Mastering help - URGENT

[bmanic]

First of all:

You can't get proper opinions from anybody here unless you provide the ORIGINAL file as a comparison. None of the things we hear can be commented on before we have the original file you sent to mastering as reference.

So, as long as you understand this, here are my opinions on the song as a whole in terms of audio fidelity:

- It's quite over processed sounding.. but again, this may be your mix that is the problem, not the master. Impossible to tell without the original as reference.

- Yes the bass is quite saturated and there's a lot of not at all musical pumping happening (meaning the pumping isn't properly in time with the track and instead sounds rather "nervous"). Again, could be your original mix that is the problem here. Impossible to tell.

- Yes, there IS some quite severe clipping on various mid frequency elements towards the end of the soundcloud snippet.. most clearly heard where you have some pad/delay thing happening slightly panned to the right.


Mastering is always a two way street and needs good communication. So unless you are getting good back and forth communication with the person you used for mastering then you may as well request a refund and do it yourself or use some AI mastering service. The whole point of doing mastering, which seems to be completely forgotten in this day and age, is to get a non-biased 2nd opinion and thus a reliable unbiased final polish to the mix so that it plays well on as many audio systems as possible. And yes, for some genres (and clients) it's all about getting it loud while doing as little damage to the original mix as possible.

You should get a refund and master it yourself.
"Mastering" these days just involves exporting the track at the proper LUFS for the particular target streaming service(s). A monkey could do that. If you don't have a monkey, use a preset.

It won't come out any worse, either way.

.. yeah.. no. But that is indeed what a completely unprofessional mastering engineer would do and think, and indeed a monkey could do that. I highly recommend not paying monkeys.

[camheine]

First of all:

You can't get proper opinions from anybody here unless you provide the ORIGINAL file as a comparison. None of the things we hear can be commented on before we have the original file you sent to mastering as reference.

So, as long as you understand this, here are my opinions on the song as a whole in terms of audio fidelity:

- It's quite over processed sounding.. but again, this may be your mix that is the problem, not the master. Impossible to tell without the original as reference.

- Yes the bass is saturated and there's a lot of not at all musical pumping happening (meaning the pumping isn't properly in time with the track and instead sounds rather "nervous"). Again, could be your original mix that is the problem here. Impossible to tell.


Mastering is always a two way street and needs good communication. So unless you are getting good back and forth communication with the person you used for mastering then you may as well request a refund and do it yourself or use some AI mastering service. The whole point of doing mastering, which seems to be completely forgotten in this day and age, is to get a non-biased 2nd opinion and thus a reliable unbiased final polish to the mix so that it plays well on as many audio systems as possible. And yes, for some genres (and clients) it's all about getting it loud while doing as little damage to the original mix as possible.

You should get a refund and master it yourself.
"Mastering" these days just involves exporting the track at the proper LUFS for the particular target streaming service(s). A monkey could do that. If you don't have a monkey, use a preset.

It won't come out any worse, either way.

.. yeah.. no. But that is indeed what a completely unprofessional mastering engineer would do and think, and indeed a monkey could do that. I highly recommend not paying monkeys.

Yeah so as I asked before, happy to provide an unmastered version, but I couldn't upload the files here because it said they went over the limit. How can I get around this?

[bmanic]

Add it to google drive / dropbox / whatever and provide a direct link here.

Btw. I edited my post above with some more thoughts. There's definitely clipping that can be heard on the mid level sounds towards the end of the clip, from about 0:12 onwards you can hear some typical clipping artifacts that happen when the bass frequencies clip and thus modulate the other stuff as well.

Just out of curiosity. What did the Short Term LUFS end up being on the mastered track? You can use the free Youlean Loudness Meter to find out (though most DAWs have this functionality built in now as far as I know).

[camheine]

Okay awesome thanks. Here you go.

pre-master:

latest master:

Please be aware that I did want some level of grit/old school flavour with the mixing, therefore it's not the cleanest sounding mix in the world. Do let me know though if the issues you're hearing are more because of mixing issues rather than mastering, I came here for advice after all.

[bmanic]

Okay, a few things right off the bat:

1) When you send out masters for mixing, I recommend making sure the peak levels are in the -0.5 to -3dBFS range. The highest peaks of your files are around -11.5dBFS. Not really a big issue itself as the file provided was 24bit. Still, you are loosing a tiny amount of resolution by not keeping closer to the digital ceiling.

