Old 03-18-2019, 11:15 AM   #1
read
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Default question on mastering

If i finished the mix and it sounds great to me (don't want to change anything)

in mastering, only thing that remains is to put a limiter, test it on several audio systems and finally compare to other songs in terms of loudness

is this correct?

Thank you
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Old 03-18-2019, 01:10 PM   #2
DVDdoug
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Limiting would be to make it "louder" (after normalizing) if that's what you want.

If you don't want to change anything you might want to skip the limiting and simply adjust the volume(s). Slight limiting may not be audible, but at some point it does begin to affect the sound.

Quote:
and finally compare to other songs in terms of loudness
You can get a loudness meter/scanner to check the UBU R128 loudness of your tracks and your reference track. I can't make a personal recommendation, but dpMeter3 is one that I've played with.

You probably can't match the loudness of a modern professionally mastered popular music track without excessive "damage". And, you might not want to do that because you'll kill the dynamic contrast.


If you're making an album. Normalize all of the tracks (for peaks at or near* 0dB). Then if they don't sound equally-loud, choose the quietest sounding track as your reference and bring the louder tracks down to match (assuming you want them all equally-loud). Normalizing is simply an overall volume adjustment. It doesn't affect the quality/character of the sound.


Quote:
test it on several audio systems
I think that's more-commonly done at the mixing stage. But at some point it's a good thing to do, especially if you don't have good monitors in a good room and/or lots of experience.


Here's my collection of mastering links. (The Moulton Labs articles are rather old, but there's still lots of good information.)


Moulton Labs - What's This Mastering Business Anyway?
Moulton Labs - Tips n' Tricks For Mastering
Izotope - Ozone Mastering Guide (This is written for Ozone but most of it can apply no matter what tools you are using.)
REAPER Forum - Discussion of a particular mastering job (The mastering discussion starts at post #8).
Mastered For iTunes






* Some people like to normalize to -1dB or so for a couple of reasons -

To allow for inter-sample-overs. I don't worry about that. I trust the DAC to do the right thing on the analog-side. Plus, I've never of anyone who could hear clipping from an inter-sample over in a proper-scientific-blind listening test.

Or if you are making MP3s, MP3 compression tends to boost some peaks and reduce other peaks, so if you normalize the original to 0dB the highest-peaks on the MP3 often go over 0dB. That's not a problem for the MP3 format since it can go over 0dB without clipping. But if you play the MP3 at "full digital volume", you'll clip your DAC. Again, it's not something I worry about. I've never heard of this slight-clipping being audible. If you're hearing a compression artifact you're probably hearing something else. And if you are making an MP3, you already know it's a lossy format so you've already accepted the fact that it's imperfect.

Last edited by DVDdoug; 03-18-2019 at 01:59 PM.
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Old 03-18-2019, 01:34 PM   #3
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Mastering an album is also a lot about pacing and transitions. Gaps and fades and overall timing between tracks. With one-offs it's still worth thinking about how it might fit into a playlist or shuffle situation. How long do you want it to wait after you hit play on that track? I personally prefer just about a beat. How long of a rest would you like after it ends?
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Old 03-18-2019, 01:51 PM   #4
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I do everything wrong and I think your question is one of those cases where there is no 100% 'right' thing that would cover every situation.

I mix/master all at once. On my 2 bus I have:
Dorrough Stereo - Waves
TDR Slick EQ M - TDL
TDR Kotelnikov GE - TDL
NLS Buss Stero - Waves
TB_Barricade_v3 - ToneBoosters
YouLean Loudness Meter2

I don't do much with any of those until my mix is getting really close to done. Then I look at my levels going into the Dorrough and get that where I want and then I look EQ M, adjusting for pink levels and setting my width and center mono. I use a Slow Drop setting in the Kotelnikov. I look at the Barricade (set to -1.1 with ISP) to see that I'm not pushing it much at all and then I play the track to get the YouLean to come out at an Integrated LUFS of -14. I can adjust the volume for that in either the Kotelnikov or Barricade.

I load all the tracks on a single track in Reaper and set my gaps by what sounds good to me and render them all out to burn to CD with no FX at all.

See... All wrong. My tracks sound good to me on my monitors, my Bose and in the car.... I listen and listen and then go back with some minor tweaks to the mix.. and then go thru those Master bus plugins but they don't need much by then.

This works for me but my tracks are really only for me.

Last edited by tgraph; 03-18-2019 at 01:58 PM.
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Old 03-18-2019, 02:26 PM   #5
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If your 'mixed' track stands up to your 'competition', then its done.

If your Mix is only for you, and you're happy with it ... done.


Isn't that the Answer you already wanted ?
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Old 03-18-2019, 05:25 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by read View Post
If i finished the mix and it sounds great to me (don't want to change anything)

in mastering, only thing that remains is to put a limiter, test it on several audio systems and finally compare to other songs in terms of loudness

is this correct?

