if you want more upclose sound you have to do it in your DAW not in the end when you master.
Mastering, how much should I limit ?
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- KVRist
- 41 posts since 25 Apr, 2008
as a trance producer if i limit too much my kick dynamics go away.. i cant limit more than 2-3db, that's it
if you want more upclose sound you have to do it in your DAW not in the end when you master.
if you want more upclose sound you have to do it in your DAW not in the end when you master.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 83 posts since 14 Jun, 2004
Hey, thanks for the replies.
In Trance and House music nowadays, the dynamics are more like shown in snapshot 3, even more squashed than that. This is how a tune of mine looks after i got it mastered by an engineer. (using real hardware compressors and stuff)
If you look at it you notice that the peaks are much smoother.
Yes, i know about the loudness war, and im a part of it, most music i listen to is like that.
I want my tunes to be heavily compressed and have a straight waveform.
But in order to do that i have to clear out the peaks, and im afraid if i limit too much i loose something.
In Trance and House music nowadays, the dynamics are more like shown in snapshot 3, even more squashed than that. This is how a tune of mine looks after i got it mastered by an engineer. (using real hardware compressors and stuff)
If you look at it you notice that the peaks are much smoother.
Yes, i know about the loudness war, and im a part of it, most music i listen to is like that.
I want my tunes to be heavily compressed and have a straight waveform.
But in order to do that i have to clear out the peaks, and im afraid if i limit too much i loose something.
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chicken muffin chicken muffin https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=137792
- Banned
- 998 posts since 28 Jan, 2007
as far as mastering goes. don't get to loud with your mix in the beginning of producing a song. stay at a medium level. the loudness comes in the mastering not the mixing. if you make your mix to loud too early, once you start to master your track you will find your self stepping in a deep puddle of mud 
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- KVRAF
- 4692 posts since 28 Jan, 2003 from In these very interwebs
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- KVRAF
- 2844 posts since 1 Jan, 2003
Thank you.Kim (esoundz) wrote:Nope. If you wanted it that loud, you should have played your instruments like that.chicken muffin wrote:the loudness comes in the mastering not the mixing.
Serious post coming up soon...
-Kim.
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chicken muffin chicken muffin https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=137792
- Banned
- 998 posts since 28 Jan, 2007
i don't agree with you kim... if your mastering, and you raise a single track to loud, it will start to get all distorted. and thats a fact. especially when using compressors. unless you know of some ubber sick mastering compressor that i obviously cant afford.Kim (esoundz) wrote:Nope. If you wanted it that loud, you should have played your instruments like that.chicken muffin wrote:the loudness comes in the mastering not the mixing.
Serious post coming up soon...
-Kim.
Last edited by chicken muffin on Sat May 31, 2008 4:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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- Boss Lovin' DR
- 14312 posts since 15 Mar, 2002 from the grimness of yorkshire
Ideally you should want any song to look like this;
You should be able to tell by looking at it what notes are there too, and what colour the singer's leotard is too. For instance, in the above clip, by studying the waveform I could easily tell you that song is 'Tarnce me lady one more time' by Paul Van Dick. The leotard was red.
You should be able to tell by looking at it what notes are there too, and what colour the singer's leotard is too. For instance, in the above clip, by studying the waveform I could easily tell you that song is 'Tarnce me lady one more time' by Paul Van Dick. The leotard was red.
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chicken muffin chicken muffin https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=137792
- Banned
- 998 posts since 28 Jan, 2007
btw, i just listed to horse head, and you way over compressed this. this is the distortion im talking about. when you make a track to loud. you get that the distorition that all over horse head...Kim (esoundz) wrote:Nope. If you wanted it that loud, you should have played your instruments like that.chicken muffin wrote:the loudness comes in the mastering not the mixing.
Serious post coming up soon...
-Kim.
http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/5/22/ ... %29%20.mp3 no distortion
Last edited by chicken muffin on Sat May 31, 2008 4:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
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- KVRian
- 868 posts since 2 Jan, 2003 from In the foothills of the Rocky Mountains
donkey tugger wrote:Ideally you should want any song to look like this;
You should be able to tell by looking at it what notes are there too, and what colour the singer's leotard is too. For instance, in the above clip, by studying the waveform I could easily tell you that song is 'Tarnce me lady one more time' by Paul Van Dick. The leotard was red.
"In a sky full of people, only some want to fly,
Isn’t that crazy?"
Isn’t that crazy?"
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- KVRer
- 13 posts since 25 May, 2008 from India
let me throw in a few points to clarify for some and to annoy others:
-in mastering limiters are not used for working on the audible dynamics. that is the job of compressors! limiters are used to cut the occasional peak that might have slipped into the final mix in transients or in frequency buildups. it's kinda "conditioning" the wave form by ironing out accidental peaks.....
-the ratio of a limiter is by default 1 : oo (infinite), everything else is called compression! different topic altogether.
-if you don't limit properly you will loose valuable headroom at best - in the worst case your CD player will skip even if the final mix is way under 0bB.
proceed like this:
-use a good brickwall limiter with several times oversampling. set limiter to fast attack, start at 0dB, then you slowly decrease the threshold till the indicators (light or input level meter) starts working. STOP THERE. then you INCREASE the threshold slowly and slightly so only the occasional extreme peak excites the limiter. thats your threshold setting.
the rest depends on the limiter you use. some have makeup gain, some do it automatically. doesn't matter.... render whatever you have there, then normalize to -0.3dB, even though a lot of people will not agree with that value.
make sure you stay in 32Bit till the very end of the production, then render down in a seperate process to 16bit using dithering.
to work on dynamics in mastering:
get good monitors, prepare the room properly, train your ears, learn about problems when working in the digital realm, practise applying multiband compression.
good luck
-in mastering limiters are not used for working on the audible dynamics. that is the job of compressors! limiters are used to cut the occasional peak that might have slipped into the final mix in transients or in frequency buildups. it's kinda "conditioning" the wave form by ironing out accidental peaks.....
