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-- compressor on the master channel?
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DONT compare your tracks to other tracks in terms of loudness.
It will make you desperate and frustrated in terms of mastering, because these tracks has been carefully EQed, compressed and processed for maximum loudness.
And i think that many tracks being released these days actually sounded alot better before mastering, because the louder you got the more dynamics you need to sacrifice.
There are many tracks that sounds great when heavy limited and compressed but there are so many that would benefit with a lower volume to them.

I`d say that the more peaks you have in your track the worse it will sound when mastered to a high volume level.

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Originally posted by Subtle DONT compare your tracks to other tracks in terms of loudness. It will make you desperate and frustrated in terms of mastering, because these tracks has been carefully EQed, compressed and processed for maximum loudness. And i think that many tracks being released these days actually sounded alot better before mastering, because the louder you got the more dynamics you need to sacrifice. There are many tracks that sounds great when heavy limited and compressed but there are so many that would benefit with a lower volume to them. I`d say that the more peaks you have in your track the worse it will sound when mastered to a high volume level.

I always compare my tracks against tracks of a similar style that I like. Its part of mastering for me. For a long time I was very shy about limiting and tried to only touch the limiter once or twice in any song. But I've since realised that clipping a single sample every time the kick hits is not neccesarily a bad thing, and as long as you can't hear it, its probably OK.

I generally get my tracks as loud as professional tracks now, without too much limiting or clipping. Its not that hard, just practise.

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Sending a track in to be mastwred is basicly asking someone else to fix the problems you were to lazy to resolve when you were producing the track

Sorry but that is absolute nonsense.

Ok Ok, they don't send them to be mastered ONLy to fix them, they also send them to be mastered so that they can destroy any and all dynamic range in order get it retardedly as loud as possible, so that later someone can turn the volume down/compress it more, and ruin it further.

Its better to force the user to turn the volume up, then force them to turn it down and compress the track. Alot less damage is done if you do the former.

I try to release tracks that peak at around -8db without compression at all on any channel.

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Originally posted by cronodevir Ok Ok, they don't send them to be mastered ONLy to fix them, they also send them to be mastered so that they can destroy any and all dynamic range in order get it retardedly as loud as possible, so that later someone can turn the volume down/compress it more, and ruin it further. Its better to force the user to turn the volume up, then force them to turn it down and compress the track. Alot less damage is done if you do the former.

+1

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Originally posted by cronodevir I try to release tracks that peak at around -8db without compression at all on any channel.

Why the heck would you release tracks that peak at -8dB? Even if you don't want to use any compression, why wouldn't you just normalize them so that they peak at 0?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a final product that peaks at 0dB, and tracks that peak at that level can be entirely without distortion and clipping.

Because the end-user volume knob is a compressor, and turning it up does less damage than turning it down.

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Originally posted by cronodevir Because the end-user volume knob is a compressor, and turning it up does less damage than turning it down.

Wtf are you talking about? Normal amp and speakers don't compress the audio, they just play it.

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Originally posted by cronodevir Because the end-user volume knob is a compressor, and turning it up does less damage than turning it down.

Eh?

Speak to any mastering engineer worth their salt and you will find that they want the track a fraction below 0db - I have never heard of anyone submitting a track at -8db, and it would be a really stupid way to work as that's nearly 3 times quieter than the finished mastered result would be.

Mastering should have NOTHING to do with fixing individual mix level problems, apart from when producers/mix engineers are shit at mixing and mastering engineers have to multiband compress particular frequencies because they didn't get it right in the mix stage. Mastering is there to compliment the overall mix - to add that sparkle and finish, not to fix bad engineering.

Come on people these are the basics here:

No individual track should clip (unless the clipped sound is what your trying to achieve). If it does clip, it is distorting and will have an even worse effect on the overall balance of the mix.

The track to be mastered should be as close to 0db as possible (possibly with a tiny bit i.e. 1 or 2 db of headroom if preferred by the mastering/dub engineer).

As for classical music not being compressed enough? That's the whole point. One thing incredibly refreshing about listening to well recorded classical music is the dynamic range and lack of compression. The range of volumes between orchestral elements and the diversity of range combined with melody IS classical music.

No, Many spakers apply a limiter to control the volume. Reguardless to that, changing the volume anyways effects the dynamics of the sound. Most music i lsiten to on my PC requires me to turn it way the fuck down for it to be at a reasonable level. While at the same time, games, youtube, and any other app with sound is pretty level. And my music I make at that average level.

