Jump to content

loudness questions


tyrebo

Recommended Posts

Trying to improve my home "mastering", learning more about loudness. Lot's of googling brought lots of info about concept etc,, but this page-

 

https://ask.audio/articles/how-loudness-standards-relate-to-edm-and-club-music-production

 

seemed to have the hard info I needed, primarily recommended targets.

However when I master to these levels, they are quite low and unimpressive when compared to professional work, both from cds, and on line, for example bandcamp flac downloads, soundcloud streaming, etc. Also, the results are considerably lower than when I simply mix/master to ~ 0 to -1 db in Logic.

 

I seem to be missing something, thanks for any input.

Tyler  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ye I know thank you, my point is that when targeting and achieving the LUFS recommended, the results are much quieter than expected. Certainly much quieter than other results on CDs and online for download. So.. definitive guidelines seem hard to find.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just import some of your favourite tracks and let the loudness meter do its thing on them. When you find what LUFS they are, just mix to that. They are probably compressed a bit more, or at least limited, and my guess would be targeting anything between -18 and -12.  Youtube and some streaming services go as high as -12, although there is a lobby to make a standard, which will probably be more like -15 or -16.

The crucial thing is, obviously, what your momentary peaks are, and there are various recommendations between -2 and -0.2. The lower recommendation is for when a file is converted to mp3, when artefacts can occur on peaks which are close to zero.

Edited by maceasy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are 2 situations that we need to understand when it comes to mastering:

1 - are you the mixing engineer?

2 - are you just the mastering engineer?

 

If you are the mixing engineer then go back to your mix and fix what needs to be fixed. Look at your pre-master (as I call it) waveform and understand what's causing peaks and all that and fix it in the mix itself. See it this way: if a snare is causing too many peaks, that will make the compressor and the limiter in the mastering process lower the volume of the whole song. If you try to EQ something, you are not only affecting that instrument or group of instruments, but you're affecting all instruments that share that "area" of frequencies. So if you're the mixing engineer, make sure that your mix sound as good as commercial songs, before you start thinking of how loud your song can be. If you fix the peaks in your mix, I can assure you that you will achieve a loud master easier. 

 

Still, if you're the mixing engineer, understand that loudness is a perception, not a number. A 50Hz sine wave at 0dB will sound quieter than a 1kHz sine wave also at 0dB, just because of how we perceive loudness. That being said, if you're the mixing engineer, use a commercial track to balance your mix in a way that you're not using too much bass (kick drum, bass guitar/synth) on your track. It's pretty easy to be trapped in that idea of "wow, I'm feeling this bass" (been there, done that), but once you compare it with a similar track that's playing on the radio, there's probably not even half of the bass we have on our track, so make sure you have a reference track that sounds similar to the one you're mixing and mastering and start lowering those volume faders, applying cuts here and there and you will see great improvements when you're trying to achieve a loud master.

 

Going even farther back, if you are the one producing/composing the song, make sure you pick the right instruments and shape them early in the process. I always make sure that when I'm producing, I'm shaping my sounds the way I want them to fit my mix even before I use an EQ (depending if you're using acoustic instruments or synthesized sounds of course). If it's acoustic stuff, moving microphones around and all that, will shape the sound. Mastering shouldn't be the process where you go from 50 to 100, but from 97 to 100.

 

Now, if you are not the mixing engineer, but you have access to who was, ask them to make some changes and send you a better mix. If they are having trouble (for example the bass instrument), ask them to send you the mix without the bass and them the bass by itself so you can adjust it to fit your master better.

 

Hope it helps :) And good luck with your mastering

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...