Mastering Software

Maybe I don't understand the answer. It may be very clear to you but maybe not to me. You say in that range but I'm not certain what "that range" is. One of the answers I got was something like, leave some db for headroom like 6 or 10 or 15. That maybe isn't a correct quote and you may understand it perfectly but unfortunately I don't. So I'm really not sure what that range is supposed to be. I'm not trying to be difficult. I've asked questions before and when I was able to understand and follow the instructions I moved on. I'm just not certain that's all. And please, if I'm upsetting you please ignore me. I don't mean to get anyone upset. Maybe I'm just a bit slower than most people or a whole lot dumber.
In any event thanks for your time and hopefully my file will be found in Dropbox.

Thanks again,
Don.....
 
Ok so I've tried to post a song to Dropbox. I've never used it before and maybe I didn't do it correctly. If I understand it I posted it to my email
vze2t273@verizon.net
It's in a folder called Dons songs

Unfortunately, your link did not work.

Maybe I don't understand the answer. It may be very clear to you but maybe not to me. You say in that range but I'm not certain what "that range" is. One of the answers I got was something like, leave some db for headroom like 6 or 10 or 15. That maybe isn't a correct quote and you may understand it perfectly but unfortunately I don't. So I'm really not sure what that range is supposed to be. I'm not trying to be difficult. I've asked questions before and when I was able to understand and follow the instructions I moved on. I'm just not certain that's all. And please, if I'm upsetting you please ignore me. I don't mean to get anyone upset. Maybe I'm just a bit slower than most people or a whole lot dumber.
In any event thanks for your time and hopefully my file will be found in Dropbox.

Thanks again,
Don.....

A couple of notes here:

1) You should use the Reply with Quotes button when replying to a specific person so everyone reading knows who you are replying to.

2) In the Digital realm, 0dB is the absolute maximum you can go. It's a physical hard limit of the converters. In the Analog realm, you can, and most likely do, go beyond 0dB. With Digital's absolute max at 0, people here are suggesting that you mix your track levels so the master bus levels are somewhere around -6dB to -15dB. That is 6 to 15dB below zero. The meter on the master bus should be marked accordingly.

[Edit:] Going back through the thread, it seems your master bus levels are at a good spot when you render the songs to a two-track mix. You said you've got them at around -10dB coming off the mix bus. No problem there. You then load those two-track files back into Reaper on the timeline to master them. Get them all sounding similar and ready for a CD. During the mastering process, you will want to bump overall volume up. How far up is a matter of taste.... As I said before, I use Ozone's limiter. It's a pretty good tool. I shoot for somewhere between -1dB and -0.3dB on the master bus, post processing. That gets me in the range of most commercially released songs. I don't have to fidget with the volume when I'm listening to my tunes in queue with other songs. [End of Edit]

3) Doesn't look like anyone is upset with you, so please don't worry about that. We are here to help and get you going.
 
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I'll try to post the file again . Thanks for letting me know. Also for the clarification on volumes.
Don.....
 
Unfortunately, your link did not work.



A couple of notes here:

1) You should use the Reply with Quotes button when replying to a specific person so everyone reading knows who you are replying to.

2) In the Digital realm, 0dB is the absolute maximum you can go. It's a physical hard limit of the converters. In the Analog realm, you can, and most likely do, go beyond 0dB. With Digital's absolute max at 0, people here are suggesting that you mix your track levels so the master bus levels are somewhere around -6dB to -15dB. That is 6 to 15dB below zero. The meter on the master bus should be marked accordingly.

[Edit:] Going back through the thread, it seems your master bus levels are at a good spot when you render the songs to a two-track mix. You said you've got them at around -10dB coming off the mix bus. No problem there. You then load those two-track files back into Reaper on the timeline to master them. Get them all sounding similar and ready for a CD. During the mastering process, you will want to bump overall volume up. How far up is a matter of taste.... As I said before, I use Ozone's limiter. It's a pretty good tool. I shoot for somewhere between -1dB and -0.3dB on the master bus, post processing. That gets me in the range of most commercially released songs. I don't have to fidget with the volume when I'm listening to my tunes in queue with other songs. [End of Edit]

3) Doesn't look like anyone is upset with you, so please don't worry about that. We are here to help and get you going.

Yep, yes, and nope.

