History Main / LoudnessWar

This trope might be on the wane as the record industry has noticed public backlash toward excessive loudness in recordings. The change from CD to streaming has also cause the industry to reassess loudness in digital masters, as Spotify [[https://artists.spotify.com/faq/mastering-and-loudness has volume normalization turned on by default]] to avoid giving overly loud recordings an unfair advantage. Consequently, releases starting in the '10s have backed off extreme levels of compression in masters.

This trope might be on the wane as the record industry has noticed public backlash toward excessive loudness in recordings. The change from CD to streaming has also cause the industry to reassess loudness in digital masters, as Spotify has volume normalization turned on by default to avoid giving overly loud recordings an unfair advantage. Consequently, releases starting in the '10s have backed off extreme levels of compression in masters.

Also, note that this article is '''extremely''' technical and the majority of music listeners will simply not care or roll their eyes at the technical mumbo jumbo audiophiles use. Except in the absolute worst cases, the issues of loudness and clipping may be largely unobtrusive unless you know what to listen for and have high-end speakers or at least decent-quality headphones. (The effects are ''particularly'' annoying on high-quality headphones, perhaps unsurprisingly; conversely, on all but perhaps the highest-end car stereos, the loudness war's effects will probably remain comparatively subtle except in the absolute worst cases.[[note]]The effects of dynamic range compression are usually much more immediate on headphones because the audio source is right next to your ears. With speakers, on the other hand, the left and right channels will inevitably [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_(wave_propagation) cross their signals]] somewhat by the time they reach your ears, meaning that even a solid brick wall is likely to end up with some amplitude variance, particularly if you're not sitting directly between the speakers. (We told you this article was technical.) By contrast, [[BuffySpeak loudness war'd]] albums have been known to induce headaches when played through good enough headphones; some sources have even alleged that they can contribute to hearing loss. It's a rather bizarre and unfortunate irony of the modern music industry that higher quality audio equipment will in many cases result in a ''less pleasant'' listening experience.[[/note]])

It is important to distinguish between [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression#Limiting brickwall limiting]], an extreme form of dynamic range compression that prevents the amplitude from exceeding a certain threshold, and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_(audio) digital clipping]], which actually introduces digital distortion into the signal by removing the peaks and troughs from a waveform. Another important thing to note is that compressing[[note]]namely, using [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression?#Audio ''data compression'']], an [[NamesTheSame entirely different concept]] from ''dynamic range compression''[[/note]] music to a lossy format like AAC or [=MP3=] can introduce digital clipping through intersample peaks. This can introduce clipping to heavily brickwalled material that previously did not clip at all and (needless to say) makes already clipping material sound even worse. ([=MP3=] is often considered to do a worse job compressing loud music than other lossy formats such as AAC and Ogg Vorbis do, which is one reason the format has a negative reputation among audiophiles.)

The absolute peak of loudness started slowly creeping up in 1995 when Owen Morris mastered Music/{{Oasis}}' ''(What's the Story) Morning Glory?'' to -8 dB RMS. [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks Since then]] the tendency has been to make records louder. The resulting [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war loudness war]] is due to a variety of factors, such as commercial concerns, [[ExecutiveMeddling stupid executives]], [[FollowTheLeader following the leader]] or listeners / musicians who are unaware of this phenomenon, [[SlobsVersusSnobs can't tell the difference and don't care]], actually LIKE how it sounds, or are taking advantage of it for artistic purposes, or (especially as of the 2010s) amateur production jobs from self-produced bedroom projects or small-time producers with no formal training.

