Mixin and Masterin

Quote: (Levi @ Apr. 09 2010, 8:30 PM)



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.

:laugh: Good work bubba! This forum could use more great points like this. :)

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.

Quote: (Bubbagump @ Apr. 12 2010, 9:15 AM)

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.

I don't agree with that really. I want my stuff as big and bold as possible.
Like similar artists of my genera.
I'll snuggle up to 0 vu.
Why? Because I think if I were in rotation on a radio station behind zztop, and I had mastered my material at say -8db or even -3db.... My stuff might get overlooked.

My second reason is to keep the group of songs at a close level as the play on the cd and of course one of the first completed was right up there mr goodbuddy.
:)

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 :laugh:

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 :agree:

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’.

Quote: (TonyR @ Apr. 15 2010, 2:34 PM)

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?

Thx Tony why didn't I say that? :laugh: Perfect!

Bubba, Phoo hit on a good point though with flat.
And it might be a safer option for a newbie.
The reason I'm crafting in that direction is
because of a zztop song I added as a reference.
It's amazing how flat it is.
Flat yet one can still easily pick the individual parts out of the song, it still has depth and dynamics.
But all parts only hint at bright.

Remember my ringing guitar last yr?
I'm trying to bring that tone back to flat and then nudge it out somewhere in between flat around 1k and a little more to give it a sprinkling of presence.
For me that's being real disciplined.
Not exactly flat but no where near the bright harshness I had last yr.
Same with symbols and voices.
I agree filling it all in at 0db isn't exactly what I'm doing.
A little sizzle
I don't have anything uploaded yet.

And I think Tony is right on the mark about using all tools along with gut feelings and ears to not actually rely on anyone, but all in combination.
I watch, glance at the peeks to insure I'm not braking anything lol and the spectrum to insure I don't have any unnecessarily wicked highs or lows.
And shaping towards flatter because I think that's the sound I need.
I don't have violins and chimes, I have hotrods.
Quote: (Levi @ Apr. 05 2010, 1:08 PM)

"Bob Katz sugessts -10 db RMS for the loudest parts of the song (for example chorus). I now master all my stuff and bands that i master to max. -10db RMS
as i felt i was destroying all my mixes by mastering tooo loud.

i do master metal / metalcore / hardcore -10 db... i have uad 2 with all the great mastering plugs now. i did some bon jovi like rock stuff, very dynamic,
mastered -12db... fortunately everyone was happy with that."
...................................
"I just make sure that my peaks are tamed up enough before I start the mastering process.
And I usually go for -9db rms when doing metal."
...................................

Listen to Holographic Universe by Scar Symmetry. It's fucking quieter than most metal albums I've heard and it sounds like heaven to my ears.
-10dB RMS is a really good signal level.

I had to master an album once at -7dB RMS upon client's request. I begged him for not doing that, but he wanted it LOUD before GOOD... Don't do the same mistake
....................................

I master to peak -0.3dBFS, and RMS is around -10dBFS.

For a laugh some day, once you've finished mastering something.. bounce it, and then keep limiting.
Bounce every 1dB you manage to "gain".

Leave the squashed versions for a few weeks, and then listen to them blindly.. and pick which sounds the "best" out of your original and pushed versions.

I did this once (got all the way up to -
4dBFS RMS!) - and .. well, it was amazing. A true test to see what dynamics can have on a song in terms of it's listenability / longevity!"
.........................
:laugh:

A few words on mixing from my two cents,

The introduction of the RMS ruler in conjunction with the k-metering system in n-track was a big help for me in terms of getting my sound mastered to the point each song has basically the same level of audio output without compressing it into a blob or brick that sometimes is seen when looking at some of todays songs when viewing the song as a wave form. As most of you've heard and probably read, this fight so to speak, to see who can have the loudest music I think takes away from the good sound the mix most likely had to a very compressed signal "wall pushed" sound where adding treble or bass seems to just flatten it.

What I do, is make sure to use the correct k-metering profile for the music I make and then I load Ramstien or something else that has a good bass tone and pleasant overall mix and I watch this audio in n-track carefully to see how high the RMS peaks at, making sure the over all input sound is maxed out but does not clip. I look for the happy medium average RMS level and then I use the ruler marker Flavio introduced to set my RMS average level.

