Old 01-10-2022, 04:04 AM   #1
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When Reaper didn't have LUFS meters, I used to check RMS when mastering just to see what kind of loudness I was dealing with.
I never cared about LUFS.
The platforms will do whatever, I just make the master sound good.
Now I'm going back to just checking RMS to get in the ballpark, but not being obsessed about loudness.
I'm turning off LUFS metering for music.
I know that for some jobs you do need it, but for music? Not really, I think.
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Old 01-10-2022, 04:06 AM   #2
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What this post is about? Are you asking something? Are you sharing some info?
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Old 01-10-2022, 04:08 AM   #3
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Just sharing my experience.

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Old 01-13-2022, 04:14 PM   #4
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LUFS is just another standard for a standard.

It is not about loudness technically, rather about dynamic range DR (or crest factor). A DR of less than |12dBFS| is starting another battle of the never ending Loudness war, more specifically if it is normalised to Peak at -1dBFS to -0.5dBFS.

RMS is fine enough, if you are good with managing the low end of the signal... bellow 200Hz (kick\bass\low-sub-synth).

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Old 01-14-2022, 05:47 PM   #5
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RMS is instant metering, LUFS is about the entire song or show. Two different things.

LUFS is about loudness. Average loudness over time. It was created by the broadcast industry (EBU) to keep audio levels constant, while allowing for dynamic range.

Part of the system is a hardware broadcast compressor, developed mainly by the BBC. If the comp sees signals that are too loud, it will attenuate. If the signal is too low, it will amplify. Obviously, it looks ahead, which means digital.

As long as a song/show is at the desired loudness, the comp won't touch it.

One of the main reasons for development were obnoxiously loud commercials on radio & TV. The streaming guys just got on the bandwagon very late and stuck their own values on the standard. I also doubt if they use the same compressor.
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Old 01-14-2022, 06:00 PM   #6
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RMS is instant metering, LUFS is about the entire song or show. Two different things.

LUFS is about loudness. Average loudness over time. It was created by the broadcast industry (EBU) to keep audio levels constant, while allowing for dynamic range.

Part of the system is a hardware broadcast compressor, developed mainly by the BBC. If the comp sees signals that are too loud, it will attenuate. If the signal is too low, it will amplify. Obviously, it looks ahead, which means digital.

As long as a song/show is at the desired loudness, the comp won't touch it.

One of the main reasons for development were obnoxiously loud commercials on radio & TV. The streaming guys just got on the bandwagon very late and stuck their own values on the standard. I also doubt if they use the same compressor.
I just don't see the use of LUFS for mastering a music album, but that's just me I guess
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Old 01-14-2022, 09:20 PM   #7
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I just don't see the use of LUFS for mastering a music album, but that's just me I guess
I use the graphic display of the waveform being generated when rendering as my one of my primary guides. You can visually see a mix that breathes by the ragged edge of the wave as it's rendering.

Personally, I shoot for no peaks over -1db, and a ragged edged looking waveform when rendering, which will naturally result in a lower average level. I used to peg everything, but am now getting used to putting effort into maintaining dynamics while being in your face at the same time.
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Old 01-15-2022, 07:14 AM   #8
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RMS is instant metering, LUFS is about the entire song or show. Two different things.
Technically, LUFS-I (Integrated) is about the entire song. LUFS-M is what you'd want to use for monitoring since that is the loudness over 400ms. LUFS-S is the average loudness over 3 seconds. You can right-click on the track peak meter and change the measurement (although I would probably keep the Master track at Peak Metering to avoid Clipping.

LUFS is more accurate since it uses two different curves to try and adjust for human hearing. There are more accurate curves out there that may be implemented in future revisions of the standard, but in general, LUFS is far more accurate than RMS in measuring perceived loudness.

More info here:

https://uebervinyl.de/en/what-does-l...actually-mean/

https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/wha...st-factor.html
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Old 01-15-2022, 07:46 AM   #9
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Technically, LUFS-I (Integrated) is about the entire song. LUFS-M is what you'd want to use for monitoring since that is the loudness over 400ms. LUFS-S is the average loudness over 3 seconds. You can right-click on the track peak meter and change the measurement (although I would probably keep the Master track at Peak Metering to avoid Clipping.