2) The master you got is _severely_ over clipped. It's pegged at constantly above true peak level (around +0.7dBFS at all times and peaks go as far as +1.1dBFS). This is super sloppy and bad practice from the mastering engineer. This in theory means that if you yourself convert the file to mp3 or send it to streaming services with bad practices (like soundcloud which is AWFUL!) you'll get quite a lot of clipping. Heck, even playing the raw mastered .wav file on your computer or through your soundcard can result in you hearing some clipping due to D to A converter tolerances. So yeah, while a few stray peaks over the digital ceiling usually is a non-issue, keeping it completely pegged past 0dBFS is really bad. Shame on the mastering engineer for doing that.


Short Term LUFS hovers around -5.5 to -6 dB which is quite common for this genre.. but yeah it's LOUD. Also the momentary short LUFS sometimes goes to -3.5 LUFS which is really really REALLY loud. Pretty much impossible to keep things at these levels without some serious compromises to the sound quality.

You could tell the mastering engineer that you'd like your track at around -7 dB LUFS to give the track a little wiggle room.

[camheine]

Thanks so much mate I really appreciate it. This at least tells me that it's not something stupid I've done on my end with the mixing. I'm perplexed and disappointed by the engineer, as he works for a pretty well known company and I've never had issues with other engineers there before. The fact he's claiming he can't hear anything wrong with it is a red flag. I like your idea of getting him to get the track to -7db LUFS, I'll try that.

[Uncle E]

It might just be communication. Yes, clipping is distortion, but the master isn't clipped to the degree that most people would describe as distortion. Anyway, just ask him to give you a tamer, less clipped version, you'll probably get what you're looking for.

[bmanic]

It might just be communication. Yes, clipping is distortion, but the master isn't clipped to the degree that most people would describe as distortion. Anyway, just ask him to give you a tamer, less clipped version, you'll probably get what you're looking for.

It's pretty severely clipped. Like "Death Magnetic" style. So yeah, most people would probably describe it as something being a bit off.

Then again, this genre has it quite in common. Scooped mids, boosted highs and bass + mega clipping. Seems to be the general sound of the era.

I was able to get into similar loudness territory with way less distortion. Though I didn't really scoop out anything much.

[camheine]

@bmanic going back to this point you made:

"...there's a lot of not at all musical pumping happening (meaning the pumping isn't properly in time with the track and instead sounds rather "nervous"). "

Is that something you hear in the unmastered version as well? I just know that sidechaining has always been a bit of weak spot for me, so I'm curious if that's something I've contributed to.

[Uncle E]

I was able to get into similar loudness territory with way less distortion. Though I didn't really scoop out anything much.

tbf, you're a better engineer than most.

[bmanic]

@bmanic going back to this point you made:

"...there's a lot of not at all musical pumping happening (meaning the pumping isn't properly in time with the track and instead sounds rather "nervous"). "

Is that something you hear in the unmastered version as well? I just know that sidechaining has always been a bit of weak spot for me, so I'm curious if that's something I've contributed to.

Well, sort of. It's just way exaggerated due to how the master brings everything to the forefront and how the clipping/distortion is highlighting some areas. I also have a feeling the dude who mastered this has a multiband compressor going. These always run the risk of breaking the groove a bit, causing things to be more hectic than the original audio actually is.

Keep in mind, this type of side-chaining is entirely subjective (which I should have written in my original post). To my ears the shape of the sidechaining is a bit jarring. It's like the slopes are a bit too abrupt or a bit in front of the music. Hard to describe. As I said though, it's my own opinion and technically there's no right or wrong. You should most definitely do whatever you feel suites the music the best!

If you do want a bit of change to the groove it is something you can actually tackle slightly in mastering itself by very gently applying a slow compressor that does the opposite of the tracks motion, thus calming it down a little.

[VOODOO U]

Now being able to A/B with the pre mastered and mastered track, the issue is in the mixing.
The overall mix could use a bit more warmth which could be done (as one example) with saturating tracks.
The vox sound piercing at certain parts; more compression and a bit of saturation can warm them up.
That sax part is a bit too loud.
Changing these might help with some clipping others are hearing with the mastering.
Bottom line, I feel the mix needs just a little bit of work and the mastering engineer is compensating by applying the loudness war (although they did a decent job so there's balance with the lows and highs of the overall track).
Anyhow the average joe blow listener won't give a shit with mastering details.
If you kept the track as is I really don't feel it would affect listeners in a negative way as far as mastering is concerned.

[camheine]

Okay cool, sounds like there's a few things I can go back and take another look at. Thanks again guys, really appreciate it. It's always good to get a fresh perspective and some new sets of ears

[camheine]

Good news, I've spoken to him again and turns out the culprit was a multiband he had put on it. He's made a couple of other changes and it's sounding a lot better. Still a couple of tweaks here and there but overall it's sounding pretty good now. Your feedback helped a lot!

[VOODOO U]

Good news indeed! Now let's talk business. Being that I was the most (and peetty much the only one) helpful here, what percentage of royalties do I get for sales of the track?