Opinion on mix/master

Elliottina

New member
Trying to take my mixing/mastering a little bit more seriously. Did an A level in music tech back when I was a teenager, but decided I want to actually start getting better at it.

A friends band kindly let me do a recording of them, so here it is. Any advice on what I could do to make it better would be lovely. I am reasonably happy with the mix (although I am sure there are many things that can be done better) but I always struggle with mastering/feel that is what lets me down the most. :(

View attachment Landmines.mp3
 
Nope, sadly not. It was basic to say the least considering it was an A level. :(

That's okay, you'll learn more here on this site than you learned in that class, even after your posts turn into extended discussions about some tangential minutia.

The level of your track is pretty high in terms of LUFS and true peak. The track was clipping pretty much all the way through. That might all be a matter of preference, but I suspect it's not intentional. So I didn't really get around to checking out the mix. I figured we could sort out the levels first.

I'd be interested in hearing the track before it's mastered, preferably without any clipping.
 
The song has a lot of potential as well as your production. Its not bad at all. It definitely clipped sometimes...but besides that, which you should look out for, it doest really sound bad.

Now, my opinion...I dont like the sound of the drums. It sounds like MIDI drums, which its completely fine for some...but IMO, I just dont like it. But thats just what I think.
 
Yea that's what I am hoping for the most about being on this forum that I can actually learn to do this something like properly lol. Long story short: I've always loved music/music production, but due to other life events I have never done more than mess about with it. However this year has handed me several life changing events - family death, plus being made redundant from the job I have had for the last 17 years, and with the economy the way it is I am struggling to find a new job. So in a "nothing to lose" thing while I am trying to find a "proper job" I thought I would give this a go.

Anyway, you are right that the clipping was not intentional. Because the course I did only covered the very basics in mic'ing/recording/mixing, anything else I have picked up is via trial and error/watching random YouTube videos...which I know isn't really the best. My masters have never been at a good level to be honest, but I saw this video where someone said about using an RMS meter, and aiming for around 8RMS. So I managed to find the RMS meter vst he was using for pretty cheap, so got that. Only problem is to push it to 8RMS I always seem to clip.

However, since my first post I decided to go back and do a bit of a remix, and remaster it. I have changed the compressor settings, so I feel it's not clipping as much, although I think it still is slightly.
Also I found a free version of an LUFS meter vst that I have downloaded... (this is another problem for me btw, money is tight, so cheap or free are my only options at the moment lol). I put the LUFS meter on a reference track (Black Stone Cherry. It's the closest thing I have to the band I recorded) and their song seems to be coming out at between 5-6LUFS. On my remaster I have managed to push it to around the same before it sounded horrendous. The "true peak" on theirs is coming out at 0.9Db and mine is saying 0.5Db. So already thanks to what you said before I feel I am more in the ballpark of where I need to be.

Still don't really understand LUFs/True peak though, so if you have any pointers in what I am actually looking at/how to control them better that would be awesome.

Here we go anyway, the one is my new attempt at mastering the track. The other is the unmastered mix so you can have a listen to that as well :)

View attachment LandminesRemaster.mp3View attachment LandminesNoDI-7.mp3
 
Hey, just replied to bouldersoundguy with a new master I did. I went though my mastering chain again and recompressed it to try and make sure nothing was clipping at any point during the process. I think it's better than it was, but still not right :-/

As for the drums: The drummer of that band has very detuned/box like drums, with no real reverb at all. I have EQ'd to try and increase the higher frequencies a bit to get them to come through the mix a bit more without utterly destroying his drum sound (as a drummer myself I know what we can be like about out sound lol). I also added a bit of a transient control to it to try and add a bit more punch and sustain, again without over doing it and losing his sound. Certainly it;s not how I tune my kit, but if that is how that drummer wants it I won't judge lol
 
In the intro, the drums seem a bit out of time. Also in the intro, the little guitar sounds are too loud and seem as if they shouldn't be there.. as if they were accidentally left in.. like not a part of this song - but ok when it kicks in later.
 
