Mastering Inside The Mix

[SeriousPancakes]

You've got it down. Just learn EQs and you're pretty much set

[trillz]

Originally Posted by Reem703

I'm starting to like to master inside the mix. I am quite new to the sonnox limiter and inflator. I have the inflator before limiter set at 100% and


limiter

soft knee 0, 0.05ms attack, 1.00ms, 18+ input gain, 80% enhance,-0.2 output, auto comp IN, dither 24 bit, dither type TPDF.


soft knee 0, 0.05ms attack, 1.00ms, 18+ input gain(gets my mix to about -0.2), 80% enhance,-0.2 output, auto comp IN, dither 24 bit, dither type TPDF.

I mean it sounds fine to me/nothing in the red clipping, but would this be overdoing the settings? Just curious sense i'm getting used to the whole mastering thing.I was using the L2 but this sounds smoother. Just want to put a little DIY master on mixtape tracks and other works.

IMHO, +18 on input gain is too high. your squashing your mix

[Reem703]

I'm going to see if i can get it louder without having to push it that high.

[Will1970]

Originally Posted by Reem703

I'm starting to like to master inside the mix. I am quite new to the sonnox limiter and inflator. I have the inflator before limiter set at 100% and


limiter

soft knee 0, 0.05ms attack, 1.00ms, 18+ input gain, 80% enhance,-0.2 output, auto comp IN, dither 24 bit, dither type TPDF.


soft knee 0, 0.05ms attack, 1.00ms, 18+ input gain(gets my mix to about -0.2), 80% enhance,-0.2 output, auto comp IN, dither 24 bit, dither type TPDF.

I mean it sounds fine to me/nothing in the red clipping, but would this be overdoing the settings? Just curious sense i'm getting used to the whole mastering thing.I was using the L2 but this sounds smoother. Just want to put a little DIY master on mixtape tracks and other works.

What you're doing isn't mastering!

[mikebailey92]

Originally Posted by Will1970

What you're doing isn't mastering!

True. do some research into the other aspects of mastering... there is much more to it than just limiting something

[Reem703]

Originally Posted by Will1970

What you're doing isn't mastering!

Well i said these were the last two in my chain, i do also have Eq, comp, Eq, multi comp, widener, inflator, limiter but i was just specifically talking about the inflator and limiter.

[PopularDemand]

Originally Posted by Reem703

Well i said these were the last two in my chain, i do also have Eq, comp, Eq, multi comp, widener, inflator, limiter but i was just specifically talking about the inflator and limiter.

There is no need to do all of that in the mixing stage where you have access to the individual tracks. Plus, nothing good will come from all of those plug-ins in series unless you have superior knowledge of what you are getting from each and their interactions on an already printed stereo mix. The widening process is very easy to do in the mixing stage and can cause serious damage on the 2bus. Mastering engineers use other tricks to create subtle widening and on proper mixes they use very little processing.

Watch the latest Pensado's place w/ Jason Schweitzer. Jason talks about being called in to help with a mix where it was already mixed by another engineer and they were having unexplained issues. The first thing he did was bypass the 6 plug-ins on the mixbus and the mix opened up and all the issues were gone.

[Reem703]

I only have access to the vocals and just the 2tracks unfortunately. I turned down the inflator to about 12% and the enhance on the limiter to like 20%. I wouldn't say it's usually quiet. When you have a 2 track you have to turn it down to about 12-10dbs. The vocals are set at zero. Without the limiter it peaks at about 10 or 9 but with limiter gets to -0.2. I actually hooked it up to my car stereo system and it translated very well, but without the plugs on master, it sounded muddy as all hell/blanket over track. Only plugins I mix into is a comp on the buss, then after im done, thats when I add the other things.

[CJ Mastering]

Numbers and settings mean nothing. If those settings sound good to you and your happy with it, then your good to go.

Cj

[Will1970]

Originally Posted by Reem703

Well i said these were the last two in my chain, i do also have Eq, comp, Eq, multi comp, widener, inflator, limiter but i was just specifically talking about the inflator and limiter.

If you need to put so much on it while you have access to the full mix and individual tracks IMO you'd better opt for an another solution to sculpt the track to your liking.

IMO 'Mastering inside the mix' is a 'Contradictio in terminis'

[Reem703]

Originally Posted by Will1970

If you need to put so much on it while you have access to the full mix and individual tracks IMO you'd better opt for an another solution to sculpt the track to your liking.

IMO 'Mastering inside the mix' is a 'Contradictio in terminis'

I only have access to individual vocals tracks, not the stems/tracks out of the instrumental.

[Will1970]

Originally Posted by Reem703

I only have access to individual vocals tracks, not the stems/tracks out of the instrumental.

That can be difficult to do. Why not use some 'mastering'tools on the instrumental to create that spot for the vocals to sit in?

[dmarz45]

Originally Posted by trillz

IMHO, +18 on input gain is too high. your squashing your mix

yea +18 is way too much. I only use +6 at the most. Enhance at 20% on Sonnox Oxford. But honestly, T-Racks Brickwall Limiter sounds better than the Oxford Limiter I think.

[Will1970]

Originally Posted by dmarz45

yea +18 is way too much. I only use +6 at the most.

The inputgainknob and the value you use is completely dependent on how hot your signal-levels are to begin with. If for example your peaklevel is -12db, you'll need to crank the inputlevel by at least +12db in order for the limiter to grab the signal. These numbers mean nothing without seeing the whole picture.