We are here to help each other man. There are no definitive answers for questions like you are asking. We will get you sorted. :)
 
Ok. Well I am going to risk coming across a bit harsh here. I would work more on the mix to be honest. Take that as you will.

This could be much better before even considering mastering. The vocal levels are all over the place in level and not to me in place in the mix at all.

But you did not ask for mix advice, so I would say don't push the master limiter much as the vocal peaks are going to push back the already non dynamic backing music.

The mix is not ready for mastering man. Just being honest with you. I hope you do not take my advice as negative.
 
Ok. Well I am going to risk coming across a bit harsh here. I would work more on the mix to be honest. Take that as you will.

This could be much better before even considering mastering. The vocal levels are all over the place in level and not to me in place in the mix at all.

But you did not ask for mix advice, so I would say don't push the master limiter much as the vocal peaks are going to push back the already non dynamic backing music.

The mix is not ready for mastering man. Just being honest with you. I hope you do not take my advice as negative.
Had a listen and I'm pretty much in there with Jimmys69 -- The main vocal being sort of "over" everything isn't so bad - Better a touch too loud than leaving people grasping - and it's "glue-able" (for lack of a better term). That said, certainly some room to come down without fear of getting lost.

But the Aaah-Ooohs and what not around (1:10? and then later again) could come back 10dB and no one would bat an eye. BGVox around 2:25, same thing. Well, not 10dB too loud, but "distracting" (again, lack of a better term). If they were split (instead of panned to one side) and maybe down a touch with a little less top, they'd probably be better serving the other elements in there.

Just "IMHO" and what not and as J mentioned, not exactly the point of the question.
 
Was that for me? Howdy.

It's for everybody who talks about levels and doesn't specify what scale they're using. The term dB doesn't mean anything specific about levels, it's purely relative. Saying one signal is -3dB compared to another means something. Saying a signal's level is -3dB literally means nothing until you add the scale. In digital everything's going to be "full scale" relative to the maximum, 0dBFS. And you have to say if you're talking about average/RMS, peak or even LUFS. A -3dBFS peak signal would be acceptable for mastering. A -3dBFS average or RMS or LUFS signal would be way too loud.
 
oh, my. Lead vocals seem to be the only thing happening (sort of).

Other vocals way, way too loud (already stated)... band is muffled; not clear.

Again, serious panning and mixing issues. Not ready for mastering.

I'm just using bluetooth stereo speakers... not studio speakers, and issues are blaring.
 
Was that for me? Howdy.


He might be referring to me. But, if he took a look again, he would see that I actually did provide a reference.... "0dB is the absolute maximum you can go". :D

I didn't provide a refernce scale for the analog part, but no one cares about analog, anyway. :laughings:
 
Peaks at -10dbFS is really just wasting bits. How many bits you're rendering to decides how much that matters. I strongly suggest that any time you render something that you're not done messing with - like in this case mixes intended for "mastering" - you render to one of the floating point wav options. 32 is plenty really. Then it literally does not matter at all where your peaks hit. -30dbFS is the same as +30. When you get to the mastering stage, you just turn it up or down as necessary.

The idea that you need to pad the peaks to leave "headroom" for mastering is absolutely wrong. What's the first thing you're going to do when you get to mastering? You're going to turn it up to somewhere near 0dbfs peaks. Why can't you just mix that much hotter? No good fucking reason at all. :)

What is important - and I believe this is where people get confused - is to leave some dynamic range to work with. Leave the "maximizing" and "loudnessifying" to the ME. Anything you do will be tough to undo, and presumably the ME will be able to do it more transparently and/or appropriately once it's in the context of the whole album.

So basically just don't look too closely at those master meters at all at mix time. Make it sound good. Render to floating point. Let the ME worry about the numbers.
 
"Wasting bits" is a misleading argument. You don't win anything by using all the bits and it's counterintuitive to good gain staging.

Floating point math isn't some virtual infinity cure-all that should allow us to take a lazy, internets, "it doesn't really matter" approach. It's not rocket surgery. Seems that the most common and effective practice is to leave enough headroom that you're not unintentionally clipping or distorting or aliasing anything. If your mastering target is pretty much bonkers (CD standard) a cleaner mix should be able to withstand more abuse.

I'm curious about how well your fixed point DA converters handle the +30 dBfs mix?
 
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