MAKE IT LOUD!!!!

Hi Guys,

How can I make my song sound louder - Post mix?

Cheers.

Have you tried a "mastering limiter"?

You have to think about it all the way, from arrangement through tracking and mixing.

To make it simple: You need to use (EQ and) compression subtly on many tracks, then do a finall compressing/limiting to the finished mix as the final "mastering" move. It's also very good to do manually volume envelopes to even out the biggest jumps in volume, so to make compressors task easier.

If you just throw a limiter in the mixdown track with very strong original dynamics, you will most likely destroy your sound if you aim for "near commercial" loudness.

If your ony option in this case is post mix editing you could try: Volume envelopes> EQ > Compressor > corrective EQ > Limiter.

Izotope Ozone is an excellent mastering tool.

Roey Ishakis book "Mixing Audio" is a good book about these things. It includes a CD with examples of different edits.

Turn up the amp.

Exactly, stop trying to make it faux loud. It's done nothing to help music, and at this point NOT being loud would make you stand out from the crowd instead of just being another wannabe trying to create music with zero dynamics. Don't become part of the problem, become part of the solution and stop contributing to the destruction of music for the sake of an illusory advantage.

smash it with a limiter.

+ya

If you are trying to make it, I would say that having your original track at commercial loudness rather than not will have a better impact and pull factor on people, certainly at people who listen to the current radio charts. I am aware of this and try to get my stuff as frickin loud as I can without mashing the song to pieces(I have yet to achieve it fully though especially on dance/pop tracks).

Kalle's post I think nailed it  (albeit very briefly!) the typical route to achieve this.

Kalle Rantaaho


You have to think about it all the way, from arrangement through tracking and mixing.

To make it simple: You need to use (EQ and) compression subtly on many tracks, then do a finall compressing/limiting to the finished mix as the final "mastering" move. It's also very good to do manually volume envelopes to even out the biggest jumps in volume, so to make compressors task easier.

If you just throw a limiter in the mixdown track with very strong original dynamics, you will most likely destroy your sound if you aim for "near commercial" loudness.

If your ony option in this case is post mix editing you could try: Volume envelopes> EQ > Compressor > corrective EQ > Limiter.

Izotope Ozone is an excellent mastering tool.

Roey Ishakis book "Mixing Audio" is a good book about these things. It includes a CD with examples of different edits.

Correct..  Loud tracks start in the mix..   You have to have a very tight volume balance...  and than during mastering stage you can get a banging master...

The OP also needs to answer the question WHY does he want it louder?

I dislike having to get off the couch to turn up volume knob on the receiver.

aside from the aesthetics of getting your mix louder, there are lots of ways to "make it loud":

1. higher low passes/lower high passes on individual tracks, and the mix as a whole, especially low pass.
2. layered compression: track, bus, master. will sound smoother than one compressor smashing the crap out of everything, which means more overall peak reduction without pumping or even accidentally increasing dynamics.
3. multiband compression.
4. gain/volume envelopes - even out dynamics.
5. gates - cut out stuff you don't want to or can't hear.
6. EQ - use parametric EQs on individual tracks and dip fundamental and resonant frequencies. find these with a frequency analyzer like voxengo SPAN.
7. track balance - turn up different tracks at different times to keep the sense of dynamics (i.e., loud guitars during chorus, loud drums/bass during verses, loud solo during bridge, etc.)
8. arrangement - less can be more. don't think of the mix as a static set of tracks, look at it over time, both macro (drop second guitar in verses) and micro (don't let bass notes sustain under the snare).

always perform these operations while listening to the full mix. A/B against your professional target "loud" track (turning down the pro track so it's at the same level as your track, volume-wise) and listen critically - what sounds thin or weak when you really pay attention? do the same in your mix, then give yourself a 5 minute break. come back and see if you can tell a difference.

finally, realize that many professional tracks that are victims of the loudness war don't actually sound good, but you don't care because the music is awesome. (see audioslave, self-titled album).

If you are using sonar producer, it comes with a plug in called Boost 11. As the previous posts have mentioned, this WILL kill your dynamics if you over use it. The red on the waves on the left represent how much of the song is affected. The waves on the right show the output. You will notice it's a very uniform volume which can definitely be a bad thing depending on how much you use.

When you are done with your track, you would export it to 1 stereo track and apply it there. This might be stating the obvious, but you need to mute everything else, and make sure the stereo track is the only thing you are working with. Again, this is when you are completely done with the mix, editing, etc.

Jonsey asked WHY do you want it loud.... 

I'm asking does it need to be loud. Many times, the answer to that is No.

Don't go loud just to be loud. 

Keeping the dynamic range to me is more important than loud. You can always turn up the volume.

