"if your signal goes above 0dB, your sound sounds like crap." This one makes me laugh out loud. Download a popular song that you think is amazing and run it through youlean or load it into something that can show you true peaks (audacity is good for this and it's free). Do this especially with a compressed format (e.g., mp3 or whatever your favorite streaming service uses), but it's useful to compare lossy and lossless formats for the same music. Now, what was that you were saying about clipping? Now, consider the quality of the DACs in pretty much any device that people will use to listen to your music. When the signal gets close to 0dB, how accurately is that signal reproduced? The point: we're so used to hearing clipping and over 0dB true peaks that if we don't hear them, we're disappointed, the music seems to lack energy. I'm not saying you should aim for distortion, but if you think it's always terrible, you're just not understanding reality, especially with popular music (classical is a different story).
I would always master to -14 LUFS because I was told that, thats the industry standard....but now i see it was all nonsense...feel like my whole life has been a lie and I've been asking myself why my songs aren't as loud as others that are out there
When I hear this kind of story, I'm amazed that people cannot do the obvious: go download some songs from wherever, beatport, apple music, wherever. Then, run them through a loudness meter; youlean is my favorite, but whatever. Be careful to get both .wav files and .mp3 files; they produce different results (and you should ask yourself and answer "why?"). Now, notice what their integrated loudnesses are. If you can't do this one simple experiment, what the heck are you doing thinking you're an audio engineer? Do they go over 0db? If so, how is that possible? Are they clipping? Wait... If they clip, doesn't that make them "bad" and doesn't that make them sound terrible? Hmm, wait a minute....
I used to go through so much effort to keep it at -14 LUFS and have a dynamic range of exactly 8db that I gave up for a while. Now to find out that that's dumb I'm actually mad.
8:32 I don’t get this, if streaming platforms are using peak based normalization wouldn’t the smashed and the dynamic master just stay the same in terms of relative loudness? I mean, if they were using RMS based normalization, the dynamic master would indeed profit since his peaks are coming through… ?
1. They do. 2. Yes. Soundcloud for example, no matter how loud your track is, will bring it its loudness to around -14LuFS. So, its the best to have your track mastered at that level if you want to upload it to Soundcloud.
If I reach between -10 & -11 lufs then I'm happy. Any more and things fall apart in the mix. This is louder than all streaming platforms so I'm satisfied with that. Rekordbox auto gains so it sounds the same in a DJ set too.
@@NoQualmsTheArtist you need to do some investigation, such as analyzing popular songs. You might be surprised at the loudness they posses, even for streaming.
@@NoQualmsTheArtist That's totally cool (staying -10 or less). My point was only that it's important to know what's going on and understand. Then, you can make good decisions for your own music. If things fall apart in your mix at louder than -10, then I think you probably can learn more about pushing things. That doesn't mean *you should,* just that it's possible, and there might be times when you will want to. I think the main takeaway: the extreme is much more extreme than you might first guess. That said, the extreme isn't necessarily right for everyone/everything. :)
@@briancase6180 some of the best mixes of the past decade are Bruno Mars songs like uptown funk which is at -12lufs. It translates just fine across all mediums. Pushing past -9 is just ridiculous in the post CD era. So I don't see the need. But that's just my opinion, each to their own.
Great video 😊. I'm mixing beats and songs for Remixing that are already mastered. Do I still use limiter? Or just volume leveling everything? At the end it does not sound loud ? Please help
First, great video. Second, just one thing that is my personal pet peeve since I'm a stickler for precision and terms of art. A song, music, has dynamics *not* dynamic range. Dynamic range is a property of a channel such as a radio signal or the output of your audio interface. It's also, consequently, a property of a storage medium or format. The dynamics of sound can be more or less captured and preserved by a channel or a format. For example, a vinyl record has limited dynamic range partly because there's the possibility of high dynamics in the music causing the needle (on playback) to mistrack, jump out of the groove (this is where the term "mastering" comes from: it was the process of limiting dynamics and frequencies so the music would be compatible with the limitations of cutting the master disc! Bad input (improperly mastered signal) could also cause the master-disc cutter to overheat, destroying a $thousands cutting head). Now, 16-bit digital PCM has a dynamic range of 96dB (almost exactly 6dB per bit); vinyl is something like half that. (Homework assignment: why does lowering the level of a signal 6dB make it half as loud?) Anyway, sorry to drone on about this; I just feel that if your ambition is to be a professional audio engineer, or even "just" a producer (that's still a big accomplishment), you need to pay attention to details and be a student of your art. Sound has dynamics; recordings and reproductions and signals have dynamic range. I'll leave it to you to decide if the dynamic range possible with digital representations is even necessary for the dynamics of modern music. ☺️ Homework assignment: grab a 16-bit PCM .wav file and zero the low byte of every 16-bit sample. Now, play back this modified file. What do you hear? Any difference? Why? What's another way to do this? (Hint: scale by 1/256 then scale again by 256. Why 256? If the internal representation is 32-bit floating point (which it usually is in a DAW), will this work? Why? If the internal representation is 32-bit FP, is clipping even *possible*?)
