The Dumbest Mastering Rule Pro Mixers Don’t Follow! (Have You Got It Wrong?)
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- Опубликовано: 9 сен 2023
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Hello, I'm Nicholas Di Lorenzo, Studio Owner, Mixing and Mastering engineer at Panorama Studios.
I'm an Italian-Australian born and raised in Melbourne. I've been a creative professional for 10 years managing some pretty awesome projects for artists, labels and producers all around the globe.
What motivates and drives me?
My family,
Good food,
Great coffee.
You can find me on many platforms:
Instagram: / panorama_mastering
Facebook: / panoramamastering
Twitter: / panoramamasters
Kit: kit.co/Panorama_Mastering
To add to that, a good way to figure out if you should keep your mixbus processing on there before sending to mastering is to ask yourself: did you put the limiter etc on at the start of the mix process or at the end? If you put it on at the start that means you mixed through the limiter etc and that means it's part of the sound. If you put it on last minute then that means it wasn't part of the sound and IF you're inexperienced then that means you should probably let your mastering engineer do it
Spot on!
You’re pretty much the only audio guy I seriously watch on RUclips nowadays. Keep it up
Thanks man; appreciate the love!
Dan Worall is here too
Nicholas, thank you so much for clarifying my question! It's really cool to see that you put so much work into educating the community. That's why your channel has been my go to when it comes to learning about mastering 🚀
My pleasure! Thanks for the prompt! Definitely a worthwhile topic to explore!
I have full processing on the mix bus to make it as finished sounding as I can. I like to have the limiter on also and mix into that. I send this mix to the clients for approval. The mastering engineer gets this mix plus a version where the only thing I took out was the limiting and I will specify what limiter and what settings I used.
Perfectly reasonable!
Damnnn this master sounds good! Love all the use of adding expansion and harmonic excitement to the sides to get a wide, bright mix that isn't thin or abrasive!
Thanks mate! Appreciate you!
Makes total sense for great mixes! I'm always shy about it. I master with Felipe Tichauer in Miami and what we do is that I print my approved "pseudo-master" for him to reference to. I also print my master bus with what I consider the bare minimum of plug-ins to hold the intention of what we did in mixing for any given session, leaving plenty of headroom. Tichauer ALWAYS makes it sound super close to the reference, but (at least) a little better than my pseudo-master. Only he does it with that analog smoothness and depth of field that is so hard to get with digital, especially at ridiculously high levels.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing these tips and all this information. Interestingly, if you sent the same mix to 10 top professional mastering engineers, you would get 10 different results. So it's a matter of the unique taste and flavor that each mastering engineer adds to the song and I guess that's why artists choose one particular mastering engineer over another, although technically each mastering engineer should (in theory) follow the same (or very similar) ground rules to "respect the mix that was signed" and bring it to the commercial level without altering too much of it. Personally at the mastering step, it happens that some artists ask me to make some specific enhancements to their mixes because they work remotely with the mixing engineer, they do not know how to express what they want and they pay for mixing services that allow a limited number of revisions. So I sometimes get a mix that was approved but they are like "80% satisfied" with it. But because they know that I have the same tastes as them, I can in these cases make quite important changes at the mastering step to make them 100% happy with the final master. But sometimes when leveling match with the original mix, the changes may be more important than just "subtle" as mastering should be. I would have preferred to get a mix for which they are 100% happy with and start my work from this and just to subtle enhancement to it, but it's a fact that sometimes they can't express to the mixing engineer what they do not like and if they express, sometimes the mixing engineer do not understand properly and may make the mix even worse so they stop at "80% satisfaction" and they would ask me as a mastering engineer to "do as much as I can" to level up the song to what they expect. I guess this phenomenon may be more frequent at the non-professional level.
I'm a mix engineer. I match what the client's demo sounds like which is usually very hot. If I sent a mix for approval that was not as loud (but better) it would get rejected.
