Bringing Dynamics Back To Music!

[Lorenz @ XARC Mastering]

Hello,

I wanted to let you know about something really exciting I´ve just recently discovered which affects all of us (labels, studios, artists, the end-listener - the whole music industry).

Finally some of the "big players" in the music industry (namely: Grammy-winning engineer/producer Charles Dye, alternative indie artist John Ralston, and recording studio owner/podcaster Allen Wagner) had the courage to do something against the still ongoing and getting worse and worse "LOUDNESS WAR" (you notice how boring it would be if I would yell at you all the time and only write in UPPER CASE, equally boring is it to listen to dynamically death music). There just founded non-profit music industry organization "Turn Me Up!" ( http://www.turnmeup.org/about_us.shtml ) is about to bring back dynamics to music, as the topic already suggests. Now the great thing is that this is not just-a-few-man organization trying to change the (dynamics) world, but that all of us, regardless if artist, label, studio, can participate and certify us with them. It´s clear that XARC Mastering, as a supporter of dynamics and simply spoken: high quality music enjoyment, is one of the first to having joined turnmeup.org and now awaiting our certification to soon be able to extend our service and offer turnmeup.org certification for your XARC-Mastered record.

If you would also like to make a difference it´s just a few clicks away to join turnmeup.org at no costs and get your next record certified by them as well so your end-listener knows you care about quality, not just loudness. While the page to join is certainly over here http://www.turnmeup.org/join.shtml I first suggest that you explore the sites and read some of the very interesting articles on the homepage and especially watch the video on the homepage called "Loudness War - The Movie" - it´s an eye opener for those who wasn't aware of the problems this creates yet.

On the other hand I have to thank all my clients that *are* and always *have* been aware of this already throughout the years and allowed me to not dynamically destroy there music which is there to stay for years with compressing it to the maximum, but instead compressing it as much as it *needs* to *sound good*! It´s your quality releases which will still be listened to in decades from now not like all the more-than-often "sonic trash" (to say it with honest words) that is out there nowadays from the major labels (and unfortunately to often also the smaller ones because they feel they have to "compete"). This quote from turnmeup.org expresses it the best: "It's not our intent to discourage aggressively limited records, they are a valid creative choice for artists. But today, most artists feel they have no option other than mastering their records to be as loud as everybody else's. And when everybody is doing this because everybody else is, who's actually doing it because they want to?"

So I hope that this site is a relief to you as much was it was for me when first discovering it a few days back. All joined together we can make a difference and bring back quality music once again, which is the main goal of mastering and for the end-listener (and maybe I actually will start buying CDs then as well again once they contain *quality* again instead of LOUDNESS ON ALL COSTS).

Hope to speak to you soon and best of continued success for your musical endeavors.


Best Regards,

Lorenz Vauck
Managing Director & Chief Mastering Engineer
XARC Mastering