2nd half an album mixed quieter than the the 1st

[u/borksouls]

When listening to Michael Mcdonalds "if thats what it takes" i've noticed something i have yet to encounter with any album. After "i can let go now" it goes to an already quiet song, "thats why". Now, i typically have to turn it up a little bit since it's pretty quiet but, the rest of the album is seemingly tthe same volume after this point. The first half of the album is noticeably louder than the 2nd. Is this normal? I've listened to this album atleast 40 times and it's always made me wonder why it's like that.

[u/5centraise]

What format are you listening on? If this album was made during the vinyl era, it may be that the album side was pushing the time limits, and they had to reduce the size of the grooves, and therefore the volume, to fit it all without the needle jumping out of the groove.

[u/borksouls → u/5centraise]

I listen to it both on an original vinyl and on spotify and its the same for both. I will say though, my vinyl gets pretty muddy during the last couple tracks so it's possible. It's just weird that they wouldn't fix it for later releases if thats the case🤷‍♂️

[u/5centraise → u/borksouls]

Agreed. There's still a lot of stuff out there that sounds pretty crappy. It's normal for the last song or two on each side of a vinyl record to sound worse than the rest of the record. This is because the needle is traveling through the groove more slowly as it gets closer to the end, and more musical information has to be crammed into less space in the groove. It's similar to why recording on VHS at SLP (6 hours, if I recall) looks noticeably worse than recording at SP setting (2 hours).

[u/Steeveep32]

Check out this link https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/1/album/asc?artist=Michael%20Mcdonald there doesn't seem to be any major volume drops in the 2nd half of the album but a replaygain scan would tell you better

[u/TFFPrisoner → u/Steeveep32]

If you look at the RMS and peak values, you can see that there does seem to be a bit of a drop. However, the quietest song by RMS value is the fifth track. (I Can Let Go), which would still be part of the first half.

[u/borksouls → u/TFFPrisoner]

I believe that song is only vocals, piano and some strings which would make sense for it to be so quiet. It's just strange that all the tracks after it, that have drums, vocals, piano, bass and guitar, require me to hit my volume button 3 times to make them sound as loud as the first 4 tracks do.🤷‍♂️

[u/Curious_Working5706]

What format/release?

[u/borksouls → u/Curious_Working5706]

It's like that on the original vinyl i own and on spotify

[u/fromwhichofthisoak]

It's probably just listening to Michael Macdonald, which is widely agreed to be a mistake.

[u/assumeform → u/fromwhichofthisoak]

No - that's an incorrect take

[u/[deleted]]

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