I mix into several things on my mix bus including a limiter, and yes, it goes to the mix engineer hot. Why? the mix was approved by the label, the artist etc. The mix is done. The Mastering Engineer is not there to make it loud or make it sound different. They are there to assemble the final delivery formats and sequence order of albums, playlists etc. When mastering engineers decide to eq things or make things wider or do a bunch of tone shaping of the mix, 99% of the time the client rejects it and just goes with the mix for release.
You know who else does things this way? Serban Ghenea, and John Hanes - guys that mix the top 1% of pop artists and have far more gammy's than me.
Bang on. As an assistant when sending lixes to labels we would always make it as loud if not louder than the prod mixes because the A&R’s would a/b it at nominal playback volume
One way to orient oneself towards mastering is quality control. One could make a solid argument that every sonic move the mastering engineer does is a lack of work in the mixing stage. If the mix needs to be wider -> make it wider in the mix. If the vocals needs to be more prominent-> make it more prominent in the mix. One could argue the mastering being on spot of making in and out fades, writing metadata, using processings needed for the media (i.e. Vinyl mastering) and quality control. Like song mixes 1, 2, 4 are brighter than 3 so brighten that one up, and maybe number 2 had 0, 5 db less bass but could use a little more. I’ve been mix in way over decade as a pro and the further I go, less shortcomings I do and less the masters change. Actually now being in the spot that many times the masters tend to get something better and something worse. So it is a trade-off and many times the clients have been selecting the limited mix after the mastering. Again even then it is a quality control. Making sure this is the most we get out of it. If the other dude can't better it, that is as valuable conclusion and info.
Not every full on out there mix can be made better in the master ✌️
Great video once again, I do wanna ask something though. It's already been somewhat discussed in comments but what about when a track has already been smashed with a limiter? I recall previous videos you've done (and others where you've referenced someone elses video) discussing how & why stacking limiters & clippers doesn't work in the digital realm. If you get a mix that's already been smashed, doesn't that basically leave you with nowhere to go? Especially if it hasn't been done with care?
Thank you!
I get where you're coming from;
The video you're citing is where I'm discussing the net-benefit to net-negative of stacking limiters.
If I receive a mix that's already smashed; I look to why and how it's been "smashed" and how is it affecting the sound;
Often these mixers are able to hit great levels without things falling apart so there's no complaints for me and it doesn't tie my hands up;
SOMETIMES I have received mixes from less experienced engineers that have smashed the mix bus and it's objectively distorted/broken
In those cases I will flag it as part of QC
Love your energy and enthusiasm man. Wanted to know, do you ever clip your AD converter before limiting? Because it becomes kind of impossible if the mix is already brickwalled. I at least ask for a version without the limiter-everything else can stay.
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't; really depends; often when mixes are pushed hard; I won't leave the box unless there's a specific flavour or thing I want to do within my analog chain;
Great conversation/discussion. Depends on the level of clients you're working with of course. If the mix is sounding amazing and there aren't any major problems (and the client passes off on it) there's no reason to ask them to alter anything, anywhere.
Spot on; majority of my clients are producers and engineers I liaise with directly; so I'm super fortunate to have banging mixes hitting my desk day-in-day-out
For all of you who are now going to send mastering engineers hot limited mixes and are confident about it….make sure you are not distorting and that’s it!
99% of the time the limited mixes are distorting and already sets the mastering engineer back in the finished product you will get in return
So be careful
Yeah... i would think if worst comes to worst, you could send 2 versions (1 with limiter, 1 without) and say "look, this limited version is what the artist signed off on, but here's the unlimited version for you to work on" or something like that.
