Mastering levels

ecktronic

ecktronic

Mixing and Mastering.
I have found when boosting my mix with an L2 my kick, snare and toms decrease in volume.
I was wondering if professional mastering equipment has the same effect but in a lesser scale, or if professional mastering equipment doesnt affect the volume of these drums.

I know this is a little vague, but to put it into perspective, I am looking for an RMS average of around -9 to -10dB with my unlimited mix being at around -20dB RMS average.

Cheers,
Eck
 
It depends on the equipment - and the mix to a large extent.

But generally, I'd say that there are much better things than the L2 for the "volume" side of things.

I still pray for the day that we get out of this whole -10dBRMS thing though... I've yet to hear a recording that sounds good that hot.

Not that I'm not guilty of making a bunch of them myself - :( - But I don't have to be happy about it.
 
RedStone said:
Does the L2 have a really fast attack? Maybe I'm thinking of the L1 ... I forget.
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The L2 has an automaticattack which I beleive to be pretty fast.
But it kills alot of the punch from the drums IMO.

Eck
 
ecktronic said:
I know this is a little vague, but to put it into perspective, I am looking for an RMS average of around -9 to -10dB with my unlimited mix being at around -20dB RMS average.
Click to expand...

A 10dB gain from a limiter is always going to be very brutal. A mix that has peak-to-RMS of 20dB is probably VERY open. If you want something to get real loud and not completely fall apart, go back to the mix, compress the drums properly, probably you need to bring up the rest of the mix other than drums, possibly with more compression as well. Then make sure there are no EQ issues with the mix before you limit it, otherwise that EQ problem will come back to haunt you in limiting.

I have found that with me at the controls, most HomeReccer mixes cap out at -11 or -12 before they start to fall apart in limiting. And those tend to start in the -16 range.
 
ecktronic said:
The L2 has an automaticattack which I beleive to be pretty fast. But it kills alot of the punch from the drums IMO.
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I think it's the fast attack that kills punch ... wipes out the transients (i.e. kick, toms, attack of bass guitar, attack of everything). Transients also are responsible for a good amount of the clarity of a track if I'm not mistaken.

not sure how it works exactly ... hmmm I guess I need to read more heh
 
mshilarious said:
A 10dB gain from a limiter is always going to be very brutal. A mix that has peak-to-RMS of 20dB is probably VERY open. If you want something to get real loud and not completely fall apart, go back to the mix, compress the drums properly, probably you need to bring up the rest of the mix other than drums, possibly with more compression as well. Then make sure there are no EQ issues with the mix before you limit it, otherwise that EQ problem will come back to haunt you in limiting.

I have found that with me at the controls, most HomeReccer mixes cap out at -11 or -12 before they start to fall apart in limiting. And those tend to start in the -16 range.
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Cheers man.
I am pretty sure I have compressed the drums properly though. I dont want dead sounding drums, I want them to be punchy. I have also cut and pasted in some drum hits inplace of mis hits, so the volume of the drums is quite consistent in the way there are no stray really loud hits.

Eck
 
RedStone said:
I think it's the fast attack that kills punch ... wipes out the transients (i.e. kick, toms, attack of bass guitar, attack of everything). Transients also are responsible for a good amount of the clarity of a track if I'm not mistaken.

not sure how it works exactly ... hmmm I guess I need to read more heh
Click to expand...
Yeah a fast attack will definetly kill the transients. A limiter kills transients since it is cutting off the top of the wave. If a brickwall limiter didnt have a fast attack it wouldnt limit very well.
I would like to understand what a decent mastering limiter does compared to an L2.

Eck
 
ecktronic said:
Yeah a fast attack will definetly kill the transients. A limiter kills transients since it is cutting off the top of the wave. If a brickwall limiter didnt have a fast attack it wouldnt limit very well.
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true ... hmmm, but with compression, you can also do a slow attack and very long release (for a sustained effect) ... that really doesn't let many transients through (at least not all the way through) since the release is extra long, it rarely gets a chance to reach unity before the attack kicks in again.