There is no reason for it to be loud. Google "the louduness war". Give me a good reason 0db is better than -2db or -8db? [ i hear -2db alot]

I don't master my tracks. I do everything myself before production is done, once I render the .wav and .mp3..its done. No more work will be done to it. I don't always do -8 I usualy do between -8 and -4, average level is like -10 or so. That is my preference. Again, music doesn't have to be blasting loud.

I'm not saying mastering is only for fixing stuff, but that is one of the main reasons most of the time ive seen something get mastered, either it needed fixing, or it needed to be louder, so they asked the engineer to do it that way.

What DJ RANN said about classical music:

+17823564 That is why I don't make my music max loudness. Classical music ive heard sometimes peaks at like -2 but with an average of -15, loudness and quietness need to be molded nciely, not jsut have everything on fullblast. Yours pads shouldn't get louder because you are doing a breakdown for instance.

Also note, my original comments are full of sarcasm. I wasn't serious or absolute.

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Originally posted by cronodevir No, Many spakers apply a limiter to control the volume.

A limiter on speakers or amps isn't going to kick in unless you're absolutely blasting the music, like in a club.

Regardless of that, it should be obvious that a little compression will actually help the situation, because people are less likely to turn up the music if it's at a consistent volume (i.e. compressed or at least carefully mixed) than if it has peaks of different heights all over the place.

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Reguardless to that, changing the volume anyways effects the dynamics of the sound.

No it doesn't. Turning the volume knob on your system does not change the ratio of peaks to average level (dynamics). Lowering or increasing the gain of a whole track != compression.

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There is no reason for it to be loud. Google "the louduness war". Give me a good reason 0db is better than -2db or -8db? [ i hear -2db alot]

The "loudness" war is about ruining the dynamics with compression, not about normalizing tracks to 0dB. Normalizing != compression. Compression changes the average loudness by squashing the peaks, normalizing just brings everything up equally and there is absolutely no reason it will decrease the quality of your track.

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Give me a good reason 0db is better than -2db or -8db? [ i hear -2db alot]

Give me a good reason why -8db is better than 0db? The fact is there isn't a reason. Noise floor is going to become more of an issue if you export your mix at -8db. you are going to need to turn your amp or mixer up ALOT to match other tracks, thus adding noise.

In regards to club speakers, limiters are usually only there as either a safety precaution or ensuring the sound won't go over a certain level.

I think you need to read up on digital audio and study the decibel, dynamic range, normalization, SNR etc. You obviously don't understand the difference between compression (automatic volume control) and static volume control (ie normalizeation)

Dance music also doesn't need to be as dynamic as you think. play back a professionally mastered track at the same percieved loudeness as the un-mastered version. The fact is that a good mastering job can make the track sound superb whilst not imparting any audible artifacts whatsover.

The main reason for mastering is to get the track to transfer well when played back on a variety of different mediums. Loudness wars have started due to radio play. People and record labels want their track sounding louder than the one played before it, thus grabbing the listerners attention. Also read up on audio in tv adverts. That is massively over-compressed!

Mastering plays a very important part when it comes to albums as well. Levelling out the album so that it has a consistent level. From what you are saying, you would just prefer to get up every 5 minutes when the next album track comes on and either turn up or down the track manually to match the previous one? I don't think the general public would like that.

I recommend you read Bob katz's book on mastering and also "the art of digital audio". both very good reads.

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Originally posted by cronodevir Ok Ok, they don't send them to be mastered ONLy to fix them, they also send them to be mastered so that they can destroy any and all dynamic range in order get it retardedly as loud as possible, so that later someone can turn the volume down/compress it more, and ruin it further. Its better to force the user to turn the volume up, then force them to turn it down and compress the track. Alot less damage is done if you do the former. I try to release tracks that peak at around -8db without compression at all on any channel.

When you say you release tracks that peak -8db, you mean to the mastering house right? Because after mastering the final mix of your track should be as close to 0DB as possible. Before mastering, its fine if your track is -8db at peak, the mastering will take it to 0db. The reason why you want the final mix to be 0db, is because every other track a DJ will play will be at 0db peaks and they wont have to push the mixers gains to get your track up, or someone listening to your track in a playlist wont have to increase the volume when your track comes up and then decrease it when the next track comes up. So go ahead mix to -8db and then master to 0db.

actualy both speakers, amps and your ears works as a compressor, a speaker a very fast one and the ears a very slow one with hours of release. so no need for compression on master unless u plan to play your tracks on a TV.