@@fftunes yes that or even better all you have to do is say hey this is my limiter settings on X Limiter I used that the artist sighed off on. Always good to see
Then the ME can tweak it from there and knows your set point
Spot on; this isn't a call to put a limiter on for the sake of it; but more-so not to restrict your options when mixing and feel like you have to remove everything off your mix-bus and let the signed-off product fall apart to apease the mastering process;
@@panorama_mastering yea for people who can actually hear what’s going on
mixing and mastering mostly trap and rap, i know many producers "beat sauce" is actually happening on the mixbus and often times i'd rather work with what the client signed off as sounding good than just trying to resemble that gritty sound later. now i just ask for both the clean and "dirty" version and figure out which one of both is the way to go.
hearing this from a professional engineer is gold, since theres so many "rules" that i feel dont make that much sense with how creative some mixing techniques are used by producers. amazing advice like always!
I think I would've done the limiting there at the end a bit more subtly but it probably translates better played over large speakers (I'm listening on headphones).
Really cool lesson in the art of listening. I loved everything up until the maximizer. The move you made on the bass and vocal was awesome. Great set of ears.
Personally, I mix without putting stuff on the master bus 99.8% of the time (and have still finished some mixes around -9 or -10 LUFS).
As for mastering other people's mixes, it depends. A lot of the work I do is for multi-artist compilation albums for smaller netlabels, and the unfortunate reality for the artists in that case is we're usually after a cohesive sound more than we want to fully realize each artist's individual vision. The album may in fact contain songs from a dozen different artists hailing from 6 continents who didn't discuss their songs or mixes beforehand, and we might brag about that - but we don't want the album to sound like that. I really need a neutral enough starting point from all those mixes to get the album to sound cohesive, and I have had to nudge artists in the past to remove some bus processing because I can add a subtler amount of that to get them some of the character they're after without straying too far from the rest of the songs.
I hear you; I've faced thar reality too with compilation albums. It's a tough one; I usually start with the weakest song (sonically) on the album and work backwards;
If the mix is great its great.
We as mastering engineers need to be the final QC and get it ready for the formats the label/artists are amining for.
Then say
Yep. This is awesome. Great work 👏 😊
But let me point out
There's a difference between a controlled mix and a smashed mix
Where u do have to go back and ask for alterations
I agree 100%
Sometimes the producers are crushing the transient with their limiting & often I get blamed for the distortion or inability to get the song louder or more polished 😭
Spot on! you provided here a tremendous insight of this process, and we thank you so much for sharing this!
Glad you enjoyed it! My pleasure!
The diamond saturator does such a good job yet takes the vocals back a lot. Idk why my first thought was to use it as a bus instead to blend in that girth
Interesting; I was focused on the transients. It's where I felt a lot of the energy had to move on those choruses;
Now that I've got a 2nd listen. I felt like after the diamond Saturator lifted or made the low end and highs of the vocals more forward but somewhere in the mids or high mids the vocal went back into the mix a bit for me.
I kinda wanted to hear it after that softening of the highs with the eq... maybe those mids would've come back a bit after gainstaging the eq plugin
I do understand why they wouldn't want it max'd and limited.
At 12:04 you have ceiling at 0 dB and no True Peak - is that something that you do and recommend nowadays?
Great pick-up; after that final limiter I have ozone 10 maximizer with a -0dBTP ceiling in IRC I mode and TP enabled (I just had this bypassed for no particular reason)
I did some blind AB's at the advice of people at iZotope to try using the TP function in a seperate maximizer module; and funilly enough; I prefered and picked out the sound of the TP limiter on a seperate maximizer with 0dBTP ceiling and no threshold/gain enabled, than I did to turning the TP limiter on in the maximizer itself.
@@panorama_mastering very interesting.. Thank you for the response!
This is really great content. Thank you for your work Nicholas
My pleasure! Glad you enjoyed it!
A Wally mallet beater eh chap HA!!! As a Yankee that truly hit different I had to do my homework on that one
Good fun!
What if the "client" is me, though? In that case, is it worth sending a mix with no mix bus processing to the mastering engineer? Or should I still go with what's closest to my vision? What about sending the mastering engineer both a mix with mix bus processing and without? That way they have my original mix with the processing as their reference but they still have the mix with no processing to allow them a little more freedom. Or do mastering engineers not want to deal with that?
