Tip That Helped Me To Get Loud Masters

[chris_shape_drummer]

Im no professional, but this has helped me with my own masters to get them nice and loud without distortion or pumping.

1. Run a clipper on the master to shave off about 2-4db of transients.
2. Now run your limiter and get it to where you like the volume.
3. Sometime people will even stack 2 limiters to reduce the effort each needs. This is entirely subjective and really dependent on the style of music, id say mostly for Rock, Metal or EDM.

If you take off the clipper from this chain and just compensate with the limiter, youll probably notice either some pumping and/or distortion getting introduced if you level match to what you had with the clipper in place. Using the clipper to deal with the extra transient peaks has made a world of difference in my masters because the limiter does not get slammed nearly as much and provides a cleaner sound.

 

[Stuart Welwood]

That makes good sense and should reduce any pumping or breathing. What are you using to do the clipping?

 

[chris_shape_drummer]

That makes good sense and should reduce any pumping or breathing. What are you using to do the clipping?

I used to use either kilohearts clipper or kClip3 but now I actually just started to use Flatline 2. It has a hybrid mode that sends the transient of the signal to a clipper and then output of that to a limiter. It's been incredible.

 

[Craig Anderton]

One technique I use all the time is finding the loudest peaks in a normalized file, reducing their gain, and re-normalizing. Sometimes the gain change affects only one or two cycles of the peak. In the image below, reducing 5 of these peaks (outlined in red) gave a much higher average level with retaining the dynamics. It's basically like using a "perfect" limiter, or a clipper that doesn't distort. If you then add more dynamics processing, you don't need to add as much, so there are far fewer artifacts.

 

[bapu]

BSA (Black Salt Audio) Clipper is PDG (Pretty Darn Good).

 

[Craig Anderton]

Yes, clipping has its place too! I particularly like it on bass. But for masters, I don't want to introduce any distortion. That's why the above technique doesn't clip the peak. It lowers the peak's level, which you can also do with automation although I find that more time-consuming. This essentially redraws the peak, so the waveform doesn't change. Sometimes I only need to lower one or two cycles of a peak to get a much higher average level.

 

[SwitchBack]

Even more clinical: Peaks in main mixes often appear because attacks from multiple channels coincide. To preserve clarity in say the lead vocal attacks you may want to notch gain on e.g. bass or on the kick bus instead.

 

[chris_shape_drummer]

This is why I love Flatline 2. The hybrid mode does clipping and limiting. It has an attack knob to determine how much of the signal hits the clipper first. Basically, the clipper will pretty much only hit the snares and barely any kick, then the rest hits the limiter. You can obviously do all this with 2 stages of plugins, but it's been so easy using just this.

 

[Craig Anderton]

Even more clinical: Peaks in main mixes often appear because attacks from multiple channels coincide. To preserve clarity in say the lead vocal attacks you may want to notch gain on e.g. bass or on the kick bus instead.

That's one of the great things about Studio One - the song/project page synergy. You can see where peaks occur in the project page, switch over to the song page, and see if reducing the level of any track(s) reduce the "super-peaks." A good example is cymbals. You can add a tiny fade-in to them if the snare and kick are providing a strong transient at that moment. It has the side benefit of giving more clarity to the transients that are there.

That's also in keeping with what I'm describing, which does not alter the source waveform. Clipping and limiting both alter it. Knowing the difference between these three options allows choosing the right tool for the right job. For example, you might want saturation on the kick drum but limiting on a vocal, so it's pushed a bit or pre-processed prior to compression. The waveform redrawing process is ideal for masters. I first got into this technique with classical music projects. It was the only way I could sneak in slightly hotter masters without using limiting or compression.

 

[lokeyfly]

That's one of the great things about Studio One - the song/project page synergy. .

This.
It was one of my five major reasons, for buying into Studio One. The project,- song relationship still cant be matched elsewhere.

 

[Stuart Welwood]

While we're talking about loud masters, does anyone here know what doing a mixdown with SoundCloud preprocessing enabled actually does?

 

[lokeyfly]

While we're talking about loud masters, does anyone here know what doing a mixdown with SoundCloud preprocessing enabled actually does?

It's likely just setting the loudness for songs sent to SoundCloud at -14 LUFS. FWIW, that doesn't mean that should be your target level, but at least you have the idea what that processing enabled option does.

 

[Stuart Welwood]

I see. So it's just a preset and doesn't add anything extra. Makes sense. Thanks.

