Hey, for everyone talking about the benefits of mastering to "industry standards," here's an interesting experiment.

Use the Audacity Program to open up an MP3 of the song "Born to Run"* (if you have one) from the CD and study it. Look at the headroom and listen to the volume level. Look at how the waveform looks like--well, a wave. It rises and falls. It ebbs and flows.

Then do the same thing with "Radio Nowhere"* (for comparison, if you have one.) Look at at how the waveform in Radio Nowhere is a thick blue brick pushed all the way to the edge of maximizing, and then shaved off a few nanometers from spiking with the barest amount of limiting. Notice how the needle is constantly in the red. Notice how your ears bleed. Notice how if you go back to listening to Born to Run after listening to Radio Nowhere you will no longer be able to hear it because it sounds muted and you feel deaf. Those are not your headphones that have been muted. Those are your eardrums.

Ok, now think about this: Born to Run is universally recognized as one of the greatest Rock 'n Roll songs of all time. It took 6 months to produce and about another 6 months to master.

Was the mastering "bad"? Did they not know what they were doing? Did it not sound like a hit? Yet, by Spotify and SoundCloud standards it is nowhere near professional loudness norms.

Are you still sure you want a robot mastering tool mastering your stuff?

Really sure?

Really, really, really sure???

* If you don't have these songs try similar experiments with any songs released say 10 years ago, with any hit released today.

David Snyder
Songwriter/Renaissance Man
Studio + Fingers

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