Louder is Better???

You don't have to get into the technicalities of the article below to understand the importance of the issue. It is the air of the music industry today (AND IT'S UNFORTUNATE).

Volume Wars

Funny that the article mentions Rush's 'Vapor Trails'. That album, along with The Smashing Pumpkins 'Machina' are the 2 records that immediately come to mind when someone mentions 'dynamics squashing', and they happened to be mastered by the same engineer...pity. At least folks like Rob Eaton, who produced The Pat Metheny Group's 'The Way Up', buck the trend of loudness and reach for subtlety, not the L2, pictured above. Eaton's not afraid to let instruments clip at times for the sake of texture.