An overly compressed and squashed song is still squashed when it's turned up, but a song with dynamics really comes alive when it's turned up. 

Tread lightly on those compressors and limiters.

mike_mccue


I dislike having to get off the couch to turn up volume knob on the receiver.

Rig up a servo device on the knob with a cable to your couch. Similar to that cable used in photography. Make it as heavy duty as possible. You don't want any sound to spill out on the floor.

When I developed cleaner mixes with properly miked amps and correct EQing, also with the introduction of a better audio interface, I found my mixes to be much louder. hence I only use About -6db threshold mastering compression with ozone 3. Mixes are plenty loud.   Also, I mix down my songs without any mastering. Then open it up again as a stereo track to add limiting and ozone. That way I can go back and undo or redo the mastering.

In the past I was only achieving "black sabbath" volume, compared to "system of a down" volume..... That was my reason for Needing loudness.

While Limiting (I hope is done with discipline if an ME doesn't do it), it's not really necessary at all. Most keep saying just turn up the volume; however, "I don't wanna touch every single slider - or do the trial and error thing (which perhaps involves math)." (However, do document!)

This is why Sends are are best friends. More often you hear when they're used when tracks share effects to alleviate CPU load (ie: Delays, Reverbs, etc.), but they can be used to boost/cut the volume as well as EQs.

I'm listening to a track with 3 sends (Volume + 2 EQ) with the volume decreasing when off, but increasing when on and I never touched a track slider (The master is @ -.3dB).

Without those Sends the peaks (Master VU) don't touch or just barely touch -18dB (The kick goes over, but that's fine); however, with them on - Volume alone pushes this to -12dB, with EQ 1, it goes to -8dB, with both on, it's about -2 or -1. (-6dB = 0 with the VU measurements)

As far as the tracks themselves, they're pretty low which is why the overall track is low without the sends.

AAMOF, these sends before they became sends were on my Master Track. I still have FX on the Master; however, using sends helped alleviate some of the Master Track's weight. And given their purpose, why neglect them? Simply don't.

So, yes, you can have a track (or tracks) "bumped up" in volume, but routing through a send is much more preferred by me at least than Limiting. In fact, if Volume sends are used (and make sure you tell the ME this) then, less limiting may be applied which means more dynamic headroom.

Again, I could be wrong about this, but when you do something wrong for so long, you do think it's right. I always Limited my tracks until I read up on dynamic preservation and all that comes with it (on here and else) and will now no longer do this. I'm not saying that it might not be needed; I am saying it isn't nor should it be the end all be all - especially if used incorrectly.

Bit liked when I said that "every knob isn't a volume knob." This is when I didn't understand compressors (I'm still experimenting) but the same can be said for/when Limiting as that is not a volume knob either.

Track Volume sliders. Master Fader, Automation and Volume sends.

I agree with "non-mastering" a track. However, you may want to master so the ME can have a reference. Yes, I understand about self-mastering being too close to a tune. However, as Danny and others have said: "How it should sound and not how you think it should sound." He also said that compromise isn't a bad thing and a great ME can give a track what it needs without totally obliterating what you want.

This also means not letting egos (for lack of a better term get in the way.) I also know that Mixing and Mastering are to different things, but compromise needn't elude either function. "Cut as opposed to Boost," yet, don't do too much of either. Which is the sole reason for the LW - compromising dynamics for loudness, but many perceived these to terms to be synonymous.

Looking at this classically - (as classical is often referred to as the most dynamic genre) the piano is the most dynamic instrument out there. AAMOF, it's full name name evokes dynamics - pianoforte - soft and loud. And if you think about it, when someone bangs on it constantly the instrument - or at least the output - is getting crushed. Not too pleasing, is it?

If pianists can get by without playing fortississmo (crushing the sound or instrument) ... then, producers can get by without limiting tracks (prior turning them over to the ME) Of course, if the piece calls for a reasonable amount of fff (Automation is this nowadays); however, you can play a fff, without crushing the track.

Could you just imagine if Beethoven said to be heard (famous), I have to be louder than Mozart; therefore, he bangs out his symphonies? Of course, live play can only go so far on it's own, but I really don't think these two and the others during there time, made this into a LW. Would they fall victim to the LW war today? (Note: I do not mean to provoke a discuss, but if you're interested, feel free)

Whether or not you listen to classical music fervidly or just know familiar tunes from the encompassing umbrella of this genre, this is something to think about. These composers not having the technology we do today, is not the point because LWs exist within live play as well as recorded music and what's ironic is, the only option you have is turning the volume up or down (sans a sound person to handle that and/or all the intricacies).

If you are going to use a Limiter, be very careful, but be aware that there are more ways to increase the volume.

Bonus points for anyone who can answer why I bolded what I did?