One of the most JustForFun/{{egregious}} aspects of the industry's reliance on increasing loudness is that hundreds of albums that originally had good dynamic range are now being "digitally remastered" with almost completely brickwalled peak levels.[[note]]Not to mention terrible adjustments to frequency balance.[[/note]]

By contrast, one of the sadder aspects that Nick Southall highlighted was the belief that if you master the songs loud, they'll be played more on the radio. It doesn't work like that: Radio stations (as well as TV stations) have their own compressors and equalisers to squash everything up to the same volume, with the result that any CD will get hit with this a ''second time'' for broadcast and an already hyper-compressed CD will just sound like shit squared. The existence of technologies such as [=ReplayGain=] and iTunes Radio's Sound Check additionally means that the volume of pieces played on internet radio is now frequently normalised to the same level, meaning that the only effect loudness war stunts will have on material played through these sources is making it less punchy. Mastering engineer Bob Katz' comments on this have been widely reported and discussed, and some sources believe that this will lead to the less widespread use of the practice in future recordings. (Indeed, some studies have suggested that the trend has already waned, with the average loudness of commercial releases [[{{Pun}} peaking]] in around 2005.)

This is the main reason why people say vinyl records are "higher quality" (besides personal taste reasons such as the crackle and hum of records). The inherent quality of [=CDs=] is far better than records, but since "records are for audiophiles", there is far less incentive for audio engineers to trade-off quality for loudness on records. Additionally, vinyl records have a smaller dynamic range, which actually serves to nullify the ability to pull off loudness war stunts, even though it seems counterintuitive that this would be the case. While it's commonly believed that it's impossible to press a low-dynamic-range master to vinyl, this isn't strictly true; however, the format's limitations are of ''average loudness'' (as contrasted with digital formats, whose limitations are of ''peak loudness''), meaning that if you want to press a low-dynamic-range master to vinyl, you will need to lower the volume to do so. If you tried to press a [=DR3=] recording with the same loudness as it would have on CD, it would usually just throw off the needle or make the record unplayable. Since loudness war stunts will have little to no effect on a vinyl record's average loudness, this reduces the incentive to pull off such stunts; a [=DR10=] master would stand out over a [=DR3=] one on vinyl even more than it would on other formats, meaning that the only incentive for labels to press loudness war masters to vinyl is simply being too lazy to master the album separately (which, unfortunately, still happens fairly often). The {{Irony}} in all this, of course, is that digital formats like the CD finally made it possible to make audio as ''quiet'' as you wanted without any analog hiss obscuring it, but with a lot of equipment out there accommodating the audio levels of the War, exploiting this quality will often make things simply too quiet to hear.

For further information, [[http://tinyurl.com/pquh64q Imperfect Sound Forever]] is required reading. More [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/10/digitalmusic information]] [[http://spectrum.ieee.org/print/5429 is]] [[http://productionadvice.co.uk/loudness-war-dynamic-range/ available online]], including these [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ two]] videos that do a great job of providing abbreviated explanations. There's also a [[http://tinyurl.com/ppvs8xh 20-page forum thread]] dedicated to poorly mastered albums for examples. [[http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/loudness.htm See also this]], to show things are more complicated than they seem. [[http://dr.loudness-war.info/ A website]] allows you to use offline software to measure the dynamic range of a CD, express it as a number and add it to its ever-growing database.

There are algorithms that can be used to repair clipped audio to a certain extent; none of them are perfect, but they will generally produce end results that sound, at least to most ears, [[BetterThanCanon better than the commercially released versions with clipping]]. More info on one of them is available [[http://tinyurl.com/pbkquca here]]. (Note that the next page of the forum thread in this link contains rather disorganised information on Adobe Audition's declipper, which is much more sophisticated and produces much better-sounding results, but does not have the benefit of being free software. [=iZotope=] RX, also not free software, has an even more sophisticated algorithm, and is fairly straightforward to use; the forum thread linked here doesn't currently go into it, but iZotope's own manual provides all the basic information about how to use it.)