Normally when I do create any song and during the mixing/mastering process all of my songs fall shy of the average RMS I set before. Using Ozone to master gives me the chance to add volume to the RMS output without sacrificing my over all tone. It's very easy to kill the audio this way by adding to much loudness, this is why it's very important to get your levels prior to mastering in your mix as high as possible without red lining/clipping them. The closer you are to maxing the audio out without clipping the less you'll need later on when you add loudness. I run no more than 3% cutoff on this section (loudness) of the mastering process in Ozone, but normally 2% is all it takes to hit my average RMS is set previously. Anything beyond this say 4% cutoff and you'll hear it max out with undesirable effects. Following this process, my songs from one to another over the course of my CD are relatively equal as far as output is concerned. Of course this is just one section of the mastering process related to a balance between a good capture of your recording with balanced output from song to song without trashing it with too much loudness. The process before this would be compression but thats another ball park all it's own.

Ozones PDF on the subject of compression gives some basic outlines to follow but it's technical just the same and this of course plays a roll in your overall output by cutting those high peaks and raising the lower peaks to balance the audio. Think of compression like cutting an over grown hedge. You simply cut off the tops to make it even. This helps in respect to sudden spikes in audio frequency such below 50hz which can harm speakers given enough volume.

I like Ozone for the mastering process because it uses algorithms with the compression section making it fairly simple to follow by adjusting the slider down until the level just peaks over it. You do this in low, middle, middle highs and finally highs with each section having a preset average compression level you set. So in nut shell you set the average for each section then watch the meters, slowly adjust the compression until the levels just peak over it. In effect, you just chop the tops off the wave form while the algorithms boost and balance the audio.

That's my take on this, I'm no mastering expert by any means but I do think a I have basic understanding of what to do and my music sounds pretty good to me, plus it sounds good in my car, all 2250 Pioneer watts of it. My friends like it to, so I must be on the right track. My 2 cents.

Happy tracking,

PACO
Quote: (Paco572 @ Apr. 17 2010, 4:34 PM)

It's very easy to kill the audio this way by adding to much loudness, this is why it's very important to get your levels prior to mastering in your mix as high as possible without red lining/clipping them. The closer you are to maxing the audio out without clipping the less you'll need later on when you add loudness.

Agreed, an over loud master sounds terrible... but explain this hot without clipping pre master concept? I can't see how this could matter at all (barring extreme cases where the mix is down in the noise floor).... especially in the world of floating point math.
Quote: (Bubbagump @ Apr. 20 2010, 9:58 AM)

Quote: (Paco572 @ Apr. 17 2010, 4:34 PM)

It's very easy to kill the audio this way by adding to much loudness, this is why it's very important to get your levels prior to mastering in your mix as high as possible without red lining/clipping them. The closer you are to maxing the audio out without clipping the less you'll need later on when you add loudness.

Agreed, an over loud master sounds terrible... but explain this hot without clipping pre master concept? I can't see how this could matter at all (barring extreme cases where the mix is down in the noise floor).... especially in the world of floating point math.

In the Ozone loudness part there is a slider, this slider is the add volume. There is a peak meter it shows the audio peak over it slightly, the idea being to just allow a little peak over this. A additional box for a value of 2 or 3 sets the bar so to speak, setting this higher allows for more room for the slider but it effects the audio. I've found that if my pre mix is low in volume to start with and use this function in ozone to boost this audio I get bad results as I push toward my preset RMS average. Like I mentioned I'm no expert but I have found the closer my mix is to maximum volume prior to mixing I'm able to adjust the volume up according to suggested values in the Ozone.pfd which is around but no more than 4 if remember correctly. I usually set it at 2 (the bar) and I normally don't go over 4 on the volume slider, if I have to go higher to reach my target RMS, then I go back and recheck my levels. In all the songs where this occurred my volume was a tad low in my mix. As soon I adjusted the volume in the pre mix and went back into Ozone things would work as expected. I don't know why this is, I simply tried to use Ozone with in the target settings they suggested. The rest for me at least was trial and error. I apologize if you wanted a technical answer to this.


PACO

Thx for the input Paco, it’s all very interesting :agree: !