While my post was regarding mixing with a compressor on the master bus, the topic sees to have drifted to compression overall. No problem, I got my answer and it's nice to have (yet another) discussion on compression/limiting/loudness wars... but I think some people don't understand what the level wars and sound dynamics actually are.

So here's my 2 cents. I think this single image explains this well (although in a rather extreme and oversimplified way):

http://www.imagebam.com/image/51d91726850926 (copy/paste this, couldn't get IMG tag to work)

3 different waveforms of the same sound.
First waveform is the normalized unprocessed clip. Normalization set to 0.1db.
The second waveform is the exact same sound but normalized to -8 db (which is what cronodevir was talking about.
The last waveform is the exact sound but processed with a hard limiter - limited to 0.1db with boosted input of 7db.

I made this pic to prove that having your track peak at -0.1 db or at -8db leaves the sound exactly the same apart from the obvious loudness. The dynamics of the sound are completely the same. I personally don't see any reason whatsoever to let your track peak at anything lower than -0.1 db unless you plan to have your track mastered so to give the engineer some space to work with.

Since 0db is the ultimate maximum people use compression or more likely limiting to make their tracks APPEAR louder by squashing the dynamics of the sound. This is what the level wars are all about. Since they make also the quieter parts of the song louder as to stand out, but with the price of hurting the dynamics of the whole song.
I personally don't have an issue with this is it's used with care, but what these idiots do is compress and limit the living hell out of the track which kills the dynamics (a cymbal crash i.e. is like as loud as everything else so it doesn't stand out as it should) and leaves unpleasant artifacts on the sound.

By far the worst example that I've come across is the new Metallica record. That thing is so over-compressed and over-limited you can actually HEAR the compressor working while a cymbal is struck. Absolutely amazing. Someone made a video on youtube about this and some new Metallica song clipped like 300 times of something.

I guess this is what a new Metallica record will look like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQEJh3kqZN0

Also, the loudness war is perfectly explained here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

While we're on the subject of mastering: how much does it cost to get your track professionally mastered? I'm talking here the likes of the The Lodge where Tiesto got his stuff mastered.

Ive seen the second clip. I don't max out at lower than 0db because of dynamics, I do it because i see no reason it should be so loud. There is nothing more to it than personal preference.

Just a follow-up to the sidebar conversation here - CD tracks are usually mastered to a level of -0.2 dB just to give some headroom against noise in the equipment. IIRC, vinyl tracks are mastered to something much lower than that because of all the artifacts inherent in the medium.

You don't necessarily want smack-dab 0 dB and you don't necessarily want -2 or -8 either. The primary purpose of mastering is to make sure that the dynamics of a track are appropriate for the medium. Sometimes that means no comp/limiter at all and just a normalization, like classical music being recorded to CD, and sometimes it means compressing so much that you can actually hear the pumping, like a radio edit of some popular dance tune. For a digital release intended only to be played in clubs, you probably want heavy-but-not-quite-audible compression and limiting.

OK, so I have been mixing through a mastering chain for a couple of days now, and, for ME, it seems to be the better option. Maybe it makes me lazy, maybe it is the "wrong" way, or maybe I'm missing something. It seems like when I mix this way, things are sounding just a bit brighter and more "glued" together. It seems to have a more "finished" sound.

Right now my chain is:

• Logic Linear Phase EQ
  
• UAD Cambridge
  
• UAD 1176LN
  
• UAD LA2A
  
• Waves L1
  

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Originally posted by Eric J I don't know if its the "right" way, but it's working for me.

There is no right way dude.

It takes me 1 minute to master my tracks, i simply put a compressor on it and compress it slightly with a tiny threshold, slap an Oxford Limiter so the kick peaks on ca -3db and thats it.

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Originally posted by Subtle There is no right way dude.

That's kind of the conclusion I have been drawing the past couple of days. Before I started doing this, I would spend X amount of time writing the track and getting it roughly mixed. Then, once I felt that the writing, arrangement and rough mixing was completed, I would then go into the "mixdown and mastering" process, where I would add the mastering chain and begin to "finalize" the track. At that point I would generally spend a ton of time re-balancing the track because the mastering chain would throw everything out of balance. I'd basically end up re-mixing and rewriting certain portions of the track in response to the new sound with the mastering chain on.