(Alternatively, a quick, cheap partial solution, using a program like Nero Wave Editor, is to simply reduce the bass using the graphic equalizer, since bass-boosting is usually part of the loudness enhancement process. If done properly the bass-reduced version will sound only marginally 'thinner' than the original while having more peak fluctuations; the "Normalize" function can also be used to adjust the volume of sections of the song, although care must be taken to avoid sudden jumps in volume between sections. Another potential quick solution is to run the song through a high pass filter, which mimics the effect of pressing an album to vinyl. A CD run through a high pass filter with the right settings will be virtually indistinguishable from a vinyl rip from a comparable-sounding master and will wind up with substantially higher dynamic range scores than the original recording. A third possible solution is to use a phase rotation filter - 90 degrees is, of course, the optimal amount [180 degrees would just invert the waveform, naturally]. Note that the clipping will still be present if any of these solutions are used; it will probably, however, be substantially less annoying and fatiguing to listen to.)

One potential way to find non-loud versions of songs is that video clips posted to video services like Website/YouTube often avoid the loudness issue as they are mastered separately. In many cases, versions of albums that are specially mastered for iTunes (which are often advertised as being such) also have more dynamic range (although frequently you can only buy these in lossy versions, which carry their own problems; fortunately, the compression algorithm used to sell iTunes music in .m4a format is very, very good, to the point where the vast majority of people will be unable to tell the difference from a lossless source[[note]]Specifically, the frequencies missing from iTunes files are almost exclusively above 20 kHz, which is beyond the normal range of human hearing, except for small children's and under certain laboratory conditions - and since the supersonic frequencies have to be louder than 100 dB to be perceptible, the missing frequencies won't be perceptible in everyday music listening[[/note]]). Failing that, people will KeepCirculatingTheTapes of whichever version is the least clipped or even look for places to rip masters from (full-band RhythmGame[=s=] are one source) so they can try their hand at mixing themselves. Some (though not all) file-sharing websites also allow users to share fan-produced remixes/remasters of albums (if the unclipped stems aren't available, these are usually produced with one of the above methods, most commonly a declipper). This is not strictly legal, but it is another common source of [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes fans circulating the metaphorical tapes]], as many feel these remasters to be BetterThanCanon.

A note about the measurements often used in this article and its subcategories: Two frequently used measurements of a record's loudness are its [=ReplayGain=] score and its TT Dynamic Range Meter score (written like "[=DR10=]" or "[=DR5=]"). A large negative [=ReplayGain=] score indicates a very loud record. This isn't necessarily a guarantee that the record will be heavily compressed (nor is a smaller negative score or a positive score a guarantee that there will be no compression), but most of the time it is correlated with this trope. The Dynamic Range Meter score measures the dynamic range of the recording more directly, though CD and vinyl scores sourced from the same master can vary (vinyl scores tend to be higher due to the nature of the format). Generally, the higher the Dynamic Range Meter score, the more dynamic a recording is, though that doesn't necessarily mean it'll be free from other artefacts of the war such as clipping. (A [=DR5=] recording might have been compressed with an algorithm that doesn't lead to clipping, for example, while a [=DR9=] recording may still have clipped peaks). The only foolproof way to determine whether a recording is clipped is to look at the zoomed-in peaks yourself (and it is worth noting that the clipped peaks of a vinyl or cassette that was sourced from a clipped master will appear diagonal rather than horizontal due to the nature of analogue playback; many listeners have also noted that the effect sounds less harsh on analogue formats for the same reason). A database of TT Dynamic Range Meter logs can be found [[http://dr.loudness-war.info here]], though it is not complete (feel free to send in your own logs if you like; the plug-in is available for [=foobar2000=] [[http://www.pleasurizemusic.com/free-downloads here]]).

It may also be worth noting that, due to the general trend of increasing loudness of commercial releases over time, a release that would have qualified as an example of this trope in 1995 would not necessarily qualify as an example of this trope in 2005 or 2015 (unless it's by Music/{{Oasis}}). Similarly, an album that would qualify as an aversion of this trope now would not have qualified as an aversion in 1995. An album that comes out to [=DR8=] generally qualifies as good mastering by today's standards, but would not have been two decades ago. When looking at examples of this trope, it's probably worth noting that they're graded on a curve, so to speak.

