Buried Snare in Mastering

o0Charlie0o

New member
I always get some really great mixes going on during mix down but when it comes to the mastering process I find that when I get to the final hard limiting type process (using Waves L2) I loose my snare to the background and the overall reverb levels come way up. In the past I've always just gone back and changed levels to compensate but It still sacrafices the over all sound I was orginally going for with the snare.

In other words I have a great snare on a mix, but when I go for the master it goes downhill. Everything else sounds great and loud. Anyone else come across this or know some basic starting points to fixing this?

Is it something I should be doing in the mix so it won't catch in the mastering process even though it sounds great in the mix? I'm looking to get the snare pretty up front in the final master and also not have a huge reverb washout (which isn't present in the actual mix)

Thanks!
Charlie
 
I'm no mastering engineer, but it sounds like you may be using a multiband compressor that is accidentally compressing your snare out of your mix. Try to isolate that frequency range and raise your compression level up on that band.

Again, I'm not a mastering engineer, and I may be totally wrong.

6
 
If your use of the limiter (or any step in the "mastering" process for that matter) is somehow changing the sound of the mix in a way that you think is detrimental ... then that's a big red flag that you're way over-doing it.

That's what happens when you compress and/or limit things too much. You lose a lot of the dynamic element, and the percussion is a big part of that dynamic element. That's where terms like "squashed" come from. I will do you a favor, Charlie, and I will use this term in relevent context:

"oOCharleOo just squashed the living daylights out of his mix, and now his snare sounds like dog shit."

"Holy Crap, oOCharlieOo. Did that mix insult your Mama or something? Because you've just squashed the bejusus out of it. Wasn't there a snare (in this mix) at one time?"


,
 
o0Charlie0o said:
I always get some really great mixes going on during mix down but when it comes to the mastering process I find that when I get to the final hard limiting type process (using Waves L2) I loose my snare to the background and the overall reverb levels come way up.
I'm reminded of that old Billy Crystal/Christopher Guest routine from SNL:

Guest: "You know when you take a 6 inch long nail and jam it into your ear real fast by slamming it with a brick?"

Crystal: "And then you try prying it out with a red hot steam iron?"

Guest: "Yeah."

Crystal: "Yeah. I hate when that happens."

Guest: "Me too."


If the limiter hurts, then lay off the limiter.

Seriously.

:)

G.
 
Some mixes just won't get loud before they get ruined.

If volume is the goal, my guess would be that you have way too much reverb and the guitars were too loud. If you go back and change the mix, you might be able to get it louder, you might not.
 
Farview said:
Some mixes just won't get loud before they get ruined.
Some snare tones won't get loud period.
Lots of things won't go there. It makes perfect sense when you consider how they're being reshaped.

Learning to like Smashtering -Loud, but just under sounding like ass?

Why not just mix into the limiter in the first place?
Wayne
 
You have pretty much described the pitfalls of limiting and compressing dynamics to achieve volume , it's a trade-off.

One thing that you may want to try is parallel compression/limiting. Basically just mix the unlimited signal in with the limited signal to get back some of the transients that are lost in limiting. You have to be sure that there is no latency between the two however, or you will be introducing phase problems.

There was a metal CD that I worked on last week where this technique worked very well.
 
Interesting suggestion Masteringhouse...

I don't think it was a Multiband Compression issue at all since I barely touched that however I did think It might be something that could be fixed by Multiband compression.

Maybe in the mix I should compress the initial attack so the dynamic part of it isn't so strong?

I do do a lot of mixing into the mastering plugins to see what works where but since I just got some ASP8s I've been trying to avoid that and master after a mixdown.

This is more of a Jazz project so maybe I should just accept the lower RMS levels and keep the dynamics. Anyone know any good Jazz Rock based music I can compare my master too?
 
o0Charlie0o said:
This is more of a Jazz project so maybe I should just accept the lower RMS levels and keep the dynamics. Anyone know any good Jazz Rock based music I can compare my master too?
How loud are you trying to get it? There is no reason your mix shouldn't get to -15dbfs rms without having to cream the snare drum.
 
INCREDIBLY stupid question,

But what is -dbfs? I see this all the time and I have no clue what it means. I've looked it up on Google, but I'm still not getting it.
 
Yareek said:
.. what is -dbfs? I see this all the time and I have no clue what it means. I've looked it up on Google, but I'm still not getting it.
Db 'full scale'. The end, the top. Max Baby! :)
 
Yareek said:
So how is that different than RMS or peak readings? Is it the default for digital meters?
Digital meters read peak, analog meters measure rms. (meaning average)

Some digital meters (especially in mastering programs) have peak and average meters.
 
i dont understand how some professional studios can make thingsso loud still having perfect dynamics
this band voodoo blue
i bought their cd
the average rms levels in their songs are -7 to -6 and the peaks are at -3
its CRAZY
 
Well plain and simple... The band wants it loud to compare to other stuff so other people will think they are as good as that "other stuff" since that is just the way things are right now you know? (weather it is right or wrong)

On another note... Anyone know of any good vst plugins that will measure RMS levels accuratly?

