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I just watched the Ctrl Z (skism) masterclass (great, so much useful tips).
At around 2:30 in part 7 he is putting on effects on his master channel. It's in the red, he looks like he doesn't give a shit, and he goes "I could probably get away with driving that up a bit more".



When I joined dsf, people told me like "Never never never never ever go up to the red, ever" and I've been following that.
My shitty homemade masters have always been, and will probably always be really really shit, but they were never above 0, and never clipping, because that's just what I thought was right.

Is this normal, do you guys do this? I know analog clipping is one thing, but this is digital clipping and it's All red, All the Time.

inb4 "If it sounds good do it" "there are no wrong ways as long as it sounds good"

edit: I noticed I sound like a bit of an idiot but well, whatever

Is this brostep?

And please don't ask me what that has to do with anything because you all bloody well know it does.

It's hitting a peak 0.0 off the back of PSP, but it's not flatlining by any means - as he said he could drive it more since there's still quite a lot of dynamic movement in the signal. It's not clipping either, just because it's red doesn't mean it's clipping.

0.0 isn't clipping!

Some tracks can get away with clipping some can't. Same way some tracks can sound better than others when limited heavily.

I think you might be a little mistaken with advice you've read on forums etc.

When mixing it is good practise to stay away from hitting the tops of the metres, this gives a healthy amount of headroom so you can adjust levels / add parts if you need to and stay away from clipping so that when it is sent for mastering the M.E also has headroom to work with.

In this video however he is self-mastering, that is he is aiming to get these levels to 'commercial' standards through compressing and limiting. In order to hit 0db he has to have the metres hitting red inside his DAW as that is how they are set out in Logic.

If he didn't have a limiter there and was driving it to the point where it would clip on the metre (indicated with a red light above it) then it may distort in an unpleasing way and it is this which you want to avoid.

0.0 is cutting it preety close

Electric_Head wrote:Is this brostep?

And please don't ask me what that has to do with anything because you all bloody well know it does.

No, ctrl z makes dnb, why?

outbound wrote:Some tracks can get away with clipping some can't. Same way some tracks can sound better than others when limited heavily.

I think you might be a little mistaken with advice you've read on forums etc.

When mixing it is good practise to stay away from hitting the tops of the metres, this gives a healthy amount of headroom so you can adjust levels / add parts if you need to and stay away from clipping so that when it is sent for mastering the M.E also has headroom to work with.

In this video however he is self-mastering, that is he is aiming to get these levels to 'commercial' standards through compressing and limiting. In order to hit 0db he has to have the metres hitting red inside his DAW as that is how they are set out in Logic.

If he didn't have a limiter there and was driving it to the point where it would clip on the metre (indicated with a red light above it) then it may distort in an unpleasing way and it is this which you want to avoid.

Yeah, I sort of guessed that the advise I had gotten was a bit exaggerated, what you're saying makes more sense.
And this applies to me, I have a long way to go before I'll consider hiring an ME; right now my productions are just for fun, I usually don't share them with people other than my friends, so all the 'mastering' on my tracks are done by me.
Anyway thanks for the explanation mate, think I got it now!

Electric_Head wrote:Is this brostep?

And please don't ask me what that has to do with anything because you all bloody well know it does.

Is brostep everything that goes like *melodic intro*; *breakdown*; *buildup*; *dirty drop* @ 140bpm?

EH it's breakbro


@op the master is no way in red all the time, refer to what mthrfnk said

Icetickle wrote:

Electric_Head wrote:Is this brostep?

And please don't ask me what that has to do with anything because you all bloody well know it does.

Is brostep everything that goes like *melodic intro*; *breakdown*; *buildup*; *dirty drop* @ 140bpm?

I was being facetious.

bouncingfish wrote:

Electric_Head wrote:Is this brostep?

And please don't ask me what that has to do with anything because you all bloody well know it does.

No, ctrl z makes dnb, why?

outbound wrote:Some tracks can get away with clipping some can't. Same way some tracks can sound better than others when limited heavily.

I think you might be a little mistaken with advice you've read on forums etc.

When mixing it is good practise to stay away from hitting the tops of the metres, this gives a healthy amount of headroom so you can adjust levels / add parts if you need to and stay away from clipping so that when it is sent for mastering the M.E also has headroom to work with.

In this video however he is self-mastering, that is he is aiming to get these levels to 'commercial' standards through compressing and limiting. In order to hit 0db he has to have the metres hitting red inside his DAW as that is how they are set out in Logic.

If he didn't have a limiter there and was driving it to the point where it would clip on the metre (indicated with a red light above it) then it may distort in an unpleasing way and it is this which you want to avoid.

Yeah, I sort of guessed that the advise I had gotten was a bit exaggerated, what you're saying makes more sense.
And this applies to me, I have a long way to go before I'll consider hiring an ME; right now my productions are just for fun, I usually don't share them with people other than my friends, so all the 'mastering' on my tracks are done by me.
Anyway thanks for the explanation mate, think I got it now!

Glad I could help

Electric_Head wrote:

Icetickle wrote:

Electric_Head wrote:Is this brostep?

And please don't ask me what that has to do with anything because you all bloody well know it does.

Is brostep everything that goes like *melodic intro*; *breakdown*; *buildup*; *dirty drop* @ 140bpm?

I was being facetious.

I made a serious question since I'm not sure what is brostep and why is everybody hating so much on a genre.

Funny.

Electric_Head wrote:Funny.

Fml.

bouncingfish wrote:

Electric_Head wrote:Funny.

Fml.

._.