Cactus Music


What is it you hear that is wrong? That's the question. Is it distortion? Is it the mix goes out of balance, The Kick drum disappears? Vocals sound like there in a fish bowl? 

I found this online and think it is worth trying out. It gives specifics for those of us who do our own mastering. It also supports the theory that you can't just convert a good master to MP3 and expect it to sound good--like I used to.
 
http://www.about-audio-mastering-software.com/mastering-for-mp3.html

The two most common reasons for exports not translating well to MP3 are excessive high-frequency content and levels limited too close to 0db. Address those two gotchas and your MP3s will start to sound much better, even if not exactly like the wave files.

Good stuff, I didn't know that. I'm probably safe because my songs seem to be fairly low in the hi end when viewed on the spectrograph. But I often set my limiter at 0 on the output. 
My goal lately is that the average peak RMS level is around 12-14 dB. 

Cactus Music


Good stuff, I didn't know that. I'm probably safe because my songs seem to be fairly low in the hi end when viewed on the spectrograph. But I often set my limiter at 0 on the output. 
My goal lately is that the average peak RMS level is around 12-14 dB. 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

My biggest issue seems to be the most common problem in that the particular track that brought all this to my attention I had mastered very loud. Loud was what was being asked for and the more mastering tips I read about, the more engineers I hear saying it's the new standard for Pop, etc.  Huge lesson learned for me. Thanks to all for the help here. I'm going to be doing some A/B of my original after I apply what I'm learning here.