What dB should your final mastered project be at?

[Alissio]

I am assuming, 0. Is it bad for it to be above +, 0? Will it sound to quiet below -, 0? Please help, thanks.

[johnnyng]

read the moneyshot thread, mixing and mastering / gain staging etc is all covered there. I think its stickied, but you can search for it using the DSF google search and it should come up.

[mromgwtf]

Whatever the hell you like, you can mixdown it to -3db, -6db, -12db.
Just remember, the quieter you go, the more noise you get, because floating-point precision in cpus is limited. If you master it to -12db you get less precision, and you get some noise. You can master it to -3db and it'll be ok. And yeah, it's bad to be above 0, because it's clipping. Don't forget about mastering stage, whick takes your -6db mixdown, into -0db loud as fuck banger.

[Cryoshok]

Moneyshot thread is your friend. I usually mixdown around -2 to -3 db. Yes it will be quiet which is what mastering is for. If you're just planning on doing a quick master to demo it to someone throw a brickwall limiter on the master channel and give it a boost to bring it to level before exporting.

[mthrfnk]

+10db is generally what the pro's go for. Keep adding limiters till you get there.

[mromgwtf]

+10db is generally what the pro's go for. Keep adding limiters till you get there.

If we are talking about making loudness illusion that sounds like it's +10db by limiters and compression, then it's actually pretty much true. If we are talking about db meter, then lol.

[Promise One]

-6dB for 24Bit pre masters is normally what labels / engineers ask for.

[NinjaEdit]

He said FFFFFFFFFFFFFFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL MMMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.

How do people on this forum get by?

As loud as possible, considering intersample peaks, say -0.5db.

[mthrfnk]

As loud as possible

OP: In the digital domain 0dB is the absolute maximum tolerable before clipping ensues, this doesn't occur in the analog domain, however if you're going to be doing a ADC and you do have a hot signal (+1/2 dB's) you only want to have it "clipping" for like 10-15 cycles before it becomes noticeable. Dependant upon what you want the song to sound like the limits you should go by will differ, you could go to 0.3dB for br00tal loudness, although if you're encoding to mp3 I'd say -0.5dB->-1dB is what you'd be better going for.

Also @mromgwtf I was taking the piss.

[joegrizzly]

lol

[mromgwtf]

lol

this thread

[didi]

Moneyshot thread is your friend. I usually mixdown around -2 to -3 db.

As loud as possible, considering intersample peaks, say -0.5db.

This is correct. Final Master.

Separate mixing from mastering in your mind. Fuck the meters when your mixing (as long as you use a sensible reference level like -18db) because you shouldn't be getting close to clipping at all. When mastering, after whatever processors you choose to use, it is safe to raise the volume to just below 0db. You might want a brickwall limiter at -0.1 or whatever as a safety measure, but that shouldn't really be necessary.

[ehbes]

He said FFFFFFFFFFFFFFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL MMMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.

thanks captain obvious

[NinjaEdit]

Apparently it's not obvious.

[skerrick]

i know fuck all about mastering. do i need an external program? or do i do it via the mixer in my daw and get the levels perfect and THEN then change the master volume in the daw for exporting? or is it through an external program.?
sorry im a noob. will hit up, moneyshot thread but was hoping for a quick answer...

[NinjaEdit]

i know fuck all about mastering. do i need an external program? or do i do it via the mixer in my daw and get the levels perfect and THEN then change the master volume in the daw for exporting? or is it through an external program.?
sorry im a noob. will hit up, moneyshot thread but was hoping for a quick answer...

I'm not sure how you can normalise in FL, but you can definately do it in Audacity, which is free.

EDIT: You could actually use Edison.

[skerrick]

[quote=]

EDIT: You could actually use Edison.[/quote]

fuck man thats gnarly. need to lurk this. cheers for the pointrer
also, new track in my sig, just did an edit of it if you got a couple mins? laytuhz.

[NinjaEdit]

Overall, I liked it. I thought:

Positives:
Exotic sounds
Use of silence
Full frequency spectrum
Interesting strucure
Subbass sound

Improvements?
Recurring vocal hook tying things together
Edit a bounced audio file, eg stutter edits
Set up a distortion send
Buss the drums together and compress if they aren't
Delay wet signal can be affected seperately eg filtered, distorted

[skerrick]

Cheers bro, yeah i used ny compression but no compressor. I got one with my soundcard that makes shit sound real clean and nice but its pretty average doesnt really do much... Do you know any good free ones or something i could hit up from anywhere or any others youd recommend?
And man im self taught so when i comes to technical stuff if i havent already read it and gained an understanding then im semi lost.. Whats stutter editing? You mean like editing an exported file? Like a 32bit float?

[NinjaEdit]

Cheers bro, yeah i used ny compression but no compressor. I got one with my soundcard that makes shit sound real clean and nice but its pretty average doesnt really do much... Do you know any good free ones or something i could hit up from anywhere or any others youd recommend?
And man im self taught so when i comes to technical stuff if i havent already read it and gained an understanding then im semi lost.. Whats stutter editing? You mean like editing an exported file? Like a 32bit float?

Yeah, edit an exported file. You can copy a short portion and paste it a few times so that it sounds like it's stuttering. There are other editing techniques like time stretching, pitch shifting, reversing, and spot effects if you do some research.

Try ReaXComp and ReaComp from the Cockos site.