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Said no one ever.
Video Game Music Isn't Real Music
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Thread started by Demon_Skeith
Said no one ever.
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Game and movie music isn't affected by the modern-day loudness wars, as they call it. So, it is generally better than what is on the radio simply in terms of how it is recorded. Which is also why we can get such beautiful OST tracks and why they sound so much better.
Loudness wars are through the mastering process, not the recording. There’s still tons of compression on the OST’s that squashes dynamics.
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Not going to lie you had me at first lol. Even chiptune music from the 8-bit era is still music! Honestly I find myself liking chiptunes more because of the limitations that the composers had back in the day and they did such a good job composing some of the most memorable, catchy tunes even in the 8-bit era.
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That is correct, but I'd strongly argue that both suffer from compression issues, while only radio-bound music suffers from maxing out all the levels.
That doesn’t change the audio quality, one is just mastered slightly louder.
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I’d have to politely disagree here. When you start pushing everything, treble, bass, and overall levels, to the max during mastering, it absolutely impacts the audio quality. Even if the goal is just to make the track louder, the side effect is losing dynamic range and introducing distortion or muddiness that wasn’t in the original mix.
Loudness on its own isn’t the issue, but the way it’s achieved definitely is. Once everything is slammed up against the ceiling, the finer details get crushed, and that’s where the quality drop becomes noticeable.
That’s not how the mastering process works. Sounds like you’re slamming jargon together and don’t know how mastering works.
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I get what you’re saying, but it’s not really “slamming jargon together.” The loudness war is a mastering issue, but the whole point is that the choices made during mastering absolutely affect the final audio quality. You can make something louder without wrecking the dynamics, but a lot of commercial releases don’t take that route.
When you start brickwall limiting everything, you’re not just raising volume; you’re shaving off transients, reducing dynamic range, and introducing artifacts that weren’t in the mix. That’s why people complain about loudness‑war masters sounding flat or fatiguing. It’s not about misunderstanding the process; it’s about acknowledging what happens when the process is pushed too far.
Game and film OSTs tend to avoid the worst of that because they’re not fighting for radio loudness, which is why they often retain more space and detail. That’s the only point being made.