Get the free Mastering Compression Cheatsheet here: go.mastering.com/mastering-compression?el=10-tips-for-louder-masters-youtubeorganic&htrafficsource=youtubeorganic
Hey, Sonox Inflator is just one of the simplest waveshaper shapes/functions. You can easily create it yourself with any waveshaper and even null it. Interesting that not many people know this
The fact that compression can make transients loader is totally overlooked in most tutorials, it took me years to figure this out, wasted so much time. This video would be great for beginners, still great with 15 years up my sleeve.
Wow, this is the way I thought of mixing and mastering when I first started recording. This kind of advice is not very typical, at least not in many videos I've watched. When I started learning about audio engineering I got in the mindset that you pretty much always needed some compression on just about everything. It's simply not the case, and I'm glad you took me back to my roots to start looking at both mixing and mastering with fresh eyes again (or rather, ears).
I think reference plugins like Metric AB and others were the biggest game changer for home mastering. The ability to instantly flip back and forth between your mix any song instantly make using your ears everything.
@@FinnJainman that’s when you know your worth and don’t mix for garbage tracks. You’ve gotta pick and choose what and who to work with. I wouldn’t want my name on something like this and neither would most self respecting audio engineers 😅
I’d started applying a lot of transient management within the mix just because I felt it made sense. Even though I run into CPU issues and feel like I’m breaking all sorts of mixing “rules”. Very comforting to know it’s a thing.
8:15 I have always wondered about that, it was so simple and logical and yet no one ever points that out. How am I supposed to get a more consistent level when I let an initial transient pass through, and level down what follows 🤷♀🤷♀ thanks for clarifying. Well, thanks for all this video, I am already putting your advice into practice.
Appreciate the shout out on the final pointer; I will say credit to where the origins of that technique is from; are the passages on "manual limiting" in Bob Katz' Mastering Audio book;
I always thought that learning mastering first would make you better in mixing. I've realised it when I started mixing and noticed how that improved my production. However you are the first person I've heard talking about this reverse engineer concept. Thank you, great video!
this has got to be the most helpful mastering video I've ever watched thanks a ton mate my masters are loud and competitive now i really appreciate it!!!!
Nice video, even helps influence choosing samples early on. Loudness over time vs short transient knocks that will affect headroom and processing etc...
From my experience, Sonnox Inflator is a soft-clipping saturator with a small volume boost. I achieved similar results with the soft saturation on the Logic PHAT FX but unfortunately, it doesn't do oversampling and introduces aliases in the upper frequencies. That was an ABSOLUTELY GREAT mastering tutorial by the way!!
Thank you Rob, this edified my process and then, once you got to the sonnex inflater, it showed how much I still have to learn, lol. Appreciate all you guys do! 🙏🤛🎶
I think this has been singlehandedly the best mastering tutorial I've seen to date. I will say this though. I think in modern mastering one of the most important and 'new' things are the mid/side limiting and multiband limiting. I would really love if you could/would go more in depth on those topics because this is often not really explained well. Then one small thing about Saturn: the default settings are with the entire plugin on -1dB. This is also the case in your video. So if you want to understand why the LUFS go down with a dB mostly it's because you're literally turning down the thing as a whole with 1dB. And the reason you're lifting the transients mostly is because you are not affecting the bass/kick as you're working mutiband (above 530hz), so you're saturating the top end more, hence affecting more the transients of for instance the percussion as you mention.
YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME. I went to school for audio engineering, but the market isn't acfepting of "fresh meat." Why is it so competitive? 😂. God be with me.
one of my fav loudness videos on youtube. this guy is such a good teacher. only issue, that beat with tune glides. different beat, a couple of different ones would be nice. but its ok i m here for the top tricks. and definitely in good hands. than kyou
really really well put together video, lots of great tips and superb explanations. I'd disagree on the 9 ish LUFS for club music though, needs to be much louder than that (sadly). Glad you mentioned the inflator, superb tool
I produce club music so this is very helpful indeed! I got a question tho, How would I set the master on my tracks to upload to different streaming services since some require a certain db limit? Like 9 lufs ain't too bad, but I know some have strict requirements for uploading to their servers! I don't know if I would have to make numerous copies of each song with different volumes for each upload to apply with each streaming service requirement tho....that's what confuses me frfr
@@IamMXNDXZmusicpeople have really made something very simple and unimportant this massive complicated issues. - Master it above -14LUFS or whichever is the loudest service. -loud tracks get turned down so unless your limiters or clippers improve the sound don't bother going excessive. -tracks being turned down through normalisation just turns tracks down, they aren't limited or changed. -tracks being turned up, through normalisation? You can guess what happens to your peaks, they get clipped or limited...its actually more problematic keeping things below the recommended LUFS if your peaks are hitting near the top still. -no...you can't just set each track to average -14 or album dynamics between songa will be way off, mellow tracks will blast out of speakers and loud ones will be weak...not to mention dynamica within song structure too -loads of tracks at "club volume" on streaming services that isn't suffering. No they don't make loads of masters, except perhaps the necessary thing in vinyl pressing
Funny story. I used compressor like ReaComp and TDR for years, but I only understand ratio and gain reduction/addition. I finally understood what the attack/release speed does after using Airwindows compressors, which doesn't have any fancy GUI or indicator lol. It forces you to listen on the result instead of watching numbers appear.
