I didn't explain the reason EQ cuts make tracks 'louder', because I intended to link to the video already done by #DanWorall, but now I can't find it! its the one where he rebuilds a saw wave by stacking sine waves, does anyone remember which video that was? EDIT: I just made my own in the end : ruclips.net/video/Y1Y2-tpMAek/видео.html
Haha thanks that's because I'm trying to do my best impression of him! He's got far better diction though. I'm from the north where it's common to heavily abbreviate words or not annunciate which is terrible for the intelligibility of international audiences so I have to make a real effort to speak clearly! Whereas it sounds like it's natural for Dan, I'm convinced he's from further south in the country.
@Bthelick Since I am not a native English speaker, I have never had any problems with this while watching your videos. So I think you did a good job! And thanks for the great content!💪💪💪🔥
This is hands down one of the best technical dives into audio engineering and DSP with direct applications for music production / mixing / mastering. Thank you!
THANK YOU. I had to learn to stop using hi passing in the master the hard way. So many established RUclips edm music educators still show that, even some with over 100k subscribers. I have reached out to them couple times, they ignored me. We shouldn't hi pass/low pass on the master because we see a RUclipsr declaring it's part of a pro-level mastering chain.
Sensational video. As a self taught producer I have always been confused by the need to master - why not just get it right in the mix? Thank you and keep the videos coming!
You're right, it doesn't make sense, not today anyway. Mastering was originally for other necessary reasons. Putting the album in order, making sure it fit onto radio, tape and vinyl without distortion or groove skipping, meeting certain broadcast standards. These days it still has value from the lending of a 2nd pair of ears alone, especially if those ears are more experienced and in a good room, but it's no longer technically necessary.
It took a while before I realized “clipping” doesn’t always negatively impact audio quality, I just never fully understood why. Some of that went over my head, but was still good information. There’s so many things that can impact “loudness,” It’s overwhelming. I try not to obsess over it and be patient with myself though. I appreciate your videos btw. You’re really good at breaking things down. It can get confusing with all the information out there.
I am so happy when one of your videos pop up, just helps me get through my 9-5 and I also learn so much that I can apply them for my music afterwards. Thank you so much!❤️
It's really refreshing to see videos like this. We're forever bombarded with so many different ideals on how to produce. Not to mention the plugins we should be using. So often I've been guilty of adjusting tracks based on the headroom/ the dreaded red, it's ironic that it sounded so much better prior to all my tweaking. Square peg round hole. I'll try trusting my ears now. Love you channel. Keep it up!
Explaining “difficult” music theory while the related music is playing is the USP what makes this channel good and very understandable. It is easy to forget alot of info when someone is ranting for 10mins in a facecam and giving 2 mins of examples, … usually even after the short plug/sponsor announcement. This workflow of explaining with the music is very easy to follow along. Big up bthlick
I'm currently studying a multimedia audio production course and this video needs to be taught to students! Keep coming back to it now and again and it's one of the most important and information filled videos I've watched regarding production since I started this journey. You sir are a legend!
I instinctively been doing the same since the 80s, just with the analog hardware. Carefully choosing and shaping all your initial sounds, arrangement and the mix, then driving the outboard gear and the recording console hot and using all the headroom and then some is a thing.
In all my years of learning/producing thus far (7.5 ish - self-taught through RUclips etc.), I have to say that you are by far the most enjoyable and fluid engineer to share your knowledge. I came across your one of your other videos randomly when I was looking for something to watch while eating (as we do haha) and I loved it. While I know/am familiar with a lot of what you have posted so far, I have watched a few of your videos now and am happy to say that I have learned something new with each one. The way you explain and share things is incredible. So clear and easily digestible. 10/10 recommend to anyone wanting to learn/learn more about music production/sound engineering. Bthelick knows his stuff. You're a legend my guy.
Thanks for compliments macca! Great to hear even those with years at it are finding value 👊 it just goes to show we're always learning I'm sure I can learn much from you too 🙏
What u say just makes sense for electronic music Production and mixing. A lot of advice is from a live recording view point and some live instruments. I've totally changed my buss set up based on what u do a it works. I was compressing the hell out of my music,now took it all out,and work on sound design,and EQ especially low shelf on stuff to clear the frequency range and things sound much better now. I'd see red but i couldn't hear distortion,now i know why.👍🏿👍🏿✌🏿
Eeee that were a grand video lad. On the subject of not hearing things in actual music: I kept getting told by a couple of audiophile friends that tube/valve amps sound better because they introduce even harmonic distortion. So I used some of my VST plugins to introduce this harmomic (supposedly "euphonic") distortion. I personally didn't find it actually improved anything, to my ears. But what I did discover was that I, nor anyone else I did the experiment on, could hear ANY distortion until the distortion knobs on various plugins were over 50%. When you think of the money spent on hifi to avoid insanely low THD numbers, it really opened my eyes and ears.
Great video, but you forgot a very important explanation. The reason why the signal went into red after cutting some lows and highs with EQ is because of phase rotation, which modifies the waveform. To see how an EQ or multiband compressor changes your waveform you need to use an Oscilloscope. EQs work by copying the signal and rotating the phase of some frequencies then adding it back to the original signal in order to add or reduce volume of some frequencies. So if you have a waveform that does not clip or activate a limiter, by adding some EQ to it you change that waveform and it might end up clipping or activating the limiter.
well, it's more accurate to say that all minimum phase filters create post-ringing artefacts through phase rotation, with high pass filters being among the worst offenders
Correct, but that's not what i'm talking about in my above post... post-ringing wasn't the cause of the waveform going into red @@UnfortunatelyTheHunger
Yes correct. It's the result of constructive harmonic interference via phase rotations caused through the pass band! I didn't explain that because I intended to link the great video Dan Worall did on that, but then I couldn't find the video! Can you remember which it is? He reconstructed a saw wave on it with sines and showed the phase interference in a very clear way.
Fuck yeah. Love your videos man. Thanks for keeping this going. Big success is coming for you on this channel- you got me into making music which i will always appreciate.
Coming from an intermediate, the only piece of advice I'll give you to remember for the next couple of years is enjoy the journey! Its not all about the destination, take pride in the progress you make and the things you learn 😊
Great vid, I always struggle with volume, usually moving down track volumes not to clip in master and the final result is just very low volume even though master shows ~0 level, now I understand I should better trust my ears first, thanks!
The more I learn the less I know! I love having a simple technical solution but there is none! Thanks for teaching me. Just gonna go by vibes now, trial and error. Listen to my track on studio monitors, headphones, earbuds, bluetooth speakers.
reminds me of a lecture from electronic engineering course days. Police force was always blowing out speakers, they tried better speakers but no change ... suggestion was to increase power of the amplifier driving. Turned out the original amp was clipping and producing square waves with lots of energy which would blow the speakers. Bigger amp ... original sine wave ... no blown speakers.
If you aren’t redlining you aren’t headlining has been my new favorite saying lol. I used to fear it while DJ’ing too but realized it’s not the end of the world and on occasions necessary depending on the setting.
First off, thank you so much for these videos. I am blown away by the depth and quality of these tutorials. You're the best. Secondly, I want to watch that Dr. Dre interview! Is it still available somewhere?
I did try to find it so I could link in the description but can't sorry I distinctly remember him talking about how he would swap out snare samples and then resend the track to the mastering engineer to see which survived best. And the clipping they were describing was obviously not a DAW but clipping the converters , which is technically different but I ran with the concept anyway. I'll let you know if I find it.
This is perfectly competent. What do you think about doing the clipping at a higher sample rate to avoid aliasing, and then downsampling at the mixdown?
It's a thought sure, I've never deemed it necessary though. Given that I'm only clipping mostly inaudible micro transients I don't think it would make an appreciable difference. If I had ever experienced a rough sounding master hindering the performance of a song then I would be a lot more precious over the sound quality in general and wouldn't be clipping at all. Luckily in the real world that's not the case!
Thanks for the great explanation! But what are saying the streaming services, when you deliver > 0db peaks? i made by accident a mixdown in the red, but without hearable distortion. This track was not accepted from the distribution service. Therefor i insert always a limiter.