I feel like I totally understand your frustration and I would love to do the “homework” you’re assigning but I’m having trouble following what exactly you talk about. No offense it might be one of those situations where you’re so well versed in this topic that what sounds easy to follow for you is actually quite difficult to follow for someone with less experience.
@@tsrb8646 ok, sorry for the complexity and rant-like nature of my post. Basically, I'm just saying that there's a difference between dynamics and dynamic range. If you've ever played music, you've seen f, ff, p, pp, mf, mp, and so on (usually written in an italic, script typeface). These are directions for how loudly you are supposed to play some notes. These are *dynamics.* These are a property of music. Music has dynamics. The thing on which you play back a recording has a dynamic range. It can distinguish between a certain maximum loud and minimum quiet sound. There are interesting specific details that arise when you digitize sound. It's different than analog recording. That's basically it.
What's another myth you would add to this list?
low cut in ms side eq.
"if your signal goes above 0dB, your sound sounds like crap." This one makes me laugh out loud. Download a popular song that you think is amazing and run it through youlean or load it into something that can show you true peaks (audacity is good for this and it's free). Do this especially with a compressed format (e.g., mp3 or whatever your favorite streaming service uses), but it's useful to compare lossy and lossless formats for the same music. Now, what was that you were saying about clipping? Now, consider the quality of the DACs in pretty much any device that people will use to listen to your music. When the signal gets close to 0dB, how accurately is that signal reproduced? The point: we're so used to hearing clipping and over 0dB true peaks that if we don't hear them, we're disappointed, the music seems to lack energy. I'm not saying you should aim for distortion, but if you think it's always terrible, you're just not understanding reality, especially with popular music (classical is a different story).
We needed this vid! Fire!
I would always master to -14 LUFS because I was told that, thats the industry standard....but now i see it was all nonsense...feel like my whole life has been a lie and I've been asking myself why my songs aren't as loud as others that are out there
When I hear this kind of story, I'm amazed that people cannot do the obvious: go download some songs from wherever, beatport, apple music, wherever. Then, run them through a loudness meter; youlean is my favorite, but whatever. Be careful to get both .wav files and .mp3 files; they produce different results (and you should ask yourself and answer "why?"). Now, notice what their integrated loudnesses are. If you can't do this one simple experiment, what the heck are you doing thinking you're an audio engineer? Do they go over 0db? If so, how is that possible? Are they clipping? Wait... If they clip, doesn't that make them "bad" and doesn't that make them sound terrible? Hmm, wait a minute....
@@briancase6180 I agree but certain sites penalize clipping very harshly ie Soundcloud and Apple Music
@@briancase6180He never called himself an audio engineer.
I used to go through so much effort to keep it at -14 LUFS and have a dynamic range of exactly 8db that I gave up for a while. Now to find out that that's dumb I'm actually mad.
@@TjMoon91 yeah eyy bro, we all learn differently
I think that is the first time I have ever seen iZotope Ozone implement the 'Dynamics' module on a 'Master Assistance' result. 19:05
My cilia is so excited right now!
I really enjoyed this video.
Ayo, made the weekend for me🔥
DONDA SHIRT GO HARDD!!
Cool video 😎👏🏾
This is more like it.
8:32 I don’t get this, if streaming platforms are using peak based normalization wouldn’t the smashed and the dynamic master just stay the same in terms of relative loudness? I mean, if they were using RMS based normalization, the dynamic master would indeed profit since his peaks are coming through… ?
1. They do. 2. Yes.
Soundcloud for example, no matter how loud your track is, will bring it its loudness to around -14LuFS. So, its the best to have your track mastered at that level if you want to upload it to Soundcloud.
Am i the only one or you just look like ross from FRIENDS show ? ❤
Btw thnx for the info need this one for sure
No one has ever told me that one before LOL Thank you though
@@maxneparewak pleasure is all mine buddy ❤
11:57 what? is that amount of gr allowed? it actually makes sense since my final master lufs read around -11 (way quieter) for the same genre
If I reach between -10 & -11 lufs then I'm happy. Any more and things fall apart in the mix. This is louder than all streaming platforms so I'm satisfied with that. Rekordbox auto gains so it sounds the same in a DJ set too.
