Radio / Mixing / Mastering

Maybe WATMM can help.

I'm in a band and recently we've had some of our stuff played on some online radio stations, nowt special but I've had a listen and they sound like shit. It's all horribly compressed and/or limited, to the point where you can really hear it kicking in. Now I realise radio does tend to do this so should probably accept a varying degree of shittitude, but the trouble is, it doesn't seem anywhere near as bad when other songs are being played. Which leads me to think that I'm doing something wrong during mixing/mastering. Which is doubly annoying cause I've got the tracks to a point that I'm pretty happy with.

I don't particularly want to mix for radio play, but at the same time, it'd be nice to know that songs aren't gonna sound like shit if they do ever get used. I do tend to use various amounts of limiting and compression, often because otherwise I'm left with songs that are too quiet. Am I just using too much?

Thoughts etc?

[you can hear the original tracks here and here, unfortunately I don't have a rip of how it sounded on't radio]

jesus, it's b born droid! havent seen you round these parts in a fair while...

The louder you make your tracks with compression and limiting the worse they'll sound on radio.

Keep in mind that when something gets played on the radio it gets slammed through a limiter.

  On 6/6/2013 at 8:08 PM, BCM said:

jesus, it's b born droid! havent seen you round these parts in a fair while...

A name I recognise! Every now and again I get an email syaing that my account is being deactivated because I haven't posted for ages. So I thought I'd get my act in gear, especially since I knew wattum is a good source of knowledge.

  On 6/6/2013 at 10:09 PM, LimpyLoo said:

The louder you make your tracks with compression and limiting the worse they'll sound on radio.

 

 

Keep in mind that when something gets played on the radio it gets slammed through a limiter.

So how would one go about making tracks louder without using compression or limiting? I do make sure I've got a good strong signal from synths/vocals/beats etc, but at some point having everything playing just clips it to buggery in the master channel. So naturally I try to reduce the volume but I'm left with tracks that are pretty quiet when I A/B them with various random releases (even accounting for any possible hefty volume increase in mastering).

Don't get me wrong I realise that louder doesn't equal better, but as a listener it's fucking annoying when you're listening to tracks and there's a big difference in volumes between various things.

Guess I will try to minimise the use of limiting and so on, see how I get on with that.

Eq'ing out unwanted frequencies and making room for all instruments will allow you to push the volume without using a mastering buss/limiter/compression.

Google for "Yep's guide to mixing" I think it's called something like "Why does my mix sound like shit" He's done a great set of posts that will help you along with this.
I often now choose to avoid all compression and such on the master bus until i've gotten to grips with all the tracks and trimmed out the stuff which is hogging space. Then pop a compressor on the master bus just as a bit of a glue and to help spot those things I didn't see.
This isn't to say that compression and limiting, doesn't have it's place, it's just knowing when you are over egging it and killing the dynamics.

Nice to see fred's collection of hand made avatar pictures still hanging around. I lost the one he did for me when my old lappy died :(

  On 6/7/2013 at 2:32 PM, Starblazer said:

Eq'ing out unwanted frequencies and making room for all instruments will allow you to push the volume without using a mastering buss/limiter/compression.

 

Google for "Yep's guide to mixing" I think it's called something like "Why does my mix sound like shit" He's done a great set of posts that will help you along with this.

I often now choose to avoid all compression and such on the master bus until i've gotten to grips with all the tracks and trimmed out the stuff which is hogging space. Then pop a compressor on the master bus just as a bit of a glue and to help spot those things I didn't see.

This isn't to say that compression and limiting, doesn't have it's place, it's just knowing when you are over egging it and killing the dynamics.

  On 6/7/2013 at 2:28 PM, b born droid said:

 

  On 6/6/2013 at 8:08 PM, BCM said:

jesus, it's b born droid! havent seen you round these parts in a fair while...

 

A name I recognise! Every now and again I get an email syaing that my account is being deactivated because I haven't posted for ages. So I thought I'd get my act in gear, especially since I knew wattum is a good source of knowledge.

 

  On 6/6/2013 at 10:09 PM, LimpyLoo said:

The louder you make your tracks with compression and limiting the worse they'll sound on radio.

 

 

Keep in mind that when something gets played on the radio it gets slammed through a limiter.

So how would one go about making tracks louder without using compression or limiting? I do make sure I've got a good strong signal from synths/vocals/beats etc, but at some point having everything playing just clips it to buggery in the master channel. So naturally I try to reduce the volume but I'm left with tracks that are pretty quiet when I A/B them with various random releases (even accounting for any possible hefty volume increase in mastering).

 

Don't get me wrong I realise that louder doesn't equal better, but as a listener it's fucking annoying when you're listening to tracks and there's a big difference in volumes between various things.