I've been doing this nearly 10 years , not had any problems yet. Not with streaming services anyway. There is sometimes an issue with the player inside Dropbox for some reason but no where else. Like I say though I don't recommend it lightly. I've had clients of mine try it themselves and what they thought was inaudible distortion was far too much to my ears it still takes skill to get right and a trained ear for detail.
@@Bthelick Ah, i see, that was the problem. My distributor suggest to upload the best quality as possible, so that the streaming services habe the best basis to convert the track in different streaming formats. So i upload 32 bit float wav. When open the track in Audacity, you see the red peaks. So it is better to deliver in 24 bit. Thanks!
@@Positive_Tea The distributor (recordjet) rejected the track. They are bit more strictly, i think. They want to avoid trouble with streaming services.
That you can't clip channels other than the master is actually nothing new to me. I still remember when it was different and they introduced that feature. However, you mentioning this made me think about what that implies. As you explained, it's not really about only the master can clip. It's about that it can only clip when it's sent out to the audio interface or rendered to a fixed point file. Okay, imagine this scenario. You made your mix, you mastered everything (because you still do that because you're not a mixing god), you rendered that master to a fixed point file and everything sounds fine. Then you ask someone if he wants to make a remix. So you tell Ableton to render out all the individual channels to a separate file. You don't change the settings of the file format, since it worked fine last time you rendered. You send him the stems of your song that sounded completely nice when you listened to the master and get a message back like "Hey, sorry. I can't use this. It's clipping like hell." The individual channels, those nice sounding channels that would have been clipping like hell if they could, suddenly became the channels that are rendered out to a fixed point file.
Yeah I occasionally send out for stem mastering. I make groups and put a -10db utility on each. If you are collabing and need to swap parts maybe it's too much hassle yeah. I just swap Ableton sessions with my collabs so we don't have to mix anything down.
HI,Bthelick - i hope that i get it right since English i a second language for me.... btw i have have a bout 8 year in creating music. reference video and dan worrhall one has helped me a lot. please correct me if im wrong: audible when i do export the mix at these levels it will be clipped by the d.a.w. is this the process?
Serious Question: At exactly timecode 9:26 on SPAN I notice at the far right of the high end there appears a "L" shape cut above roughly 18k. I notice that on almost all professional tracks I examine. What is going on there? Are you doing something to cause that cut or "L shape?I ask because I see that same shape on all professional tracks.
That's an artifact of MP3 compression you won't see it on the non-compressed original. The high frequencies are being culled and there is some residual 'leakage' at the top.
Thanks again for this great video! Can you please explain the process and theory on how to improve a mix in such a way that the limiter becomes unnecessary because the clipping gets inaudible? You mentioned it when tlaking about mastering the hiphop album and the quotes from Dr Dre and Bob Katz. Cheers! Is it all about getting the transients "thin and short" plus the body, or sustain of the sounds so leveled out that none of them are being affected by the clipping?
That's basically it yeah. The key is really sub frequency management as that's where all the headroom is. In my video on how I process bass I show splitting the bass into sub and other bass so I have full control over their side chains. Vocals can be tough , I sometimes add a limiter on vocal heavy tracks in the offending sections but that's only a last resort. Getting that low end managed well should govern the head room for the rest of the track
Hmmm never thought of the conversion from internal 32bit float to external 24bit for the dac, pretty logical after your explanation. I am by the way surprised the audio engines are still 32bit as we left the 32bit era long time ago in other software. Checked the specs of my own dac, seems to have a range of -129 to +120, a lot less than the internal fader channels 😂 Really enjoyed the experiments, cool to see how the brain reacts on stuff like this. As usual, many tanks!
I think it's because largely any errors at the least significant bit of 32 float are so far down the resulting noise is still way below the self noise of any analog system at the output. so any further precision is just a waste of CPU.
Fascinating deep dive! As a software engineer, I appreciate the details you explained. How does all this factor into playing through an audio system? I imagine speakers have their own threshold and after a certain dB level, they would distort or am I wrong?
Well clipping certainly isn't kind to tweeters that's for sure! But that's usually a sustained clipping problem. That's why I don't advise this lightly to anyone without ear training because I'm only clipping of the inaudible transients which would be bright anyway (or clipped 'intelligently' in a good limiter) so I don't think what I'm going here is that damaging, as I'm keeping an ear on dynamics in general my material can't be worse than some of the squashed to hell stuff I'm hearing out there.
Interesting video. But how you deal with the True peaks that comes out after you export your music to mp3 or 16 bits Wav files? at the end you just export the song into clipping? I hope your response on that. It could be interesting a video on how to get certain levels of loudness like -5 lufs, etc.
Yeah I just export it like that. What I'm hearing from my speakers is occurring after analog interpolation is with true peaks after all. I double check the mp3 conversion obviously but I rarely find issues except in cases of extremely distorted genres like d'n'b / dubstep, and even then the only issues were on playback through dropbox's internal player only. LUFS is just another number. Like I said in the video, a 1 dimensional number in a 4 dimensional world. It doesn't take into account frequency, balance or frequency density or transient punch. You don't get loud by aiming for a number please stop thinking that way. Take off all your compressors , clippers, and limiters, learn to listen for true punch and dynamics in the sound sources on selection, and before you know it you'll have achieved "loud" without realizing it. I just work to a reference , (see my 3 simple steps video) I don't even have to check any loudness numbers before I hit render. It's either in a similar area to the reference or it's not.
Great video! Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't feel like the master high and low shelf eq comparison was fair, as ableton's stock eq is not linear phase, so the impulse response may have cranked some of the shelfs's points up, so in theory with a linear eq it should not clip. Or am I wrong though?
You're on the right track, that particular example changes amplitude because of constructive interference brought about through phase changes . But I think it was fair in that most people aren't aware of that behavior, and minimum phase eqs are far more common. But no impulse response is flat. If you do the same experiment with a linear phase high pass, you'll see it still adds amplitude! Explaining that one is a little bit beyond the scope of this paragraph though. Maybe another day!
For the last year I have stopped mastering tracks. I transparently clip tracks in the mix to basically produce at a mastered level as I go. Personally I find this is an amazing way to work because you don’t leave any surprises for yourself like you usually get when you come to master a track traditionally. By the time I’ve finished the mix down the track is done and usually hitting between -6/-7 lufs without any distortion. It’s also great for trying out sounds because I find certain sounds just simply can’t be made loud enough to work in modern dance tracks.
@@Bthelick also there’s an amazing free gain plug-in called blue cat gain. It allows you to link it to other instances of the plug in so they all move when you adjust one. It’s super useful to have before all of your track clippers so if you’re coming in to hot or not hot enough you can either push the gains up into the clippers or back them off. Also handy for sharing stems or when labels want to master themselves. Saves a lot of time trying to get some headroom on the master.
@@nihftyy ah right you're talking about the clip to zero method? I don't do that. I have no track clippers at all. I find clipping before the clipping makes the final clipping infinitely worse.
@@Bthelick yeah that’s right! Interesting, I’m going to have to try your method too. I usually have a clipper on the master bus but it is never actually doing anything. It’s more of a safety precaution more than anything haha.
Haha. I worship Bob Katz and it was him that gave me this idea, but I kinda think I did him dirty because he would never condone clipping I think. I'm but saying they don't have a use. I'm just putting the PSA out there that it's not 100% necessary anymore, and for those that still want to use them as a 2nd pair of ears, and last quality check this method sets you up better for using a mattering engineer.
Hey, I have a question demanding bass levels. What I've learned from RUclips Tutorials is that a flat mix ist a loud mix. However, when just mixing with my Ears and not looking at the meters, I always end up with the bass beaing louder than the rest of the mix by at least 6db. From whatching this video I'd guess you think this is fine. Still i want to ask: 1. Is there a general rule of thumb for the maximum bass level, in order to maintain compatibility with most playback systems? And 2. Do you think having the urge to always push the bass can be due to other mixing issues that I'm subconciously trying to "overshadow"? Your help would be super appreciated since I'm struggling with this particuar mixing challenge for quite some time now.