LUFS is more accurate since it uses two different curves to try and adjust for human hearing. There are more accurate curves out there that may be implemented in future revisions of the standard, but in general, LUFS is far more accurate than RMS in measuring perceived loudness.

More info here:

https://uebervinyl.de/en/what-does-l...actually-mean/

https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/wha...st-factor.html
Yes, but why would I want to be that accurate for music?
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Old 01-15-2022, 09:01 AM   #10
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Yes, but why would I want to be that accurate for music?
Well, one thing I've found is that LUFS helps get a balanced mix really fast. Faster mixing generally leads to a better mix.

Of course, a balanced mix is often a boring mix, so from there you just pick 2-3 elements to make louder in the mix since most listeners can only focus on 2-3 things anyway
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Old 01-15-2022, 09:45 AM   #11
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Yes, but why would I want to be that accurate for music?
The whole Loudness War was about everybody trying to be louder than everybody else... Or at least not quieter because if your music is too quiet, consumers won't buy it.

Unfortunately, you only win the loudness war by using limiting & compression and when over-done that destroys the dynamics.

Things are better now because the streaming services are loudness normalizing and they turn-down loud songs (most songs actually).

But... If you have highly-dynamic quiet-sounding music, your music still may be quieter than everybody else and loudness matching won't boost the volume if it would push the peaks into clipping.

So, if you are distributing your music you probably at-least want to KNOW the LUFS level so you know how you stack-up against everybody else.

Also, if you like to monitor at a standardized level (i.e. K-System Monitoring) you can calibrate LUFS to a known SPL level. (The original K-System proposal was for RMS but that was before LUFS metering was available.)

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It is not about loudness technically
It's EXACTLY about loudness.

Quote:
rather about dynamic range DR (or crest factor).
There is a related Loudness Range measure (EBU-R128 LRA). IMO this is generally better than crest factor although there is no "perfect" way to measure dynamics.

For example, cutting & playing a vinyl record, or making an MP3 changes the wave shape making some peaks louder and some lower without affecting the sound of the dynamics (the peaks are too short in duration to be heard as "loudness". But the new higher-peaks make a higher ("better") crest factor calculation.

...That makes a lot of people think the vinyl has better dynamics even when it's made from the same master. Of course, some older vinyl from before the digital loudness war may be louder than the re-mastered CD.)

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Old 01-15-2022, 10:23 AM   #12
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RMS is instant metering, LUFS is about the entire song or show...
On top of what Lynx said (LUFS can be shorter), RMS is not “instant” in the sense of instantaneous sample-for-sample, but rather a sort of average over time. Exactly like LUFS, that time can be about anything, including the entire program length. In fact, RMS and LUFS are about the same process except that LUFS is filtered and sort of gated before the averaging happens. It’s supposed to give a better approximation or actual perceived loudness.

I personally never switched to LUFS, and only ever look at it kind of out of curiosity. Sometimes if the integrated RMS value is way off from the LUFSi, it can indicate a real issue with the mix. In fact I pretty much only look at either one as a sanity check. I’ve got my monitors calibrated, and have a pretty good idea how loud things should be, and control dynamics at multiple stages along the way, and usually by the time it actually sounds right, it’s pretty close to my “target loudness” anyway.

Course I’m not trying to deliver content to clients or platforms with any sort of strict standards. I’d like it to fit well in a shuffle with other similar content, but it’s not a huge deal. Some people actually do need things to meet certain specs, and those are almost always in LUFS and TP.
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Old 01-15-2022, 10:28 AM   #13
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I didn't see him say 'change my mind'.
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Old 01-15-2022, 12:10 PM   #14
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I didn't see him say 'change my mind'.
Still, great info to have!
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Old 01-15-2022, 12:20 PM   #15
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On top of what Lynx said (LUFS can be shorter), RMS is not “instant” in the sense of instantaneous sample-for-sample, but rather a sort of average over time. Exactly like LUFS, that time can be about anything, including the entire program length. In fact, RMS and LUFS are about the same process except that LUFS is filtered and sort of gated before the averaging happens. It’s supposed to give a better approximation or actual perceived loudness.
Of course, yes. Just trying to show intentions, not trying to be technically exact.