To clarify, I'm not a "mixing engineer" in the sense of wanting to attract clients or do it professionally. I simply try to mix my own music -- and the music I make with friends -- to sound as good as possible. I like sending it off to a separate mastering engineer to inject a little bit of objectivity and outside expertise into the process.
Good questions; a bit to disect here;
Or should I still go with what's closest to my vision?
A: Go with what's closest to your vision
What about sending the mastering engineer both a mix with mix bus processing and without?
A: Great idea! I encourage this; but be clear in communication to let them know which one you prefer and why
Jaycen Joshua has CLEARLY stated in MWTM that although he leaves the God Particle onbthe mixbus, he turns off the final limiter in GP before he sends it to mastering. The original DM is incorrect.
@lizzyx7 clarified this with me and where he heard it;
"On his last MWTM where he deconstructed Oliveira Dos Cen Anos by C. Tangana, he states that „when I print for mastering, I print it with the limiter on. I let mastering figure it out, and handle it at the end. But I’ve learned […] once you take the limiter off, it changes everything. So sending it to mastering without the God Particle, it is very very rare that I get this back sounding just as good. […] If I don’t feel I need something [he‘s talking about improving the sound through mastering here], which is the majority of the time, I will just send it out with The God Particle in full mode with the limiter on and reap the benefits.“"
-6 Lufs for a mix is crazy though, don't you think? That's almost if not at mastering level. Thought I'm sure it can be pushed even further as you've discussed in this video, thank you!
-6 LUFS is very very loud. LUFS =/= DBFS.
It's more of a thing whether the mix-bus processing is done well or not. Like if a mastering engineer receives a song that is squashed within an inch of it's life with no dynamics or transients, and it's to the detriment of the song, there's little they can do to compliment that or even fix it. So in that scenario there probably would be a phone call I would imagine. However if the mix-bus processing has got the tune popping already ... that's just less work for the mastering engineer to do, so why would they not accept it xD.
another great video! Love it - so fun and educational
That’s truly amazing! Let’s stay in touch!
Except for that last one maby but then again those individual tracks won't hit it anyway.
HIGHLY AGREE WITH ALL OF THIS!!! I have to 100% trust the mastering engineer to take my mixbuss limiter off for mastering because like you said what is being sent IS what the client signed off on!
Can always send them one file with the bus processing to serve as a reference and one without
I actually prefer the bass without the plugin. I've been finding this with some other plugins these days too like a new one from Plugin Alliance. Sometimes they really detract from detail, depth and clarity.
Bang on and this isn't a bad idea!
@@panorama_mastering I did this recently and didn't like the analog (including tape) master as much as I hoped I would. Might use my own digital master or try analog without tape (or even that mixanalog service myself and give it a whirl)
Completely understand why it's important. I also would actually prefer that, it's less work for me. 😆
10:39 That’s one way to describe it 😂
Ha! Lovely glad you caught onto that!
Best Mastering video I’ve seen so far definitely got me thinking different !
What was that widener at 6:20. My god
I beliebe it's a paralell highpass filter (running through saturation) that's only affecting the sides channel. Not too hard to set up as a send effect, where the level of the send controls the gain of that distorted high shelf.
Here's how I built it! ruclips.net/video/VhwCemsObNg/видео.html
Daimond reversed the transient snap
You reckon? Interesting; my ears picked up on the opposite;
Communication is key.
Spot on; and I think that's a common thread to all my videos when it comes to industry practices; communication settles 99% of issues;
I must say that your mix sounds like the musicians are standing right in front of me! Nice work!
Thank you very much
I have sent things back when they are distorted but otherwise, if that is what they send, then that is what I work. If I think there is a problem, I ask. If the client doesn't answer or is a dick, I bail.