When using saturation, typically it adds harmonics which has an impact on perceived loudness. In other words, in simple terms, adds more information to the affected frequency range.
Speaking about mastering this video has a great balance... between very great and useful tips that I'll for sure implement from now on, but explained on a horrendous song. Never heard a melody this irritating sound so clean lol, just my liking tho I'm sure other people would love this.
Hi, beautiful work, thanks for your dedication! Two nitpicks/suggestions on this one: your logo is wonderful AND it's in the way up to 72Hz and just in general I don't want it there while I'm working. Perhaps an option to disable it would be nice. Second, it would be great if we could mouse the output level up/down on the horizontal lines, rather than needing to turn the output knob. Thanks again!
I love this tutorial and this channel. Any insight on what you would do differently mastering for vinyl? Are there any specific videos for vinyl mastering?
Good video, but a quick note: @ ~29:48, in the Ozone Maximizer module, those sliders on the right are not "left and right" but "transient and sustain, and while they can be unlinked it appears they affect the stereo signal -- no L/R specific effect.
When demoing L2 you said fast attack is like clipping - but actually slowest attack is what gives the shortest gr envelope. Doesn't the attack knob essentially work as a wet/dry for how much signal goes to the initial levelling comp with the slowest setting being a bypass?
You are not soft clipping with the StandardCLIP there, you need to slide the fader unde the mode the "soft-clip saturator" to the right to start soft clipping, if its at 0 you are hard clipping whatever your mode is. the more to the right you take it the softer the clipping.
26:09 - Frank Pole has recreated Inflator in Fl Studio with stock plugins and discovered its a waveshaper with a sinewave function. He links two videos achieving a null test with a waveshaper and the Inflator. Frank's video (I've created an INFLATOR clone in PATCHER)
Super helpful post -- just as good as the gain staging one. Thank You!!! I do wish the reference track were a bit more musical--with the electrochirp stuff it's hard to hear the effects in a meaningful way. I've always thought of clipping as the hard, square wave distortion resulting from volume going past the capacity of the system to reproduce accurately. And here you're using 'clipping' to refer to an activity which might be better described as trimming. Am I just old and out of touch? Regardless it's a practice I hadn't seen before and will be trying this with the Standard Clip.
Actually the attack parameter in proL2 controls the amount of time before the beginning of the release and the release parameter is an actual and classic release so i think that the actual attack of the limiter is always 0. Being a limiter, it would make sense.
Small queston, the RX phase check trick is a really life saver!! But wondering, if you master a song with analog gear, and once you print that, is it usefull to check the final wavefile again on phase issues? Sometime analog brings small face issues. Very curious about that!
heard spotify only does -14 Lufs when you have the option enabled, so there is apparently still reason to limit to ie. -6 as most mastering engineers often still do.
I agree. In my experience putting together playlists (of both my own stuff, and commercial works), if you have a loud (good) master, it sounds: - Louder than the competition, when Spotify normalization is off - Much the same as the competition, when Spotify normalization is on The logical conclusion I drew from this was, therefore, that a good, loud (within reason) master still had clear benefit and survived both scenarios well. A quieter master only survived one of these two scenarios well. Therefore, by process of elimination: loud master wins (IF that's what you're looking for). This is a slightly simplistic overview of the situation, of course, but you get the point. Other's experience might vary, of course!
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Get the free Mastering Compression Cheatsheet here: go.mastering.com/mastering-compression?el=10-tips-for-louder-masters-youtubeorganic&htrafficsource=youtubeorganic
Hey, Sonox Inflator is just one of the simplest waveshaper shapes/functions. You can easily create it yourself with any waveshaper and even null it.
