A number of leading studio engineers have spoken out against a recent trend in the record industry to make recordings louder because, they argue, the loudness is having a detrimental effect on overall sound quality, and may have a detrimental effect on the people listening to them as well. I'm not sure why they've spoken out just now, given that musos have been whining about this kind of thing for a while now - possibly because one journalist or another has gone out of their way to ask them.
Anyway, the technique that the engineers object to is so called 'peak limiting'. It will come as a huge shock to most of you, I know, because you all assume I'm a leading expert in all aspects of music making, but, if I'm being honest, I don't know a great deal about the intricacies of sound recording, so forgive me if my explanation here is embarrassingly inadequate. But, I think peak limiting is about "squeezing" the sound range of a track by removing the "peaks and troughs" of the sound waves, something which has the effect of increasing the volume of the track throughout. The technique would not have worked in the days of vinyl, but CD players can cope with the peak limited tracks, although they too will distort the loudest parts of a song, often resulting in a slight buzzing, and the drowning out of certain instruments in the track.
Oasis' CDs were famously always mastered at a higher volume, and some studio engineers said that The Red Hot Chilli Peppers' 1999 album 'Californication' was mastered so loudly that it was almost unlistenable, but more importantly studio experts say more and more albums are now using digital tricks to boost loudness, to the detriment of overall sound quality. Albums from Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen are among those that have been singled out for criticism.
Abbey Road studios Senior Mastering Engineer Peter Mew has been much quoted on the topic in the last 24 hours, observing thus: "Record companies are competing in an arms race to make their album sound the 'loudest'. The quieter parts are becoming louder and the loudest parts are just becoming a buzz. The brain is not geared to accept buzzing. CDs induce a sense of fatigue in the listeners. It becomes psychologically tiring and almost impossible to listen to".
Meanwhile sound engineer Geoff Emerick, who was the engineer on The Beatles' 'Sgt Pepper' album, says: "A lot of what is released today is basically a scrunched up mess. Whole layers of sound are missing. It is because record companies don't trust listeners to decide themselves if they want to turn the volume up".