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Post by mcirish on May 21, 2023 20:54:24 GMT -6
Sometimes I am completely befuddled by mastering. I just had a mix mastered by my usual guy. The client wanted it super loud. I don't agree with that but he's paying so we got him what he wanted. Anyway, the mastering engineer got it to <-5LUFS in the loudest sextion and was able to make the snare pop even more than my mix. I tried for hours to recreate it as the artist now wants an instrumental version. I couldn't even get close. As soon as the snare hits a limited it starts to disappear. I also tried clipping instead of limiting. Nothing I did came close. What is this black magic? The audio should sound absolutely crushed yet it sounds better than my mix.
Sometimes I am amazed at other people's skills. I feel like a total noob tonight. I don't usually strike out this badly.
I will see if I can post a 10 second clip of the area that has me puzzled.
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Ari
Full Member
Posts: 35
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Post by Ari on May 21, 2023 21:24:05 GMT -6
there are probably about 100 limiting algorithms out there. Voxengo has quite a few. might want to look into limiting that's tailored for EDM.
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Post by bgrotto on May 21, 2023 21:43:54 GMT -6
Sometimes I am completely befuddled by mastering. I just had a mix mastered by my usual guy. The client wanted it super loud. I don't agree with that but he's paying so we got him what he wanted. Anyway, the mastering engineer got it to <-5LUFS in the loudest sextion and was able to make the snare pop even more than my mix. I tried for hours to recreate it as the artist now wants an instrumental version. I couldn't even get close. As soon as the snare hits a limited it starts to disappear. I also tried clipping instead of limiting. Nothing I did came close. What is this black magic? The audio should sound absolutely crushed yet it sounds better than my mix. Sometimes I am amazed at other people's skills. I feel like a total noob tonight. I don't usually strike out this badly. I will see if I can post a 10 second clip of the area that has me puzzled. First and foremost: I need the name of your mastering engineer 😂 Secondly: why not just ask him/her how they did it? I doubt you'll get a comprehensive and satisfying answer, but you'll maybe get some insight. |
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Post by sean on May 21, 2023 21:47:07 GMT -6
Ask your mastering engineer, if it’s someone you work with a lot they might be willing to share. I don’t think (most) people are all that protective of their techniques and they would probably be flattered you asked
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Post by kcatthedog on May 22, 2023 4:41:21 GMT -6
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Post by christophert on May 22, 2023 5:24:52 GMT -6
Does your mastering engineer use any analog stages ?
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Post by mcirish on May 22, 2023 6:00:21 GMT -6
I did send my mastering engineer an email. He replied that he would send some notes on it today. Usually, the masters are mostly louder with possibly a little EQ, but not very much. This time I just couldn't believe how punchy he was able to keep it at the levels he got to. I was just extremely impressed.
He does have quite a bit of outboard gear. I am very curious on how he did it. If I was mastering and I just needed to get the loud sections to -10dB LUFS, it wouldn't be a problem. But he almost doubled that volume and it's even punchier.
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Post by niklas1073 on May 22, 2023 6:58:54 GMT -6
Yep, -5 lufs is loud alright. I hear some amazing tracks in the country rock scene too which plays loud as f%&# and still retains amazing dynamics and punch. I'm just baffled. Then I have received hard playing masters from prestigious master engineers which play loud alright but lost all dynamics and with pretty much nothing of the mix left. That sucks. When I hear those amazing tracks and check who have produced and mixed it... it all makes sense, even an average master engineer would get it to sound amazing i suppose. When your mix is right, there is actually not that much for a mastering engineer to do. You might have just done a really good mix? How does it sound if you just crank it up and limit it to the -5lufs? what is it missing from the master you received?
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Post by mcirish on May 22, 2023 7:55:11 GMT -6
When I crank the mix to -5 the snare disappears. I swear it sounds like he added a sample (which I know he didn't). The snare stays right up front even though the entire mix is crushed.
I've worked with other mastering people in the past where I ended up asking for half a dozen revisions, because they wrecked the song in some way. So, not all mastering engineers are equal. If I had a bit more time, I'd really like to get better at mastering. Having a great mentor would be really beneficial, but I don't see that happening. So, if I can learn a few tricks, I'd be happy.
As far as my mix goes, I ran the master and my final pre-master mix through a matching EQ to see what he needed to do. Pretty much nothing. I think the EQ was flat, so he did all the magic with dynamics.