Interesting that not many people know this
No
It’s not working for me - the locations is not found (error 503)
@@foxate dude, these guys are CONS.
That fast compression visualisation just helped me understand something i have been struggling to understand for a while now. Thank you!
Hey you seem to be very knowledgeable for this subject. Why did you choose this track?
Same. Highkey
The song playing in the beginning is just hilarious to me for some reason
The background song? Or the before/after demo?
From this to this😂😂😂 and it sounds shitty af 🤣🤣🤷🏻♂️
That's what it sounds like in a microwave. 😂
Hahahah like a robotic seizure
Its a very wobbly melody with loads of pitch bending.
Knowing how mastering works at the start of the journey will save you a couple of good years..
The fact that compression can make transients loader is totally overlooked in most tutorials, it took me years to figure this out, wasted so much time. This video would be great for beginners, still great with 15 years up my sleeve.
This is me 😅Suddenly it makes sense after 10+ years lol in freaking 1 video
Wow, this is the way I thought of mixing and mastering when I first started recording. This kind of advice is not very typical, at least not in many videos I've watched. When I started learning about audio engineering I got in the mindset that you pretty much always needed some compression on just about everything. It's simply not the case, and I'm glad you took me back to my roots to start looking at both mixing and mastering with fresh eyes again (or rather, ears).
Add parallel compression to this and you have a great tool kit for mixes that retain a sense of their original dynamics
Amazing video. No clickbait title and full of real useful information based on experience.
Just one thing. Thank you. After watching this I've increased the loudness of a track from -11 luvs to -7 luvs without any dist.
Serial limiting was the big “AH-HA!” moment for me. It’s been a long road over the years but it’s all coming together now. Thank you!
I think reference plugins like Metric AB and others were the biggest game changer for home mastering. The ability to instantly flip back and forth between your mix any song instantly make using your ears everything.
Why do audio engineering tutorials pick the most annoying tracks imaginable to demo 🤣
I swear man
The reality of being a mastering engineer I suppose; you are going to come across some terrible songs that need mastering
Im vibing bro✌️
Ahh Human music
@@FinnJainman that’s when you know your worth and don’t mix for garbage tracks. You’ve gotta pick and choose what and who to work with. I wouldn’t want my name on something like this and neither would most self respecting audio engineers 😅
I’d started applying a lot of transient management within the mix just because I felt it made sense. Even though I run into CPU issues and feel like I’m breaking all sorts of mixing “rules”. Very comforting to know it’s a thing.
This is one of the best audio related videos on RUclips so far. Thanks!
The info in this video are amazing, especially the way to use compression and the super gem; phase check in RX.
one of the best videos i have seen on this subject, thanks a million really helped :)
8:15 I have always wondered about that, it was so simple and logical and yet no one ever points that out. How am I supposed to get a more consistent level when I let an initial transient pass through, and level down what follows 🤷♀🤷♀ thanks for clarifying. Well, thanks for all this video, I am already putting your advice into practice.
Appreciate the shout out on the final pointer; I will say credit to where the origins of that technique is from; are the passages on "manual limiting" in Bob Katz' Mastering Audio book;
That bit about compression and dynamic range was worth the watch alone, so obvious once explained, but I'd never considered it.
I always thought that learning mastering first would make you better in mixing. I've realised it when I started mixing and noticed how that improved my production. However you are the first person I've heard talking about this reverse engineer concept. Thank you, great video!
this has got to be the most helpful mastering video I've ever watched thanks a ton mate my masters are loud and competitive now i really appreciate it!!!!
Thats a true masterclass. Great content, congratulations!
Amazing video, finally understood things i couldnt wrap my head around! THANK YOU
Glad it helped!
this is a complete course, thanks mate
Best mastering video on youtube. Period.
This is the BEST mastering video I have seen in awhile. No gimmicks... and very useful info!
Clear and useful discussion, especially about clipping; thanks.
Uohh, really loved today's song. Actually the first time you work with music in the same genre as mine, Love it!
the attack times with compression blew mind, seems so obvious but i never saw it that way!
very good explanations and tips.. thanks!
Nice video, even helps influence choosing samples early on. Loudness over time vs short transient knocks that will affect headroom and processing etc...
Golden video
Just WOW. What a Video! I've learned so much and will put all of your tricks to good use. Thank you super duper much. Lovely guy
From my experience, Sonnox Inflator is a soft-clipping saturator with a small volume boost. I achieved similar results with the soft saturation on the Logic PHAT FX but unfortunately, it doesn't do oversampling and introduces aliases in the upper frequencies. That was an ABSOLUTELY GREAT mastering tutorial by the way!!