If that's how it sounds good to you then that's how it sounds good! Do you mean bass frequencies, Or bass part loudness? Are you referring to sub bass or main bass? And 6db louder than what, the kick? My span settings aren't stock so what you see on my screen isn't something to be copied. If you are going by ear then make sure what you are hearing is 'true' is your listening environment capable of recreating what you are judging down there? Either way check on as many systems as possible and always check to a reference.
Good question, it was a good 10 years ago now! I did try to find it before finishing the video, but unfortunately couldn't. I'll keep you posted if I find it.
WOW Thanks so much for that... does this mean mastering isn't necessary? I can just export the sound from ableton in the red as long as it sounds good, its good?
Kind of. It still takes ear training to hear distortion though so be very careful. It doesn't just magically replace mastering. I replace mastering by choosing the right sounds at source and getting the track finished as I make it. Even then it still takes care. I once had a client try it themself, I was ill and couldn't finish the track in time for release deadline. They had seen me go into the red and thought it was fine in general. When I listened to their track it was a mess! Just way too crushed. I'm only clipping those inaudible fast transients remember, and it requires careful management of low frequencies. I'm not just going red for sake of it carelessly. Lots of distortion can destroy speaker tweeters so listen very carefully, especially on headphones. If it sounds better than limiting ( not just volume, but groove and dynamics) then go for it. If I put a limiter on my track it's not doing much work because I've already selected the sounds well and balanced the track beforehand. The track still has to be finished!
In 1 dimension for the peak only. Look at a kick on an FFT spectrum like SPAN and you'll see it's not reaching 0. it's combined energy reaches 0 but that's a 1d measurement made up of energy distributed over time, space, and frequency.
I have a question related to clipping vs limiter's limiting. My understanding is that clipping is simply if waveform > max, then waveform = max, or else if waveform < min, then waveform = min. I assume that DAWs have been designed not to WRAP AROUND. However, I though Limiter would do clipping with a configarable max/min. Or I am wrong?
Limiters introduce a time element because a gain reduction is performed via reaction to the material. That reaction is not instant , at start or in recovery, it's also not linear. A limiter with instant attack and instant recovery could be considered similar in theory to a clipper but in reality would introduce a different distortion. Clipping doesn't perform gain reduction at all, it just produces a square wave per sample clipped at the sample rate.
Thank you for the clarification, that makes more sense to me now. I think it would be interesting to see mathematically what exactly limiter is doing. I understand that it can decrease the gain with release and attack. The tutorial is great and many thanks for it. Limiting is the last thing I need to learn after the more important musical parts so excuse my silly question. @@Bthelick
A limiter is an infinite ratio compressor that's it really. Modern limiters are sophisticated and integrate all kinds of techniques to handle a wide range of material, typically by adjusting recovery times depending on input as to be as transparent as possible, and some have intelligent clipping behavior built in too.
wait, but not everybodys work in 32 bit floating point? Or everybody? I mean it depends on an audio interfece, if im not right or/and didnt understand something please correct me
DAWs have been 32 float since cubase brought it in the late 90s. (except pro tools. they took a while to catch up as they were restricted by hardware DSP) Some will let you set a "recording" resolution less 32, but all calculations in audio engine still operate at 32 float. Interfaces/ output audio drivers operate at 24 fixed, or 16 in the case of older sound cards. The daw engine and interface driver are not the same, as I explain in the video only the master channel is directly related to your interface.
Have you compared different clippers vs Ableton master track clipping? Like free ones or say, Voxengo OVC-128 that is modelled after converters used by mastering engineers when they clip the converters. How about over sampling in clipping? When you clip converters it is what it is, but in plugins you can choose between 0 and 128 oversampling. While clipping "is just" creating zeros, all clippers seem to do it a bit differently.
I haven't tbh. I'm sure they all make tiny differences to some people, but I learned years ago that tiny differences like that are just for people to argue about on the gearspace forums , those of us that release hundreds of tracks in the real world know those differences don't effect its reception to a real audience.
@@Bthelick I was watching a masterclass of Brittish d'n'b producer Ed Rush. He had a theory section where he argued that he needs to use analogue clipping instead of digital clipping so that the bass made with analogue synth is clipped "smoothly". He zooms in the waveform to compare that analogue version (=he used old cheap analogue eq for clipping) has smoother edge than the digital version. As he plays for massive festival crowds of 50k people, he argues than in huge festival PA system those tiny details make big differences in bass region. But that was about clipping single channel not the master. (Mr Bill clips pretty much everything and the master and the recent live sets are not very pleasing sounding to my ears, but that's just me )
Well that's very a much an apples to oranges comparison. Those 2 don't use the same sounds so it's impossible to say Mr Bill is harsh because of his choice of clipping. It's sounds are already extremely harsh long before that! Likewise I bet Ed hasn't played back to back sets with a control audience to see if the digitally clipped set had any less people dancing. It's all gear porn speculation until someone actually shows real world results! You can get "round waveforms" in many ways in the digital domain. Bear in mind when it leaves the digital domain to get to a converter it's no longer square anyway because of the voltage interpolation. I'll say it a million times, what you see in a daw does not represent the real world, and that includes waveforms. Most daws draw them in different ways to conserve performance and memory better used for other tasks (just look up the 10k waveform test) so comparing the roundness of a waveform in the digital domain is utterly moot. You'd need a proper analog oscilloscope to have any clue what was happening after conversation.
Technically I'm using a clipper, the one exiting the daw. But not in any other fashion if I can help it. My tracks are usually released with nothing on the master. Like I say though, I don't lightly recommend it!
@vat8367 oh yes the rms was. I wasn't talking about rms. When newcomers ask me questions like "should I have my bass 6db below my kick" and other nonsense like that they are always looking at peak. Not that it matters.
Well that's why I made this video, it's because I don't really have one, or not one that's anything you can teach. Mixing is a listening skill, not an operation skill! I can show anyone what to do, but it's useless without the ear training. If you can't hear the same things as me , which is the reason I make any given decision, then the decision on it's own is useless. That's why I made this video ruclips.net/video/tW9imrfzGf4/видео.htmlsi=19QDRrLtEVDADKnv Once you have the ear training you just pick the right sounds for the situation, side chain the appropriate parts, then there's very little to do mix wise after that. If you want to see my full process in action I show everything in the start to finish videos. The last one was this; ruclips.net/video/1Bs_5Ls4Dhg/видео.htmlsi=IA97wewtYSvcs_db
@Bthelick Thanks man🙏 that's true.. I'm a live sound engineer.. I also make music. I find it hard to produce good mixes consistently on my music. Some are good. Most are bad. Thanks for you feed back.. I guess it lies more on sound selection..
@endmoore ah you're already a live engineer! I got that "mixing is not an operation skill" from live engineer Kenny Chesney. If you're struggling you're probably just not referencing enough (by that I mean at least every 20 mins) especially at the sound selection stage. Also speaking of the point of this video, it's to show that working 'at zero' to the reference is a great way mix master. If you leave your master channel empty, you will hear obvious distortion any time you have a mix unbalance , so you can fix it then and there until the distortion goes away. That takes away a lot of pain most experience later on when they raise the level only at the end to suddenly discover all the problems they avoided by mixing at lower reference levels.
Both. When I'm in the big studio with the fully treated room I work mostly on the monitors, i know that room that well and haven't had a translation problem in years. When I'm at home I work on monitors, headphones and check on other sources more because I have less ideal set up. When I work on headphones I try to reduce their binaural traits by feeding a low and delayed copy of the opposite ears into each other so they behave more like stereo. (Headphones aren't stereo btw if you didn't know)
@@Bthelick "When I work on headphones I try to reduce their binaural traits by feeding a low and delayed copy of the opposite ears into each other so they behave more like stereo. (Headphones aren't stereo btw if you didn't know)" Wait what? That sounds like another video material :)
@@produccionesabuela8533 yeah sorta figured that out about them. I mainly use them as a alternative listening thing and to check bass low end. My monitors makes me think I have more than what actually come through with power on smaller speakers. And the music just pumping into my ears like that for hours , don't really like that. But if u have information on the long term use of headphones I'd be interested.not studies real people.