Yea I'm aware there are some timing issues with the performance. I'm sure it's something I could fix at some point. My big concern is getting a master that sounds acceptable ?
 
...

Still don't really understand LUFs/True peak though, so if you have any pointers in what I am actually looking at/how to control them better that would be awesome.

Here we go anyway, the one is my new attempt at mastering the track. The other is the unmastered mix so you can have a listen to that as well :)

View attachment 107052View attachment 107053
It's over the top loudness/level-wise. You should have no (as in zero, not one) peaks above 0.0dBFS. The tool I use counted over 6000, with a peak of +3.0dBFS.

Not familiar with the genre so can't comment on whether a dynamic range of less than 2dB is normal, but it seems likely it's a bit over compressed/limited.

So, first you need to mix so your peaks are low enough to allow some room for mastering, someone more experienced can suggest a number, but let's say for something this compressed, I'd still think peaks no higher than -3.0dBFS might give a mastering engineer a fighting chance. (My acoustic stuff is way below that.)

So, bounce your mix, non-lossy, 24-bit, whatever your project is, probably. Then master that file, and stick a meter plugin (Youlean Loudness Meter is a free one some folks use) at the very end to insure your target LUFS and peaks are where they need to be. For your targets, get some reference tracks and measure those.

LUFS-lmrm.png
 
It's over the top loudness/level-wise. You should have no (as in zero, not one) peaks above 0.0dBFS. The tool I use counted over 6000, with a peak of +3.0dBFS.

Not familiar with the genre so can't comment on whether a dynamic range of less than 2dB is normal, but it seems likely it's a bit over compressed/limited.

So, first you need to mix so your peaks are low enough to allow some room for mastering, someone more experienced can suggest a number, but let's say for something this compressed, I'd still think peaks no higher than -3.0dBFS might give a mastering engineer a fighting chance. (My acoustic stuff is way below that.)

So, bounce your mix, non-lossy, 24-bit, whatever your project is, probably. Then master that file, and stick a meter plugin (Youlean Loudness Meter is a free one some folks use) at the very end to insure your target LUFS and peaks are where they need to be. For your targets, get some reference tracks and measure those.

View attachment 107056


See, this is exactly why I am so confused as to why my masters are coming out so bad.

I have got the Youlean meter, and I am looking at a reference track at the same time.

When I bounce my mix it is no where nearly clipping. Nothing in the mix is clipping, the master fader isn't clipping. Yet as soon as I try to push the master into the same LUFS range as my reference track it breaks down.

I have taken some screen shots so you can see what I mean.

This is a screenshot of the Youlean on my master track during the mix. So it's registering no clipping at all, and I am way below the -3db you suggested.
LandminesMix.jpg


This is a picture of the Youlean on my reference track, which is a track by Black Stone Cherry, as they are not a million miles away from the band I am mixing. So it has a peak of -5.9LUFS, an average dynamic range of 7LUFS, and a true peak of 1.1dB
BlackStoneCherry.jpg

This is screenshot of my master. So it's showing -6.2LUFS so only .3 behind the reference track, so "loundness" wise I am more than happy with that.
Dynamics i have 9.2 so higher than the reference track (is that good/bad, is so how do I fix it?)
But it says my true peak is 3dB. Now, since I have never been taught anything about these things, I am assuming that this is the reason I am getting clipping on the track. But the question is: Why is it registering at 3dB? My original mix is nowhere near that. So why is it coming out that loud post master, when the LUFS are in the right region?
I have even put my mastered track back into Reaper next to my reference track to see how they compare: peaks wise they don't look far out (although mine seems to have more space between the peaks). The reference track makes the master track on my daw tip on to 0dB, but not past it. Mine on the other hand takes the master track up to 1.4db but again I don't understand why. I mean on my mastering set up the last thing I have in my chain is a limiter that is set to -0.1 and it never goes past that when I am mastering. so where is that 1.4dB suddenly coming from when I load it back into my DAW?
Landmines.jpg


I am so confused/frustrated at this point I can't even tell you guys :(
 
Yep, Youlean LUFS meter is showing an overall loudness range of 1.8dB on the "remaster", which is quite a bit less than what I usually see, and the true peak meter is showing +3.1dB, which is way too high. It should be a negative number, say -0.3 to -1.0. The integrated loudness is -6.2dB, which is as loud as or louder than anything I've put through my meter.

