment is reflected in the quality of your mixes.
i agree with Alan's post to some extent, about giving the client what they want, however, i find that many clients don't understand the implications of their requests. when i get an mp3 stereo file, for example and someone asks for a loud master, i start to sob uncontrollably! mp3? mastering? yeah, it happens.
during any Change Process, it's expected there will always be an intermediate period where chaos reins, where some are eager to comply, and others are eager to avoid. i can understand the commercial pressure a local radio station is under, in Pauli's example, because they operate in a very competitive business and want to keep their listeners. and of course, if they don't get the listeners, they don't get the advertising revenue and they are dead anyway. i have no doubt they will be forced to comply sooner or later otherwise they will lose their license i suspect, for repeat offending. i can understand their dilemma, because having to turn down a hot mix will make it sound dull, boring and totally lifeless (Alan's last file refers, by way of academic comparison) and nobody will want that. the radio station is damned if it doesn't, and damned if it does. the sooner everyone complies, the better. on that basis alone, loudness is an issue.
the reason the Industry can pass off distorted CD's to the masses (and their subsequent extra distorted lossy encodes) is because the masses don't know any better. remember it wasn't that long ago that people thought 128kbps was "CD quality" lol. it's clearly evident that the tide is turning.......and awareness is happening and the sloth that is The Market, is changing. like turning an oil tanker's direction at sea, it's a slow job. the Mother-in-law won't be any the wiser though but given many of them listen to the radio when it's not even tuned into the frequency properly, it's no wonder
i think the ultimate question we guys need to be considerate of, is "Where is this stuff going to be played?". in a club, loudness doesn't matter, in a car a dynamic song can be a nightmare. in the Cambridge-mt forum loudness impresses, that's for sure and poor mixes mastered loud, whether intentionally or otherwise, get a lot of respect. the Mastering Engineer does their best to make a song as transportable across all listening environments as possible. however, with more kids coming into the scene who make claims they can do mastering but haven't even started shaving yet, we are going to see and hear a lot of ignorance and less and less masters transporting across playback devices because it was done on a pair of 2-way KRK Rockets in someone's bedroom. but the web site looked credible!!!
i see my role as one of informing the client of the consequences of their request. what they do with that information is entirely up to them. but if they don't know much about audio, and many musicians don't because their time and expertise is in playing and refining their musicianship, they will not be empowered to make an informed decision. i don't even know many people who actually have decent hifi gear.......so their ears are not suitably conditioned to quality audio anyway. most kids Terms of Reference comes from being brought up listening to mp3 or other similarly compromised lossy format music, over seriously dodgy playback devices and ear plugs! these people will take any crap you feed them........and many will be listening to chart-topping, highly distorted, overly loud material. the Industry feeds, they buy it.
whoever the final intended consumer of our product, we all surely have a duty to give the best we can; in recording quality, the mix and in the subsequent master.