Why isn’t my CD as loud as theirs?

We’ve all noticed that some CD’s are louder than others. That’s because, in most cases, the louder CD has been heavily compressed and limited. Compression makes a soft sound loud and a loud sound soft, while limiting is a severe form of compression using much higher ratios and a “brick wall” that prevents the signal from reaching digital zero. Although dynamics processing allows the entire mix to be brought up by several decibels, if not done properly, the reduction in dynamic range can be quite noticeable. Still, when done well, compression/limiting should not be a problem.

The DDP (Disc Description Protocol) image that is created in a mastering session is used as the master for mass replication. Most replicators prefer DDP images although a CD-R can also be used as a master.

Posted in: Mastering