The "NoDI-7" version sounds better. I assume it's the same as the above but without the mastering. The timing issues are pretty substantial. For me that would be a redo scenario, but you could try editing it. I wouldn't shy away from applying substantial eq to that snare. It has a bit too much bonk and not enough pop.
 
Yep, Youlean LUFS meter is showing an overall loudness range of 1.8dB on the "remaster", which is quite a bit less than what I usually see, and the true peak meter is showing +3.1dB, which is way too high. It should be a negative number, say -0.3 to -1.0. The integrated loudness is -6.2dB, which is as loud as or louder than anything I've put through my meter.

The "NoDI-7" version sounds better. I assume it's the same as the above but without the mastering. The timing issues are pretty substantial. For me that would be a redo scenario, but you could try editing it. I wouldn't shy away from applying substantial eq to that snare. It has a bit too much bonk and not enough pop.

So what am I doing wrong? What is this "true peak" thing? why is it coming out so loud when at no point in my mixing or mastering am I clipping on anything?
If I drop my gain to lower that rating then I get nowhere near the LUFS of the reference track, and it comes out way WAY quieter next to other tracks when I play them next to each other.

As for the snare...trust me, I know. Like I said before the drummer of that band has a very low tuning on his kit. The raw sound of the snare has a lot of snare wire buzz to it, but it's how he likes it. I have EQ'd, compressed, and transient controlled it as much as I can to make it pop more to sit better/cut through the mix without it no longer sounding like his snare. The only other thing I could do is do a sample replacement on it, but I don't like it when mixing engineers have tried to do that to my drums in the past, so I am not about to do it to someone else lol
 
So what am I doing wrong? What is this "true peak" thing? why is it coming out so loud when at no point in my mixing or mastering am I clipping on anything?
If I drop my gain to lower that rating then I get nowhere near the LUFS of the reference track, and it comes out way WAY quieter next to other tracks when I play them next to each other.

I might start by not being too tied to the LUFS of those specific reference tracks. Some professionally mastered tracks just have incredibly high levels but still sound close to okay. It takes a lot of practice to approach that kind of result, and specialized gear and/or software can make a big difference.

Converting to mp3 can raise the peaks a little. That probably happened to your mix. That's why it's good to have 0.5 to 1.0dB of headroom on the wave mix. By lowering the gain of the track by 2dB I got the digital clipping to stop, but it's still showing +1.1dB true peak in my LUFS meter.

True peak is an estimate of what happens to the waveform once it's converted to analog. True peaks can be higher than digital peaks, especially if it's heavily limited or clipping in digital.

As for the snare...trust me, I know. Like I said before the drummer of that band has a very low tuning on his kit. The raw sound of the snare has a lot of snare wire buzz to it, but it's how he likes it. I have EQ'd, compressed, and transient controlled it as much as I can to make it pop more to sit better/cut through the mix without it no longer sounding like his snare. The only other thing I could do is do a sample replacement on it, but I don't like it when mixing engineers have tried to do that to my drums in the past, so I am not about to do it to someone else lol

Sounds like a challenge, and not so much your fault. I would probably copy the snare track and mute the original, then see if I could try a different approach on the copy. If it doesn't work out, delete the copy and unmute the original. It seems to need more edge and less body, but it's hard to be sure without having access to the raw tracks.
 