I think this may work for electronic music but for hip hop recordings you need to get the voice upfront to modern standards and that means overcompressing it, and then you need the drums to get loud too, so the common way is hard limiting the master, here in Spain even in studios that work work with major labels they do it like that, if there is another way to do it please ilustrate us
Definitely easier with brighter sounds for sure. But I found that old hip hop track I mix/mastered. link in the description . That was 9 years ago let me know how it sounds to you. 👊
Sounds so 2010s Akon vibe hahaha but the mix is amazing, I guess that vocals were recorded in a pro studio with gear, the problem nowadays is that we record at home studios with cheap mics, interfaces and that stuff and worse acoustic treatment and then the artists think that the producers are magicians that can make that raw material sound like it was recorded in LA 😂
30 frames a second appears to be a smooth movement for the eyes 60 frames a second is the smoothest the human eye cannot perceive or refresh faster than 60 frames per second visually
Yes, For most normal people. Tests in the esports realm however have proven well trained eyes can detect and benefit from 200+ frames on good hardware. As an esports dabbler myself I can detect 60 vs 120hz refresh rates but not much beyond. 30 looks incredibly choppy to my eyes these days.
somewhat of a misinterpretation; a 60th of a second is the shortest timespan for something to appear and still be detected by the naked eye, but that's for static objects appearing and disappearing out of existence. movement is an entirely different beast
@@UnfortunatelyTheHunger yeah I watched an entire documentary not long ago about the refresh rate of different brains. They said the human brain can only refresh the optical nerve 60 times a second and they actually pointed out the TVs that used 120 frames a second were worthless, because the human eye could not detect that frame rate. However, they did say that housefly could watch 120 frames a second because that’s the refresh rate of a hot housefly that we look like we are in slow motion compared to them. It’s not really that important of a point because his point is how much more sensitive the ear is in the eye and I would have to agree. Because we have one little ear hole but he can decipher millions of different sound waves, and those sound waves are very similar with tiny little subtle differences in the era notices those differences and tell me that’s amazing
@@13thJ Yes they've been parroting that stuff about how human eyes this and that for 15 years, and it's absolute bs, in any practical application. Not a single person in the top 10% ranks in any PvP shooter would fail to notice the difference between 60Hz and 144Hz. 144Hz to 240Hz is a way smaller difference, but it's visible. It just doesn't weight as much because the industry standard 240Hz models are kinda expensive, and if you buy a random budget monitor it can be worse than a solid 144Hz/165Hz in ways not related to refresh rate.
@@potatoes-ni3lr I don’t know who ‘they’ are but the film industry was the standard Then video games pushed it further and yes fps were the real force within (cod and halo) probably the biggest drivers However the information I had referenced was from scientists doing studies on different species And it wasn’t just visual refresh rates but also audio A dog hears a slower version of your voice vs a cats who hears a higher pitched sped up version And house flies have the fastest yet recorded by them with a 120 refresh rate All I know is at 30 it jiggles a lil and at 60 its pretty smooth That’s literally the only thing I have witnessed with my eyes Now with my ears…..depending on the sound source the same thing can have a seemingly endless variations so I understand his point in the video The proof in my world that he is correct is that when I listen to my older songs sitting in a file I expect for them to be horrible and delete them but I’m constantly surprised that even though I’ve learned a ton and I’m absolutely way more efficient or technical in my execution….my older song still had good sound even if the arrangement or transitions were seriously flawed Our brain’s sense whats right for us
Apologies ,I was trying to explain how I work at zero with nothing on my master channel, because that's how I release all my tracks. Sorry that's not explained well, I will do a follow up explaining this this month. the explanation of the science took so long to explain properly I kinda lost the flow haha
Well, I have some meters there....🤣 but yeah there's nothing there most of the time. Seriously though That's why I reference so often. That takes care of most things. I'll use a limiter occasionally if there is obvious distortion on something like a vocal but I may automate it to only be on when necessary. The more 'transparent' limiters out there are using intelligent clipping under the hood anyway so I can get away with less automation on those, but the groove always comes first regardless. I find by the time I've got the best sounds selected to the reference and it's all working and grooving with nothing on the master, any problems that are left will be extremely small and if I need any 'emergency' master process it won't be very damaging.
I'm conflicted by the advice too, since the loudness illusions appear to suggest that my ears (indeed most human ears) cannot be trusted. If track B sounds louder than track A to my ears, but the LUFs meter says the opposite is the case, I find it very hard to "trust my ears", because my ears are easily fooled. Since my eyes are also easily fooled, I think I'll try mixing with my nose! ;)
Lots of good information here! The first half of your video is something I thought about yesterday and came to the conclusion that having everything sit in the mix and blend nicely is more important that what the meter says. Trust your ears! Mr. Bill has also touched on your last part before on some RUclips videos. Great video as always! Thank you!
19:53 Speed it up and you’ll have a Gabber track 😅 You traversed this minefield of a subject with the grace of a Metropolitan Opera dancer. There’s nothing like having a debate with an audiophile engineer that owns $20,000+ dollar amplifiers, converters, and cable risers.
I didn't explain the reason EQ cuts make tracks 'louder', because I intended to link to the video already done by #DanWorall, but now I can't find it!
its the one where he rebuilds a saw wave by stacking sine waves, does anyone remember which video that was?
EDIT: I just made my own in the end : ruclips.net/video/Y1Y2-tpMAek/видео.html
Man I'm always think of you as a Edm Dan Worrall. Collab will be super cool. You even got similar tones of voices.
Haha thanks that's because I'm trying to do my best impression of him! He's got far better diction though. I'm from the north where it's common to heavily abbreviate words or not annunciate which is terrible for the intelligibility of international audiences so I have to make a real effort to speak clearly! Whereas it sounds like it's natural for Dan, I'm convinced he's from further south in the country.
@Bthelick Since I am not a native English speaker, I have never had any problems with this while watching your videos. So I think you did a good job! And thanks for the great content!💪💪💪🔥
Great to hear, thanks for letting me know 👊
Would be awesome if somebody could find this video
This is hands down one of the best technical dives into audio engineering and DSP with direct applications for music production / mixing / mastering. Thank you!
Came here to write exactly this! Thank you!
if you ain't redlining you ain't headlining
THANK YOU. I had to learn to stop using hi passing in the master the hard way.
So many established RUclips edm music educators still show that, even some with over 100k subscribers. I have reached out to them couple times, they ignored me.
We shouldn't hi pass/low pass on the master because we see a RUclipsr declaring it's part of a pro-level mastering chain.
Sensational video. As a self taught producer I have always been confused by the need to master - why not just get it right in the mix? Thank you and keep the videos coming!
You're right, it doesn't make sense, not today anyway.
Mastering was originally for other necessary reasons. Putting the album in order, making sure it fit onto radio, tape and vinyl without distortion or groove skipping, meeting certain broadcast standards.
These days it still has value from the lending of a 2nd pair of ears alone, especially if those ears are more experienced and in a good room, but it's no longer technically necessary.
It took a while before I realized “clipping” doesn’t always negatively impact audio quality, I just never fully understood why. Some of that went over my head, but was still good information. There’s so many things that can impact “loudness,” It’s overwhelming. I try not to obsess over it and be patient with myself though.
I appreciate your videos btw. You’re really good at breaking things down. It can get confusing with all the information out there.
I am so happy when one of your videos pop up, just helps me get through my 9-5 and I also learn so much that I can apply them for my music afterwards. Thank you so much!❤️
It's really refreshing to see videos like this. We're forever bombarded with so many different ideals on how to produce. Not to mention the plugins we should be using. So often I've been guilty of adjusting tracks based on the headroom/ the dreaded red, it's ironic that it sounded so much better prior to all my tweaking. Square peg round hole. I'll try trusting my ears now. Love you channel. Keep it up!
Explaining “difficult” music theory while the related music is playing is the USP what makes this channel good and very understandable.