IMO, if someone can't be bothered to turn a volume knob in order to save music from destruction, I can't be bothered to much to make any music he likes. If everyone would do the same, then everything would be at the same appropriate levels with good dynamics. I don't remember getting up for every song back in the day before this all started and constantly adjusting the volume knob, mostly because the music we listened to was created by professionals with good sense who did what was right for the music.

droddey


IMO, if someone can't be bothered to turn a volume knob in order to save music from destruction, I can't be bothered to much to make any music he likes. If everyone would do the same, then everything would be at the same appropriate levels with good dynamics. I don't remember getting up for every song back in the day before this all started and constantly adjusting the volume knob, mostly because the music we listened to was created by professionals with good sense who did what was right for the music.

I'm going the exact opposite...hardly any volume at all....

^ LOL This you really do not want. No volume is just as bad as too much volume (Limiting)

The song on the CD is so low, when I switch to the radio ... 

Then again, John Cage that exact piece where that sound lasted 4'33. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E

Silence is golden!!

I keep kicking my butt about this because I used to know a few peeps in Boston MA that used to do strange things like record the sax...but leave the recorder at some ridiculously low level...and then play it loud..so all you hear is this faint hint of the sax playing but with barrels of hardly anything but hiss in the background...

The loudness wars was something driven by marketing, not by musical considerations. Then it went on so long that now you have a generation of kids who think that anything not flat-lined is somehow wrong. It's pretty pathetic, and another nail in music's coffin because it leads to less variety.

There are no loudness wars.

and

There is a wider variety of recorded music, available today, for any human to listen to, then ever before... IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE AS WE KNOW IT.




best regards,
mike
 

If you think there's no loudness war, you can't be actually listening to any music. There clearly has been one for a long time, and it's driven by marketing concerns. I guess you could say that there's no 'war' anymore because everyone has already dropped enough atomics bombs that there's nothing left to war over I guess.

As the second point, that's one of those statements that are true but meaningless. The fact that it's available means nothing if it's not actually listened to. The vast, vast majority of music being made is heard by almost no one. It's being made based on the mistaken belief that all you have to do is create something and the world will beat a path to your door. This has been proven incorrect innumerable times in the entire history of the universe as we know it.

The music that people actually listen to in large numbers is almost all highly artificial and extremely dynamics limited. That music effectively defines what this decade will be remembered as musically, as does the popular music of every decade. It also controls what music can actually make money and therefore make it likely that people will get financial assistance to help them do it as a professional.
 
There are probably a couple million books written every year. You have access to all of them. How many do you go out of your way to consume? How many of them are ever known outside of a small group of people, barely or insufficiently large to sustain the author? Probably most of them. In the music world, everyone can 'publish' their work, with the delusion that they will be discovered and made famous. But in actual fact it mostly just dilutes the value of the people doing the actual good work, and certainly it dilutes the value of people putting in the years of time required to become highly proficient on an instrument, when they could just make dem beatz, yo.
 

Here's a few good ones I can recommend:



















;-)

droddey


The loudness wars was something driven by marketing, not by musical considerations. Then it went on so long that now you have a generation of kids who think that anything not flat-lined is somehow wrong. It's pretty pathetic, and another nail in music's coffin because it leads to less variety.

How would you explain the examples you yourself just posted in that other thread? Or Gotye? Or a whole slew of others?

Which ones were those? I don't remember which, but if I posted them most likely they are not remotely mainstream, and probably barely squeaking by.

I used to feel the same way as people who don't like the loudness wars but now I have changed my tune a bit. The reason why some put it down is they either don't have the skills or the tools to make masters loud and still sound great.

I did not have the tools either but now I do an I don't worry about it all. Making a great loud sounding master starts right back in the tracking and mixing stages and moves into the mastering phase. With a great compressor like the Smart C2 and limiter such as the PSP Xenon one can obtain very loud masters that compete directly with the best commercial recordings. The interesting thing is yes they look fairly heavily mastered visually but still sound outstanding. Now isn't that what counts.

I have seen recently the direct successful result of a well mastered EP. My son's girlfriend has moved to Melbourne from Perth and she is a great pop singer/songwriter. She produced a great EP in Perth before moving but got me to master it here. Mastering has made it sound killer, punchy and loud and it has been very well received by record people, agents, as well as radio stations and the like. The mastering has had something to do with it. It would not have been so well received if it had been left at the original volume it was mixed at. No way in the world, period. It would have sounded dull, soft and just totally lacking but the mastering changed all that. The industry will not go over and turn up the volume no matter how good the music is. They have just listened to something else that was loud, punchy and killer. They expect to put her CD in and hear the same thing. If it does not they could write it off too easily. Unfortunate but true.

