A7X's new album has a DR12 http://dr.loudness-war.info/

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I don't think a major label rock album has been released like this in 20 years

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bump for Bob

>>68740056
Did Bob master this album? I thought he was a proponent of the loudness war.

The mixing and mastering is fantastic; if only the guitars were mixed about +2db, it would be perfection.

>>68740056
Conehead.

>>68741260
Most mastering engineers aren't "pro" loudness war they just go with the desire of the client, they are being paid by them after all. The problem is that less technically inclined clients get insecure if their album is perceived to be "quieter" than other new albums and ask for it to be turned up. In this case, judging by this album and their last album's mastering, it seems A7X is aware of brickwalling and has been trying to avoid it on their albums, which is surprising and refreshing. Bob did master this album, and when left to his own devices he generally does a pretty great job. When he mastered Chinese Democracy he prepared multiple versions based on what he wanted vs. what he thought the label would want and Axl ended up picking the most dynamic one. His new Stones mono box is incredible too, and Random Access Memories sounds like a million bucks.
He has so many credits going back 5 decades that it's tough to generalize his massive body of work though. He has some loud albums, sure, but I doubt think those were his choices.

>>68739617
can someone explain what these ratings actually mean? i've been seeing them around a lot lately

>>68743124
They score the dynamic range of an album based on an average on the difference between the loudest and quietest parts of the track.
Basically, DR7 or below is compressed/limited/brickwalled, 8-9 have some limiting but are okay, and 10 or above is good. DR12 is incredible for a recent rock album

>>68739617
Sorry for my ignorance, but what does that mean?

It means most albums mastered since the mid-90s or so have been loud as fuck with clipping and compression while this one has quite a bit of dynamics and actually sounds good (as good as Avenged Sevenfold can sound, anyway)

>>68739817
Seriously, as far as metal production goes, I can't say I've heard a better produced album since hearing Blackwater Park for the first time. They really did a phenomenal job.

Leonard Cohen's new album sounds amazing too
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/116784
Hope this is the beginning of the end of the loudness war, and it's probably because Spotify normalizes everything anyway, so loud music just sounds flat and lifeless next to a good master. Compressed streaming services might actually help out audiophiles in the long run, oddly enough