Might work sort of the same for a limiter that has it's own attack/release settings? I Could be way off, but I notice that the Waves L3 has both attack and release settings for 4 different bands.
 
ecktronic said:
Yeah a fast attack will definetly kill the transients. A limiter kills transients since it is cutting off the top of the wave. If a brickwall limiter didnt have a fast attack it wouldnt limit very well.
I would like to understand what a decent mastering limiter does compared to an L2.

Eck
Click to expand...

An L2 is a decent mastering limiter (when used in moderation).

One way to bring back transients that are lost by limiting is to mix in the signal before limiting back into the mix after limiting. It's like parallel compression, but not technically called that. Oh yeah, and make sure that the two signal are latency compensated.
 
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that's like a Christmas gift for home studios
Parallel limiting ... hehe ... beefy but has jump ... nifty!

and I read wrong .. L3 only has release settings :)
 
masteringhouse said:
An L2 is a decent mastering limiter.

One way to bring back transients that are lost by limiting is to mix in the signal before limiting back into the mix after limiting. It's like parallel compression, but not technically called that. Oh yeah, and make sure that the two signal are latency compensated.
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I bet that would help bring back lost stereo seperation too, at least it seems like it ought to, no :confused:
 
gtrman_66 said:
I bet that would help bring back lost stereo seperation too, at least it seems like it ought to, no :confused:
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Yep, to a degree, transients help to maintain detail, detail maintains separation ...
 
masteringhouse said:
Yep, to a degree, transients help to maintain detail, detail maintains separation ...
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Cool, thanks, I'll have to try it out this weekend. I've been roped into playing ME on a low-budget local project and they have the "louder louder" syndrome going on. Every time I start cranking it up, the first thing I notice is the seperation going to hell. They had better bring me 2 cases of beer for this one :D

Thanks :)
 
Is it dumb to use volume envelopes to tame big peaks and then just normalizing to get it louder?

That's what I do. :o

I hate making a really nice, open, mix and then messing it all up with compression/limiting. But I also don't have much of an idea on what I'm doing when it comes to that.

I usually get an average RMS of about -14 to -12.
 
danny.guitar said:
Is it dumb to use volume envelopes to tame big peaks and then just normalizing to get it louder?

That's what I do. :o
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No, that is a solid approach, if there are more than a few peaks then a good transparent limiter is quicker though.

Also sometimes it's fun to add a couple of dB of compression with a nice colored compressor.
 
Wish I had a decent compressor that I could use on a stereo mix.

I'll sometimes use a compressor on individual tracks, but rarely. Never on a stereo mix though because I can't make it sound good. :(
 
danny.guitar said:
Is it dumb to use volume envelopes to tame big peaks and then just normalizing to get it louder?
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Not at all. As ms said, if you don't have too many peaks to do that efficiently studio time-wise, it can be easier to just strp on the o'l limiter, but if the peaks can be tamed fairly quickly, which can be done quite efficiently with just a liittle practice, there's no beating the transparancy of sound.

I often use a hybrid approach on high-dynamic mixes. I might pick the dozen or so extreme transients and knock them down manually (or via manual automation settings) by a few dB to bring them in line with the more "average peaks" in the mix. Then I'll compress the resulting "average peaks". The idea is that one can adjust the threshold and reduction levels much less harshly than if one needs to limit or compress the untreated dynamics; it can lead to a much more natural tone out of the compressor/limiter, and sometime allow one to push the mix a bit further before it crumbles.

Remember, manually riding the faders and then manually "normalizing" the resulting mix is exactly how the best "mentor" engineers like Sweiden, Nichols, Martin, etc. always did it in their salad days, with great results. Why? Because when they were making history they didn't have either automation or often times even compression. They just weren't available way back then. Yet their product back then is stuff that most of us here today try with envy to emulate in our mixes.

G.
 
masteringhouse said:
An L2 is a decent mastering limiter (when used in moderation).

One way to bring back transients that are lost by limiting is to mix in the signal before limiting back into the mix after limiting. It's like parallel compression, but not technically called that. Oh yeah, and make sure that the two signal are latency compensated.
Click to expand...
Sounds interesting, but I cant see how that would bring any transients back if you need to limit the 2 signals after adding them together. You would need to limit a second time to acheive the same RMS average you were looking for in the first place. Is that right?

Eck
 
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