It is easy to forget alot of info when someone is ranting for 10mins in a facecam and giving 2 mins of examples, … usually even after the short plug/sponsor announcement.
This workflow of explaining with the music is very easy to follow along. Big up bthlick
Pretty sure Noisia said something in an interview once, that if it sounds good surely that’s what matters! Nice one B
I'm currently studying a multimedia audio production course and this video needs to be taught to students! Keep coming back to it now and again and it's one of the most important and information filled videos I've watched regarding production since I started this journey. You sir are a legend!
I instinctively been doing the same since the 80s, just with the analog hardware. Carefully choosing and shaping all your initial sounds, arrangement and the mix, then driving the outboard gear and the recording console hot and using all the headroom and then some is a thing.
In all my years of learning/producing thus far (7.5 ish - self-taught through RUclips etc.), I have to say that you are by far the most enjoyable and fluid engineer to share your knowledge. I came across your one of your other videos randomly when I was looking for something to watch while eating (as we do haha) and I loved it. While I know/am familiar with a lot of what you have posted so far, I have watched a few of your videos now and am happy to say that I have learned something new with each one. The way you explain and share things is incredible. So clear and easily digestible. 10/10 recommend to anyone wanting to learn/learn more about music production/sound engineering. Bthelick knows his stuff. You're a legend my guy.
Thanks for compliments macca! Great to hear even those with years at it are finding value 👊 it just goes to show we're always learning I'm sure I can learn much from you too 🙏
@@Bthelick much love my man! 😎
What u say just makes sense for electronic music Production and mixing. A lot of advice is from a live recording view point and some live instruments. I've totally changed my buss set up based on what u do a it works. I was compressing the hell out of my music,now took it all out,and work on sound design,and EQ especially low shelf on stuff to clear the frequency range and things sound much better now. I'd see red but i couldn't hear distortion,now i know why.👍🏿👍🏿✌🏿
That was epically good! Never seen anyone explain things in so much depth like this..
Thankyou sir!
Absolutely fantastic! The bit about the master bus was the final piece of the puzzle for me. Love tihs! :)
I'm so glad I found your channel. I learnt more in the last 24mins than I have in 10years of other tutorials. Thank you
Ah that's great to hear (I think haha)
Welcome!
Eeee that were a grand video lad.
On the subject of not hearing things in actual music: I kept getting told by a couple of audiophile friends that tube/valve amps sound better because they introduce even harmonic distortion. So I used some of my VST plugins to introduce this harmomic (supposedly "euphonic") distortion. I personally didn't find it actually improved anything, to my ears. But what I did discover was that I, nor anyone else I did the experiment on, could hear ANY distortion until the distortion knobs on various plugins were over 50%. When you think of the money spent on hifi to avoid insanely low THD numbers, it really opened my eyes and ears.
Great video, but you forgot a very important explanation. The reason why the signal went into red after cutting some lows and highs with EQ is because of phase rotation, which modifies the waveform. To see how an EQ or multiband compressor changes your waveform you need to use an Oscilloscope. EQs work by copying the signal and rotating the phase of some frequencies then adding it back to the original signal in order to add or reduce volume of some frequencies. So if you have a waveform that does not clip or activate a limiter, by adding some EQ to it you change that waveform and it might end up clipping or activating the limiter.
well, it's more accurate to say that all minimum phase filters create post-ringing artefacts through phase rotation, with high pass filters being among the worst offenders
Correct, but that's not what i'm talking about in my above post... post-ringing wasn't the cause of the waveform going into red @@UnfortunatelyTheHunger
Yes correct. It's the result of constructive harmonic interference via phase rotations caused through the pass band!
I didn't explain that because I intended to link the great video Dan Worall did on that, but then I couldn't find the video!
Can you remember which it is? He reconstructed a saw wave on it with sines and showed the phase interference in a very clear way.
Kicking myself after the reveal of what the mystery track was in the video description. So obvious from the Span analyser now watching it back!
**bthelick white glove slaps the wannabe mastering engineers** flies away to make more great content.
context is everything .... thanks for this video ... that explanes me what i learnd in the last years and now i truly understand
Great content, please make a video how you mix, balance levels and more. Your videos are gold and practical. :)
x2 🙂
Fuck yeah. Love your videos man. Thanks for keeping this going. Big success is coming for you on this channel- you got me into making music which i will always appreciate.
Coming from an intermediate, the only piece of advice I'll give you to remember for the next couple of years is enjoy the journey! Its not all about the destination, take pride in the progress you make and the things you learn 😊
Bthelick and Dan Worrall should do a podcast together
Petition him! It would be an honour! 👊
Great vid, I always struggle with volume, usually moving down track volumes not to clip in master and the final result is just very low volume even though master shows ~0 level, now I understand I should better trust my ears first, thanks!
The more I learn the less I know!
I love having a simple technical solution but there is none! Thanks for teaching me.
Just gonna go by vibes now, trial and error. Listen to my track on studio monitors, headphones, earbuds, bluetooth speakers.
reminds me of a lecture from electronic engineering course days. Police force was always blowing out speakers, they tried better speakers but no change ... suggestion was to increase power of the amplifier driving. Turned out the original amp was clipping and producing square waves with lots of energy which would blow the speakers. Bigger amp ... original sine wave ... no blown speakers.
If you aren’t redlining you aren’t headlining has been my new favorite saying lol. I used to fear it while DJ’ing too but realized it’s not the end of the world and on occasions necessary depending on the setting.
Well, live is a different animal. Redlining live can destroy speakers!
First off, thank you so much for these videos. I am blown away by the depth and quality of these tutorials. You're the best. Secondly, I want to watch that Dr. Dre interview! Is it still available somewhere?
I did try to find it so I could link in the description but can't sorry
I distinctly remember him talking about how he would swap out snare samples and then resend the track to the mastering engineer to see which survived best.
And the clipping they were describing was obviously not a DAW but clipping the converters , which is technically different but I ran with the concept anyway.
I'll let you know if I find it.
This is very useful, everyone should see this
WOW What an ''Eye'' opener! THANKS!
Thank you, this blew my mind..
This is perfectly competent. What do you think about doing the clipping at a higher sample rate to avoid aliasing, and then downsampling at the mixdown?
It's a thought sure, I've never deemed it necessary though. Given that I'm only clipping mostly inaudible micro transients I don't think it would make an appreciable difference.
If I had ever experienced a rough sounding master hindering the performance of a song then I would be a lot more precious over the sound quality in general and wouldn't be clipping at all.
Luckily in the real world that's not the case!
Thanks for the great explanation! But what are saying the streaming services, when you deliver > 0db peaks? i made by accident a mixdown in the red, but without hearable distortion. This track was not accepted from the distribution service. Therefor i insert always a limiter.
I've been doing this nearly 10 years , not had any problems yet.
Not with streaming services anyway. There is sometimes an issue with the player inside Dropbox for some reason but no where else.
Like I say though I don't recommend it lightly. I've had clients of mine try it themselves and what they thought was inaudible distortion was far too much to my ears it still takes skill to get right and a trained ear for detail.
@@BthelickI also was wondering about true peak over zero being rejected by streaming services.
I'm not delivering > 0 rememeber. > 0 doesn't exist in the usual 16 or 24 bit final format, which is what I deliver to stores
@@Bthelick Ah, i see, that was the problem.
My distributor suggest to upload the best quality as possible, so that the streaming services habe the best basis to convert the track in different streaming formats.
So i upload 32 bit float wav. When open the track in Audacity, you see the red peaks.
So it is better to deliver in 24 bit.
Thanks!
@@Positive_Tea The distributor (recordjet) rejected the track. They are bit more strictly, i think. They want to avoid trouble with streaming services.
13:50 ah, everyone loves a drugs story!
I get the feeling I'm going to need to watch that one a few times.
I'm making a follow up to this video, is there anything you still don't understand? I'll try to include it.
That you can't clip channels other than the master is actually nothing new to me. I still remember when it was different and they introduced that feature.
However, you mentioning this made me think about what that implies. As you explained, it's not really about only the master can clip. It's about that it can only clip when it's sent out to the audio interface or rendered to a fixed point file.