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Post by niklas1073 on May 22, 2023 9:09:48 GMT -6
When I crank the mix to -5 the snare disappears. I swear it sounds like he added a sample (which I know he didn't). The snare stays right up front even though the entire mix is crushed. I've worked with other mastering people in the past where I ended up asking for half a dozen revisions, because they wrecked the song in some way. So, not all mastering engineers are equal. If I had a bit more time, I'd really like to get better at mastering. Having a great mentor would be really beneficial, but I don't see that happening. So, if I can learn a few tricks, I'd be happy. As far as my mix goes, I ran the master and my final pre-master mix through a matching EQ to see what he needed to do. Pretty much nothing. I think the EQ was flat, so he did all the magic with dynamics. I suppose there is some dynamic eq or multiband compression involved, that way you can target the snare frequencies on the beat or vice versa create space around it. Im not saying this is the case but first that comes to mind. |
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Post by mcirish on May 22, 2023 9:12:46 GMT -6
When I crank the mix to -5 the snare disappears. I swear it sounds like he added a sample (which I know he didn't). The snare stays right up front even though the entire mix is crushed. I've worked with other mastering people in the past where I ended up asking for half a dozen revisions, because they wrecked the song in some way. So, not all mastering engineers are equal. If I had a bit more time, I'd really like to get better at mastering. Having a great mentor would be really beneficial, but I don't see that happening. So, if I can learn a few tricks, I'd be happy. As far as my mix goes, I ran the master and my final pre-master mix through a matching EQ to see what he needed to do. Pretty much nothing. I think the EQ was flat, so he did all the magic with dynamics. I suppose there is some dynamic eq or multiband compression involved, that way you can target the snare frequencies on the beat or vice versa create space around it. Im not saying this is the case but first that comes to mind. That's what I figured too, but I wasn't able to replicate it. |
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Post by drumsound on May 22, 2023 10:46:55 GMT -6
I'm purely guessing here, but I wonder if 2 things are in play. Using a lot of things for a small amount each. Compressors, limiters, and maybe some distortion in series, so none of them is doing any heavy lifting. They other thing could be judicious use of M/S processing so that the snare remains front and center without being destroyed, while the sides have more action from the ME's processing.
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Post by svart on May 22, 2023 12:26:43 GMT -6
Compress some. Tilt the EQ a bit. Clip about 5dB. Compress some more with EQ on the sidechain. Fast limit what's left. You can probably get 10-15dB more RMS with all that.
What I find is that most music I've heard sent in for mastering is usually way too bottom heavy. The limiting or compression tries to pump too much. Tilting the overall EQ will help, as will compression with side chain EQ to remove the low end pumping. Clipping for transients. Fast limiting will trim the last of the little peaks.
There's usually no single solution. It's a chain of smaller moves that seems to be the way to go these days.
Either way, a loud mix needs to be built in the mixing stage. I can easily get -8dB to -10dB RMS with a mix before even thinking about mastering.
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Post by tkaitkai on May 22, 2023 13:23:57 GMT -6
I would bet it's a combination of following: 1. High end ADC clipping 2. High end analog limiting 3. Lots of carefully-selected plugins/outboard working in small stages As svart mentioned, excessive low end — along with overly loud transients — is typically the major culprit that precludes loud masters. Gently dialing back the low end before compressing/limiting (and doing this in multiple stages) can allow you to successively push more and more RMS without feeling like you've actually lost any bass.
Along with that, not all limiters/clippers are created equal. I can push my Lavry Blue quite hard and it still sounds great. A lot of the best mastering engineers are using ultra high end ADCs (think Prism, JCF, Lavry Gold, etc.) along with various esoteric outboard pieces that have insane amounts of headroom — you can feed them obnoxiously loud material and they still don't fall apart.
As far as plugins go, I find it's a good practice to clip and limit in stages, and it does matter which plugins you choose. Acustica Ash is the best SW clipper I've ever used, period. Limiters are tricky. I've yet to find one that really wows me the way Ash does, so most of the time I just stick with Pro-L.
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Post by mcirish on May 22, 2023 13:53:31 GMT -6
I agree about low end messing up the limiter, but from my initial tests with a matching EQ, he didn't do any EQ, other than +.5dB @ 6k.
