Friday 27 March will mark Dynamic Range Day 2026, the annual day of online activity that was started in 2010 by mastering engineer Ian Shepherd. Founded with the aim of raising awareness of the negative impact that heavy-handed dynamic processing has on music, the event offers an array of ways for the audio community to get involved and make some noise about things not needing to be so loud!
You can check out the official website for more information on what’s happening this time around, as well as digging into a wealth of resources that shed some light on the likes of loudness targets and how they affect how your music is handled by various platforms. You can even take the Dynamic Range Day Challenge, and commit to mixing a release that adheres to Ian’s recommended levels!
The Dynamic Range Day Award
Each year, the Dynamic Range Day Award is presented to a great-sounding, popular, dynamic release from the previous 12 months, to show that great dynamics and success can go hand in hand! This year’s shortlist is as follows:
- Bruno Mars - The Romantic
- Justin Gray - Immersed
- Halina Rice - Evolve
- U2 - Days of Ash
- Flyte - Between You & Me
- Sword II - Electric Hour
- Gesaffelstein - Enter The Gamma (Live)
- Kieran Hebden, William Tyler - 41 Longfield Street Late '80s
- Smerz - Big City Life
- Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe - Luminal
SOS Content
If the topic takes your fancy, you should check out our 2023 interview with Ian, where he offers some insight into the loudness wars and dishes out some great advice on LUFS targets for mixing and mastering. He also contributed to our most recent Mix Rescue article, comparing his new and original masters of Ember Rev’s third album, From The Country To The City To The Sea.
- Ian Shepherd On Loudness & Dynamics
- Mix Rescue: Ember Rev (print / web / app / replica / PDF editions)
More information can be found on the Dynamic Range Day website.
