trying to master stuff...

I

ikijapan

New member
ok, well not really, i'm just making it louder. Trust me, I am well aware that I don't really have a clue how to really "master" something like massive or any of those guys, I'm just a dumbass with a computer and a limiter.

With that in mind, here's what I'm doing and wondering if it makes any sense.
So I of course get my mix all pretty and make it sound basically just how I want it to sound like when I'm done with it. Then I export it at 24 bit and reimport it.

Then I might compress it, and EQ a bit, then lastly I go and pull out good ol' mister L2 and start limiting. What I've been doing lately, is turning down the volume on my monitors while I pull down the threshold on the L2, that way the volume stays the same out the monitors while it turns up on the file. I do that so that it doesn't sound all cool just because it's getting louder (which is what it seems to do to my novice ears otherwise) lately. So my first question is whether that is a good idea?

Then I don't really know when to stop, other than, when it seems to be an adequate volume. I find myself to be conservative, and usually just stop after it's limiting the file a little bit. Luckily it always seems to turn out pretty similar for me, around -10 to -12 RMS. Which I'm pretty happy with. I read once that some people limit until it starts to sound bad, and then back off a bit, I tried doing that once, and it came out to like -6db RMS and I didn't like the way it turned out, so haven't used that method again.

Also, I am mostly working with heavy rock music and the like, but not exclusively, this approach is how I usually tackle that style though, of course I do it differently on the limiting part depending on the style.
But I'm kind of walking through this blindly, anyone have any suggestions on some steps etc?
 
-10dB RMS is the typical volume for heavy rock music (these days).
That is a good idea bringing down the volume of your monitors as you pull the L2 threshold down. Would be good if there was an automatic setting in the L2 that meant you didnt need to touch your monitor volume.

Id keep practicing using the L2 the way youve been using it, but don look at the RMS value.
Just keep trying to push it as far as you can until you hear it starting to kill the mix. Listen to the drums the attack, tone and volume) especially when L2ing and also listen for the seperatoiin in the instruments also. Things can get a bit mushed together when using the L2 to excess.

Eck
 
Hmm, I don't think there is a way to automatically lower the volume of the monitors via the DAW, but maybe I just don't know how. That would be pretty convienant, but it's easy to just turn it down while I lower the threshold too.
 
I normally don't use the L2. I use the L1 and ometimes the L3.

However, you can link the threashold and output volume in the L1, and not have to worry about the monitors.

In the picture I've linked below, if you click and pull down on the blue arrows, then it will lower the threshold volume along with the output volume. Of course, you'd want to start them at the same volume so there's no change in volume output to your monitors.

I'm not sure why the L2 and L3 didn't include this feature. I found it helpful when I first started mastering a few years back.

http://www.computersandmusic.com/productimages/waves2/l1big.jpg
 
Change of POETS said:
I normally don't use the L2. I use the L1 and ometimes the L3.

However, you can link the threashold and output volume in the L1, and not have to worry about the monitors.

In the picture I've linked below, if you click and pull down on the blue arrows, then it will lower the threshold volume along with the output volume. Of course, you'd want to start them at the same volume so there's no change in volume output to your monitors.

I'm not sure why the L2 and L3 didn't include this feature. I found it helpful when I first started mastering a few years back.

http://www.computersandmusic.com/productimages/waves2/l1big.jpg
Click to expand...

Dagnammit!
Thats strange how they took away that function. :(

Eck
 
ok smart arse, was WAVES NATIVE POWER PACK too hard to write rather than your answer it took me a while to find it just entering L1,L2,L3 in different search engines, found it in thomann eventually.........
 
raven46 said:
ok smart arse, was WAVES NATIVE POWER PACK too hard to write rather than your answer it took me a while to find it just entering L1,L2,L3 in different search engines, found it in thomann eventually.........
Click to expand...

Actually, I wasn't being a smart a$$ at all. There's like 10 different packages that you can buy those in, and I think you can just buy them seperately. I certainly didn't get them with the WAVES NATIVE POWER PACK.

But glad you found them anyhow.
 
I used to take this approach when I first got the UAD precision limiter. Get everything mixed up good, then pump up the volume with the old brickwall limiter. At first I was enchanted and then I noticed that the drums, esp the snare, were being subsumed by everything else. Now I try to get the mix to a reasonable level of loudness and just use the limiter just to top it off
 
ikijapan said:
Hmm, maybe there's a way to do it? That would be real cool.
Click to expand...
Maybe using ducking could work? Using a gate to triger something. I dunno muc about that stuff though.

G
 
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