Mastering is the final stage in music production and music production does not stop at the mix phase. I have also just mastered a hip hop CD as well recently and it also sounds killer. You should hear the original pre mastered tracks compared to the final. It is like cheese and chalk. The client is totally over the moon with the final result now. It is good to get great at mastering, it will elevate your music up to another level if done well and properly.

All the music that people talk about in the past as being not mastered are a bit wrong. Plenty of mastering took place before the vinyl cutting phase. That is where the original mastering engineers in white coats used to live! And they used EQ, compression and limiting just as we do now. (except perhaps not quite as much!)

Don't get me wrong I do agree with those who say it would be nice to stop at the K -14 phase perhaps and not go any further. Some EQ and compression is still great but without the limiting we have to do now. But it isn't like that so we have to get with the program and get on board with it. I doubt it will ever go backwards from where things are now. If you can't beat them join them! You might actually learn something new and that is more important than anything.

That's like saying you might learn something stealing cars. You probably will, but those are not skills I particularly want to have or that I feel are conducive to our society. Loud mixes are a marketing driven phenomenon, with no musical justification, and it destroys one of the primary sources of drama and variety in music, e.g. dynamics. I consider it to be without redeeming value, and well a lot worse than that, I consider it a redeeming value suckage device.

As to your argument that people don't like it because they don't know how to do it, that's clearly untrue. I don't have to know how to do it, I can listen to all the music out there which was done by people who do know to do it. If I don't like it, then it's not because of my own limitations, it's just because I don't like it. Though, how many of them are creating what they would WANT to create, as opposed to what they feel they have to create for marketing purposes?
 
Just for the record I reject the notion that mastering is something magical. It never was that before, it was about the limtations of the medium and making sure that the mix wasn't exceeding them, that levels were appropriate, bass wasn't excessive, etc.. Somehow, over the years, it's come to be believed that it's somehow a magical process. But it's not. I reject the notion that there's some guy out there who is somehow better than any mixer on the planet, and therefore they all have to send their stuff to him before it sounds right. That may have been true within the context of the original purpose of mastering, since most mixers weren't involved in the process of manufacturing the record. But there is no manufacturing of the record anymore.
 
You could send your mix to any qualified person and let them pass judgement on it with a fresh set of ears and ideas, and they could probably improve it, or at least make it equally as good on ways you didn't consider. But that's got nothing to do with mastering per se. I accept the fact that, if someone spends all their time figuring out how to get rid of dynamics, then they could clearly be better at it than me. But that's because I don't want to be good at getting rid of dynamics in the first place. I would rather be good at creating it.
 

droddey


Which ones were those? I don't remember which, but if I posted them most likely they are not remotely mainstream, and probably barely squeaking by.

The point, to me, is that not every single kid or young 'un is doing what you claim everyone is. And even then, the stuff I heard is not generally dance related...which a lot of what you are crabbing about is. 

My argument isn't that everyone in the world is doing stuff I think is bad. It's that stuff like what I posted has zero chance to ever become mainstream. The fact that they can put out Youtube videos is pretty meaningless. Everyone can, and it's not really much different any more than putting up flyers on a wall already filled with flyers, and which will cover yours up within half an hour of your walking away.

What is popular defines the music of the time, for better or worse, and it defines who can have a shot at success, and it also defines what kids will be exposed to, since most of them will not seek out alternatives for the most part. When basically all popular music is highly limited, highly edited, and extremely non-organic, it doesn't leave much room for anything else. Yeh, you might have the occasional exception, but that's not the point.

People like the ones I probably posted are locked out. They won't really even get a chance to be thrown at the wall and see if they stick, or at least probably not at any highly visible wall. They won't get significant investment, because they make music that wasn't created in a computer and completely denuded of dynamics.

And the really stupid thing is, if you make ridiculously limted music, it makes you in no what whatsoever stand out. It makes you sound like everything else, and you already have effectively zero chance in this over-supplied situation already. So it serves really no differentiating purpose, which was the whole reason it started to begin with. So we just live without dynamics for not reason. It doesn't even provide the benefit it was designed to provide.

The form of music mixing and final mastering that is loud and slamming for the whole duration is tiring and can easily be turned down. And when that happens it sounds like it is severely lacking something. I say modern and mixing/mastering is wasted in this situation. Plenty of old albums mixed and mastered this way too. But you don't have to do it. Use modern mastering techniques to create even more dynamic and exciting sounding productions. We use modern mastering techniques to take full advantage of the available dynamic range. 
 
What about a situation that still features a very dynamic mix. Lets shift it all back down and say the reference level is going to K-14 dB FS. This means the average rms level of our mix is going to be at this level. What SPL level do we equate this to. It could be 85 dB SPL but for say an exciting music mix playback we could make our ref level to be 95 dB SPL which is pretty decent level of SPL. (I love 95 by the way)

Now the music is going to average 95 dB SPL in the room. Back in the old days with vinyl there was a reference level going on in the groove but the medium did not have too much to offer after that. Once the groove was displacing about as much as it could the same ref level could easily also produce a decent SPL of the similar 95 dB SPL. 

