Sonic Timeworks Mastering Compressor...New Approach ???

[Torben]

If loudness is your only objective I am with bmanic here; the best thing to do is to clip the audio card or use a hardware clipper. It is not solely a "psychoacustical effect of 'loudness'" as bmanic says as there are 3dB more RMS power (loudness) in a square wave than a sine wave and if we take into consideration that our ears are more sensitive in the mid and high area a clipped signal sounds maybe 6+ dB louder than a undistorted signal. This is in no way a recommended way to treat audio, but if the only objective is loudness this is the way to go. To those who says that the MPL-1 are not fast enough on transients I would recommend you to read the comprehensive manual that will suggest how to make it more aggressive; it can actually release down to a couple of milliseconds on transients with the right adjustment. I am sorry we did not make presets as that could have avoided this myth. If that is not low enough release time you are probably better off with a clipping device.

But why not focus on making things sound good in stead of destroying it for a couple of more dB's?

Torben

[Len]

But why not focus on making things sound good in stead of destroying it for a couple of more dB's?

Torben

Because, Torben, while you only have to sell plugins, we have to sell music!

[Torben]

But why not focus on making things sound good in stead of destroying it for a couple of more dB's?

Torben

Because, Torben, while you only have to sell plugins, we have to sell music!

Yep, but there is a limit to how many CD's of squarewaves we need At least, I practically never buy new CD's because I can't stand the distorted dynamicless modern sound but I enjoy listening to my CD's from the 90's.

Torben

[moonlite]

I'd say that for loud mastering, EQing is most important of all. Especially that critical low end from 150hz and down. It's where most of the energy in modern music is and that's what creates problems for the limiter.

hmm, i've been looking into eq:s lately as you maybe have noticed, trying to figure out which one(s) to buy .. so just out of interest, what would you consider the absolutely best vst eq(s) for this exact job?

also, could you give some pointers to the workflow of "flattening out" (?) the bass before limiting, without sacrifying - any - (if possible) "deepness" and bottom-end. just for clarity: i mean the psychoacoustical percetion of "deepness" more than actual measurable volume ratio between the different bands =)

thanks =)

oh, and btw, could this da/ad-style clipping be done with my rme hdsp 9632? are the dac:s good enough? (the quality of the dacs were sole the reason i payed so much for a soundcard) .. i mean, could i get "better" results with my rme than with ozone in your opinion?

[TotcProductions]

Hmm...what ever happened to Timeworks. I really liked their CompressorX plug.

[bmanic]

To those who says that the MPL-1 are not fast enough on transients I would recommend you to read the comprehensive manual that will suggest how to make it more aggressive; it can actually release down to a couple of milliseconds on transients with the right adjustment.

Hmm.. Pure "clipping limiters" are still much faster than a couple of milliseconds. They are kind of instant, which is a requirement for some genres.

Maybe update the demo version and include a preset which produces the fastest release?

Note: MPL-1 is not a bad limiter even with this limitation (no pun inteded!). It's just different. End of story. No need to be so defensive.

Cheers!
bManic

[bmanic]

hmm, i've been looking into eq:s lately as you maybe have noticed, trying to figure out which one(s) to buy .. so just out of interest, what would you consider the absolutely best vst eq(s) for this exact job?

What I meant with using proper EQing is that you should know/hear how to equalise the track to avoid problems with limiting. To hear you need a good acoustically treated room and good monitors. The eq plugin itself is not important at all. Any of the rather high quality freebies will do just fine (Electri-Q, Nyquist EQ, IIEQ, etc.)

also, could you give some pointers to the workflow of "flattening out" (?) the bass before limiting, without sacrifying - any - (if possible) "deepness" and bottom-end. just for clarity: i mean the psychoacoustical percetion of "deepness" more than actual measurable volume ratio between the different bands =)

This is one of the hard things and I'm still trying to learn it myself. What I think is the solution is to have a very even bass frequency response on whatever sounds that create the bass in the track. This can be either in the mid channel or side channel or a good balance of both together. A kind of typical "home mixing" low end is too much of 70 to 110Hz, instead of proper balance from 40 to 60hz. This is natural as most people don't have monitors nor rooms that accurately represent these low frequencies. Also, it seems like the 70 to 110 range is kind of a nasty magic frequency range where most people have serious acoustical problems. The range corresponds to the typical bedroom/basement size that people tend to have their home studios in. One solution to this is to build proper bass traps.