Note that this is a separate issue from the loudess or intensity of music by ''genre''; that's discussed under MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness. When loud music is used as a weapon, that's LoudOfWar. Not to be confused with ''[[Roleplay/RecordOfLodossWar Lodoss War]]''. Note that this trope is not named for [[Music/{{Loudness}} the band]] that did the soundtrack to ''Anime/MazinkaiserSKL''.

Ironically, the popularity of vinyl among audiophiles who have a desire for more "dynamic" sound has caused mastering engineers to include more extreme bass frequencies in modern vinyl pressings on the assumption that they'll be played on high-grade turntables with magnetic cartridges, which can cause problems with the cheap new suitcase record players, such as those sold by Crosley, with ceramic cartridges. The existence of these kind of cheap record players during vinyl's heyday was the reason mastering engineers EQ'd masters in the first place. This is OlderThanTheyThink. An early pressing of 1969's ''Music/LedZeppelinII'' was withdrawn for exactly this reason.

-->--'''Music/MeatLoaf'''

Ironically, the popularity of vinyl among audiophiles has caused mastering engineers to include more extreme bass frequencies in modern vinyl pressings on the assumption that they'll be played on high-grade turntables with magnetic cartridges, which can cause problems with the cheap new suitcase record players such as those sold by Crosley with ceramic cartridges. The existence of these kind of cheap record players during vinyl's heyday was the reason mastering engineers EQ'd masters in the first place. This is OlderThanTheyThink. An early pressing of 1969's ''Music/LedZeppelinII'' was withdrawn for exactly this reason.

Ironically, the popularity of vinyl among audiophiles has caused mastering engineers to include more extreme bass frequencies in modern vinyl pressings on the assumption that they'll be played on high-grade turntables with magnetic cartridges, which can cause problems with the cheap new suitcase record players such as those sold by Crosley with ceramic cartridges. The existence of these kind of cheap record players during vinyl's heyday was the reason mastering engineers EQ'd masters in the first place.

Ironically, the popularity of vinyl among audiophiles has caused mastering engineers to include more extreme bass frequencies in modern vinyl pressings, which can cause problems with the cheap new suitcase record players such as those sold by Crosley with magnetic cartridges. The existence of these kind of cheap record players during vinyl's heyday was the reason mastering engineers EQ'd masters in the first place.

Note that this is a separate issue from the loudess or intensity of music by ''genre''; that's discussed under MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness. When loud music is used as a weapon, that's LoudOfWar. Not to be confused with ''[[Roleplay/RecordOfLodossWar Lodoss War]]''. Note that this trope is not named for [[Creator/Loudness the band]] that did the soundtrack to ''Anime/MazinkaiserSKL''.

Note that this is a separate issue from the loudess or intensity of music by ''genre''; that's discussed under MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness. When loud music is used as a weapon, that's LoudOfWar. Not to be confused with ''[[Roleplay/RecordOfLodossWar Lodoss War]]''.

* Many acts on Ed Banger Records, like {{Music/Justice}}, [=SebastiAn=] and Vicarious Bliss, who use [[http://i43.tinypic.com/xprhvn.png absurd amounts of compression]] to create a signature sound, and in Justice's case, using digital noise and clipping as an instrument.

* Intentionally invoked by a number of Noise and early {{Industrial}} artists, most notably by Whitehouse on ''Birthdeath Experience'' (1980) and ''Right To Kill'' (1984), on which ''everything'' is "in the red". HellIsThatNoise, indeed. Averted by legendary harsh-noise artist Merzbow, whose production tends to be frighteningly clear (though see below).

* Intentionally invoked by a number of Noise and early {{Industrial}} artists, most notably by Whitehouse on ''Birthdeath Experience'' (1979) and ''Right To Kill'' (1984), on which ''everything'' is "in the red". HellIsThatNoise, indeed. Averted by legendary harsh-noise artist Merzbow, whose production tends to be frighteningly clear (though see below).