Today if we are sitting at -14 dB FS and creating a room level of 95 dB SPL then the beauty of modern limiters and mastering technique is that I know that I have got a full and clean 14 dB up my sleeve if I feel like doing something at 109dB SPL! I would not do it often or for too long. How about use it as a factor in the music. Previous mediums offered little above the ref level but today we can create massive headroom if you want to.

Nothing to stop you from producing music that averages around -12 or even -10 dB FS. It will still sound way loud. Play it back at 95 dB SPL. But if you need to you can get a further 10 dB of level if you need it. Bam, up to 105 dB SPL. This is the time where the modern limiter does its thing and better than anything that has ever come before it. You can use the limiters so they are actually limiting less often. You can set them up so they are not working hard at all yet they are adding quite large amounts of volume to the mix. (Bob Katz in his great book on mastering often says modern digital processing is incredible and can sound fantastic)

I say it is getting better all the time. It is not getting worse. I am amazed at how good things are getting and sounding. There is just some bad and overused or poorly used digital processes. But there are also great and very dynamic and powerful sounding production that sounds like nothing that has come before it. Jazz is one of those areas. Some electronic music too. Not so much in the commercial vein but it is getting better in some respects there too. There is only one direction away from really loud dynamic-less mixes and that is over to incredible dynamic mixes. The better the music the better the production will often be. When the music is great you almost don't hear the production much at all.

Yeh, you CAN have lots of headroom, but the issue (to me) isn't really what you can do but what is actually being done generally in popular music, i.e. the music that the bulk of kids are listening to.

And the headroom argument is misleading, There was still lots of headroom back then because the average level was a lot lower. That's what the volume knob is for. There was way more in a practical sense than is in most modern popular music. This is easily proven by looking at waveforms from the 90s and before and comparing them to now.

I found the "dilution" argument de****able.

So I took a little time to cool off before I responded.

I think you have side stepped the issue that MOST PEOPLE ON THE PLANET MAKE MUSIC FOR THE PURE ENJOYMENT OF IT.

Most of those folks on Youtube... including me, are just posting stuff for the enjoyment of it.

For example; my 6 year old nephew says he liked watching me play guitar and sing an old country song that I use to sing to him when he was an infant. I'm a rock star!!! and my sister says it has inspired him to take his guitar lessons seriously.

Why do you think that is so bad?

I feel that your pre occupation with music making as an occupation is fueling a myopic point of view that focuses on something you define as bad while you are ignoring a cornucopia of benefits.

It doesn't seem as if you are reasoning reasonably. You are quite skilled at reasoning... but it's not persuasive. The full frontal assault on popular aesthetics is lacking in subtlety and dynamics and the claims you are making suggest an all out attitude of negativity when it seems as if it would be very, very simple, and a lot more effective, to focus on all that is good these days.




Have you recommended any new music to anyone lately?

That is the only practical way to elevate "stuff you like" to something that has a growing audience.





Here's a tune from our forums Songs section: http://www.reverbnation.c..pen_graph/song/12460110

Here's the thread: http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2627046

Now, I expect that you are going to respond with something like "Oh yeah, that's an obscure little song section on the backwaters of Cakewalk's forum... that proves my point that no one is finding out about these songs in this diluted market that has been flooded with badly made music"

So, I have a response ready for you if and when you make that claim: The song linked to was awarded a "National Award, the highest award in all languages among Indian films released this year".

So, we have a beautiful song, beautiful production, and a wonderfully receptive (and rather large) audience for such wonderful music.

I'd like to recommend that you listen to all the songs at that link... well, at the very least, I can share with you the fact that I personally found them very enjoyable. Perhaps you will too.


all the best,
mike

Why would you think that I would think that you singing to your kid is bad? It has nothing to do really with what I'm taking about.

I do regularly recommend music, when 'what are you listening to' type threads come up, which is what was being referred to above when he talked about stuff I'd posted I presume. But, the interesting thing about posting Youtube videos of the things you recommend is that you can see whether anyone is actually paying attention by watching the view counter. If you recommend something on a high traffic site like Gearslutz, where thousands of people will read the thread, and it's a video that has few views, then if anyone is actually bothering to even watch, the views would take a jump up, but they seldom do. There's just too much of it these days.