The reason that most should not have any attempt at mastering is because if that work is done badly, as is common with inexperienced people, it cannot be undone. Mastering is supposed to be preparing for pressing (to fit in the delivery tin) not solving a messy mix.
BTW most of the "Rules" in Yoo Boob 10 Tipz n Trix lists and pedaled in groups etc are BS in the first place.
:-)
Great job! Personally I don’t like what basslane does, to me it’s like the uncanny valley for bass. It feels unnatural to hear side harmonics, it’s slightly off putting as a bassist who is used to hearing something a certain way. It’s like it loses it’s solidity, it’s foundation. Does anybody else feel the same way, or is it just me?
WHY DO YOU HAVE STEMS FOR MASTERING AND NOT WAVE FILE?
What do you mean; I don't have stems; only the wav file?
I SEE ABOUT FIVE WAV FILES ON YOUR SCREEN I WAS JUST ASKING MAYBE ITS A SPECIAL TECHNIQUE@@panorama_mastering
Best video so far!
Thank Rich!
More Alpha from Nicholas. Thanks so much man!
O yeah... and you probably shouldn't say that 🤣🤣
brilliant work as always
Thank you! Cheers!
So i can send off a limited mix?
Yes.
@@panorama_mastering a wild concept I usually mix with it on to see how transients respond then take it off when I send to mastering
@@SuperFake777If you mixed with it on then it's part of the sound because you made all your mix decisions with it on, then it's probably better to leave it on when you send to mastering. That's what i would do anyway
Dang it I need ozone
It's good hey!
Your basslane was a bad decision, not only does it not fit the song, it was absolutely not necessary at all, but it did also worsen the mix by reducing the low end punch- which you tried to fix later on. Bob’s low end was messed up! (my humble opinion)
Fair enough; it's one of those moves that can polarise a listener; either LOVE or HATE regardless of the context;
I think like 10k top much for my own good. Time for ear cleaning lol
if your ears were clogged 10kHz would sound a lot easier on your ears than otherwise. wax build up is nature's earplugs lol
Natures ear plugs!
Good shit
Thank you!
Mate, what is an average lufs level in today’s mainstream? -8 , -6?
-10 mixes are pretty damn common;
Typically the mixes are at the mercy of the nature and make-up of the production/sound design and arrangement;
I don't necesserily think mixers are "aiming to mix it to a particular LUFS"
The loudness is just a biproduct of the pedigree of the production + the approach of the mix and clients needs/wants during that mix;
don't be afraid of -5 as long as you can do it without audible distortion & without smearing transients to much. it won't work for certain kinds of music though.
@@panorama_mastering thanx! Got it 🤝
@@Fire-Toolz aaigh. Thanks
If you are aiming for a particular number then you're already asking the wrong questions. It's what feels good and best serves the song. The numbers are meaningless when mixing. When producing the final deliverables then it has some meaning but even then it's what best serves the song.
I don´t know how people sit around all day mixing rubbish ¨like this¨...let alone talk about it with any sort of enthusiasm.
Really? There are over a million people who have streamed this song and wouldn't agree with you!
Music is subjective; but this channel is a space where I like to share, learn and be open to engaging postively with the community.
This comment you've shared doesn't do that.
nice G!
Thanks 💯
Not trying to be a jerk here...
Would you please be so kind as to a speak bit slower?
I'm trying to absorb the information, but I feel like the you are racing to speak fast enough to beat some kind of arbitrary record. The audience having a bit more time to process & absorb, allows furtherance of learning across the masses... Thus bring greater value and likely build stronger audience (especially here in the U.S.).
Thank you for any/all consideration which you give this comment.
I wish you success on your channel.
I 'm pretty sure that Jaycen Joshua leaves the god particly on, but turns off the limiter before sending it to the master engineer to get limited.