 

[Craig Anderton]

It seems (I don't know for sure!) that normalization to -14 on SoundCloud is a moving target. They used to not normalize. Some people report that SoundCloud is normalizing now, but hasn't gone back and normalized older material. Others say that mastering to a level higher than -14 will still sound louder But I don't know if they're comparing it to newer or older uploads. Maybe preprocessing these days means adjusting the level to -14 LUFS.

Regardless, if preprocessing also involves conversion to a data-compressed format like MP3 or AAC, make sure your true peak reading is under -1.0 or there will likely be distortion on playback. You'll hear this as a very low-level, "fuzzy" kind of sound. For levels above -14 LUFS, play it safe and add a little more headroom. For example if your file is -10 LUFS, then -2.0 true peak level is advisable.

 

[bapu]

I used to use either kilohearts clipper or kClip3 but now I actually just started to use Flatline 2. It has a hybrid mode that sends the transient of the signal to a clipper and then output of that to a limiter. It's been incredible.

I have that one too. Since Jan of 2023. Actually, never tried it out IIRC.

Now I'm going to have to compare it to BSA Clipper.

TBH I'm happy with BSA, but you never know what's around that elusive silver bullet corner.

 

[FenderDude]

It seems (I don't know for sure!) that normalization to -14 on SoundCloud is a moving target. They used to not normalize. Some people report that SoundCloud is normalizing now, but hasn't gone back and normalized older material. Others say that mastering to a level higher than -14 will still sound louder But I don't know if they're comparing it to newer or older uploads. Maybe preprocessing these days means adjusting the level to -14 LUFS.

Regardless, if preprocessing also involves conversion to a data-compressed format like MP3 or AAC, make sure your true peak reading is under -1.0 or there will likely be distortion on playback. You'll hear this as a very low-level, "fuzzy" kind of sound. For levels above -14 LUFS, play it safe and add a little more headroom. For example if your file is -10 LUFS, then -2.0 true peak level is advisable.

Hi
Yesterday I mastered 4 tracks in the Project page. I used ProEQ, multi and dynamics, and a limiter insert. For each track I targeted -14 lufs, thinking that would be a "typical" level for posting to SoundCloud. I then clicked on digital release to upload to SoundCloud. In the process, I checked a box to target loudness for SoundCloud -14. I was expecting that they would be at -14lufs in SoundCloud. However, after listening to the tracks in SoundCloud, they were significantly quieter than the mastered tracks. I was really confused by that check box. Should I just leave that box unchecked and upload the tracks I mastered to -14? Or master my tracks to something like -9 lufs and check the box so that they will end up at -14 on soundcloud? Has anyone else been confused by that check box? Thank you

 

[TimC340]

I've been doing a couple of free courses with the guys at mastering.com. They are adamant that you shouldn't master to fit the assumed needs of any given streaming site. Master to get the best result (they work to -7) ; if the sites wish to 'normalise' to a quieter figure, they'll do that whatever you give them.

 

[Stuart Welwood]

Hi
Yesterday I mastered 4 tracks in the Project page. I used ProEQ, multi and dynamics, and a limiter insert. For each track I targeted -14 lufs, thinking that would be a "typical" level for posting to SoundCloud. I then clicked on digital release to upload to SoundCloud. In the process, I checked a box to target loudness for SoundCloud -14. I was expecting that they would be at -14lufs in SoundCloud. However, after listening to the tracks in SoundCloud, they were significantly quieter than the mastered tracks. I was really confused by that check box. Should I just leave that box unchecked and upload the tracks I mastered to -14? Or master my tracks to something like -9 lufs and check the box so that they will end up at -14 on soundcloud? Has anyone else been confused by that check box?

Yes, that was the source of my question, too. BTW, I got similar results from trying the -14 LUFS setting and decided not to use it.

Coincidentally, I had put up on SoundCloud a track that was accidentally mixed down at a level that was too high. It's still there, and its called Determination. It's the same as the link in my signature. It's just as loud as it was 2 months ago.

Maybe SoundCloud has not touched it so far due to its low number of plays.

 

[Craig Anderton]

The important thing to remember is that you need to master for the sound you want. If it exceeds the level to which a streaming service normalizes, they'll turn the volume down so that your music meets their target. Ultimately, your master's level doesn't matter. (The one exception is Spotify, where you can still fight the loudness wars if you want because premium users have the option to turn off volume normalization.) Also, if the level is below the service's target, some will raise the level and some won't.

I aim for -12.5 dbFS because to my ears and for the music I make, that's the sweet spot for decent dynamics and a "hot enough" sound. But again, let me emphasize that regardless of the level you choose, follow the specs for True Peak levels. Otherwise distortion can creep in when the service transcodes to MP3 or AAC. I always make sure the True Peak output for what I upload to YouTube is no higher than -1.0.