I think I did it this way because I had always heard NOT to mix into your mastering chain, but more and more I feel more comfortable mixing into the master chain. Once I started doing this, I did start to find a lot of people on other forums recommending this approach for EDM especially. A lot of people are mentioning that a ton of EDM producers do this.

So far, I like it, so I think I'll stick with it.

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Originally posted by Eric J I think I did it this way because I had always heard NOT to mix into your mastering chain, but more and more I feel more comfortable mixing into the master chain. Once I started doing this, I did start to find a lot of people on other forums recommending this approach for EDM especially. A lot of people are mentioning that a ton of EDM producers do this.

I do render the track to wave first, it can be very helpful to actually look at the waveform and see mistakes. and see how it looks when its mixed and mastered, if its a big brick in there, its over compressed, but if the top end of the wave is slight curved and spiky it means there are dynamics.

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Originally posted by Subtle I do render the track to wave first, it can be very helpful to actually look at the waveform and see mistakes. and see how it looks when its mixed and mastered, if its a big brick in there, its over compressed, but if the top end of the wave is slight curved and spiky it means there are dynamics.

I actually do something that resembles this, but in real time. I have a secondary PC, running Live, that is used as an outboard sampler and real time analyzer. I run a spectrum analyzer AND run that Smexoscope plugin that allows me to view the waveform in real time as I am producing. Its real handy, because I can instantly see where I have large, unwanted peaks and compensate for them before I get to the final stages. I set my project and AI up to output the master to both my monitors and the secondary audio PC so I always have a frequency and waveform view of the track for reference. I'm not sure if I know anyone else that works in this manner, but it ensures there are no surprises when I bounce the mix down to audio.

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Originally posted by Eric J I actually do something that resembles this, but in real time. I have a secondary PC, running Live, that is used as an outboard sampler and real time analyzer. I run a spectrum analyzer AND run that Smexoscope plugin that allows me to view the waveform in real time as I am producing. Its real handy, because I can instantly see where I have large, unwanted peaks and compensate for them before I get to the final stages. I set my project and AI up to output the master to both my monitors and the secondary audio PC so I always have a frequency and waveform view of the track for reference. I'm not sure if I know anyone else that works in this manner, but it ensures there are no surprises when I bounce the mix down to audio.

Thats really cool man! might look into something like this myself.

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Originally posted by Subtle Thats really cool man! might look into something this myself.

Yeah, it's really cool. I'm actually quite surprised that I've never seen anyone else try it this way. Let me know if you have questions, I can give you the exact technical specs if you want to attempt to do something like this yourself.

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Originally posted by vikernes I'm sorry, but I will have to call bullshit on that guy. It's a personal preference to mix against a compressor I guess, not something you advise people to do through a "tutorial video". Half way into mixing he changed the threshold and the ratio (I think) on the compressor (on the master bus), because he didn't like the sound. No shit. That's the reason you don't put a compressor there at the mixing stage. So after he did that, the levels on the tracks got screwed up. No shit #2. Again, I have no problem if some people do it that way, it's just that I've never heard someone do that before I saw him and I thought this is somewhat of a "standard" in EDM. Also, I think that guy is clueless. At one point in the video he's talking about the loudness wars and then goes to say something like - and I0'm not shitting you -> "I don't know why people want their mixes so loud. If a track isn't loud enough you just turn up the gain on the mixer, that's why it's there." I'm not kidding you, I even think this is the exact quote he says. After I heard that I just scrolled through the video quickly just to end it. Also he had clipping on almost every track in his mix. He did say something like how he doesn't care about "looking" at music, rather hearing it. So he says if he doesn't hear the signal getting clipped he doesn't bother lowering the volume. Which I guess isn't such a bad idea since every trance track I checked clips at least 10 times through the track - and I'm talking the likes of Tiesto, Armin etc... But he had levels peaking at something like 2.7db on the master or something most of the time. Even if you don't hear it, that might cause problems later (at least) at the mastering stage. So a followup; I also get some clipping on the master in my tracks - mostly only when the kick hits in - and I'm not talking 2.7db here. As I said, I checked a lot of tracks from professional DJs/producers and almost every track has clipping in it. So should I worry about this if I can't hear it or just leave it? AFAIK there should never be clipping on individual tracks, but it's kinda OK on the master? That's what I heard...

''That Guy'' Is Olav Basoski. He is a very good producer. Period.

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