Charlie
 
appleyardrules said:
i dont understand how some professional studios can make thingsso loud still having perfect dynamics
You have to put the album together with that in mind. It's all about planning out all the individual sounds so they can fit together in that way.
 
If the mix is good, and you have frequencies carved out for each sound, I don't think you'll have problems mastering.

I did a lot of reading before mastering my CD, and here is what I ended up doing.

1) Get the mix PERFECT, or as perfect as you can. I made about 10 different versions of my CD, one after another. I'd take them with me to K-Mart, and play it on the crap CD players there - a little of each track on each stereo. I'd play it in my car. If I was with a friend, I'd play it in their car. Take notes, and make adjustments, and burn another CD. Once you are happy, and you have something that sounds good everywhere, then start mastering.

2) Use someone else's ears! Once you think the mix is good, have someone you trust (another musician) come in who isn't familiar with the material, and have them listen. Hear what they say. You might have heard this song 100 times, but they have a fresh perspective. If they say.. "that part is too loud", I'd bet they are right - even if it doesn't seem to be correct to you. The guy I used made 10 or 12 mix suggestions, and every one of them was right, and was something I had missed.

3) I put some EQ on first in the signal chain, only to boost some frequencies. Sometimes, I could stand some push (very small) at ~100Hz, or up at 10-20kHz for 'sparkle'

4) I compressed only about 2db average. So, the choruses where things were picking up maybe saw 2.4db of compression, during light areas saw 1.5. It was just enough to kind of tighten things up, but not to be overbearing.

5) I limited at a ceiling of -.3db (safer for some crappy CD players that will crap out at zero, I guess), and I set it so that generally my RMS was about -14db bellow my peaks. Sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the material. Listen closely. If you start to hear the limiter having an effect on the signal, back off. If you can't get it 'loud' enough without squishing the peaks dramatically, maybe you have to adjust the EQ to take some of whatever frequency is causing the limiter to engage with the RMS is low. It might be that you have to re-visit your mix to control the kick/snare, or whatever is causing the compression.

As a disclaimer, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. ;) I'm just a guy who decided to make his own CD, and wanted to learn everything I could about it, so I could pull off a semi-professional result. I am happy with how my disc came out, and I think I had as much time 'learning' how to master it, as I did actually recording the thing.
 
tamoore said:
If the mix is good, and you have frequencies carved out for each sound, I don't think you'll have problems mastering.

I did a lot of reading before mastering my CD, and here is what I ended up doing.

1) Get the mix PERFECT, or as perfect as you can. I made about 10 different versions of my CD, one after another. I'd take them with me to K-Mart, and play it on the crap CD players there - a little of each track on each stereo. I'd play it in my car. If I was with a friend, I'd play it in their car. Take notes, and make adjustments, and burn another CD. Once you are happy, and you have something that sounds good everywhere, then start mastering.

2) Use someone else's ears! Once you think the mix is good, have someone you trust (another musician) come in who isn't familiar with the material, and have them listen. Hear what they say. You might have heard this song 100 times, but they have a fresh perspective. If they say.. "that part is too loud", I'd bet they are right - even if it doesn't seem to be correct to you. The guy I used made 10 or 12 mix suggestions, and every one of them was right, and was something I had missed.

3) I put some EQ on first in the signal chain, only to boost some frequencies. Sometimes, I could stand some push (very small) at ~100Hz, or up at 10-20kHz for 'sparkle'

4) I compressed only about 2db average. So, the choruses where things were picking up maybe saw 2.4db of compression, during light areas saw 1.5. It was just enough to kind of tighten things up, but not to be overbearing.

5) I limited at a ceiling of -.3db (safer for some crappy CD players that will crap out at zero, I guess), and I set it so that generally my RMS was about -14db bellow my peaks. Sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the material. Listen closely. If you start to hear the limiter having an effect on the signal, back off. If you can't get it 'loud' enough without squishing the peaks dramatically, maybe you have to adjust the EQ to take some of whatever frequency is causing the limiter to engage with the RMS is low. It might be that you have to re-visit your mix to control the kick/snare, or whatever is causing the compression

As a disclaimer, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I'm just a guy who decided to make his own CD, and wanted to learn everything I could about it, so I could pull off a semi-professional result. I am happy with how my disc came out, and I think I had as much time 'learning' how to master it, as I did actually recording the thing.
My only comment on this entire post is that I disagree with the first sentence of the last paragraph.

Tamoore is new to this site so I know nothing about him/her yet, but in this post someone who "doesn't know what the hell they are talking about" got it 100% right and explained it very well. The post deserved repeating here.

G.
 
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