mastering/loudness

  On 10/27/2010 at 7:13 PM, bigfatLOL said:

ok I've used vsts that displays frequency response, and ozone looks useful, but are you aware of a vst that will apply band pass filtering automatically based on how it analyzes a sound to reduce unneeded or less used frequencies, or at least present the user with a choice of what they want to do based on the analyzation. From what I read in the manual, ozone doesnt do this?

how long is a piece of string?

  On 8/19/2010 at 7:48 PM, bigfatLOL said:

Hey guys Ive tried to use compression pre-mastering and then limiters and whatnot in the mastering phase, but it seems that I can only get so-much loudness out of my track, how is it that the waveform looks just the same as others on soundcloud but sounds way quieter, any tricks to maximizing the loudness so it doesnt sound all chumpy compared to some weak dubstep tune (that sounds really loud)

Get T-Racks that'll pump up the output. Mix all your tracks nice and low for starters though so you have a nice clean mix without distortion or clipping and then master them in T-Racks.

  On 10/27/2010 at 8:44 PM, soundwave said:

PSP vintage warmer with a bit of EQ but get your mix sounding clear before you do this

FUCK

YES

if you know how to make your audio/song looking like the peaks at 0db looking like a ketchup packet then you are bob katz father

  On 10/28/2010 at 6:23 PM, sonny said:

if you know how to make your audio/song looking like the peaks at 0db looking like a ketchup packet then you are bob katz father

wtf does this even mean?

I think it's more important to have the loudness be relatively average in an album, than have it be louder than everything else. Also, one thing I learned from here, is to master at a low volume, and as long as the most important elements are still audible when you can barely hear the track, it's a good master. I'm a bit biased though because I really love a track with a good dynamic range.

psp warmer or t racks?

Electronic production can be a very subtly art obviously we here have heard some very meticulously crafted complex digital tunes in our time... But sometimes I am very relieved to not be mixing or mastering mixes of primarily organic instrumentation. It can be such a pain in the ass to master and mix real drums sometimes (cymbals get too loud or distorted so easily etc. etc.) or bass players that have way too much dynamic velocities in their playing can be so very challenging to mix and master amongst many other human performances.

Don't smack something on at the end, you usually end up killing the dynamics of your music. People in this day and age should be able to turn up the volume on their listening equipment.

I think people should be concentrating on what sounds good, rather than making things sound loud. That's one of the big problems with music today, if you ask me. The other is people staring at meters and trying to work out what the RMS average of their track is to stay "competitive". Use your ears, not your eyes, and turn up your monitors if you need more volume, that's what amps are for. ;)

I pride myself on NOT taking part in the loudness wars. It has cost me clients in the past, but I'd rather work with artists who are interested in sound quality more than LOUDNESS!!! What's really painful is when you receive tracks from a client, and they are ALREADY brick-walled. Mixing into a hard limiter is killing music. With digital recording at 24bit we now have more dynamic range than the human ear can hear. Why cram it all into those top two bits? Use that dynamic range! I've actually returned masters that were quieter than the original files I received.

The loudness wars is a horrible state of affairs!

I rarely go above an average of -13Db RMS in anything I do, I hate to go above. Don't get me wrong, I love compression as an effect and my mixes often have some very compressed elements in them but the overall loudness thing is just vulgar. Dynamics are what makes a lot of music really 'proper'/beautiful etc.

  On 10/29/2010 at 8:58 AM, Blanket Fort Collapse said:

Electronic production can be a very subtly art obviously we here have heard some very meticulously crafted complex digital tunes in our time... But sometimes I am very relieved to not be mixing or mastering mixes of primarily organic instrumentation. It can be such a pain in the ass to master and mix real drums sometimes (cymbals get too loud or distorted so easily etc. etc.) or bass players that have way too much dynamic velocities in their playing can be so very challenging to mix and master amongst many other human performances.

Yeah, its an ass ache! I used to produce a lot of electronic music but now I work at studio I just deal with real drums all day and its a bit rubbish. its great if the drummer can play but so few of them can 'really' play well enough, you spend the entire day creating something that just about doesn't suck rather than a great piece of music. If the band is good its amazing, if they are rubbish then its a real chore....

I'd be wary of using any RMS figure to describe the loudness of your music. It does seem to be the "in thing" at the moment though.