Okay, imagine this scenario. You made your mix, you mastered everything (because you still do that because you're not a mixing god), you rendered that master to a fixed point file and everything sounds fine.
Then you ask someone if he wants to make a remix. So you tell Ableton to render out all the individual channels to a separate file. You don't change the settings of the file format, since it worked fine last time you rendered. You send him the stems of your song that sounded completely nice when you listened to the master and get a message back like "Hey, sorry. I can't use this. It's clipping like hell."
The individual channels, those nice sounding channels that would have been clipping like hell if they could, suddenly became the channels that are rendered out to a fixed point file.
Yeah I occasionally send out for stem mastering.
I make groups and put a -10db utility on each.
If you are collabing and need to swap parts maybe it's too much hassle yeah.
I just swap Ableton sessions with my collabs so we don't have to mix anything down.
Oof, gonna have to give this one a few spins. Tons of info 🤓
HI,Bthelick - i hope that i get it right since English i a second language for me.... btw i have have a bout 8 year in creating music.
reference video and dan worrhall one has helped me a lot.
please correct me if im wrong:
audible
when i do export the mix at these levels it will be clipped by the d.a.w. is this the process?
Yes, if you export at a fixed bit rate (not floating point) the daw will clip to zero.
@@Bthelick
Thank u for answering so fast
Serious Question: At exactly timecode 9:26 on SPAN I notice at the far right of the high end there appears a "L" shape cut above roughly 18k. I notice that on almost all professional tracks I examine. What is going on there? Are you doing something to cause that cut or "L shape?I ask because I see that same shape on all professional tracks.
That's an artifact of MP3 compression you won't see it on the non-compressed original.
The high frequencies are being culled and there is some residual 'leakage' at the top.
Thanks again for this great video! Can you please explain the process and theory on how to improve a mix in such a way that the limiter becomes unnecessary because the clipping gets inaudible? You mentioned it when tlaking about mastering the hiphop album and the quotes from Dr Dre and Bob Katz. Cheers! Is it all about getting the transients "thin and short" plus the body, or sustain of the sounds so leveled out that none of them are being affected by the clipping?
That's basically it yeah.
The key is really sub frequency management as that's where all the headroom is. In my video on how I process bass I show splitting the bass into sub and other bass so I have full control over their side chains.
Vocals can be tough , I sometimes add a limiter on vocal heavy tracks in the offending sections but that's only a last resort. Getting that low end managed well should govern the head room for the rest of the track
Hmmm never thought of the conversion from internal 32bit float to external 24bit for the dac, pretty logical after your explanation. I am by the way surprised the audio engines are still 32bit as we left the 32bit era long time ago in other software.
Checked the specs of my own dac, seems to have a range of -129 to +120, a lot less than the internal fader channels 😂
Really enjoyed the experiments, cool to see how the brain reacts on stuff like this.
As usual, many tanks!
I think it's because largely any errors at the least significant bit of 32 float are so far down the resulting noise is still way below the self noise of any analog system at the output. so any further precision is just a waste of CPU.
Fascinating deep dive! As a software engineer, I appreciate the details you explained. How does all this factor into playing through an audio system? I imagine speakers have their own threshold and after a certain dB level, they would distort or am I wrong?
Well clipping certainly isn't kind to tweeters that's for sure! But that's usually a sustained clipping problem. That's why I don't advise this lightly to anyone without ear training because I'm only clipping of the inaudible transients which would be bright anyway (or clipped 'intelligently' in a good limiter) so I don't think what I'm going here is that damaging, as I'm keeping an ear on dynamics in general my material can't be worse than some of the squashed to hell stuff I'm hearing out there.
@@Bthelick hi when you say squashed, do you mean over compressed?
@@shaunsadler6769 yes I mean over compressed.
This is so valuable, thank You
You literally post this 2 hours after I finished my first track and was stuck on the mastering stage🤣🤣🤣
So I should always be exporting in 32 bit float?
Hey I made a follow up explaining more
ruclips.net/video/q1Atuowt0Xo/видео.htmlsi=IWW0bi-Pm56kcI1U
Hope this helps
hahaha you are a joker. these videos are gold my man glad youre finally getting some subs
Great video and clever title!
Interesting video. But how you deal with the True peaks that comes out after you export your music to mp3 or 16 bits Wav files? at the end you just export the song into clipping? I hope your response on that. It could be interesting a video on how to get certain levels of loudness like -5 lufs, etc.
Yeah I just export it like that. What I'm hearing from my speakers is occurring after analog interpolation is with true peaks after all.
I double check the mp3 conversion obviously but I rarely find issues except in cases of extremely distorted genres like d'n'b / dubstep, and even then the only issues were on playback through dropbox's internal player only.
LUFS is just another number. Like I said in the video, a 1 dimensional number in a 4 dimensional world. It doesn't take into account frequency, balance or frequency density or transient punch. You don't get loud by aiming for a number please stop thinking that way. Take off all your compressors , clippers, and limiters, learn to listen for true punch and dynamics in the sound sources on selection, and before you know it you'll have achieved "loud" without realizing it.
I just work to a reference , (see my 3 simple steps video) I don't even have to check any loudness numbers before I hit render. It's either in a similar area to the reference or it's not.
Thanks for re-replying! 🙂
Great video! Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't feel like the master high and low shelf eq comparison was fair, as ableton's stock eq is not linear phase, so the impulse response may have cranked some of the shelfs's points up, so in theory with a linear eq it should not clip. Or am I wrong though?
You're on the right track, that particular example changes amplitude because of constructive interference brought about through phase changes . But I think it was fair in that most people aren't aware of that behavior, and minimum phase eqs are far more common.
But no impulse response is flat. If you do the same experiment with a linear phase high pass, you'll see it still adds amplitude!
Explaining that one is a little bit beyond the scope of this paragraph though. Maybe another day!
@@Bthelick that clears it up, thanks for the vid! 🫡
For the last year I have stopped mastering tracks. I transparently clip tracks in the mix to basically produce at a mastered level as I go. Personally I find this is an amazing way to work because you don’t leave any surprises for yourself like you usually get when you come to master a track traditionally. By the time I’ve finished the mix down the track is done and usually hitting between -6/-7 lufs without any distortion. It’s also great for trying out sounds because I find certain sounds just simply can’t be made loud enough to work in modern dance tracks.
Exactly! Glad to hear it's not just me that came to that conclusion. People thought I was nuts when I suggested it in 2014!!
@@Bthelick haha they still think we’re crazy now!
@@Bthelick also there’s an amazing free gain plug-in called blue cat gain. It allows you to link it to other instances of the plug in so they all move when you adjust one. It’s super useful to
have before all of your track clippers so if you’re coming in to hot or not hot enough you can either push the gains up into the clippers or back them off. Also handy for sharing stems or when labels want to master themselves. Saves a lot of time trying to get some headroom on the master.
@@nihftyy ah right you're talking about the clip to zero method? I don't do that. I have no track clippers at all. I find clipping before the clipping makes the final clipping infinitely worse.
@@Bthelick yeah that’s right! Interesting, I’m going to have to try your method too. I usually have a clipper on the master bus but it is never actually doing anything. It’s more of a safety precaution more than anything haha.
This video blew my mind man
I imagine Mastering Engineers despise this video lol
Haha. I worship Bob Katz and it was him that gave me this idea, but I kinda think I did him dirty because he would never condone clipping I think.
I'm but saying they don't have a use. I'm just putting the PSA out there that it's not 100% necessary anymore, and for those that still want to use them as a 2nd pair of ears, and last quality check this method sets you up better for using a mattering engineer.
Hey, I have a question demanding bass levels. What I've learned from RUclips Tutorials is that a flat mix ist a loud mix. However, when just mixing with my Ears and not looking at the meters, I always end up with the bass beaing louder than the rest of the mix by at least 6db. From whatching this video I'd guess you think this is fine. Still i want to ask:
1. Is there a general rule of thumb for the maximum bass level, in order to maintain compatibility with most playback systems?