@@NoQualmsTheArtist you need to do some investigation, such as analyzing popular songs. You might be surprised at the loudness they posses, even for streaming.
@@briancase6180 I totally understand that, I just choose to not push beyond -10.
@@NoQualmsTheArtist That's totally cool (staying -10 or less). My point was only that it's important to know what's going on and understand. Then, you can make good decisions for your own music. If things fall apart in your mix at louder than -10, then I think you probably can learn more about pushing things. That doesn't mean *you should,* just that it's possible, and there might be times when you will want to. I think the main takeaway: the extreme is much more extreme than you might first guess. That said, the extreme isn't necessarily right for everyone/everything. :)
@@briancase6180 some of the best mixes of the past decade are Bruno Mars songs like uptown funk which is at -12lufs. It translates just fine across all mediums. Pushing past -9 is just ridiculous in the post CD era. So I don't see the need. But that's just my opinion, each to their own.
😮💎💎✨ Thank y’all for sharing this!
based on the music you're mastering, I assume you live in NYC and party at Bossa often
lol.... yup, you got it 😂😂😂😅😅😅
what's with the weird slow panning on the screencaps?
Quite useful ✨
This video is like a weight off my shoulders
I have believed all of these at one point in time. Luckily I believe none of these when I watched the video. Thanks for the pro insight 😎
I'd put a clipper before Ozone.
should the ceiling in the master be -0.3 db or -1.0 db?
I usually go to -1.0 for super safety but the answer is it won't really make that much of a difference
Great video. Where can I find more?
Great video 😊. I'm mixing beats and songs for Remixing that are already mastered. Do I still use limiter? Or just volume leveling everything? At the end it does not sound loud ? Please help
You might need a limiter to bring a quieter track up to the same loudness of louder tracks without clipping.
The villain in The Incredibles said it best: “if everyone is super then no one is super.”
“If everything is loud then nothing is loud.”
First, great video. Second, just one thing that is my personal pet peeve since I'm a stickler for precision and terms of art. A song, music, has dynamics *not* dynamic range. Dynamic range is a property of a channel such as a radio signal or the output of your audio interface. It's also, consequently, a property of a storage medium or format. The dynamics of sound can be more or less captured and preserved by a channel or a format. For example, a vinyl record has limited dynamic range partly because there's the possibility of high dynamics in the music causing the needle (on playback) to mistrack, jump out of the groove (this is where the term "mastering" comes from: it was the process of limiting dynamics and frequencies so the music would be compatible with the limitations of cutting the master disc! Bad input (improperly mastered signal) could also cause the master-disc cutter to overheat, destroying a $thousands cutting head). Now, 16-bit digital PCM has a dynamic range of 96dB (almost exactly 6dB per bit); vinyl is something like half that. (Homework assignment: why does lowering the level of a signal 6dB make it half as loud?) Anyway, sorry to drone on about this; I just feel that if your ambition is to be a professional audio engineer, or even "just" a producer (that's still a big accomplishment), you need to pay attention to details and be a student of your art. Sound has dynamics; recordings and reproductions and signals have dynamic range. I'll leave it to you to decide if the dynamic range possible with digital representations is even necessary for the dynamics of modern music. ☺️ Homework assignment: grab a 16-bit PCM .wav file and zero the low byte of every 16-bit sample. Now, play back this modified file. What do you hear? Any difference? Why? What's another way to do this? (Hint: scale by 1/256 then scale again by 256. Why 256? If the internal representation is 32-bit floating point (which it usually is in a DAW), will this work? Why? If the internal representation is 32-bit FP, is clipping even *possible*?)
I feel like I totally understand your frustration and I would love to do the “homework” you’re assigning but I’m having trouble following what exactly you talk about. No offense it might be one of those situations where you’re so well versed in this topic that what sounds easy to follow for you is actually quite difficult to follow for someone with less experience.
@@tsrb8646 ok, sorry for the complexity and rant-like nature of my post. Basically, I'm just saying that there's a difference between dynamics and dynamic range. If you've ever played music, you've seen f, ff, p, pp, mf, mp, and so on (usually written in an italic, script typeface). These are directions for how loudly you are supposed to play some notes. These are *dynamics.* These are a property of music. Music has dynamics. The thing on which you play back a recording has a dynamic range. It can distinguish between a certain maximum loud and minimum quiet sound. There are interesting specific details that arise when you digitize sound. It's different than analog recording. That's basically it.
"Its not the gear, its the ear" -@facethemusic
Ok
🤝
who is the girl rapping
Nick minnj
My life is a lie.
This is stupid, but you remind me of a cartoon character, I don't know why
Maybe fish from spongebob
🤣😭