* The unusually low dynamic range of Music/DavidBowie[='s=] ''Music/BlackstarAlbum'', coming in at just 5, is suspected to be a case of this. [="DR5"=] happens to be an abbreviation for the surface receptor protein death receptor 5, which mediates apoptosis (cell death). Monoclonal antibodies targeting this receptor protein have been under testing as an experimental treatment for cancer patients; it's likely that the choice to master ''Blackstar'' so restrictively was done primarily as a reference to this treatment, seeing as how Bowie himself was dying of liver cancer during the album's production.

* [[Music/DevinTownsend Strapping Young Lad]] [[InvokedTrope invokes]] this for the sole purpose of creating a [[UpToEleven gigantic and unrelenting wall of sound]]. It's unpleasant, [[StylisticSuck but that's]] [[TrueArtIsAngsty the point.]] (Note that while all SYL [=CDs=] are horribly brickwalled, only ''Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing'' and ''The New Black'' are clipped). Averted somewhat on the vinyl editions, which are significantly quieter.

For further information, [[http://tinyurl.com/pquh64q Imperfect Sound Forever]] is required reading. More [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/10/digitalmusic information]] [[http://spectrum.ieee.org/print/5429 is]] [[http://productionadvice.co.uk/loudness-war-dynamic-range/ available online]], including these [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ two]] videos that do a great job of providing abbreviated explanations. There's also a [[http://tinyurl.com/ppvs8xh 20-page forum thread]] dedicated to poorly mastered albums for examples. [[http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/loudness.htm See also this]], to show things are more complicated than they seem. A website allows you to use offline software to measure the dynamic range of a CD, express it as a number and add it to its ever-growing database.

Also, note that this article is '''extremely''' technical and the majority of music listeners will simply not care or roll their eyes at the technical mumbo jumbo audiophiles use. Except in the absolute worst cases, the issues of loudness and clipping may be largely unobtrusive unless you know what to listen for and have high-end speakers or at least decent-quality headphones. (The effects are ''particularly'' annoying on high-quality headphones, perhaps unsurprisingly; conversely, on all but perhaps the highest-end car stereos, the loudness war's effects will probably remain comparatively subtle except in the absolute worst cases.[[note]]The effects of dynamic range compression are usually much more immediate on headphones because the audio source is right next to your ears. With speakers, on the other hand, the left and right channels will inevitably [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_(wave_propagation) cross their signals]] somewhat by the time they reach your ears, meaning that even a solid brick wall is likely to end up with some amplitude variance, particularly if you're not sitting directly between the speakers. (We told you this article was technical.) By contrast, [[WebAnimation/TeenGirlSquad loudness war'd]] albums have been known to induce headaches when played through good enough headphones; some sources have even alleged that they can contribute to hearing loss. It's a rather bizarre and unfortunate irony of the modern music industry that higher quality audio equipment will in many cases result in a ''less pleasant'' listening experience.[[/note]])

[[folder: Compression for stylistic reasons]]

[[TropesAreTools Compression is not inherently bad]]. In fact, it is an essential part of the sound engineer's toolkit, used to level out the inconsistent volume in a track.[[note]]This is practically guaranteed to happen when recording live material. Especially bass guitars.[[/note]] Furthermore, it can be used creatively to manipulate the sound of a single instrument[[note]]especially drums, where compression is often used to emphasize the body or tail of a strike[[/note]] or even a full mix, "gluing" the tracks together. However, if used ineptly, it can result in unpleasant changes like undesired pumping, outright distortion, or a more abstract loss of "life" or "impact".