These videos are gold.
thanks to your visualization at 8:40 I finally understand what threshold means! learned a lot here thanks
Video that is worth watching
💪
Thank you Rob, this edified my process and then, once you got to the sonnex inflater, it showed how much I still have to learn, lol. Appreciate all you guys do! 🙏🤛🎶
I think this has been singlehandedly the best mastering tutorial I've seen to date. I will say this though. I think in modern mastering one of the most important and 'new' things are the mid/side limiting and multiband limiting. I would really love if you could/would go more in depth on those topics because this is often not really explained well.
Then one small thing about Saturn: the default settings are with the entire plugin on -1dB. This is also the case in your video. So if you want to understand why the LUFS go down with a dB mostly it's because you're literally turning down the thing as a whole with 1dB. And the reason you're lifting the transients mostly is because you are not affecting the bass/kick as you're working mutiband (above 530hz), so you're saturating the top end more, hence affecting more the transients of for instance the percussion as you mention.
YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME. I went to school for audio engineering, but the market isn't acfepting of "fresh meat." Why is it so competitive? 😂. God be with me.
I like the musical example. More interesting than most
Thank you for your insight and tips.
No worries!
one of my fav loudness videos on youtube. this guy is such a good teacher. only issue, that beat with tune glides. different beat, a couple of different ones would be nice. but its ok i m here for the top tricks. and definitely in good hands. than kyou
really really well put together video, lots of great tips and superb explanations. I'd disagree on the 9 ish LUFS for club music though, needs to be much louder than that (sadly). Glad you mentioned the inflator, superb tool
8-9 should be competitive enough - good data here to back this up: www.masteringthemix.com/blogs/learn/mastering-trends-for-2023
Glad you liked the video, thank you for the kind words!
I produce club music so this is very helpful indeed!
I got a question tho, How would I set the master on my tracks to upload to different streaming services since some require a certain db limit? Like 9 lufs ain't too bad, but I know some have strict requirements for uploading to their servers! I don't know if I would have to make numerous copies of each song with different volumes for each upload to apply with each streaming service requirement tho....that's what confuses me frfr
@@masteringcom na man, loud music is now 3 LUFS, even below for Hardcore. Yeah, yeah :)
@@IamMXNDXZmusicpeople have really made something very simple and unimportant this massive complicated issues.
- Master it above -14LUFS or whichever is the loudest service.
-loud tracks get turned down so unless your limiters or clippers improve the sound don't bother going excessive.
-tracks being turned down through normalisation just turns tracks down, they aren't limited or changed.
-tracks being turned up, through normalisation? You can guess what happens to your peaks, they get clipped or limited...its actually more problematic keeping things below the recommended LUFS if your peaks are hitting near the top still.
-no...you can't just set each track to average -14 or album dynamics between songa will be way off, mellow tracks will blast out of speakers and loud ones will be weak...not to mention dynamica within song structure too
-loads of tracks at "club volume" on streaming services that isn't suffering. No they don't make loads of masters, except perhaps the necessary thing in vinyl pressing
This was very insightful, thank you
really well explained video. Thank You
Thanks My Teacher Rob for a lot of information~ A lot helpful and always respect 🙏
What's awesome is when I started in like 1994 that manual transient reduction was always what we did first in the process :)
Thank you, that was just excellent!
Thank you,your videos are always help me
Funny story. I used compressor like ReaComp and TDR for years, but I only understand ratio and gain reduction/addition. I finally understood what the attack/release speed does after using Airwindows compressors, which doesn't have any fancy GUI or indicator lol. It forces you to listen on the result instead of watching numbers appear.
This is Incredible!
This is a goldmine! Thanks bud!
This is a super helpful video. Thanks man!
Great and complete explanation mate, great!!!
Amazing content!
good insight and info
This was really interesting. 👍
When using saturation, typically it adds harmonics which has an impact on perceived loudness. In other words, in simple terms, adds more information to the affected frequency range.
And better have some good oversampling happening. Unless the specific track you’re working on sounds great with bizarre aliasing.
isnt saturation the same thing as distortion?
That lead drove me crazy.
Speaking about mastering this video has a great balance... between very great and useful tips that I'll for sure implement from now on, but explained on a horrendous song. Never heard a melody this irritating sound so clean lol, just my liking tho I'm sure other people would love this.
This really helped me out, tysm!
