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When I master my own tracks before I want to play them out for the first time etc. (I usually don't master my own stuff), I've noticed that there seem to be a lot of peaks and dips on my spectral analyzer. When I look at commercial quality tracks on the analyzer the peaks and valleys don't seem to have as much distance between them. It's as if the mastering engineer is EQing so that the volume of each frequency follows their desired EQ curve more closely across the spectrum. Are these tracks squashed so much that there's very little volume difference across the spectrum or is something else going on. Even if I absolutely smash a track using an ssl or a limiter I don't seem to get peaks and valleys that are so close. Thoughts?

Commercial Track


Self Mastered

I wouldn't worry about it. Maybe saturation would help? Other than that I cannot say...

not something to worry about - what should draw your attention is when the analyzer shows one or a couple of dominant spikes. also, set it up so that it shows average values on a set amount of time (slow response vs fast). the ones you pictured look like fast response to me.

out of curiosity, what analyzer is that? looks nice.

This is ozone 5. Good software overall. I'm not too fond of the EQ or the limiter, but the exciter and the imager have produced good results. There is a capture feature on the EQ. Both graphs are average values taken over the entirety of the tracks.

It just struck me... I think I may not have limited my tracks individually before throwing a mastering chain on the master buss. Maybe some transients on the different channels are sneaking through in my mix where as on a commercial master each channel would be limited to get rid of any meaningless peaks. (Gotta get that loudness son...) I'll look into it and let you know what I find.

Those dips in your tracks are dynamics if im not mistaken (dynamics are a good thing). The squashed track lacks dynamics.

Does your track contain some more distorted/shrill/comb filtered bass sounds compared to the reference track?