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I personally never switched to LUFS, and only ever look at it kind of out of curiosity. Sometimes if the integrated RMS value is way off from the LUFSi, it can indicate a real issue with the mix. In fact I pretty much only look at either one as a sanity check. I’ve got my monitors calibrated, and have a pretty good idea how loud things should be, and control dynamics at multiple stages along the way, and usually by the time it actually sounds right, it’s pretty close to my “target loudness” anyway.
Since I'm used to working on location and not even having a decent room, I'm always interested in ways to compare with others. As a reference for measurement I like LUFS a lot. It's like a headphone. I can't do without.

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Course I’m not trying to deliver content to clients or platforms with any sort of strict standards. I’d like it to fit well in a shuffle with other similar content, but it’s not a huge deal. Some people actually do need things to meet certain specs, and those are almost always in LUFS and TP.
That's the point: just another tool, another possibility. Nobody forces you to use the tool.
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Old 01-15-2022, 12:49 PM   #16
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I don’t really mean to be pedantic, but there is so much misunderstanding and misinformation on this subject already, and I think it’s important that we don’t unintentionally make it worse. You may have known exactly what you meant, but taken as you wrote it, it’s kind of way false.
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Old 01-15-2022, 01:13 PM   #17
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I didn't see him say 'change my mind'.
lol that's hilarious!
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Old 01-15-2022, 01:15 PM   #18
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The question is how did I manage to make records for 10 years without using LUFS, only RMS.
I get that for broadcasting and all that jazz it's useful, but I insist:
Make your music sound good, with the amount of compression and limiting according to the music.
Don't worry about the streaming platforms!

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Old 01-15-2022, 01:29 PM   #19
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I didn't see him say 'change my mind'.
It's good to talk about this stuff anyway.
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Old 01-15-2022, 04:20 PM   #20
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It's good to talk about this stuff anyway.
as a co-host of the Mastering Show podcast, I'm pretty burnt out on the LUFS topic
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Old 01-15-2022, 05:21 PM   #21
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Also, if you like to monitor at a standardized level (i.e. K-System Monitoring) you can calibrate LUFS to a known SPL level. (The original K-System proposal was for RMS but that was before LUFS metering was available.)

It's EXACTLY about loudness.
Loudness is not a technical parameter. It is subjective, although by standard it is estimated what levels of weighted RMS is considered loud.

You can always turn down the volume of your end amplification chain.
K-system metering explains that pretty well.

Thus LUFS standard has been created. Both to encourage people to leave more dynamics in the mixes\masters and to make it pointless to overcompress.

Of course, people are still "fighting in the L-war".

More over, people think that limiting clipping the whole mix at the end is a good idea. It is not. It leads to distortion.
Clipping and limiting each source before mixing is the better approach as an attempt to get a signal in optimal sounding volume.
Some relate it to -18dBfs for the RMS, but that is arbitrary. It is more between -21dBfs and -12dBfs, depending on the signal.
But then you must know how your signal is behaving in terms of Peaks and good margin for compression\saturation\clipping\limiting.

Also this comes to the recording levels, where fairly hot signal is desirable. A few Peaks clipping here and there is not that bad... because with modern tools we can restore those few samples.
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Old 01-15-2022, 05:24 PM   #22
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as a co-host of the Mastering Show podcast, I'm pretty burnt out on the LUFS topic
lol Sorry for bringing it up here!
I'll have a listen to the podcast, I used to listen to the Home Recording Show. Fun days!
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Old 01-16-2022, 05:45 AM   #23
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Loudness is not a technical parameter.
Well. It can be. There are technical ways of measuring loudness, like RMS and LUFS. But loudness is always relational, so it's related to a point of reference, like VUs or -dBFS. Without the reference, loudness can't really be measured, only kind of estimated subjectively.