* Games in general can be subject to this if the programmers don’t think about headroom when writing the audio management code, even if the individual sound effects aren’t themselves clipped. It works like this: games have to play multiple sound effects at once, so they end up stacked on top of one another. But if you just put in sounds that are normalised to -0.1 dB, they’re all already close enough to the 0 dB line at thei peaks and troughs, so you’ll wind up with nowhere to go when you have enough sound effects playing, which results in an integer overflow – in other words, clipped game audio.\\

The solution when making sound effects for a video game is to leave a lot of headroom with each sound effect, so that when they stack on top of one another (which is inevitable, particularly with some game genres), they won’t clip too often. It’s probably impossible to stop the game audio from clipping ''at all''. The ideal solution is to simply program the game to reduce the levels of all the sound effects by 12 dB or so before putting them together. One other solution, if the game’s programming isn’t that sophisticated, is to normalise sound effects to a much lower level than one would if were mastering for CD or the Web. This means a bit lower signal-to-noise ratio, but if you use 16- or especially 24-bit audio, this shouldn’t be a problem; even uncompressed 44.1-kHz, 24-bit sound effects won’t be too large compared to most of the graphical assets used in most modern games. (Game audio is also one case where 24-bit audio may actually be something more than a placebo, since the game has to adjust sound effect levels on the fly; adjusting the levels of dithered audio again reduces the effectiveness of the dithering to some extent, and 24-bit audio doesn’t need to be dithered because it already reproduces more dynamic range than humans are capable of hearing.)\\

The solution when making sound effects for a video game, is to leave a lot of headroom with each sound effect, so that when they stack on top of one another (which is inevitable, particularly with some game genres), they won’t clip too often. It’s probably impossible to stop the game audio from clipping ''at all''. The ideal solution is to simply program the game to reduce the levels of all the sound effects by 12 dB or so before putting them together. One other solution, if the game’s programming isn’t that sophisticated, is to normalise sound effects to a much lower level than one would if were mastering for CD. This means a bit lower signal-to-noise ratio, but if you use 16- or especially 24-bit audio, this shouldn’t be a problem; even uncompressed 44.1-kHz, 24-bit sound effects won’t be too large compared to most of the graphical assets used in most modern games. (Game audio is also one case where 24-bit audio may actually be something more than a placebo, since the game will has to adjust sound effect levels on the fly; adjusting the levels of dithered audio again reduces the effectiveness of the dithering to some extent, and 24-bit audio doesn’t need to be dithered because it already reproduces more dynamic range than humans are capable of hearing.)\\

It should be noted that this has long been a problem affecting the video game industry; for instance, ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' (1994) and its sequels (1995 and 1996) clip pretty badly whenever the player is battling enemies. Some of the sound effects are also themselves clipped, which was for stylistic reasons in certain cases (the [=VacBobs=] from the third game, who are supposed to sound like they’re talking over a crappy radio system), though by no means all.

It should be noted that this has long been a problem affecting the video game industry; for instance, ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' (1994) and its sequels (1995 and 1996) clip pretty badly whenever the player is battling enemies. Some of the sound effects are also themselves clipped, which was for stylistic reasons in certain cases (the VacBobs from the third game, who are supposed to sound like they’re talking over a crappy radio system), though by no means all.

It should be noted that this has long been a problem affecting the video game industry; for instance, ''Marathon'' (1994) and its sequels (1995 and 1996) clip pretty badly whenever the player is battling enemies.

* Games in general can be subject to this if the programmers don’t think about headroom when writing the audio management code, even if the individual sound effects aren’t themselves clipped. It works like this: games have to play multiple sound effects at once, so they end up stacked on top of one another. But if you just put in sounds that are normalised to -0.1 dB, they’re all already close enough to the 0 dB line at its peaks and troughs, so you’re going to wind up with nowhere to go when you have enough sound effects playing, which will just give you an integer overflow. Which means clipping.\\

The solution is that if you’re making sound effects for a video game, you’ll ideally leave a lot of headroom with each sound effect, so that when they stack on top of one another (which is inevitable, particularly with some game genres), they won’t clip too often. It’s probably impossible to stop the game audio from clipping ''at all'', but judicious programmers and audio engineers can avoid this by normalising their sound effects to a much lower level than they would if they were mastering for CD. This means a bit lower signal-to-noise ratio, but if you use 16- or especially 24-bit audio, this shouldn’t be a problem; even uncompressed 44.1-kHz, 24-bit sound effects won’t be too large compared to most of the graphical assets used in most modern games. (This is also one case where 24-bit audio may actually be something more than a placebo, since the game will have to adjust sound effect levels on the fly; adjusting the levels of dithered audio again reduces the effectiveness of the dithering to some extent, and 24-bit audio doesn’t need to be dithered because it already reproduces more dynamic range than humans are capable of hearing.)\\

