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
@@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 😅
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.
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.
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’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.
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!!!!
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.
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.
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!!
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.
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.
Nice video, even helps influence choosing samples early on. Loudness over time vs short transient knocks that will affect headroom and processing etc...
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
I only figured the value of clipping for masters recently, had to go back to all my old projects and scrap the 5-6 tools I was using for 1-2 and everything is so much louder now 🤦♂️😂
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.
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;
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
@@JXYMXNDXZOFFICIALpeople 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
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! 🙏🤛🎶
guys that perception plugin mentioned in this video, for ableton users we have a max 4live device called volume body. it does exactly the same thing and i believe its 14-15 bucks. just letting you know before you jump on buying the plugin. i know its useful but we are on ableton we got m4live devices to save us money LOL andyou dont have to put one inthe end one at the end. its just one m4live device. just group all your effects and put a volume body at the end so you can A-B it.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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?
Glad im not the only one who believes compression isnt entirely necessary om masters. Yet hardly have mastered a track without a ds1 mk3 on parra though 🤣 unbelievable compressor that i use for stereo width instead of actual mastering comp 😂
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)
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 😅
Knowing how mastering works at the start of the journey will save you a couple of good years..
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.
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
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
Amazing video. No clickbait title and full of real useful information based on experience.
That bit about compression and dynamic range was worth the watch alone, so obvious once explained, but I'd never considered it.
The info in this video are amazing, especially the way to use compression and the super gem; phase check in RX.
This is one of the best audio related videos on RUclips so far. Thanks!
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!!!!
the attack times with compression blew mind, seems so obvious but i never saw it that way!
this is a complete course, thanks mate
This is the BEST mastering video I have seen in awhile. No gimmicks... and very useful info!
What's awesome is when I started in like 1994 that manual transient reduction was always what we did first in the process :)
Shout-out to youtube to knowing when i need what video... perfect timing
Best mastering video on youtube. Period.
Amazing video, finally understood things i couldnt wrap my head around! THANK YOU
Glad it helped!
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.
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.
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!!
one of the best videos i have seen on this subject, thanks a million really helped :)
Clear and useful discussion, especially about clipping; thanks.
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.
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.
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
Nice video, even helps influence choosing samples early on. Loudness over time vs short transient knocks that will affect headroom and processing etc...
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
I like the musical example. More interesting than most
thanks to your visualization at 8:40 I finally understand what threshold means! learned a lot here thanks
That lead drove me crazy.
very good explanations and tips.. thanks!
Thats a true masterclass. Great content, congratulations!
I only figured the value of clipping for masters recently, had to go back to all my old projects and scrap the 5-6 tools I was using for 1-2 and everything is so much louder now 🤦♂️😂
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?
These videos are gold.
Thanks My Teacher Rob for a lot of information~ A lot helpful and always respect 🙏
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;
Uohh, really loved today's song. Actually the first time you work with music in the same genre as mine, Love it!
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 :)
@@JXYMXNDXZOFFICIALpeople 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
The way you were shaking when the high pass filter modern issue came up 😂
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! 🙏🤛🎶
This is a goldmine! Thanks bud!
Great video!! And bonus point for staying true to mixing/mastering tutorials and having the weirdest songs lol
it's more usefulll than my 10 years of searching the perfect sound
Thank you for your insight and tips.
No worries!
This was very insightful, thank you
Great and complete explanation mate, great!!!
Thank you, that was just excellent!
This is a super helpful video. Thanks man!
Thank you,your videos are always help me
This is Incredible!
This was really interesting. 👍
really well explained video. Thank You
This really helped me out, tysm!
excellent video. Very informative. Thanks!
You made it to the front page of google 💪
Finally some doing it the right way...👍
guys that perception plugin mentioned in this video, for ableton users we have a max 4live device called volume body. it does exactly the same thing and i believe its 14-15 bucks. just letting you know before you jump on buying the plugin. i know its useful but we are on ableton we got m4live devices to save us money LOL andyou dont have to put one inthe end one at the end. its just one m4live device. just group all your effects and put a volume body at the end so you can A-B it.
Thank you for the class!
Thanks for clear explanation!
this is SO HELPFUL thank you
Perfects explainations, thank's !
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.
Thanks for sharing the knowledge... 🤟
Good tutorial. Would have been much better had you used a less annoying track to demo everything.
Video that is worth watching
💪
Such a helpful video. Thanks
I am a not mastering engineer but this is a very interesting video 😊
Rob This Great 🔥🔥🔥
Amazing content!
Good video, learnt some new stuff while using some of my skills better
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.
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
All good stuff!!!
Golden video
Thank you so much,
this video contains a lot of knowledge, thank you for sharing ^^
#1 Tutour💯
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!
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.
good insight and info
Thanks for this
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?
this beat sounds like it is for a snowboard game.
neurofunk tracks now released with -2.5lufs without being distorted. Super loud!
Really good video! Easy to follow!
Awesome!
Thanks! Really useful and helpful tips.. one thing tho is the demo song is very grating
awesome video
That track 😂
Also you can use the mute button
Very handy
Glad im not the only one who believes compression isnt entirely necessary om masters. Yet hardly have mastered a track without a ds1 mk3 on parra though 🤣 unbelievable compressor that i use for stereo width instead of actual mastering comp 😂
Oxford Inflator is great now and then but it does alter the stereo image somewhat and not necessarily always in a good way.
Brilliant
26:44 - that´s called á waveshaper. Indeed someone already reverse engineered Inflator with a waveshaper and achieved silence performing a null test.
Thanks!