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Thus LUFS standard has been created. Both to encourage people to leave more dynamics in the mixes\masters and to make it pointless to overcompress.
Well. LUFS is a unit of a certain weighted loudness measurement, and the point is to try to make the measurement approximate the way human beings experience loudness. It kind of works, in most cases. You can use different LUFS standards to try to, as you say, encourage people to make more dynamic content, but the LUFS unit itself is just another unit of loudness measurements, with some special filtering and so on. RMS is full bandwidth, LUFS is not, for example.

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More over, people think that limiting clipping the whole mix at the end is a good idea. It is not. It leads to distortion.
Well. Technically this is true. In the real world however, many extremely dedicated and talented engineers put limiters on their master buses religiously, and the results are pretty amazing. Limiting and clipping are just tools in the toolbox. You can use them to your advantage if you have enough experience. Distortion isn't necessarily a bad thing when it comes to audio.

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Also this comes to the recording levels, where fairly hot signal is desirable. A few Peaks clipping here and there is not that bad... because with modern tools we can restore those few samples.
Desirable? Not anymore. It used to be, way back when we recorded at 16bits. Noone records at 16bits anymore, so recording hot is no longer the standard in digital audio. I'd say the standard is more like leaving 10-20dB of headroom. Recording engineers who clip their inputs are amateurs, unless it's done very carefully and with special intent.

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Old 01-16-2022, 06:29 AM   #24
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I'd say the standard is more like leaving 10-20dB of headroom. Recording engineers who clip their inputs are amateurs, unless it's done very carefully and with special intent.
10-20dB VU(RMS) or According to Peaks?

I another thread I showed how you can have -18dBfs RMS and the input will still clip (the Peaks that is).

During recording there is no need to leave "headroom". Just record as "hot" as you can.
Condenser\capacitor mics will have much more strong built-in noise than the converters of our audio card.
Dynamic mics will accept stronger acoustic signals better, quit signals will later exhibit to much acoustic and self noise of chained equipment, when later get boosted in the pre-mix\mix.
Pickups and sensors can have huge noise, depending on conditions... but generally also have much greater noise than the converters of our audio card.

So regardless of the method, it is better during recording to have as stronger (desired) signal as your equipment can handle.
A good audio engineer will always check for clipped Peaks anyway... and attempt at restoring them. It is not a big deal, unless peaks go above +6dBfs. Then short RMS might start clipping and that is bad.
Any clipping during recording within 3~4ms time (below human hearing inertia) is not a problem.
That would be roughly 200 samples (though not all of them will be the clipping culprits). It is repairable.

The prep-mix engineer will treat the peaks for each source and clip\saturate them individually for each source recording.

then peaks should not be above -9dBfs to -6dBfs (depending on source). This is where headroom is good for later mixing.

During the mix they will be compressed further.

Smashing your master limiter\clipper from the start will only lead to accumulative effect of the untreated peaks... the short RMS will go up and up and will distort\clip.
This leads to unnecessary distortion.
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Old 01-16-2022, 08:04 AM   #25
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10-20dB VU(RMS) or According to Peaks?

I another thread I showed how you can have -18dBfs RMS and the input will still clip (the Peaks that is).

During recording there is no need to leave "headroom". Just record as "hot" as you can.
Condenser\capacitor mics will have much more strong built-in noise than the converters of our audio card.
Dynamic mics will accept stronger acoustic signals better, quit signals will later exhibit to much acoustic and self noise of chained equipment, when later get boosted in the pre-mix\mix.
Pickups and sensors can have huge noise, depending on conditions... but generally also have much greater noise than the converters of our audio card.