And 2. Do you think having the urge to always push the bass can be due to other mixing issues that I'm subconciously trying to "overshadow"?
Your help would be super appreciated since I'm struggling with this particuar mixing challenge for quite some time now.
If that's how it sounds good to you then that's how it sounds good!
Do you mean bass frequencies, Or bass part loudness? Are you referring to sub bass or main bass? And 6db louder than what, the kick?
My span settings aren't stock so what you see on my screen isn't something to be copied.
If you are going by ear then make sure what you are hearing is 'true' is your listening environment capable of recreating what you are judging down there?
Either way check on as many systems as possible and always check to a reference.
Illuminating content! Which Dr. Dre interview are you referring to? Would love to read that!
Good question, it was a good 10 years ago now! I did try to find it before finishing the video, but unfortunately couldn't.
I'll keep you posted if I find it.
@@Bthelick yes, please! Thank you very much!
At the time we were also in touch with and getting help from his then-engineer Focus, so I made have heard it through him
WOW Thanks so much for that... does this mean mastering isn't necessary? I can just export the sound from ableton in the red as long as it sounds good, its good?
Kind of. It still takes ear training to hear distortion though so be very careful.
It doesn't just magically replace mastering.
I replace mastering by choosing the right sounds at source and getting the track finished as I make it. Even then it still takes care.
I once had a client try it themself, I was ill and couldn't finish the track in time for release deadline. They had seen me go into the red and thought it was fine in general.
When I listened to their track it was a mess! Just way too crushed.
I'm only clipping those inaudible fast transients remember, and it requires careful management of low frequencies. I'm not just going red for sake of it carelessly. Lots of distortion can destroy speaker tweeters so listen very carefully, especially on headphones.
If it sounds better than limiting ( not just volume, but groove and dynamics) then go for it.
If I put a limiter on my track it's not doing much work because I've already selected the sounds well and balanced the track beforehand. The track still has to be finished!
@@Bthelick thanks so much I’ve been trying it today and honestly I’m so amazed at this little trick. Great for an in your face sound. Thanks! 🥂
however having any kick peak at 0db makes zero headroom for any additional element in the mix right?
In 1 dimension for the peak only.
Look at a kick on an FFT spectrum like SPAN and you'll see it's not reaching 0. it's combined energy reaches 0 but that's a 1d measurement made up of energy distributed over time, space, and frequency.
I have a question related to clipping vs limiter's limiting. My understanding is that clipping is simply if waveform > max, then waveform = max, or else if waveform < min, then waveform = min. I assume that DAWs have been designed not to WRAP AROUND. However, I though Limiter would do clipping with a configarable max/min. Or I am wrong?
Limiters introduce a time element because a gain reduction is performed via reaction to the material. That reaction is not instant , at start or in recovery, it's also not linear. A limiter with instant attack and instant recovery could be considered similar in theory to a clipper but in reality would introduce a different distortion. Clipping doesn't perform gain reduction at all, it just produces a square wave per sample clipped at the sample rate.
Thank you for the clarification, that makes more sense to me now. I think it would be interesting to see mathematically what exactly limiter is doing. I understand that it can decrease the gain with release and attack. The tutorial is great and many thanks for it. Limiting is the last thing I need to learn after the more important musical parts so excuse my silly question. @@Bthelick
A limiter is an infinite ratio compressor that's it really. Modern limiters are sophisticated and integrate all kinds of techniques to handle a wide range of material, typically by adjusting recovery times depending on input as to be as transparent as possible, and some have intelligent clipping behavior built in too.
wait, but not everybodys work in 32 bit floating point? Or everybody? I mean it depends on an audio interfece, if im not right or/and didnt understand something please correct me
DAWs have been 32 float since cubase brought it in the late 90s. (except pro tools. they took a while to catch up as they were restricted by hardware DSP)
Some will let you set a "recording" resolution less 32, but all calculations in audio engine still operate at 32 float.
Interfaces/ output audio drivers operate at 24 fixed, or 16 in the case of older sound cards.
The daw engine and interface driver are not the same, as I explain in the video only the master channel is directly related to your interface.
Clipping is king
Great 👍 video. Subscribed.
What a perfect lesson
lol love this and needed this
Have you compared different clippers vs Ableton master track clipping? Like free ones or say, Voxengo OVC-128 that is modelled after converters used by mastering engineers when they clip the converters. How about over sampling in clipping? When you clip converters it is what it is, but in plugins you can choose between 0 and 128 oversampling. While clipping "is just" creating zeros, all clippers seem to do it a bit differently.
I haven't tbh. I'm sure they all make tiny differences to some people, but I learned years ago that tiny differences like that are just for people to argue about on the gearspace forums , those of us that release hundreds of tracks in the real world know those differences don't effect its reception to a real audience.
@@Bthelick I was watching a masterclass of Brittish d'n'b producer Ed Rush. He had a theory section where he argued that he needs to use analogue clipping instead of digital clipping so that the bass made with analogue synth is clipped "smoothly". He zooms in the waveform to compare that analogue version (=he used old cheap analogue eq for clipping) has smoother edge than the digital version. As he plays for massive festival crowds of 50k people, he argues than in huge festival PA system those tiny details make big differences in bass region. But that was about clipping single channel not the master. (Mr Bill clips pretty much everything and the master and the recent live sets are not very pleasing sounding to my ears, but that's just me )
Well that's very a much an apples to oranges comparison. Those 2 don't use the same sounds so it's impossible to say Mr Bill is harsh because of his choice of clipping. It's sounds are already extremely harsh long before that!
Likewise I bet Ed hasn't played back to back sets with a control audience to see if the digitally clipped set had any less people dancing. It's all gear porn speculation until someone actually shows real world results!
You can get "round waveforms" in many ways in the digital domain. Bear in mind when it leaves the digital domain to get to a converter it's no longer square anyway because of the voltage interpolation. I'll say it a million times, what you see in a daw does not represent the real world, and that includes waveforms.
Most daws draw them in different ways to conserve performance and memory better used for other tasks (just look up the 10k waveform test) so comparing the roundness of a waveform in the digital domain is utterly moot. You'd need a proper analog oscilloscope to have any clue what was happening after conversation.
Let me guess: the GUESS mystery track is fine day anthem bei skrillex?! Right?
Haha
Supreme knowledge
Once again spreading truth in a universe full of BS. Thanks for that!
FYI bits per second: ears 100K vs eyes 10M.
Thanks. Good to know. I was speaking the time domain only
Top G
Great user name 😁 👊 (except the presumption of gender of course)
Great video.
So you don’t use limiters or clippers ?
Technically I'm using a clipper, the one exiting the daw. But not in any other fashion if I can help it.
My tracks are usually released with nothing on the master.
Like I say though, I don't lightly recommend it!
meter says kick 2 is 6 dB louder?!
Where? I put the big red arrows in to show you and everything!
@@Bthelick there is a peak and a rms meter therefore the different shades of green
@vat8367 oh yes the rms was.
I wasn't talking about rms.
When newcomers ask me questions like "should I have my bass 6db below my kick" and other nonsense like that they are always looking at peak. Not that it matters.
🤯
Manz a auido g 💯💥
Teacher from GOD!!!
Dope video, but i still don't know what to do with this information..
Thanks, it might not be a problem for you. I I suppose the general warning is don't mix sound with your eyes!
@Bthelick Yeah, can you please do a video of your full process when approaching mixing..
Thanks 😊
Well that's why I made this video, it's because I don't really have one, or not one that's anything you can teach.
Mixing is a listening skill, not an operation skill! I can show anyone what to do, but it's useless without the ear training. If you can't hear the same things as me , which is the reason I make any given decision, then the decision on it's own is useless.
That's why I made this video
ruclips.net/video/tW9imrfzGf4/видео.htmlsi=19QDRrLtEVDADKnv
Once you have the ear training you just pick the right sounds for the situation, side chain the appropriate parts, then there's very little to do mix wise after that.
If you want to see my full process in action I show everything in the start to finish videos. The last one was this;
ruclips.net/video/1Bs_5Ls4Dhg/видео.htmlsi=IA97wewtYSvcs_db
@Bthelick Thanks man🙏 that's true..