-the ratio of a limiter is by default 1 : oo (infinite), everything else is called compression! different topic altogether.
-if you don't limit properly you will loose valuable headroom at best - in the worst case your CD player will skip even if the final mix is way under 0bB.
proceed like this:
-use a good brickwall limiter with several times oversampling. set limiter to fast attack, start at 0dB, then you slowly decrease the threshold till the indicators (light or input level meter) starts working. STOP THERE. then you INCREASE the threshold slowly and slightly so only the occasional extreme peak excites the limiter. thats your threshold setting.
the rest depends on the limiter you use. some have makeup gain, some do it automatically. doesn't matter.... render whatever you have there, then normalize to -0.3dB, even though a lot of people will not agree with that value.
make sure you stay in 32Bit till the very end of the production, then render down in a seperate process to 16bit using dithering.
to work on dynamics in mastering:
get good monitors, prepare the room properly, train your ears, learn about problems when working in the digital realm, practise applying multiband compression.
good luck
Last edited by TiX on Sat May 31, 2008 4:30 am, edited 2 times in total.
may all beings be happy
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- KVRAF
- 13128 posts since 7 May, 2006 from Southern California
What are you talking about? If the whole thing were over compressed the vocals would gain noticible volume during the decay of the drums. The pumping compression that is used is obviously used as an effect. Listen to the amount of dynmic range between the loudest and softest passages.chicken muffin wrote:btw, i just listed to horse head, and you way over compressed this. this is the distortion im talking about. when you make a track to loud. you get that the distorition that all over horse head...Kim (esoundz) wrote:Nope. If you wanted it that loud, you should have played your instruments like that.chicken muffin wrote:the loudness comes in the mastering not the mixing.
Serious post coming up soon...
-Kim.
http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/5/22/ ... %29%20.mp3 no distortion
Kim is one of the few people here I would take mixing/mastering advice from, not only does he know wht he's talking about he also shares his experience far more than I have patience for.
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- KVRian
- 527 posts since 10 Oct, 2006
Ah Tarnce s0ry i didn't understand it at first. Now i got it.Subtle wrote: In Trance and House music nowadays, the dynamics are more like shown in snapshot 3, even more squashed than that.
Yes, i know about the loudness war, and im a part of it,
I want my tunes to be heavily compressed and have a straight waveform.
But in order to do that i have to clear out the peaks, and im afraid if i limit too much i loose something.
We all know it at kvr too: the war of lud is so far an old story, today we've to push da red-master so it clip-hot-chili-pepper far loud than 0dbfs..
Last edited by tonAP on Sat May 31, 2008 4:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRAF
- 4692 posts since 28 Jan, 2003 from In these very interwebs
The distortion in Horse Head was intentional. I added most of the obvious audible distortion in the mix, not in mastering. It's the sound. Listen to that piano! That snare!chicken muffin wrote:btw, i just listed to horse head, and you way over compressed this. this is the distortion im talking about. when you make a track to loud. you get that the distorition that all over horse head...Kim (esoundz) wrote:Nope. If you wanted it that loud, you should have played your instruments like that.chicken muffin wrote:the loudness comes in the mastering not the mixing.
Serious post coming up soon...
-Kim.
There are problems with the mix, but distortion is not one of them.
-Kim.
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chicken muffin chicken muffin https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=137792
- Banned
- 998 posts since 28 Jan, 2007
i don't care what you say. the levels are off too. some of the parts are too loud. and the vocals are too in your face as are some other partsjustin3am wrote:What are you talking about? If the whole thing were over compressed the vocals would gain noticible volume during the decay of the drums. The pumping compression that is used is obviously used as an effect. Listen to the amount of dynmic range between the loudest and softest passages.chicken muffin wrote:btw, i just listed to horse head, and you way over compressed this. this is the distortion im talking about. when you make a track to loud. you get that the distorition that all over horse head...Kim (esoundz) wrote:Nope. If you wanted it that loud, you should have played your instruments like that.chicken muffin wrote:the loudness comes in the mastering not the mixing.
Serious post coming up soon...
-Kim.
http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/5/22/ ... %29%20.mp3 no distortion
Kim is one of the few people here I would take mixing/mastering advice from, not only does he know wht he's talking about he also shares his experience far more than I have patience for.
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- KVRAF
- 2844 posts since 1 Jan, 2003
I agree. I wish I could pay Kim to come to my place and critique the hell out of my mixes. I've saved most of his posts to my HD.justin3am wrote:What are you talking about? If the whole thing were over compressed the vocals would gain noticible volume during the decay of the drums. The pumping compression that is used is obviously used as an effect. Listen to the amount of dynmic range between the loudest and softest passages.chicken muffin wrote: btw, i just listed to horse head, and you way over compressed this. this is the distortion im talking about. when you make a track to loud. you get that the distorition that all over horse head...
http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/5/22/ ... %29%20.mp3 no distortion
Kim is one of the few people here I would take mixing/mastering advice from, not only does he know wht he's talking about he also shares his experience far more than I have patience for.
chicken muffin, you might want to relax a bit, wait for a reply, and just read and learn. How about we don't let this thread derail into stupid defensive arguments?