My FINAL mix/master, burning to cd, last=OZONE!

shackrock

New member
Should my FINAL FINAL FINAL track be clipping, or limited (hard)?

So my final eveything.

I mean, this is my last mix, last master, last everything. Only thing that will be done AFTER this, is dithering to 16bit and burning to a CD.

Should this be hard limited?

I run all my songs through ozone as a final thing. A last eq if needed, a last reverb if needed, a last compression time if needed, etc. etc. Should i brickwall limit it all at -.2db? -.1db? 0db? I have always done this. Mainly, because i hate to see it clip, and 2ndly because otherwise when i burn the cd (through cd architect..sonic foundry program) it tells me "digital clipping at :32 sec." So i just figured it's automattically bad! haha.

I have never considered the alternative...hitting the "softlimit" button instead of "hard limit" in ozone's limiter settings. Because I always wanna stop the VU meters from saying "+1db."

The only reason I ask now, is becvause I loaded up some 50 cent and noticed it was going over like crazy! haha. If i dont HEAR the clipping, is it ok?

this is just a topic i never really THOUGHT about much until now...anyway, comments.

and no - i'm not taking it to a real mastering engineer. I AM THE MASTERING ENGINEER IN ALL MY PROJECTS. welcome to DIY land.
 
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Re: Should my FINAL FINAL FINAL track be clipping, or limited (hard)?



and no - i'm not taking it to a real mastering engineer. I AM THE MASTERING ENGINEER IN ALL MY PROJECTS. welcome to DIY land. [/B]


Way to ward off blue bear and others :)
 
Re: Should my FINAL FINAL FINAL track be clipping, or limited (hard)?

shackrock said:
Should i brickwall limit it all at -.2db? -.1db? 0db? I have always done this. . .If i dont HEAR the clipping, is it ok?

Yeah, that's okay, but this will work better on a final mix:

You should run the mix once through Ozone using the "hard limit" setting to -.2db.

Print that, and run it through again, but this time use the "soft limit" setting to 2 or 3 db's more. It's okay if the meter indicates clipping (that's what the soft-clip function is for), but stay within +3 or else you'll start to hear it.

Good luck!
 
and 2ndly because otherwise when i burn the cd (through cd architect..sonic foundry program) it tells me "digital clipping at :32 sec." So i just figured it's automattically bad! haha.

shackrock - you're statement indicates that you're trying to prevent some distortion at the DAC when you play the audio CD.

fenix had a pretty cool thread happening on clipping a short time ago. It was more concerned with the loudness aspects of it IMO. I think what we found out there was that there can either be actual overshoot into the red or there can be sufficient vectoring where a DAC may distort if it 'thinks' a peak is headed to outer space when it tries to reconstruct the waveform.

At any rate I've been able to 'overshoot' the Ozone2 limiter like you're doing. Ozone3 actually has a 'clipper' which I haven't used yet but my expectation is that it will be more of a brickwall. If you've got Ozone2 and $49 you can upgrade.

If your purpose is to totally preserve the dynamics of your mix then you would have to lower its' level enough so that at :32 you don't go in to the red. But I think in general, depending on the music, you can usually afford to clip/limit a few peaks (transients) and generally not affect the perceived loudness.

I think the section of Ozone2 you're using is actually the loudness maximizer section so if you're 'pushing' into that thing too you'll be adjusting the loudness, maybe you're not doing that. I usually try to make sure nothing tops -0.2 dB or -0.1dB like mallcore says but Depending on my transients I might have to grab a different limiter.

kylen

PS Before you make the final copy make sure you make a safety copy - sometimes I want to come back later and make a 'more final' copy. Ha Ha ! With a safety copy (no effects on the master buss) I can go back and re-do it later if necessary.
 
shackrock said:
But if i do that, i'm only making it louder. i mean, is it real bad to be cutting off the peaks like this???

No, it's fine (that's the point of limiting), just as long as you're doing the multiple passes like I suggested.

Good luck!
 
Load your track on Soundforge and NORMALIZE it for music.
I like to compare with other professional songs before I save and burn. Every song out there clips as long as you don't hear distortion is ok.

Good Luck
 
Load your track on Soundforge and NORMALIZE it for music.
I like to compare with other professional songs before I save and burn. Every song out there clips as long as you don't hear distortion is ok.

Good Luck
 
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