To funny....I was just finishing up remixing my latest tune for the 10th time or so. (which is still early in my process because I'm an idiot) but......it's amazing what a difference lowering the bass guitar just a tad in the mix can do for your over all volume. I'm not an expert, but I like to think I'm pretty decent.....but I can say for sure that if something is out of wack mix wise, it will definitely throw the volume of your master off. Especially the low end.
If all the source sounds are clean, clear and have nice transients and energy.
If the levels are well balanced.
If the entire orchestral range is used.
If nothing is fighting with anything else.
Then that mix will probably master to a level of clarity and perceived loudness you are looking for.
I few things that you can do in the mix that makes a loud master more easily attainable.
1. cutting out space in the frequency spectrum for each instrument.
2. Sidechaining or volume automation on instruments that share the same frequency range. "ducking" the bass with the kick, for example.
3. tasteful compression that preserves transients.
4. parallel compression
5. panning elements across the stereo field instead of having everything up the center
6. HPF on every sound that doesn't require low frequency energy.
I've been using these methods along with some other tricks and been having pretty good results. For example here's a track I just finished producing, mixing, and mastering. It's pretty loud.
For the most part, great mixes are easy to get loud and if they aren't, it's probably because the mix is better off not being loud. This is one of the lesser spoken about driving forces behind the loudness wars. Mixing engineers (not just A&R guys and label guys) want their stuff to be loud because it implies they mixed it well enough to be ABLE to be loud. The problem is that whatever the mix lacks in loudness potential has to be made up in a compromising way, whereas a truly great mix is easy to master to commercial levels. I generally find that my better mixes get loud easier, and if there is something in the mix that is lacking, loudness is harder to achieve. It's back to the drawing board for the mix at that point!
The truth is that if major label albums get less loud (which many have) then so will all of the other releases. But given that a good mix gets loud pretty easy anyway, I don't see this happening any time soon. As long as the mastering process isn't doing damage to the audio and the music appeals to the listener, I couldn't care less how loud a record is. It's when it sounds forced to be overly loud that it can be fatiguing to the listener. On the other side, sometimes records can sound underwhelming if problems in the mix stop the record from being loud enough. This isn't ideal either, but the mixes are to blame, not the master.
imho it starts earlier - in the production stage
the way you collect bass/kick relation, other instruments,
arrangement - this all counts,
btw....aiming at LOUD just for purpose seems to me kind of weird.....
maybe artist should aim at more artistic form then LOUD?
just my humble opinion
peace
Everybody else has pretty much covered it, though I disagree with the idea of "carving" space for instruments & vocals as that leads to very artificial sounding mixes. Making sure no particular frequency or frequency range dominates the mix is a good idea, though.
I'll also take this opportunity to say that "bass guitar" has six strings, is tuned like a guitar but an octave lower and has a shorter scale than the instrument everybody calls "bass guitar" which is an electric contrabass viol.
On the comment about it starting with production, that's totally true and even in the writing stage. You have to have a good arrangement and good recording before it can be mixed as such.
If all the source sounds are clean, clear and have nice transients and energy.
If the levels are well balanced.
If the entire orchestral range is used.
If nothing is fighting with anything else.
Then that mix will probably master to a level of clarity and perceived loudness you are looking for.
I would only add that proper panning is also important.
imho it starts earlier - in the production stage
the way you collect bass/kick relation, other instruments,
arrangement - this all counts,
btw....aiming at LOUD just for purpose seems to me kind of weird.....
maybe artist should aim at more artistic form then LOUD?
just my humble opinion
peace
Definitely! It all starts with the right arrangement...
...
I'll also take this opportunity to say that "bass guitar" has six strings, is tuned like a guitar but an octave lower and has a shorter scale than the instrument everybody calls "bass guitar" which is an electric contrabass viol.
Well in "muso" terms maybe..
Most people i know call it "the dad guitar"!
1) Clip the drums. Heavily (many times sounds even better with good saturation).
2) Clip/limit stuff with a lot of transients.
