For those of you who have not mastered with meters; it's a little tricky holding the rms values down sometimes when trying to raise your peek meter level close to 0
That typically means the mix is overly compressed to begin with.
It might mean it typically but not in my case.
Also, there is no reason to have to push things to -0.02dbFS. Really man, I am telling you, relying on a meter is just going to get you hung up on the meter. Ears baby.
How is that point not obvious? Music, sound, ears?
[+ technology =]
Hearing you loud ‘n’ clear, Bubba.
An old friend of mine often referenced in mono on a home made two inch speaker with passive vol’ knob.
Glad you know what you are doing.
I’m trying to figure it out and it isn’t easy learning the way I’m doing it but thx to guys like you who cut through the bull and honestly point things out, I’m making some progress.
I’ve gotten good enough to notice the difference.
But like someone who has new toys I’m watching that I don’t overdo anything and the meters are helping me do that.
It’s true even with a nice signal if it’s not sounding good it’s got to change.
Let me ask you bubba, how and when do you use meters?
And at what approx peek level are you mastering your songs at? I guess compared to you my meters are like training wheels
You don’t need meters. You need a great and I mean GREAT mastering limiter, and a mix that requires ZERO EQ to be flat. Crank the gain until it doesn’t get any louder and there you are.
SoundForge had the WaveHammer plugin for that. Audobe Audition has a Mastering Tool that is a set with a gain maximizer, reverb, hard limiter and enhancer (Aphex/BBE/Tube/Tape).
Meters aren’t needed. Squish the heck out of it until it sounds like an over-compressed FM broadcast and there you are.
The bugaboo is getting the mix right and the EQ flat enough. Meters can’t help with that. Spectrum analyzation can. This it very difficult to do right in a non-controlled environment, and our home studios are all very uncontrolled in this sense.
Short answer – send it to a pro mastering house.
Thx Phoo!
I think that’s also what Bubba is getting at.
I don’t have to push my vol TO ODB until the very end WITH a clear defined sound that might be as low as -4db and reach peak with a peak limiter?
I was able to buy my tools a little at a time.
Thinking each tool was going to do it.
Going to a studio for mastering would set me back about a grand at once and I can’t afford that now. But I checked out many and was always turned away by someone who would say “their services weren’t that good”.
Maybe with some success I will.
I like to put the boat in and test the waters so I learn by mistakes I guess.
I recently learned that my chain goes L to R when I though all along that it went R to L lol So last night I got to understand and know my peak limiter’s power, M E R C Y !
Between the multiband limiter and the peak limiter and everyones input it’s getting better
Those are not necessary settings that I use, that’s from the UK multimedia site. I’m also keepng a close eye on the shape of the song in the spectrum analyzer and working for flat!
Thx
So. Levi isn’t asking for the moon - he’s trying to master a ‘sound’ that is popular and technically attainable without breaking any rules. How?
Start with a great mix. Mastering is NOT a patch job. If the mix isn’t there… the master is just meatball surgery.
Also, how are we not understanding to forget meters? You want flat on a spectral graph? Great, so the bass will be wimpy and the high-end painful. Our ears do not hear in a perfect -3db/oct linear fashion nor does every piece of audio material cover all holes in the spectrum.
Ok, cool.
Hearing, like all perceptions is subject to taste and to rules that aren’t callibrated to the human brain. I have a book that explains how one violin is only 2 db short of an entire orchestra and every time I read it, it goes in one eye and out of the other - bonkers!
I, personally, never trust one component - be it meters, fuel guages, recipes…
Having the desire to kraft a peice of music is a joy and a pain. One can’t pick one’s audience - but it’s fun tryin’.
Thx for the input Paco, it’s all very interesting !