Problems abound: Are you using the old AES standard, or the new digital standard? They are 3dB apart. What integration time constants does your meter use? The old VU standard of 300ms, or Bob Katz's recommended 600ms? Something different? They will give different readings... Are you looking at the whole track, or just the loudest part? They will give different readings... Is your RMS referenced to a 0dB Sine wave, or Square wave? They will give different readings...

Not to mention the fact that RMS has very little do do with how the human ear and brain perceive average loudness. Something like a LEQ meter is better for that.

If you measure RMS with four different digital meters, you are very likely to get four different readings...

There is no standard for what people mean when they say "I aim to get my track around -10dBfs RMS", and so, it is meaningless.

Far better to rely on one's ears when balancing tracks on an album.

my goal is to be able to just have my tracks sound as phat, crisp and loud as possible without sacrificing dynamics, and to be able to do this without spending a lot of time on it. cause it's boring as hell

hopefully i will eventually come across some template solution i can apply to tracks i create going forward, since i tend to create my tracks in a similar fashion. im not interested in "clients" or mastering anyone else's music.

Good for you - I don't think anyone actually asked you to master anyone else's tracks though ....

And there really is no such thing as a template solution - every track needs to be dealt with differently. If you don't want to spend time with making music sound well produced maybe you shouldn't be making music in the first place

  On 8/19/2010 at 7:48 PM, bigfatLOL said:

Hey guys Ive tried to use compression pre-mastering and then limiters and whatnot in the mastering phase, but it seems that I can only get so-much loudness out of my track, how is it that the waveform looks just the same as others on soundcloud but sounds way quieter, any tricks to maximizing the loudness so it doesnt sound all chumpy compared to some weak dubstep tune (that sounds really loud)

  On 8/19/2010 at 8:15 PM, mcbpete said:

Cut out some the sub bass it's probably dominating the whole mix even though it's not adding anything.

Just read this, it'll help considerably - http://www.tweakheadz.com/EQ_and_the_Limits_of_Audio.html

And added to that - this : http://www.tweakheadz.com/mastering_your_audio.htm

  On 10/28/2010 at 7:00 PM, hautlle said:

  On 10/28/2010 at 6:23 PM, sonny said:

if you know how to make your audio/song looking like the peaks at 0db looking like a ketchup packet then you are bob katz father

 

wtf does this even mean?

if you figure it out you're the next quincy jones

p.s. one technique is to set your multi-band compressor's attack/release time in accordance with rhythmic intervals determined by the tracks bpm

mcbpete thanks i saw that and i am going to try it when i finish my next track. i just made this thread to get some hints like what you gave me. i dont give a shit about the math or the acronyms or what people learned in music school that their mommy sent them to for daddys record label, i just want to be able to do it and forget about it, cause quite frankly it isnt really part of the musical process, simply just post-processing to make it sound not as weak in relation to people who have had their shit professionally mastered. so i dont really get what you mean when you say that people who find mastering boring, shouldnt be making music in the first place.

  On 12/7/2010 at 7:28 PM, bigfatLOL said:

i just want to be able to do it and forget about it, cause quite frankly it isnt really part of the musical process, simply just post-processing to make it sound not as weak

i disagree. its part of the entire process and not just a finishing touch

compression is dangerous - look what it did to Chris Clark, he's in a wheelchair now. his poor knees.

  On 12/7/2010 at 7:28 PM, bigfatLOL said:

i dont really get what you mean when you say that people who find mastering boring, shouldnt be making music in the first place.

Apologies, I was a bit caustic with my reply there - I was trying to get at what Benedict Cumberbatch put quite succinctly in his post up there ^^ . To me getting the sound of the track nicely mixed via mastering is just as important as getting the rest of the track right, as I see it it's like a carpenter (erm, not that I have much experience carpentering) who makes a chair but can't be arsed to sand it down to finish it off properly. I mean, yeah I've used Chris Leary's mastering services a couple of times, not because I couldn't be bothered to make the track sound decent in the first place, just that I knew he would be able to add a distinctive finesse to the final result. So I feel that it's a useful skill to learn particularly in the the electronic music scene where production values are so critically assessed.

I've been told by many a folk that people shouldn't master their own work, as they have a biased ear. There is some truth to that I think, as the mastering work I've done for others sounds a bit better than mine :/

The secret? Come over to my studio and put your mix through my Manley Variable Mu and Manley Massive Passive.