3) Cut/shelve lower frequencies on individual channels/instruments (adds loudness and clarity). I many times cut vocals and guitars etc. ~200-300Hz.
4) Stereo field placement, panning (also adds clarity).
I usually punch this to maybe +6-7db with a limiter to get commercial level mixes.
1) Clip the drums. Heavily (many times sounds even better with good saturation).
2) Clip/limit stuff with a lot of transients.
3) Cut/shelve lower frequencies on individual channels/instruments (adds loudness and clarity). I many times cut vocals and guitars etc. ~200-300Hz.
4) Stereo field placement, panning (also adds clarity).
I usually punch this to maybe +6-7db with a limiter to get commercial level mixes.
Plenty of headroom at every possible stage, at every possible point (starting with tracking levels, as far too many overdrive their input stage trying to get "hot" signals on the way in).
In any case, it's almost universal here that the mixes that come in the "quietest" (otherwise known as "at normal volume" because everything was done right in the first place) that come out the loudest...
1) Clip the drums. Heavily (many times sounds even better with good saturation).
2) Clip/limit stuff with a lot of transients.
3) Cut/shelve lower frequencies on individual channels/instruments (adds loudness and clarity). I many times cut vocals and guitars etc. ~200-300Hz.
4) Stereo field placement, panning (also adds clarity).
I usually punch this to maybe +6-7db with a limiter to get commercial level mixes.
That's a great way to make people's eyes water and have an unmasterable project at the very least. You do bring up a good point, though. Most people put the mics too close to the sources, so there's a build-up of low frequencies due to proximity effect. When I started getting singers, guitars etc. further away from the mics, all of a sudden, I stopped needing EQ to "fix" mixes. EQ became a "spice" instead.
That's a great way to make people's eyes water and have an unmasterable project at the very least. You do bring up a good point, though. Most people put the mics too close to the sources, so there's a build-up of low frequencies due to proximity effect. When I started getting singers, guitars etc. further away from the mics, all of a sudden, I stopped needing EQ to "fix" mixes. EQ became a "spice" instead.
Depends on the material you're working on. If you're dealing with stuff with more traditional instruments, let's say drums-bass-guitar-singer it's easier. When you're dealing with more complex stuff, let's say, 3-4 pads, sequences, highly layered drums, tons of reverb etc etc. things get a little more complex and stuff tends to stack up around low mids.
Many vocal/"solo" preamps I use usually dip the lows enough anyway, so there's no real need for low shelving.
Clipping the drums is also completely fine, easy way to keep the final mix compression pumping the whole mix too much.
Plenty of headroom at every possible stage, at every possible point (starting with tracking levels, as far too many overdrive their input stage trying to get "hot" signals on the way in).
In any case, it's almost universal here that the mixes that come in the "quietest" (otherwise known as "at normal volume" because everything was done right in the first place) that come out the loudest...
Yes this is what I forgot to say. Haha. I suppose I take it for granted that everyone gives themselves plenty of headroom and runs things low on the inputs, plugins etc.
But yes that is how you get nice clean sounds, even if its distorted it can still be clean and clear. Run things hot and you start to get mush.
roll off under 31 hrtz and over 18k, see if that helps.... hit ur master at -3 and then limit roughly -3gr... i neva go over -3 db gr and my tunes are loud enough... kick can be high passed a lot more than you would think! same with sour snare.... sidechain other heavy elemnts ex: bass, synth, pads... notch out freqs that conflict ex: vocals need notched at 2k for snare to peak... simple and small things plus arrangement.
Let me put it this way: I've been mastering for a while now and I've gotten stuff where the mixer has limited and or clipped the tracks in order to get it louder. They consistently cannot be made as loud nor sound as clean at high levels as the mixes I've gotten where every care was taken to avoid degrading the signal and avoiding clutter. I've tried mixing stuff myself, using light limiting here & there and or allowing some clipping because I've heard several people say that such techniques allow for hotter masters with less noticeable distortion. All I can say is that at least in my experience, it either makes no difference or harms the final result. The mastering engineers I know personally, who know their stuff, like John S. and Bob K. say the same thing. Even light buss compression (not limiting), which is largely accepted among mixers can make the mastering engineer's job a lot harder when not done well.