One potential way to find non-loud versions of songs is that video clips posted to video services like Website/YouTube often avoid the loudness issue as they are mastered separately. In many cases, versions of albums that are specially mastered for iTunes (which are often advertised as being such) also have more dynamic range (although frequently you can only buy these in lossy versions, which carry their own problems; fortunately, the compression algorithm used to sell iTunes music in .m4a format is very, very good, to the point where the vast majority of people will be unable to tell the difference from a lossless source[[note]]Specifically, the frequencies missing from iTunes files are almost exclusively above 20 kHz, which is beyond the normal range of human hearing, except for small children's and under certain laboratory conditions - and since the supersonic frequencies have to be louder than 100 dB to be perceptible, the missing frequencies won't be perceptible in everyday music listening[[/note]]). Failing that, people will KeepCirculatingTheTapes of whichever version is the least clipped or even look for places to rip masters from (full-band RhythmGame[=s=] are one source) so they can try their hand at mixing themselves. Some (though not all) file-sharing websites also allow users to share fan-produced remasters of albums (usually produced with one of the above methods, most commonly a declipper). This is not strictly legal, but it is another common source of KeepCirculatingTheTapes, as many fans will feel these remasters to be BetterThanCanon.

One potential way to find non-loud versions of songs is that video clips posted to video services like Website/YouTube often avoid the loudness issue as they are mastered separately. In many cases, versions of albums that are specially mastered for iTunes (which are often advertised as being such) also have more dynamic range (although frequently you can only buy these in lossy versions, which carry their own problems; fortunately, the compression algorithm used to sell iTunes music in .m4a format is very, very good, to the point where the vast majority of people will be unable to tell the difference from a lossless source[[note]]Specifically, the frequencies missing from iTunes files are almost exclusively above 20 kHz, which is beyond the normal range of human hearing, except for small children's and under certain laboratory conditions - and since the supersonic frequencies have to be louder than 100 dB to be perceptible, the missing frequencies won't be perceptible in everyday music listening[[/note]]). Failing that, people will KeepCirculatingTheTapes of whichever version is the least clipped or even look for places to rip masters from (full-band RhythmGame[=s=] are one source) so they can try their hand at mixing themselves. Some file-sharing websites also allow users to share fan-produced remasters of albums (usually produced with one of the above methods, most commonly a declipper). This is not strictly legal, but it is another common source of KeepCirculatingTheTapes, as many fans will feel these remasters to be BetterThanCanon.

One potential way to find non-loud versions of songs is that video clips posted to video services like Website/YouTube often avoid the loudness issue as they are mastered separately. In many cases, versions of albums that are specially mastered for iTunes (which are often advertised as being such) also have more dynamic range (although frequently you can only buy these in lossy versions, which carry their own problems; fortunately, the compression algorithm used to sell iTunes music in .m4a format is very, very good, to the point where the vast majority of people will be unable to tell the difference from a lossless source[[note]]Specifically, the frequencies missing from iTunes files are almost exclusively above 20 kHz, which is beyond the normal range of human hearing, except for small children's and under certain laboratory conditions - and since the supersonic frequencies have to be louder than 100 dB to be perceptible, the missing frequencies won't be perceptible in everyday music listening[[/note]]). Failing that, people will KeepCirculatingTheTapes of whichever version is the least clipped or even look for places to rip masters from (full-band RhythmGame[=s=] are one source) so they can try their hand at mixing themselves. Some file-sharing websites also allow users to share fan-produced remasters of albums (usually produced with one of the above methods, most commonly a declipper). This is not strictly legal, but it is a common source of KeepCirculatingTheTapes, as many fans will feel these remasters to be BetterThanCanon.