Mastering for loudness!!

[hifi]

actually the moneyshot thread was just some concept and did help me out but what really helped me the most was when I had asked a few questions I was confused about and had them answered and some were answered by viewing macc's posts. money shot thread is great but realllllly overlooked. good info on there but not enough I say.

[amphibian]

So I was doing some reading up on mastering today, and read some advice somewhere that at the mastering stage limiting shouldn't be doing much more than 2-3db of gain reduction, which really perplexed me because whenever I do a self-master (I'm no expert at all by the way!) I always tend to blast a clean limiter (usually pro-l) to get my tracks up to levels similar to commercial tracks. Presumeably I am absolutely ruining my audio at the mastering stage, yet, I really don't understand how I could get my tunes to match commercial track volumes without doing it, because whenever I apply a light limiter the tracks just sound 3 or 4 db quieter than most commercial tracks I listen to. Anybody have any tips to get tracks to a nice beefy volume without sacrificing dynamics?? I know the consensus tends to be to leave mastering to the experts but I guess if I'm ever gonna be good at it then practice is key?? I'm always really happy with my mixes pre master, and will always tend to mix to -3db maximum, but usually around -5db so I have plenty of space for mastering processes. Hopefully I'm not being too noobish, figure this sort of question is far removed from the "how do i make skrillex bass" that normally surfaces every 10 minutes nowadays!!

Just because your track is loud doesn't mean it's a good mixdown. Leave a good amount of headroom before sending it for master. Theres loads and loads of threads on this stuff.

did he say that, he said he is happy with his mixes, that sometimes are mixed to -5db, so there is good headroom there. he is asking if anyone knows how to get it as loud as mastered tracks, but by doing it himself, he doesnt want to send it to get it mastered, he just wants it loud enough to play out and stuff probs.

i mix down to whatever headroom really, i always try to get it lower than -1 even -2db, but if its peaking at like -1.9db ill leave it as that. but sometimes it could be like -6db. then ill bounce it, and put it back in logic and then use the gain plug-in to probably lift it over 0db, but then i use the ad limiter and limit it to like -0.2db and then i may add a little gain with that too, maybe take a bit off on the gain plug-in, then like squeeze it with the limiter, i dont take any notice of the gain reduction, i just do it so that it seems loud enough, but i cant hear any distortion or anything. obviously the distortion is bad, so when i can hear distortion on certain parts, or it just generally sound nasty, then i drop it down a bit so that its not there. i just mess around with the threshold or whatever its called and gain, until it sounds alright. they still seem a little quiter than released tracks, but its good enough.

Sounds like good advice mate!! I was listening to a track in the car yesterday and the snare on one of my tracks and it sounded really distorted, but everything else was okay (It's a clean snare by the way, lol) so I'm guessing it[s moments like that you[ve gotta back off with the limiting juice!!

I never limit my tracks. Ever.

[nowaysj]

[macc]

actually the moneyshot thread was just some concept and did help me out but what really helped me the most was when I had asked a few questions I was confused about and had them answered and some were answered by viewing macc's posts. money shot thread is great but realllllly overlooked. good info on there but not enough I say.

It's not got a lot of specific answers to specific questions - and for me that's its real strength.

It's a very very long thread about a single very very important principle. Once the principle is understood, properly understood, the questions answer themselves

That's why I'd be disappointed to see it get too 'why doesn't my x sound like y?', or 'how do I use z?' if you know what I mean.

[hifi]

actually the moneyshot thread was just some concept and did help me out but what really helped me the most was when I had asked a few questions I was confused about and had them answered and some were answered by viewing macc's posts. money shot thread is great but realllllly overlooked. good info on there but not enough I say.

It's not got a lot of specific answers to specific questions - and for me that's its real strength.

It's a very very long thread about a single very very important principle. Once the principle is understood, properly understood, the questions answer themselves

That's why I'd be disappointed to see it get too 'why doesn't my x sound like y?', or 'how do I use z?' if you know what I mean.

yes. only have read through a few pages just because i was confused on a few things. your such a helpful person, thanks man

[macc]

My pleasure. All else aside, I just love this sh1t - doing it, talking about it, helping with it, whatever. Simple as that

[Sharmaji]

loud is the easy part-- just turn it up.

loud and GOOD, however...

[skyh]

This thread is helping me a lot to understand this issue.
And now a question to any who care to answer:

What are some popular compression techniques and the specific real world applications of those techniques?

[GRAYSKALE]

This thread is helping me a lot to understand this issue.
And now a question to any who care to answer:

What are some popular compression techniques and the specific real world applications of those techniques?

hmmmm . . . one technique I use quite often, if you want to get any instrument or percussion to have a sharp attack, is to have a medium attack (usually between 50ms and 100ms depending on sample or synth) and a really short release (doesn't usually waver much further than 50ms) if you have a pretty weighty threshold (say -20db, for example), and a medium ratio (5:1, another example), then it'll really make the initial attack of the sample stand out. Not sure if it's good practice though, cause it'll make stuff peak louder than it should be, but if you get the settings right it'll be sweet. If you want major squashed brostep samples though, just shorten the attack and lengthen the release, works nice on snare's. If you're not familiar with compressors then I'd definitely advise spending some time just working with really extreme settings, just so you can learn the difference between compressed and uncompressed audio (took me a while!!), and then you'll really start hearing the difference GOOD use of compression can make.