I've played the game of trying to see if I could get some attention onto a band I think is good and getting no attention, by mentioning them a lot and passing out specific video links. Try it and you'll see why it takes real marketing to get a band noticed, no matter how good they are. There's only so much room in the public's awareness. There used to be filters in place, a sort of farm system, in which bands of merit could bubble up by proving themselves. That doesn't exist anymore, and no one has the patience or time to listen to thousands of songs made by people in their bedrooms.
 
I personally think that those barriers back then were a good thing, even though I myself would likely have never gotten over them. The people who really wanted it and had the skills to back it up would get over them, and even then there still wasn't room for a tithe of them really in the wider public consciousness. Yes, sometimes that meant that if you made music way out of the current mainstream that you wouldn't get over those barriers, but it wouldn't matter anyway. If your music appeals to so few people, then your ability to post a video or song isn't going to help you. But, in the meantime, it's just one another hundred thousand songs or videos that clutter up the landscape.

And I've never argued that music isn't good just because it's posted here. There's often good music posted in these types of fora. Most of it gets heard by a small handful of people and that's it. That's not a problem or anything, just the way it is. But it does create a serious over-supply issue, which dilutes the value of music overall.

I found this a pretty good read for those that are interested and it's been my experience as well.

http://www.uaudio.com/blog/sos-feature-loudness-war/

Other than a few bands out there that are totally crushing everything, there's a difference between loud and loud and crushed. I mix out at -3dB with a little bus glue using the UAD Fatso. When I master, I end up at -0.1 averaging between -11 dB RMS and -15 dB RMS. Max RMS may hit -7 dB...sometimes lower. Now, in today's times for some of the older folks or even older engineers, the impact makes them think "it's loud so it's squashed" when in reality, none of my mixes are ever squashed to where you hear pumping and breathing, a lack of snare drum crack nor will you ever see this:

████████

████████

But right away because it may be loud, I can get a bad rap for it and have before. I remember someone comparing my stuff to Metallica to which it offended me and I had to provide proof that this just was not so. In my opinion there are quite a few people that are passing judgement on music that may be loud, as being non-dynamic because it doesn't sound like an old vinyl album to them. Just because something is loud doesn't mean it was ruined. If I'm doing a rock piece that hits hard, if it's supposed to hit hard, it doesn't need to be super dynamic. I'm not saying crush it...but there's IS a difference between loud and loud and crushed.

If I did a ballad, for sure I'm not going to take the same approach. But even with an average of -11 dB RMS to -15 dB RMS that may max at -7 dB RMS in a few spots, I'm not breaking any rules nor am I degrading the quality of my audio. When you start to see -4 dB RMS max and -7 dB RMS averages....then you worry.

To be honest, and I'm a guy stuck in the 70's and 80's....I really like the new technology as well as how things can sound at a louder volume for certain styles of music. For example, I wouldn't want to hear an orchestra or even Trans Siberian Orchestra super limited and squashed. But it doesn't bother me if Maroon 5 decides to make something hot. The new Van Halen album is pretty hot...but where they failed in my opinion was, they tried to make it analog sounding and hot...so it's loaded with mid-range congestion and other mud-esq artifacts that I wish weren't there. Having a warm sound is ok...but when you treat that warm sound with techniques of today, you have to back things down or that mud turns into distortion.

I'd not want to hear Pink Foyd crushed....but I don't mind if Disturbed does it. I'd not want to hear Alan Holdsworth, Gambale or some jazz trio all limited out. See, I think it depends on the music. Certain styles are ok being loud in my opinion because it actually adds to the impact as well as the aggression of the band. Metallica over-did it and ruined that St. Anger album in my opinion. The Guitar Hero cuts of that record are 100% better. But guess what? Like it or hate it, they made history as having the most horrible yet loudest album ever made. In this industry when people are talking about you, that's great advertisement. Whent they STOP, that's when you worry. :)

The other side of the coin is, I like the sound of music today better than I did years ago. I don't like the performances as much as years ago when you had to have talent as a player/singer to make it, but the instrument sounds themselves today are sounds I welcome. The new modern guitar tones are so sick, I appreciate them based on sickness levels. Bass guitar has really improved although I'll never be a fan of distortion on a bass. It has its place, but again....it can add impact even if you're not down with it.

Drum sounds today totally rock in my opinion. I'm so tired of snares and toms from the 60's to the 80's that sounded like punching card-board boxes. Let them ring...let's hear snare strainers and a little resonance instead of felt mufflers and tape/moon-gel all over the place. There are loads of sounds we either have to accept as a change in the times...or we don't and stay true to our roots. There is no right or wrong way...but acceptance is key in my opinion.

Mixes today: definitely louder than they need to be with 2-bus glue being used as 2-bus cement that is more for squashing than using it as a weapon for tonal characteristics. I rejected 6 mixes last week because of this. If someone is going to epoxy a mix and then send it to me to master it...they might as well finish the job themselves as they leave me no room to do anything other than try to further polish their turd.