Well, the truth is that clipping heavy transients (such as drums) can easily lower the final peak level a couple of dB. And many times "analog" (modelling) clipping sound is even desirable. I've found out that limiting really kills the drums very different way than clipping does.
The idea is that when i.e. drums peak in the mixdown, the limiter doesn't pull the whole mix down because of the peaks. That's my experience.
But we're talking about (super) loud mixes here, not sound quality, so if one wants more natural sounding mixes, don't clip. Also, i don't usually use high cut on the master, i try to cut individual tracks/instruments (such as hi-hats).
That's only true to an extent. For instance, if you clipped a bass drum (I see this A LOT), sure the average level is increased, because it's been flat-topped. If there's tone shaping after the clipping stage (and there probably will be), phase rotation brings the peak back, but you still have the audible damage from clipping. It's also safe to assume that other things will be mixed with the drums as well, which also adds to the crest ratio. You wind up getting very little increase in level from such practices, which means more limiting & clipping in the mastering stage, which just does more audible damage on top of the already nails-on-chalkboard-like sound.
Here's one such example. This mix was clipped in the mix stage and the mere DC blocking filter was enough to cause the phase shift in purple. That peak caused by phase rotation reduces the maximum level of the master by about 3dB vs. if the mastering engineer had done it. I applied a -25 degree (or so) phase shift to rotate that plateau back to where I could gain some advantage in green. Not many mastering engineers will do this. Most mastering engineers will just try to clip/limit it again, causing more audible damage. I got lucky in this case as it doesn't often work equally on the whole mix.
Where's the advantage to the mix engineer clipping the waveform? In this case, he WANTED a distorted, gritty sound, but I've seen worse clipping in other projects where loudness was the goal. The result is a master that can't be as clean or as hot as the stuff I do on a regular basis where the mix engineer didn't try to do anything for the sake of loudness.
I don't hard clip in mastering, BTW, but some soft clipping reduces the peaks nicely without completely destroying all information in the top 6dB of the mix. Follow that with a high quality limiter and there's no reason to not get a competitive level that still sounds cleaner than most current masters. Of course, I flat out turn down clients that want me to destroy their mixes for the sake of loudness. I love what I do too much to create something I hate. Bringing up the levels is one thing, shredding the sound to the point that nobody will want to listen to it is another. At any rate, the people handling the replay choose their volume, not you. Soundcheck is making this stupid, destructive, childish game irrelevant any way.
For the record, I 've used a hard limiter on some individual tracks, but that was for sonic reasons. For instance, once I had a live recording where the bass drum was so heavily deadened and so badly compressed on the way into the DAW, there was just a 10ms click and no drum sound. A hard limiter with a 10ms release was merely what it took to get some body out of the sound.
I don't think he's not talking about the Snare, I think he's talking about the SnR - Signal to Noise. There is a lot of hiss on that track.
You're right I misunderstood. Yea I guess it's pretty noisey. thanks I'll probably do some gating or something to clean that up once I mix it down with the vocals. Appreciate the input
My own productions are middle-of-the-road classic rock, more Eagles than Led Zep. My busier songs end up with mixes peaking at -6dB with RMS around 12dB (sometimes lower). I don't know if a proper mastering engineer would consider this too smashed for a non mastered mix. All I know is that they sound nothing like modern CDs. Anyway, during the final pass I tend to put on an L1 around -9dB so that I can check how it sounds peaking at 0dB and limiting around 3dB. Honestly, they sound like s***. But they are louder. :-)
My own productions are middle-of-the-road classic rock, more Eagles than Led Zep. My busier songs end up with mixes peaking at -6dB with RMS around 12dB (sometimes lower). I don't know if a proper mastering engineer would consider this too smashed for a non mastered mix. All I know is that they sound nothing like modern CDs. Anyway, during the final pass I tend to put on an L1 around -9dB so that I can check how it sounds peaking at 0dB and limiting around 3dB. Honestly, they sound like s***. But they are louder. :-)
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