I'll report back once he sends me some notes on that session.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2023 14:17:40 GMT -6
You can get stupid loud and keep the bass and punch with pre-emphasis and de-emphasis eq, hard clipping, soft clipping, sidechain eq, and creative processor chains. There are records prior to Waves L1 that are stupid effin loud and paid the price for it. All slammed records are a sonically suboptimal presentation of the artist's music, the mixer's skill, and the mastering engineer's skill at delivering a master suitable for the playback format in question. Rather it speaks that the artists wants to conform rather than present their art in the best possible way for the format in question. If I really wanted to on a master, I could use limiters that overshoot by design in a very forceful and obvious way to hit like Mike Tyson's Punch Out and clip off those overshoots with something that sounds like you're playing the drums with a baseball bat. It will sound punchy as hell but will not sound like what it was what the artist played/arranged or the mixer mixed.
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Post by nick8801 on May 22, 2023 14:46:23 GMT -6
A mastering engineer I work with occasionally, who gets super loud masters, does a lot of bass cutting. Anytime you limit, the bass just destroys the ability of the track to be that loud. Surprisingly, his tracks still have plenty of bass. It’s a combo of cutting out the garbage sub stuff, shelving everything below 200 or so, and using some distortion/hard clipping along with limiting. It’s taken me a long time to make that all work the same way, but it’s totally possible. Once you figure out the right frequency balance, it’s amazing how much harder you can push a limiter.
I will say that I don’t particularly like his masters! But, that’s what the majority of people want to hear, plus it’s competitive. He does a lot of work for bigger artists, and that’s just the way it is. There is another well known mastering engineer I’ve worked with who has a similar sound. Man those tracks sound great through my iPhone, but I can only listen for like 5 minutes in my studio. It’s just too forward and abrasive.
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Post by Blackdawg on May 22, 2023 22:36:16 GMT -6
I'm purely guessing here, but I wonder if 2 things are in play. Using a lot of things for a small amount each. Compressors, limiters, and maybe some distortion in series, so none of them is doing any heavy lifting. They other thing could be judicious use of M/S processing so that the snare remains front and center without being destroyed, while the sides have more action from the ME's processing. This is how I master stuff. Never making something work overly hard(unless called for) and before you know it you're bumping a lot of volume before even needing a limiter. I just did a Country EP and was at -10 I LUFS without much effort. -5 is freakin crazy though. |
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Post by vvvooojjj on May 24, 2023 1:59:40 GMT -6
Eq, clipper + limiter should be enough if the transients are controlled. If not then add some saturation and/or compression somewhere in the chain.
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Post by mcirish on May 24, 2023 9:15:42 GMT -6
Well... I am officially an idiot. I spent a few hour yesterday trying to get a good master from the instruments only version again. Complete strike out. I was really getting down. I thought to myself "maybe I should re-export that mix again". Glad I did. I obviously had muted more than the vocal on that first instrumental mix. After exporting again, I had no trouble getting it punchy and loud. Not -5dB loud but I did get to -7dB. That is plenty loud enough for the client to use for karaoke, or whatever he plans to do. I felt so relieved. I was doubting my mixing skills and couldn't understand why it just sucked. I believe I accidentally muted all the parallel compression on the snare and kick. Doh! What an idiot. I wasted days messing with something that was never going to work. I was glad to find out my mixing skills didn't suck as bad as I thought.
Still, the mastering guy was able to get a couple more dB out of his master. He's pretty great. He did send me notes on what he did. he said the mix was great and only needed a little deessing in one line and a few .5dB EQ moves at 8k-10k. He even said he only compressed less than a dB. I wonder what limiter he used? I'm sure there is some clipping going on as well to handle the transients. I did some of my own tests with limiters last night, just to see what held up best. To my ears, Ozone did the best, but many were pretty close.
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Post by trakworxmastering on May 24, 2023 9:29:48 GMT -6
Two (or more) limiters in series. Clipper and limiter(s) in series. Saturator and limiter(s). Transient shapers. Different models of each for different tracks or genres. Optimizing the parameters of each. Practice. Experience. And luck!