Mastering as an art: You'll never see this side of it until you master something that was mixed correctly. The key to the art of mastering is when a mix is presented that allows the mastering engineer to mold, craft, design it. By the time an ME gets a mix these days, it's already more than pre-mastered. It's a shame they don't have many albums available for you to hear before they were mastered. You'd be quite surprised at just how much the ME did to make that record sound the way it does.

When a real engineer contracted by a label does a mix, he's mixing for common ground. He's not accentuating all those lows and all the stuff we that are one man operations do. He leaves the ME plenty of room to eq and raise the levels in increments. There is an art to that...it's called scuplting and it goes beyond "a little polish". You have to live it on this end of the fence to know what it's all about. But rest assured, you can't go by the songs you hear by common folks or those posting on forums. They are mastering before they even master because they are comparing to reference material that's already been mastered. Trust me when I tell you, unless the producer is going for something specific in at the mix stage, the ME is doing a lot more work than you think because he SHOULD receive a balanced mix that allows him to sculpt it into something amazing that is an art all in its own.

-Danny

You know, this is what has always bothered me about "getting to know your monitors by playing a range of reference material on them".

Every piece of music you pick to "learn your monitors" has already been mastered which will not put you in the right ballpark for producing a MIX.

So how do we compensate for this?

Just leaving enough headroom for the ME and not worrying about loudness, is a good starting point, but what about the tonal characteristics of your piece? Do you EQ it to get close to your reference?

Or, do you insert your own Mastering chain right at the outset and mix into it?

This has the advantage of being able to match tone AND loudness at the same time.



Genuine questions.

Oh, good question Jonesey.  I am eagerly waiting on a Jeff or Danny response to that one.

I guess I have always gone under the assumption that I should mix as balanced as I can and be vary conservative on the compression if I am mixing to have a ME finish my product.

you have a choice.

make it loud, just to compete with pro releases, which means you have squashed the crap out of your original mix, taking it somewhere you never really heard that way while you were tracking...

i call this the knee jerk reaction;


or


make it loud, because you tracked it that way throughout, that's the way you heard it, you limited almost every track, so nothing has any dynamics at all, everything is at the ceiling, but is well recorded and the arrangement allows for a  false sense of 'dynamics'


or


somewhere in between. 

Bristol_Jonesey


You know, this is what has always bothered me about "getting to know your monitors by playing a range of reference material on them".

Every piece of music you pick to "learn your monitors" has already been mastered which will not put you in the right ballpark for producing a MIX.

So how do we compensate for this? 

One obvious one is that, when you set up a monitoring environment so that you can control SPL, you will mark a few spots on your monitor controller's volume knob. One is the correct level for your mixing, i.e. for the K-14 or whatever type of scheme you want to use, so that you know the SPL in the room when your DAW meters are at whatever you choose as your reference dBFS level. If you are going to go further at the end and do some final master buss processing that brings things up to a higher RMS level, you can mark a spot for that, so that you remain at the same SPL at that higher RMS, so that you have a consistent reference and aren't fooled by the higher SPL when making comparisons.
 
You can also mark one for commercial CDs that have been pushed all the way to final levels, so that you can compare yours more easily against them. It's harder to do since you can't control RMS levels on commercial CDs you listen to. But you can provide an overall compensation in the same way that you do for your own mix and mixdown levels. If you really want to be sure you could always measure the CD's RMS levels and provide a few markings on your monitor controller for various final rough RMS levels or something. Or just adjust from that point a bit by ear based on how much you know the CD is squashed.
 

Re using reference material. 

You know, this is what has always bothered me about "getting to know your monitors by playing a range of reference material on them".  Every piece of music you pick to "learn your monitors" has already been mastered which will not put you in the right ballpark for producing a MIX. 

I find the exact opposite is true. If I am about to mix a hip hop track or a modern Jazz track the client will often say listen to this. I love the sound of this CD. So it means it has been well mixed and mastered and the EQ must be accurate. After all chances are it has been done in a very accurate environment.

I am switching this into the room and thinking how lovely this mix is so to me it is exactly in the ballpark for a good mix. You spend most time doing your own mix of course but the ref comes into its own switching to it for comparisons. It might be the reason I don't need ARC for example to be able to mix and master well. I think I switch to ref tracks more than Danny for example may. You stop listening to the sound of your monitors but rather you are listening now to the amount of say mid range present in your mix and the amount of mid range in the ref track. 

I listen to the EQ of the ref more I think. You can ignore how the dynamics are presented. For me it is about tone, the extent of the bass, how the mids are sounding and how much top end is there overall. For a Kurt Rosenwinkel album say the dynamics are going to be superlative. 