Thank you
did you compare your good sounding mix to other (commercial) mixes to find out that it sounds good and only lacks a little limiting? If yes, your mix must sound really good! Generally, it's fairly hard to get a mix to sound so good and dense (loud) that it can compete with commercial releases - not only Guetta, Lipa, etc. but also commercial mixes in other genres. You normally need quite a bit of compression as well on separate tracks as on busses and on the master bus, too. (Multiband-)Peak-limiting alone will generally not be enough to lift a raw mix up to commercial loudness and an evenly balanced sound.

If possible (almost 100% of the time), I'm doing mixdown and mastering simultaneously. Impact of mastering can be so huge that you are often forced (or at least feel the strong desire) to re-adjust things in the mix (track levels, eq settings, compression settings) to remove issues that only become preceivable during mastering. I very rarely encountered raw mixes which were so well-balanced that I was able to master them without any need for re-adjustments.

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Old 03-19-2019, 04:09 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SonicAxiom View Post
I very rarely encountered raw mixes which were so well-balanced that I was able to master them without any need for re-adjustments.

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can you please further explain what you mean by well balanced.
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Old 03-19-2019, 07:17 AM   #8
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I'll try.
I'm mixing and mastering recordings made in my own studio by myself and I also mix and/or master material provided by clients (material that has been recorded and mixed elsewhere). It turns out that in most cases I run into the necessity to ask the client to have their mixes re-tweaked because mastering reveals issues in the raw mixes that make a decent mastering impossible or would lead to considerably compromised results if not addressed.

A well balanced raw mix will not only merely "survive" even heavy mastering processing but it will be brought to shine fairly quickly through mastering. Mastering involves eq-ing, bus compression, stereo-width adjustments and multi-band peak limiting (among others) and a well balanced raw mix will start to shine as soon as I run it through my mastering chain template while a not well-balanced raw mix will start revealing level-related and/or tonal issues of individual voices and instruments (like boominess or harshness). I might want to open up the high-end of the mix with a decent mastering eq but instead it will lead to rather unpleasant or annoying tonal side effects (guitar lacks high-end but another instrument at the same pan position already has enough high end). Individual stereo components (like keyboards, stereo sub-groups, stereo fx) might have phase issues which only become apparent/perceivable at the point where I'd like to widen the stereo image while applying heavy master bus compression at the same time.

Mastering often means churning a mix quite heavily and generally, you find out fairly quickly if a raw mix can cope with it or not. Mastering is like putting a mix under a magnifying glass. A well-balanced mix will not suffer from mastering steps applied to it but will be brought forward instead. A not optimal raw mix will soon reveal its flaws and you can then decide to either live with it and try to get it to the most acceptable set of compromises or you ask the person who provided it to make some specific changes to it to eliminate the necessity of having to deal with compromises.

A common misconception is that people who hand over their mixes are thinking that I will surely make them shine since I have a considerable no. of analog high-end devices and decent plugin at my disposal. Reality is: By using very good gear, a good source signal can be pulled all the way to the "good side" of sound and will sound wonderfully whereas a mediocre or even flawed sounding signal will never be pulled over to the good-sounding side. Instead, good equipment will only show/reveal how flawed the signal was. You are only hearing its flaws much clearer - the flaws will not be elimineted by it.

So, in short:
  • not well-balanced raw mix -> final master with more or less compromises
  • well-balanced mix -> final master without compromises showing off nothing but virtues of the raw mix

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Last edited by SonicAxiom; 03-19-2019 at 07:42 AM.
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Old 03-19-2019, 08:41 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by read View Post
If i finished the mix and it sounds great to me (don't want to change anything)

in mastering, only thing that remains is to put a limiter, test it on several audio systems and finally compare to other songs in terms of loudness

is this correct?

Thank you
If you decided you need your master louder but the peaks already use the full headroom (ie go up to just under unity), then limiting and boosting would do that.

Are you trying to make a louder CD version but maybe your 24 bit master is fine?
Or is your 24 bit master apparently too quiet?

FYI
Full quality 24 bit masters tend to hit around -13 LUFS
Some classical program might be a little lower - around -16 LUFS

The average CD version nowadays is usually boosted to -10 LUFS

"Volume war" CDs hit around -7 LUFS

Most streaming services online are normalizing to -12 LUFS (ie Simply turning your master up or down to hit that.)

What do you listen to?
You listening to mostly 24 bit HD music and have to turn down the obnoxious loud CD or mp3 you occasionally grab?
Or the opposite. You have a volume war CD/mp3 collection and the occasional full quality master you find is confusingly quiet?


If your master is quieter than -16 LUFS but you have peaks going up to zero, I'd try to get that under control in the mix instead of limiting and boosting the render.
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