Hi, beautiful work, thanks for your dedication! Two nitpicks/suggestions on this one: your logo is wonderful AND it's in the way up to 72Hz and just in general I don't want it there while I'm working. Perhaps an option to disable it would be nice. Second, it would be great if we could mouse the output level up/down on the horizontal lines, rather than needing to turn the output knob. Thanks again!
Perfects explainations, thank's !
Thanks for clear explanation!
this is SO HELPFUL thank you
excellent video. Very informative. Thanks!
Shout-out to youtube to knowing when i need what video... perfect timing
Such a helpful video. Thanks
Thank you for the class!
I love this tutorial and this channel. Any insight on what you would do differently mastering for vinyl? Are there any specific videos for vinyl mastering?
Thanks for this
Thanks! Really useful and helpful tips.. one thing tho is the demo song is very grating
Good video, but a quick note: @ ~29:48, in the Ozone Maximizer module, those sliders on the right are not "left and right" but "transient and sustain, and while they can be unlinked it appears they affect the stereo signal -- no L/R specific effect.
All good stuff!!!
Thanks for sharing the knowledge... 🤟
awesome video
When demoing L2 you said fast attack is like clipping - but actually slowest attack is what gives the shortest gr envelope. Doesn't the attack knob essentially work as a wet/dry for how much signal goes to the initial levelling comp with the slowest setting being a bypass?
Great video!! And bonus point for staying true to mixing/mastering tutorials and having the weirdest songs lol
Really good video! Easy to follow!
Awesome!
Great video, thanks a lot. 🙏 But do you really need a calculator for these? 😅
You are not soft clipping with the StandardCLIP there, you need to slide the fader unde the mode the "soft-clip saturator" to the right to start soft clipping, if its at 0 you are hard clipping whatever your mode is. the more to the right you take it the softer the clipping.
still adds some color without moving that fader, just by being on the soft clipping option
Thank you so much,
this video contains a lot of knowledge, thank you for sharing ^^
26:09 - Frank Pole has recreated Inflator in Fl Studio with stock plugins and discovered its a waveshaper with a sinewave function. He links two videos achieving a null test with a waveshaper and the Inflator. Frank's video (I've created an INFLATOR clone in PATCHER)
Nice - will check this out!
Super helpful post -- just as good as the gain staging one. Thank You!!! I do wish the reference track were a bit more musical--with the electrochirp stuff it's hard to hear the effects in a meaningful way.
I've always thought of clipping as the hard, square wave distortion resulting from volume going past the capacity of the system to reproduce accurately. And here you're using 'clipping' to refer to an activity which might be better described as trimming. Am I just old and out of touch? Regardless it's a practice I hadn't seen before and will be trying this with the Standard Clip.
Bro sick loop you used. What is the use of doing this tutorial.
Really good
Oxford Inflator is great now and then but it does alter the stereo image somewhat and not necessarily always in a good way.
Wow.. Where can i get the visual compressor generator?
Actually the attack parameter in proL2 controls the amount of time before the beginning of the release and the release parameter is an actual and classic release so i think that the actual attack of the limiter is always 0. Being a limiter, it would make sense.
Correct, if the limited audio sustains longer than the attack setting, then the release setting is brought into the process.
Wait does Standard Clip add auto gain? I thought it only adds gain if you move the gain slider up...
Great video! It was so useful. On a side note, is the song you're working on out anywhere?
Small queston, the RX phase check trick is a really life saver!! But wondering, if you master a song with analog gear, and once you print that, is it usefull to check the final wavefile again on phase issues? Sometime analog brings small face issues. Very curious about that!
Rob This Great 🔥🔥🔥
Brilliant
heard spotify only does -14 Lufs when you have the option enabled, so there is apparently still reason to limit to ie. -6 as most mastering engineers often still do.
I agree. In my experience putting together playlists (of both my own stuff, and commercial works), if you have a loud (good) master, it sounds:
- Louder than the competition, when Spotify normalization is off
- Much the same as the competition, when Spotify normalization is on
The logical conclusion I drew from this was, therefore, that a good, loud (within reason) master still had clear benefit and survived both scenarios well. A quieter master only survived one of these two scenarios well. Therefore, by process of elimination: loud master wins (IF that's what you're looking for). This is a slightly simplistic overview of the situation, of course, but you get the point. Other's experience might vary, of course!
Great video! BTW How did you create the visualization in the compression piece?
Thanks!
#1 Tutour💯
Is there a way to do the phase rotation in real time with a plugin instead of using RX?
Thanks