A cheap solution for checking the bass is to learn a quality piece of headphones and how to use Voxengo SPAN or any good frequency analyser. Then one should also try to learn the room and NOT always mix so that the song sounds perfect but rather so that it sounds like some professional reference mix. Resist the urge to cut away that extra 'mud' or to boost 'lacking bass' if you know that your room has problems with those frequencies. Double check on headphones, tripple check with an analyser and quadrupple check with a professional reference mix. Finally, get down on your knees and pray that you got it right!

oh, and btw, could this da/ad-style clipping be done with my rme hdsp 9632? are the dac:s good enough? (the quality of the dacs were sole the reason i payed so much for a soundcard) .. i mean, could i get "better" results with my rme than with ozone in your opinion?

In short, no. I've even posted a RME clipped example that old limiter shootout thread. It's by far the most horrible example of them all. The RME does NOT distort nicely, not at all. It's harsh and nasty, avoid at all cost!

Cheers!
bManic

[moonlite]

oh, and btw, could this da/ad-style clipping be done with my rme hdsp 9632? are the dac:s good enough? (the quality of the dacs were sole the reason i payed so much for a soundcard) .. i mean, could i get "better" results with my rme than with ozone in your opinion?

In short, no. I've even posted a RME clipped example that old limiter shootout thread. It's by far the most horrible example of them all. The RME does NOT distort nicely, not at all. It's harsh and nasty, avoid at all cost!

Cheers!
bManic

yeah, i guess it's not really designed for that ..

what about the eq question?

[bmanic]

See my earlier reply. I edited some more content into it.

Cheers!
bManic

[moonlite]

thanks =)

[mark4man]

Man...

You guys sure as hell know your stuff, that's for sure. You really threw me on the L2, tho...I always thought there was a compression stage chained to the limiter (will have to go back & have a look.) But continuing on the topic of multistage mastering...isn't that the way the STC-8 (Crane Song) is set up; compression stage > limiter stage? I know the focus here is moving away from convenient one-stop shopping, but...

And thanks everyone for broadening the discussion in that way...I needed that. I'm so used to achieving loudness in the workstation & then whacking off the top...but that's not always plausible.

See...project studio musicians have been spoiled by the modern floating-point DAW...we get to hear that extra loudness in our mixes (comparable to that of a moderately mastered, commercially released CD) without the distortion. I'll run all my tracks legal, but of course the summed signal will bust the ceiling at the stereo bus by 4.5dB to 6dB. The problem then (for me, at least), is getting that louder, floating-point mix (the sound of which I'm completely happy with) to a legal fixed-integer stereo .wav. When I get a mix I'm really happy with, I sometimes don't even want compression coloration on it...I just want exactly what I hear to be magically transformed to red book audio...which is why my quest took me in the direction of transparent limiting.

But as you're all saying, getting there involves a more complex chain (& working that chain correctly.)

All good advice..food for thought.

Thanks again,

mark4man

[Torben]

To those who says that the MPL-1 are not fast enough on transients I would recommend you to read the comprehensive manual that will suggest how to make it more aggressive; it can actually release down to a couple of milliseconds on transients with the right adjustment.

Hmm.. Pure "clipping limiters" are still much faster than a couple of milliseconds. They are kind of instant, which is a requirement for some genres.

That's what I suggested; if loudness is your only objective then use a clipper. I do not agree that clipping is required for some genres but some genres might not suffer as much from clipping as others. To be exact; if the music is dominated by distorted guitar etc. like heavy rock you can get away with more distortion in the mastering process.

Maybe update the demo version and include a preset which produces the fastest release?

Sure we will!

Note: MPL-1 is not a bad limiter even with this limitation (no pun inteded!). It's just different. End of story. No need to be so defensive.

No one is defensive here. I am just correcting a misunderstanding that are spreading. The MPL-1 Pro can be fast with the right settings.

Torben

[bmanic]

Ok. I misunderstood.

Cheers!
bManic