So regardless of the method, it is better during recording to have as stronger (desired) signal as your equipment can handle.
A good audio engineer will always check for clipped Peaks anyway... and attempt at restoring them. It is not a big deal, unless peaks go above +6dBfs. Then short RMS might start clipping and that is bad.
Any clipping during recording within 3~4ms time (below human hearing inertia) is not a problem.
That would be roughly 200 samples (though not all of them will be the clipping culprits). It is repairable.

The prep-mix engineer will treat the peaks for each source and clip\saturate them individually for each source recording.

then peaks should not be above -9dBfs to -6dBfs (depending on source). This is where headroom is good for later mixing.

During the mix they will be compressed further.

Smashing your master limiter\clipper from the start will only lead to accumulative effect of the untreated peaks... the short RMS will go up and up and will distort\clip.
This leads to unnecessary distortion.
Please don't record as hot as you can lol
You're making a mess of this thread, as always lol

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Old 01-16-2022, 08:21 AM   #26
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10-20dB VU(RMS) or According to Peaks?
Peaks.

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I another thread I showed how you can have -18dBfs RMS and the input will still clip (the Peaks that is).
Of course.

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During recording there is no need to leave "headroom". Just record as "hot" as you can.
In theory. In practice, it's a different story. The recording engineer is capable of many things, but she can't predict the future. She has to take account of the many unexpected events that might unfold. Regardless of how careful the levels are set, there is no accounting for feats of inspiration and mishaps. Therefore, the experienced engineer will leave enough headroom to account for that occasional +15dB belt that the singer will unleash during her best performance, for that inspired rimshot, or for the saxophone player moving 30 cm closer to the mic than what was originally intended. These things happen, and that one magical take could be impossible to recreate. Therefore, we leave enough headroom on our inputs to account for these things.


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So regardless of the method, it is better during recording to have as stronger (desired) signal as your equipment can handle.
Perhaps, from the point of view of minimizing noise. But recording music is about so much more than that. It's mainly about recording the best PERFORMANCE. Often enough, catering to the latter will sometimes demand compromising with the former. The recording engineer can't simply be a by-the-book-technician, narrowly focusing on noise levels. That's just not how you get things done, most of the time.

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A good audio engineer will always check for clipped Peaks anyway...
No. A good audio engineer will leave enough headroom, so that she can avoid destroying the audio in the first place.


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Smashing your master limiter\clipper from the start will only lead to [...]
Noone has said anything about smashing anything. I'm just saying that your opinion on clipping and limiting is a bit rigid and nonsensical. It is true that (unskilled use of) (too much) limiting and clipping CAN lead to unflattering distortion and uninspired dynamics. Definitely. That does not make the following very absolutist statement correct:

"[...] people think that limiting clipping the whole mix at the end is a good idea. It is not. It leads to distortion."

That's just not true. Or. It is true that clipping and limiting will introduce some amounts of distortion. But it is not true that you can't use limiting and/or clipping on your master bus, to your advantage. It's just factually incorrect. Lots of really excellent sound engineers do exactly that. If you know HOW to do it, you can do it, and it might just make your mix/master BETTER, not worse. You don't HAVE to do it, but you definitely can.

For example, here's Andrew Scheps doing 5dBs of limiting on the master bus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_J9DP4EsFk

You might find that excessive, or you might not like the sound, or whatever. That's not the point. That's subjective. The point is that mix engineers CAN most definitely use a limiter on the master, and there's nothing inherently wrong about it, from a technical perspective. If it works, it works.

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Old 01-16-2022, 08:23 AM   #27
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Peaks.



Of course.



In theory. In practice, it's a different story. The recording engineer is capable of many things, but she can't predict the future. She has to take account of the many unexpected events that might unfold. Regardless of how careful the levels are set, there is no accounting for feats of inspiration and mishaps. Therefore, the experienced engineer will leave enough headroom to account for that occasional +15dB belt that the singer will unleash during her best performance, for that inspired rimshot, or for the saxophone player moving 30 cm closer to the mic than what was originally intended. These things happen, and that take could be impossible to recreate. Therefore, we leave enough headroom on our inputs.





