|
I see it every day: “The Loudness Wars are over - loud won. Get over it” And it’s easy to see why. The average mainstream release hits -8 LUFS integrated or more; club releases regularly hit -6 or even -4 LUFS and are peaking well above zero; every other post you see on social media is about a new limiter or clipping strategy… As the creator of Dynamic Range Day and Loudness Penalty, I should probably just give up and get my hat, right ? Maybe…. But maybe not. In this episode I dig into the evidence in 2026, and try to decide whether dynamics really are dead or not, looking at: - The LUFS of the biggest recent releases
- Why no-one hears it
- Are mixes built too loud to be dynamic ?
- Why music fans don’t care (which could be good news) - and who does
- What do we do about it ?
- Reasons to be optimistic about dynamics in 2026
Links and more episodes here: www.themasteringshow.com/episode-106 Mentioned in this episode: Mastering Click HERE to work with Ian Leapwing Find out more about Leapwing's plugins Learn to master ! Click HERE to see Ian's courses and mastering resources |