 

Guess I will try to minimise the use of limiting and so on, see how I get on with that.

First off, your stuff sounds great.

Secondly, my whole point was that radio was a different beast from normal conditions. Your mixes are perfect for normal play in normal conditions. And I hope it's clear I wasn't saying or implying that you shouldn't use compression and limiting.

But when played over the radio it's gonna get slammed with a limiter;the reason radio stations use limiters is so that everything is loud and everything is equally loud as everything else. So you''re almost better off making a 'radio mix' where the low-end is very tidy and there is maybe some 2-bus compression but perhaps no limiting. As far as loudness goes, it's gonna be in the ballpark of everything else regardless so any additional limiting is just gonna squash it.

With all that said, you would have much more success using saturation and fletcher-munson for achieving loudness on radio than actual limiting.

nothing wrong with using a limiter to get something played on radio, pretty much every radio hit does. I think its just a matter of backing off on the compression and limiting, it's obviously too much right now. Experiment by playing your song side by side in a wave editor/daw program with a song like it that gets played on the radio. Make sure that it sounds almost as loud, but some of those tracks are so expertly limited and compressed that it may be hard to achieve the same loudness without it sounding 'slammed' just take it pretty close, but it doesn't have to be exactly the same perceptible loudness.

A limiter can be used in multiple ways, but it should rarely ever be used to compress something a lot. In this situation if you're getting anymore than 3db gain reduction on a limiter you're using it too much. Back it off so that maximum 3db gain reduction is being performed. Anymore than that and you're just over compensating for a poorly done mix or compression scheme earlier in the signal chain.

Limpy has good advice, but the only thing I would overtly disagree with is the no limiting tip, you pretty have *have to* use limiting especially if you're competing with rock bands or hip hop songs on the radio, because all of them use limiting, some more careful than others. Compression alone will not achieve the required loudness.

so whatever you're doing Droid is probably just too extreme.

here is a basic overview of what i think you should do if its rock or hip hop (in this order in your plugin signal chain)

1. use a parametric EQ to subtract unwanted frequencies, make the q length pretty small and sweep the eq until you hear something very unpleasurable or painful, keep it in the same place and dip it down, usually no more than 2-3db
2. use a compressor with a ratio of no more than 2:1 and a threshold of -3 to -7.
3. use a parametric EQ (this will be your 2nd in the chain, and 3rd effect total) to slightly boost the frequencies that give it more brightness and clarity, i usually bring stuff up around the 11-16k range. Gives a mix with vocals and cymbals a nice sheen. Since bass takes up more energy than high frequencies, make sure there are no unnecessary lows being played. Use a shelf or high pass mode on the EQ to eliminate most of the frequencies below 30-40hz. Depending on how much sub bass is in the mix, this should not change the sound much but it will clear up room in the aural energy department, making your final mixdown sound cleaner. It will also give you more accurate limiting in the final step

4. use a limiter, turn the maximum ceiling up to almost zero, something like -.1 then turn the threshold down slowly until you see the gain reduction meter giving you 2-3db of gain reduction.

If that doesn't give you a nicely balanced result try experimenting with more or less compression. If you're relying on the limiter beyond a 3db gain reduction to get you where you want, time to go back to the beginning and experiment with the Eqs and compressors again

generally speaking the compressor ratio/threshold will give you the most change when you adjust it, i would play with that first if you aren't getting what you want and then move on to the eqs.

part of the issue with using limiters in DAWs is that depending on if the limiter is set to be 'post' or 'pre' the master fader it's going to sound differently. For example, if your levels in your individual layers/tracks are causing the master bus to go above absolute zero, having your master fader set to zero and a limiter on as a 'pre' fader will be limiting your mix quite a bit, probably more than desired. If you set the limiter 'post' fader, then you can use your master fader to basically control how much it's being limited.
There are work arounds to doing this in abelton, ie: using the 'utility' plugin as the effect right before your limiter in the master bus effect chain. This way you can use the gain knob in the utility plugin to act as a pre effect gain knob.

Interesting stuff guys. Thanks very much, really appreciated. Definitely gives me things to work with, hopefully I can get some decent results.

Err oops I just re-read my last post and I was saying some silly things and kinda contradicting myself (I think the post was written in two sittings). And really my opinion was a based on a couple years ago, hearing one of my tunes on the local college radio station that had been hit pretty hard with a limiter in mastering: it sounded like absolute shit. Like flabby distorted muddy shit.

My revised two cents (because I have ocd and must fix everything):

-moderate compression

-light to moderate limiting

-moderate saturation

-moderate fletcher-munson (essentially just boosting 2Khz, 5Khz, and 10khz for more percieved loudness)

-trim all un-needed lows (e.g. HPF at 20-30hz) and low-mids

/ocd