EDIT: Wish I could have a day in Macc's ears, just to see what he hears in mixes that I don't!!

[amphibian]

My pleasure. All else aside, I just love this sh1t - doing it, talking about it, helping with it, whatever. Simple as that

That's like me and sex, aye. Love doing it, talking about it, and helping you out if you ever need it.

[GRAYSKALE]

My pleasure. All else aside, I just love this sh1t - doing it, talking about it, helping with it, whatever. Simple as that

That's like me and sex, aye. Love doing it, talking about it, and helping you out if you ever need it.

I think I too suffer from this affliction . . . funny how threads change subject.

[nowaysj]

I just love this sh1t - doing it, talking about it, helping with it, whatever. Simple as that

[skyh]

hmmmm . . . one technique I use quite often, if you want to get any instrument or percussion to have a sharp attack, is to have a medium attack (usually between 50ms and 100ms depending on sample or synth) and a really short release (doesn't usually waver much further than 50ms) if you have a pretty weighty threshold (say -20db, for example), and a medium ratio (5:1, another example), then it'll really make the initial attack of the sample stand out. Not sure if it's good practice though, cause it'll make stuff peak louder than it should be, but if you get the settings right it'll be sweet. If you want major squashed brostep samples though, just shorten the attack and lengthen the release, works nice on snare's. If you're not familiar with compressors then I'd definitely advise spending some time just working with really extreme settings, just so you can learn the difference between compressed and uncompressed audio (took me a while!!), and then you'll really start hearing the difference GOOD use of compression can make.

EDIT: Wish I could have a day in Macc's ears, just to see what he hears in mixes that I don't!!

Thanks! I'll try it out!

[Ldizzy]

This thread is helping me a lot to understand this issue.
And now a question to any who care to answer:

What are some popular compression techniques and the specific real world applications of those techniques?

hmmmm . . . one technique I use quite often, if you want to get any instrument or percussion to have a sharp attack, is to have a medium attack (usually between 50ms and 100ms depending on sample or synth) and a really short release (doesn't usually waver much further than 50ms) if you have a pretty weighty threshold (say -20db, for example), and a medium ratio (5:1, another example), then it'll really make the initial attack of the sample stand out. Not sure if it's good practice though, cause it'll make stuff peak louder than it should be, but if you get the settings right it'll be sweet. If you want major squashed brostep samples though, just shorten the attack and lengthen the release, works nice on snare's. If you're not familiar with compressors then I'd definitely advise spending some time just working with really extreme settings, just so you can learn the difference between compressed and uncompressed audio (took me a while!!), and then you'll really start hearing the difference GOOD use of compression can make.

EDIT: Wish I could have a day in Macc's ears, just to see what he hears in mixes that I don't!!

Funnily enough, i've spent a lot of time trying to use compression to get some of my sounds to stick out from the rest of the mix... by exaggerating their attack, but ive never ever succeeded...

for some reason i feel like transient designers are always a better option when i need improvement on attack, except for sounds from soundpacks that sound like they've been expanded to death... i kno some people could argue but i really think it works better for such a task...

microcompressionwise i like to use compression to to give samples that extra slap that's purely aesthetic, but it seems like it only blurrs my mixes.

its like i know im wrong but i can't find any way to improve...

[nowaysj]

Agree with that, I was late to the concept of transient designers (what a gay name), but find them so much more effective than compressors for that kind of thing. Compressors though have sound and tone shaping abilities that far exceed transient shapers though.

[Ldizzy]

!! happy to c im not alone. anyone else agrees with us? or disagrees?

[slothrop]

I never limit my tracks. Ever.

No no, no no no no, no no no no, no no there's no limiting?

[GRAYSKALE]

I rarely use transient designers at all, I do have a demo of shaack audio's one, which rarely got used, although it was good for maximising headroom (if you boost the drive up it will give you like an extra 3db headroom without affecting the audio too bad), but that's about it. And Cubase's in built one is fucking awful! I limit everything a little bit to be fair, just to keep peaks in check for mixing, nothing more than about 0.5-2db of gain reduction though otherwise you get pretty noticeable artifacts!! Seems like pretty standard practise these days to be fair, I know alot of people on the producer masterclasses do it quite regularly!! If you're interested in transient design techniques you should all watch Reso's CM Masterclass, he uses the Schaak audio one on every track about 3 times!!

[Ldizzy]

ive watched it...

depone's tutorial also made a fair use of it...

its not the only transient designer there is tho.. and they're all really different...

i just think they do something to kicks a compressor simply can't do.

[charliefoy]

ive watched it...

depone's tutorial also made a fair use of it...

its not the only transient designer there is tho.. and they're all really different...

i just think they do something to kicks a compressor simply can't do.

Any decent free ones knockin around?