Compressors: necessary or not?

[ledge]

Originally Posted by Drammy

There was an article on the Radio One news yesterday about a group of Sound Engineers that are trying to get a motion to reduce the amount of compression used on tracks. They claim that it is dangerous to people listening to the music in headphones.

They must be making quite an impact if they made it onto Radio One news...

They've got a point. Modern mastering seems to be all about making the album as loud as possible which usually involves compressing the living fuck out of everything. Which means that when you are listening through headphones it's constant loud noise. Also means that the albums are fatiguing to listen to and sound pretty shitty.

That is different to using compression when recording though.