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Post by donr on May 24, 2023 12:15:53 GMT -6
A mastering engineer I work with occasionally, who gets super loud masters, does a lot of bass cutting. Anytime you limit, the bass just destroys the ability of the track to be that loud. Surprisingly, his tracks still have plenty of bass. It’s a combo of cutting out the garbage sub stuff, shelving everything below 200 or so, and using some distortion/hard clipping along with limiting. It’s taken me a long time to make that all work the same way, but it’s totally possible. Once you figure out the right frequency balance, it’s amazing how much harder you can push a limiter. I will say that I don’t particularly like his masters! But, that’s what the majority of people want to hear, plus it’s competitive. He does a lot of work for bigger artists, and that’s just the way it is. There is another well known mastering engineer I’ve worked with who has a similar sound. Man those tracks sound great through my iPhone, but I can only listen for like 5 minutes in my studio. It’s just too forward and abrasive. Agree about super loud tracks. There's an art to making a loud cut that still has functional dynamics within the last -5 to -10dB below 0. Successful cuts like that are to my ear, rare. It's why I don't listen to much modern pop music. It's claustrophobic to my ears. Opaque. Oppressive. |
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Post by nick8801 on May 25, 2023 6:37:09 GMT -6
A mastering engineer I work with occasionally, who gets super loud masters, does a lot of bass cutting. Anytime you limit, the bass just destroys the ability of the track to be that loud. Surprisingly, his tracks still have plenty of bass. It’s a combo of cutting out the garbage sub stuff, shelving everything below 200 or so, and using some distortion/hard clipping along with limiting. It’s taken me a long time to make that all work the same way, but it’s totally possible. Once you figure out the right frequency balance, it’s amazing how much harder you can push a limiter. I will say that I don’t particularly like his masters! But, that’s what the majority of people want to hear, plus it’s competitive. He does a lot of work for bigger artists, and that’s just the way it is. There is another well known mastering engineer I’ve worked with who has a similar sound. Man those tracks sound great through my iPhone, but I can only listen for like 5 minutes in my studio. It’s just too forward and abrasive. Agree about super loud tracks. There's an art to making a loud cut that still has functional dynamics within the last -5 to -10dB below 0. Successful cuts like that are to my ear, rare. It's why I don't listen to much modern pop music. It's claustrophobic to my ears. Opaque. Oppressive. Oppressive is a great way to describe it. It's like someone who's too pushy. It doesn't allow you to relax and enjoy the music. |
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Post by svart on May 25, 2023 8:23:49 GMT -6
There's a huge difference between types of dynamics. A kick drum hit might be 15dB between the transient peak and the body of the sound. The RMS level would be very low despite the transient peak being very high. It would be hard to listen to because it would be all TICK TICK TICK sounding.
Clipping that transient off some would bring the RMS level up and reduce some of the TICK TICK TICK attack and perhaps make it sound more "round" and easier to hear and listen to despite being very high RMS levels.
I've listened to old recordings where the mics, consoles, tapes, LP's, etc have reduced bandwidth to the point where you don't get a lot of those transients. I've also heard old recordings where all you hear are those transients.
Dynamic range doesn't mean that it sounds good, nor does the lack of it mean it sounds bad. A lot of people listening to older recordings enjoy it because it's NOT very dynamic at all. They mistake quiet and low bandwidth for high dynamic range.
I think it's not about dynamic range at all.
I think most people who dislike modern recordings do so because they don't sound like their favorite old recordings.
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Post by donr on May 25, 2023 12:35:43 GMT -6
There's a huge difference between types of dynamics. A kick drum hit might be 15dB between the transient peak and the body of the sound. The RMS level would be very low despite the transient peak being very high. It would be hard to listen to because it would be all TICK TICK TICK sounding. Clipping that transient off some would bring the RMS level up and reduce some of the TICK TICK TICK attack and perhaps make it sound more "round" and easier to hear and listen to despite being very high RMS levels. I've listened to old recordings where the mics, consoles, tapes, LP's, etc have reduced bandwidth to the point where you don't get a lot of those transients. I've also heard old recordings where all you hear are those transients. Dynamic range doesn't mean that it sounds good, nor does the lack of it mean it sounds bad. A lot of people listening to older recordings enjoy it because it's NOT very dynamic at all. They mistake quiet and low bandwidth for high dynamic range. I think it's not about dynamic range at all. I think most people who dislike modern recordings do so because they don't sound like their favorite old recordings. I like some modern pop. I like Sia's hits, and tunes mixed by Manny Marroquin in general. Charlie Puth's "Attention," which I discovered here on RGO, is a Manny mix. They're loud, but they're musical. |
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