Perhaps, from the point of view of minimizing noise. But recording music is about so much more than that. It's mainly about recording the best PERFORMANCE. Often enough, catering to the latter will sometimes demand compromising with the former. The good recording engineer can't simply be a by-the-book-technician, narrowly focusing on noise levels. That's not how you get things done, most of the time.



No. A good audio engineer will leave enough headroom, so that she can avoid destroying the audio in the first place.




Noone has said anything about smashing anything. I'm just saying that your opinion on clipping and limiting is a bit rigid and nonsensical. It is true that (unskilled use of) (too much) limiting and clipping CAN lead to unflattering distortion and uninspired dynamics. Definitely. That does not make the following statement correct:

"[...] people think that limiting clipping the whole mix at the end is a good idea. It is not. It leads to distortion."

That's just not true. Or. It is true that clipping and limiting will introduce some amounts of distortion. But it is not true that you can't use limiting and/or clipping on your master. It's just factually incorrect. Lots of really excellent sound engineers do exactly that. If you know HOW to do it, you can do it, and it will make your mix/master BETTER, not worse.
I agree with this
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Old 01-16-2022, 09:21 AM   #28
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lol Sorry for bringing it up here!
I'll have a listen to the podcast, I used to listen to the Home Recording Show. Fun days!
hey we're back making HRS btw
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Old 01-16-2022, 09:26 AM   #29
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hey we're back making HRS btw
Great! Ideal for avoiding a boring sunday!
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Old 01-16-2022, 10:12 AM   #30
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Please don't record as hot as you can lol
You're making a mess of this thread, as always lol
And you are making a joke of yourself.
Apparently you know very little about audio engineering in digital domain.

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Old 01-16-2022, 10:17 AM   #31
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Peaks. Of course.
You need not more than 3dBfs for Peaks as a headroom during recording.
6dBfs is a bit much on the hyper-conservative side.
Of course it depends on the source, but nevertheless it is not exactly precise in practice.

You can always record with some lim\clip but that should not be necessary as you would like as low latency as possible, unless that treatment is by hardware "outside of the box".

Yes, you never know what could happen. So you have to check the Peaks post-recording.
This is a must.

Andrew can limit to boost, because he already has the files properly prepared for mixing.

I was speaking about smashing the limiter or clipper on the Master with all the signals to get higher volume\loudness.

Treating every source separately is important. And this is before mixing.
It is a technical subject and not usually part of the mixing.

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Old 01-16-2022, 10:34 AM   #32
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And you are making a joke of yourself.
Apparently you know very little about audio engineering in digital domain.
Ok go on...
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Old 01-16-2022, 10:43 AM   #33
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You need not more than 3dBfs for Peaks as a headroom during recording.
6dBfs is a bit much on the hyper-conservative side.
Of course it depends on the source, but nevertheless it is not exactly precise in practice.

You can always record with some lim\clip but that should not be necessary as you would like as low latency as possible, unless that treatment is by hardware "outside of the box".

Yes, you never know what could happen. So you have to check the Peaks post-recording.
This is a must.
I'll be honest. I don't get you at all and I hope nobody listens to you.

On the one hand, you appear to be advising people to create recordings that clip. On the other hand, you want to insist on a completely unnecessary stage before mixing (or a stage that WOULD BE unnecessary if the recording wasn't clipped).

Why not just ... I don't know ... don't clip???? Does it not fit your imaginary world?
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Old 01-16-2022, 11:37 AM   #34
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Just a quick reminder that the ignore feature is really useful for the forum, means not having to see posts from anyone who is regularly posting drivel.
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Old 01-16-2022, 11:46 AM   #35
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Just a quick reminder that the ignore feature is really useful for the forum, means not having to see posts from anyone who is regularly posting drivel.
No man, these are postmodern times, the truth is dead

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Old 01-16-2022, 12:26 PM   #36
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You need not more than 3dBfs for Peaks as a headroom during recording.
6dBfs is a bit much on the hyper-conservative side.
Working with pre-produced samples are we?
The first time you try to record real drums (or even the first time you get in the same room with a real drum kit being played) is going to make your eyebrows go up real high!
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Old 01-16-2022, 12:37 PM   #37
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No man, these are postmodern times, the truth is dead
This is MY reality! I make the truth! I define/redefine anything I want!