On his MWTM according to @lizzyx7 he states the opposite;
@@panorama_mastering exactly. On his last MWTM where he deconstructed Oliveira Dos Cen Anos by C. Tangana, he states that „when I print for mastering, I print it with the limiter on. I let mastering figure it out, and handle it at the end. But I’ve learned […] once you take the limiter off, it changes everything. So sending it to mastering without the God Particle, it is very very rare that I get this back sounding just as good. […] If I don’t feel I need something [he‘s talking about improving the sound through mastering here], which is the majority of the time, I will just send it out with The God Particle in full mode with the limiter on and reap the benefits.“
Thanks for clarifying!
Yeah, i've definitely watched an older MWTM episode with him where he says he turns off the GP limiting before sending to mastering. But he must've changed his method on a newer episode
He's mixing into the god particle. That means limiter included.
He is also mastering a lot of his stuff now so that plugin counts for his mix and master bus.
Gorgeous! Let’s connect?
Because your plug-ins on the master bus is a joke compared to what the mastering guy has? So why add digital saturations and emulations under thousands of dollars worth of mastering gear? Makes no sense. If you were good at master bus processing, why would you be paying the mastering guy? Pros who mix with master bus processing probably just want better translation from the master and has the tone and character dialed in.
Not necesserily true; because ultimately; what the client signs off on; is the mastering engineers responsibility to embrace and format/present in preperation for the final master;
Mastering engineer's have a line to tow between respecting the subjective and creative process of the artists and mixers and objectively flagging things when there is an error;
Mastering engineers are just a fresh pair of ears at the end of the process. They don't have some magical master bus processing. Mastering is just about having extra objectivity applied to the product
LET'S JUST PUT ALL THESE DIGITAL SATURATIONS AND EMULATIONS UNDER THE MASTERING GUYS PROCESSES. Nobody understands signal flow these days?@@Barncore
You are so cool:) Shall we connect?
what pros? lol sheeple
Love it:) Let's connect?
Orrrrrr, take the mix buss processing off and send the one with as a reference. Any mastering engineer who cant replicate and improve your buss mastering isnt worth a cent.
I don't agree with this; mastering isn't about "replicating" someones mix-bus; it's about presenting what has been signed off on so it sounds it's best when it goes out to the world.
worked for me for 40 yrs, but thanks, same thing in hard reality to 99.9999% of ears@@panorama_mastering
One way to orient oneself towards mastering is quality control. One could make a solid argument that every sonic move the mastering engineer does is a lack of work in the mixing stage. If the mix needs to be wider -> make it wider in the mix. If the vocals needs to be more prominent-> make it more prominent in the mix. One could argue the mastering being on spot of making in and out fades, writing metadata, using processings needed for the media (i.e. Vinyl mastering) and quality control. Like song mixes 1, 2, 4 are brighter than 3 so brighten that one up, and maybe number 2 had 0, 5 db less bass but could use a little more. I’ve been mix in way over decade as a pro and the further I go, less shortcomings I do and less the masters change. Actually now being in the spot that many times the masters tend to get something better and something worse. So it is a trade-off and many times the clients have been selecting the limited mix after the mastering. Again even then it is a quality control. Making sure this is the most we get out of it. If the other dude can't better it, that is as valuable conclusion and info.
Not every full on out there mix can be made better in the master ✌️
based on your logic, shouldn't you go back to the mix session and give the 0,5dB instead of doing it on the matering session? i find it still confusing where to draw the line still
@@redblock1382we sre still humans. There’s just that much you can do in the realm of real world with time and power. After mixing for a period of time you will get fatique and you loose objectivity. Also with handling customers wishes after the mix is basicly done - at some point you also start to loose intrest. And get stressed out and there are other works you need to move on. Some then again the quality control and another pair of ear can do the minor changes IF needed.
The point what I am making is not to ”leave” anything for mastering and taking responsibility on the mixing stage to make it sound as good as ever. And if it is perfect in the mix - then it is perfect by definition. No practical need for anything else. (That is then that you need advanced mixing techniques and the mix already plays loud = it being one character to the mix)