When you are using the K system you can keep your ref levels accurate and even. If I have a mix that has been unprocessed completely it will be sitting at my chosen ref levl eg -14 dB FS. If I apply some 2 buss glue compression over the mix the average rms level of the mix may go up but I make sure the output level of that processor is still operating at K -14 dB FS. The actual rms level of the mix has gone up in itself but the level flowing after that process remains the same. This is how I do my gain staging. The sound of the 2 buss glue compression is more important than getting the level up here.

Then on into EQ, the first stage of mastering. It is good to keep a mix at -14 because if you start boosting with the EQ and things the headroom is handy. I also can add some rms gain to the mix even within the EQ because often the signal is well clear of 0 db FS anyway. Compression next and it lifts the rms level up but I leave it up here. Then limiting adds the final volume lift I call it. I can average  K -7dB rms for the mix with the PSP Xenon not breaking up at all. 

You don't guess as to where the rms level of a commercial CD is either. You measure it. The is where the VU's come in handy too. If I import a ref track the rms level of that track can be measured. It is often 7 dB above my K -14 working ref level. So I need the limiter to add the final 4 or 5 dB. (compressor has added 2 to 3 dB as well) 

If each stage of the process only adds a lesser amount the total effect is big yet nothing individually is working that hard, the mix will not break up and sound bad. It is too easy to think that a very loud mix has to be distorted and lack dynamics. All I am saying is that it can be loud and very clean and have huge dynamics.

Bristol_Jonesey


You know, this is what has always bothered me about "getting to know your monitors by playing a range of reference material on them".

Every piece of music you pick to "learn your monitors" has already been mastered which will not put you in the right ballpark for producing a MIX.

So how do we compensate for this?

Just leaving enough headroom for the ME and not worrying about loudness, is a good starting point, but what about the tonal characteristics of your piece? Do you EQ it to get close to your reference?

Or, do you insert your own Mastering chain right at the outset and mix into it?

This has the advantage of being able to match tone AND loudness at the same time.



Genuine questions.

Great question that I knew would come up. :) For me, the object is a clean, clear mix that isn't over-accentuating anything. If it rumbles with lows, I'm using too much. If it's too warm and chocolatey....I'm using too much mids. If it's a bit bright, the highs are starting to kick.
 
See, all this is moot for guys like yourself that may be doing everything themselves. But for me since I like to at least think I know a little bit about this stuff as well as how I like to go about it, the mix is balanced....I'll master in the impact frequencies but I will not ruin the mix based on trying to mix from a reference.
 
Jeff is correct....I do not listen to much reference material. The reason being? I find it nearly useless for the simple fact that you cannot compare what a client has done (instrumentally speaking) to something that is professionally done. Sure, you can borrow the over-all sonics of the mix of a pro, but reference material done by a major label vs. Mr. Shu's all direct instruments and EZDrummer just isn't going to hold up. The drums will be off, the guitars will be off, the vocals will be off...to me it's just moot and we're wasting our time doing things like this to where you try for this with pin-point accuracy.
 
That's not to say that those that do it and are successful are wrong or out of their tree. What it means is...don't get too wrapped up in it because it ain't gonna help as much as you think unless you are using like instruments. I can't expect a Kansas drum sound if I used a kit that sounds like Fuel. Bands think you can magically make them sound like any band they want just because you examine reference material. I've even gone as far as using HAR-BAL to cop a curve and show a client how rediculous it is to even go here. When they heard what the curve sounded like on their material, they got a clue.
 
Jonesey: You sir, can probably rely on reference material more because you are getting some really trippy sounds that are well recorded in a classic rock/prog manner. When you can deliver the goods with your instrumentation, it's easier to say "ok, this is my band...and here's a band that we sort of would like to borrow from". There's no problem with that for guys like you. But trust me when I tell you, 8 times out of 10, someone comes to me that sounds like something else will bring a reference of something simply because they like it...and expect me to make them sound like that. If you use reference material at all, the stuff you are comparing to that reference material must have the flavor and be in the same ball park or it's just never going to work. Sure, you can sort of grab the guitar "aura" of something or like I said, the basic sonics going on...but to me, it's near impossible to do this when the instrumentation is soo different from the reference material. So, I stay away from it and create my own sound from each thing I master.
 
Will I compare it to stuff after? Sure because I'm checking highs, mids and lows to see how I stack up. But most people really go after this reference material where in my opinion, it shouldn't be that intense. You do a quick check and then you move on. The object is to find your sound and identity using your instruments. This can't be done while listening to something else the way people believe it can be. Well, I guess I shouldn't say that....I should say "the way *I* believe it because it just doesn't work for me and it's aggravating trying to capture the vibe of something that doesn't even exist in the material *I* am working on. Hope this answers it at least from my perspective. :)
 
-Danny