So I tried lowering the master fader by 2dB on my mastering set up. Converted it to MP3 and then brought it back into the DAW. It isn't clipping the master track anymore, which is obviously a plus. Problem is now it is very noticeably quieter than a commercial track. There either has to be something majorly wrong with the mixing or the mastering I am doing, but now I feel even more lost and confused than I did before, because now I have a new meter telling me things I don't even know what they are or how I am supposed to be controlling them, because nothing I do seem to change anything except the volume/make it clip. :(
 
I think you just need to decide if you really care to match the LUFS level of some particular song. If you do, it might take a substantial amount of practice.

It's looking like most streaming services will simply turn those down to match the service's specification, leaving them at the same perceived volume but with a lot less dynamics. I tend to master to -14dBLUFS with a true peak of -1.0dB.
 
See, this is exactly why I am so confused as to why my masters are coming out so bad.

I have got the Youlean meter, and I am looking at a reference track at the same time.

When I bounce my mix it is no where nearly clipping. Nothing in the mix is clipping, the master fader isn't clipping. Yet as soon as I try to push the master into the same LUFS range as my reference track it breaks down.
...
At its simplest, you use a combination of compression and limiting to massage your mix into something that has a specified loudness and dynamic range. You can't just push the master fader - in fact, I'd leave that set at zero unless you are automating some fade in/out.

If you look at any mix vs. a reference track, you can do some simple arithmetic to think about what might be needed. In your case, just moving the LUFS would require gain of +20dB, which is going to push everything too high (moving a peak from about -13 to +7).

Your "Average Dynamics" vs. the reference are one tell here almost 2x as much, so I would try to get that under control with compression, and I'd go back to the mix - maybe start another version to experiment and see how to get your mix a little tighter? You really have to learn to use the compressors in your DAW and figure out how to apply those, maybe using side chaining earlier in the mix or on specific tracks, or multiple passes later on the master bus, whatever, to lighten the load at mastering time, though you can try more complex things in the master, along with the limiter, so you can squeeze out the wayward parts when you are shooting for something so squished at the end.
 
Yep, you have to mix with the end result in mind. That usually means compressing things in the mix if you want a loud master, so the mastering compression doesn't have to work as hard or cause as much pumping.
 
I think you just need to decide if you really care to match the LUFS level of some particular song. If you do, it might take a substantial amount of practice.

It's looking like most streaming services will simply turn those down to match the service's specification, leaving them at the same perceived volume but with a lot less dynamics. I tend to master to -14dBLUFS with a true peak of -1.0dB.

To be fair it's not so much that I care about the LUFS of any one particular song, (my choice of reference for this song was simply because it's close style wise to the band I recorded). And I know from reading things online about LUFS you are right that as long as I am at -14LUFS or above it won't make any difference if a track of mine gets uploaded to something like Spotify because they lower the volume so everything is the same anyway.
My only real concern is getting it loud/full enough that it sounds decent in comparison to commercial tracks when played on a device that isn't s streaming service.
I know considering the equipment I have I will never get it to sound exactly like the pro bands who use mastering services that cost stupid amounts of money (lets be honest, if I could then bands/record companies wouldn't bother with expensive tech). I do however feel that with the state of modern tech/what I have it should be possible to get my stuff sounding good enough that, for example, an untrained/none music member of the general public wouldn't listen to it and notice how bad it sounds in comparison.

So yea, any tips of what I can try to make it better I will gladly listen. Like I say I have been playing around on and off with this for years, and now seem to have hit a proper rut where I can't see where else to go. :(
 
I have got some compression on some of the noisier parts of the mix, like the distorted guitars, drums, bass, and a bit on the vocals to try and make them sit nicer in the music. Would you suggest I try using more then? If so on what parts, and how much are we talking? For example at the moment i have a compressor doing about -6dB on the distorted guitars.
I am willing to listen/try anything from guys like yourselves that are more experienced than me.

As for the LUFS: would it be worth bouncing my mix down louder than it is then to give it more LUFS to start with before I try to master? I always bounce it at around that volume to give it more headroom on the master. Are we talking about simply turning up what I have, or do I need to compress more before I do it?
 
Back
Top