EDIT: Tbh, my post relates to me too. I rarely have anything but a terrible joke to contribute to a thread and I should be on everyones ignore list
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Old 01-16-2022, 12:42 PM   #38
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I picked up some insight recently on what might be going on with some of the blunt audio destruction you find out in the wild.

A friend of a friend asked for some "getting started" help with recording. He had this no name generic "audio interface" he bought at Wallmart. (Or might have been Amazon or Worst Purchase? One of the scammer places that sells broken design flawed garbage intentionally.)

This thing...
It's internal "gain staging" with the headphone output led the user to clipping the mic input by about 20db just to even hear incoming signal. Then the "fidelity" was so blown out crude that you didn't notice pronounced clipping distortion over the overall saturated sounding cheapness. That's the best way I can describe it!

I got him connecting the line out to his home receiver and using that headphone output and at least cleared the mud off the windshield for a path forward!

This is definitely where some of the contusion comes from though. Grifter products like that. Imagine starting with a device like that and then your only other experience is listening to gurgley bluetooth transmitted audio over equally broken and distorting earbuds from your iThing. Now send the result to one of the scam online "mastering" services that turns it up another 16db with brick wall limiting and with a 20db treble boost.

We have the most versatile happiness and light digital tools for audio now and pristine 24 bit delivery to the consumer but we also have some of the most blunt cheapness products out there that would put the all-in-one thingies from Monkey Wards back in the day to shame for the level of awfulness they can achieve.

*confusion actually, but that typo fits too!
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Old 01-16-2022, 12:46 PM   #39
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I picked up some insight recently on what might be going on with some of the blunt audio destruction you find out in the wild.

A friend of a friend asked for some "getting started" help with recording. He had this no name generic "audio interface" he bought at Wallmart. (Or might have been Amazon or Worst Purchase? One of the scammer places that sells broken design flawed garbage intentionally.)

This thing...
It's internal "gain staging" with the headphone output led the user to clipping the mic input by about 20db just to even hear incoming signal. Then the "fidelity" was so blown out crude that you didn't notice pronounced clipping distortion over the overall saturated sounding cheapness. That's the best way I can describe it!

I got him connecting the line out to his home receiver and using that headphone output and at least cleared the mud off the windshield for a path forward!

This is definitely where some of the contusion comes from though. Grifter products like that. Imagine starting with a device like that and then your only other experience is listening to gurgley bluetooth transmitted audio over equally broken and distorting earbuds from your iThing. Now send the result to one of the scam online "mastering" services that turns it up another 16db with brick wall limiting and with a 20db treble boost.

We have the most versatile happiness and light digital tools for audio now and pristine 24 bit delivery to the consumer but we also have some of the most blunt cheapness products out there that would put the all-in-one thingies from Monkey Wards back in the day to shame for the level of awfulness they can achieve.

*confusion actually, but that typo fits too!
Even my Tascam US-1800 direct monitoring is weak, almost unusable. I had to use software monitoring from day one.
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Old 01-16-2022, 01:02 PM   #40
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Even my Tascam US-1800 direct monitoring is weak, almost unusable. I had to use software monitoring from day one.
Yeah, like there's some rule that headphone amps in audio interfaces are supposed to be anemic or something!

Now try to imagine going cartoonishly beyond that like I tried to describe. With overall blown out saturated sound as the norm to the point you can't hear the hard 'clack' of hard clipping stand out from it!

First you think the headphone amp in the thing is just obviously blown up or something. Then you look further and discover it's much worse than that!

And then these bluethooth devices they're selling to kids these days! The tamped down lossy audio literally has a gurgling sound. You or I would immediately assume a defective product and go to return it. Folks are just listening to that apparently unaware. The average 2" TV speaker from the 1970s sounded downright audiophile next to some of this stuff!
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