I'm a live sound engineer..
I also make music. I find it hard to produce good mixes consistently on my music. Some are good. Most are bad.
Thanks for you feed back..
I guess it lies more on sound selection..
@endmoore ah you're already a live engineer!
I got that "mixing is not an operation skill" from live engineer Kenny Chesney.
If you're struggling you're probably just not referencing enough (by that I mean at least every 20 mins) especially at the sound selection stage.
Also speaking of the point of this video, it's to show that working 'at zero' to the reference is a great way mix master. If you leave your master channel empty, you will hear obvious distortion any time you have a mix unbalance , so you can fix it then and there until the distortion goes away. That takes away a lot of pain most experience later on when they raise the level only at the end to suddenly discover all the problems they avoided by mixing at lower reference levels.
Next time someone says “you clipping bro “ just link them to this 😅
A question,when u work do use headphones or the monitors?
Both. When I'm in the big studio with the fully treated room I work mostly on the monitors, i know that room that well and haven't had a translation problem in years.
When I'm at home I work on monitors, headphones and check on other sources more because I have less ideal set up.
When I work on headphones I try to reduce their binaural traits by feeding a low and delayed copy of the opposite ears into each other so they behave more like stereo.
(Headphones aren't stereo btw if you didn't know)
@@Bthelick "When I work on headphones I try to reduce their binaural traits by feeding a low and delayed copy of the opposite ears into each other so they behave more like stereo.
(Headphones aren't stereo btw if you didn't know)" Wait what? That sounds like another video material :)
Dan Worall already explained that perfectly well.
ruclips.net/video/uZ9WQDojQt8/видео.htmlsi=ARew86KgUCbxash3
@@produccionesabuela8533 yeah sorta figured that out about them. I mainly use them as a alternative listening thing and to check bass low end. My monitors makes me think I have more than what actually come through with power on smaller speakers. And the music just pumping into my ears like that for hours , don't really like that. But if u have information on the long term use of headphones I'd be interested.not studies real people.
@@Bthelick You can still get stereo headphones though
What song was that btw?
Which one?
guess the track one.@@Bthelick
Oh sorry 🤣 it's in the description .
Fine Day Anthem from Skrillex and Boys Noiz
I think this may work for electronic music but for hip hop recordings you need to get the voice upfront to modern standards and that means overcompressing it, and then you need the drums to get loud too, so the common way is hard limiting the master, here in Spain even in studios that work work with major labels they do it like that, if there is another way to do it please ilustrate us
Definitely easier with brighter sounds for sure. But I found that old hip hop track I mix/mastered. link in the description . That was 9 years ago let me know how it sounds to you. 👊
Sounds so 2010s Akon vibe hahaha but the mix is amazing, I guess that vocals were recorded in a pro studio with gear, the problem nowadays is that we record at home studios with cheap mics, interfaces and that stuff and worse acoustic treatment and then the artists think that the producers are magicians that can make that raw material sound like it was recorded in LA 😂
👌
30 frames a second appears to be a smooth movement for the eyes 60 frames a second is the smoothest the human eye cannot perceive or refresh faster than 60 frames per second visually
Yes, For most normal people. Tests in the esports realm however have proven well trained eyes can detect and benefit from 200+ frames on good hardware.
As an esports dabbler myself I can detect 60 vs 120hz refresh rates but not much beyond.
30 looks incredibly choppy to my eyes these days.
somewhat of a misinterpretation; a 60th of a second is the shortest timespan for something to appear and still be detected by the naked eye, but that's for static objects appearing and disappearing out of existence. movement is an entirely different beast
@@UnfortunatelyTheHunger yeah I watched an entire documentary not long ago about the refresh rate of different brains. They said the human brain can only refresh the optical nerve 60 times a second and they actually pointed out the TVs that used 120 frames a second were worthless, because the human eye could not detect that frame rate. However, they did say that housefly could watch 120 frames a second because that’s the refresh rate of a hot housefly that we look like we are in slow motion compared to them.
It’s not really that important of a point because his point is how much more sensitive the ear is in the eye and I would have to agree. Because we have one little ear hole but he can decipher millions of different sound waves, and those sound waves are very similar with tiny little subtle differences in the era notices those differences and tell me that’s amazing
@@13thJ Yes they've been parroting that stuff about how human eyes this and that for 15 years, and it's absolute bs, in any practical application. Not a single person in the top 10% ranks in any PvP shooter would fail to notice the difference between 60Hz and 144Hz.
144Hz to 240Hz is a way smaller difference, but it's visible. It just doesn't weight as much because the industry standard 240Hz models are kinda expensive, and if you buy a random budget monitor it can be worse than a solid 144Hz/165Hz in ways not related to refresh rate.
@@potatoes-ni3lr I don’t know who ‘they’ are but the film industry was the standard
Then video games pushed it further and yes fps were the real force within (cod and halo) probably the biggest drivers
However the information I had referenced was from scientists doing studies on different species
And it wasn’t just visual refresh rates but also audio
A dog hears a slower version of your voice vs a cats who hears a higher pitched sped up version
And house flies have the fastest yet recorded by them with a 120 refresh rate
All I know is at 30 it jiggles a lil and at 60 its pretty smooth
That’s literally the only thing I have witnessed with my eyes
Now with my ears…..depending on the sound source the same thing can have a seemingly endless variations so I understand his point in the video
The proof in my world that he is correct is that when I listen to my older songs sitting in a file I expect for them to be horrible and delete them but I’m constantly surprised that even though I’ve learned a ton and I’m absolutely way more efficient or technical in my execution….my older song still had good sound even if the arrangement or transitions were seriously flawed
Our brain’s sense whats right for us
Not sure what this video has to do with how not to master your tracks
Apologies ,I was trying to explain how I work at zero with nothing on my master channel, because that's how I release all my tracks.
Sorry that's not explained well, I will do a follow up explaining this this month. the explanation of the science took so long to explain properly I kinda lost the flow haha
Hey I made a follow up that explains the link.
I hope this answers your questions.
ruclips.net/video/q1Atuowt0Xo/видео.htmlsi=RpKIH-Tc1Lgg4zjt
First view and comment
Wait so does that mean you always work with nothing on the master track?
Well, I have some meters there....🤣 but yeah there's nothing there most of the time. Seriously though That's why I reference so often. That takes care of most things.
I'll use a limiter occasionally if there is obvious distortion on something like a vocal but I may automate it to only be on when necessary. The more 'transparent' limiters out there are using intelligent clipping under the hood anyway so I can get away with less automation on those, but the groove always comes first regardless.
I find by the time I've got the best sounds selected to the reference and it's all working and grooving with nothing on the master, any problems that are left will be extremely small and if I need any 'emergency' master process it won't be very damaging.
first woo hoo
i bet i can beat you
Well yeah, there's always someone better than someone else...
@@Bthelick fight me about it
About what?
To Clip or Not To Clip :D
Absolutely crazy 🫨 I’m sure i will be back to this video three more times cause of how many secrets are exposed here
Ty mate❤❤
I just got into music production after years of wanting to try it out. This channel has taught me more than all others combined!
Stick w this guy…music is the focus, and backed up by years of releases so it’s WHAT you NEED to have fun asap. All the details will come. 🖤😎🍭
Click the Thanks button and buy him a coffee. He deserves it
I JUST sat down for a quesadilla and this pops up. Perfect timing. Sup B 😎🖤🕺
Nom, Enjoy!
I think this left me more confused then I was before. I am really unsure how to go about mastering or mixing now if all those illusions exist.
By using your ears!
I'm conflicted by the advice too, since the loudness illusions appear to suggest that my ears (indeed most human ears) cannot be trusted. If track B sounds louder than track A to my ears, but the LUFs meter says the opposite is the case, I find it very hard to "trust my ears", because my ears are easily fooled. Since my eyes are also easily fooled, I think I'll try mixing with my nose! ;)
Mf just educated haters 😂
Lots of good information here! The first half of your video is something I thought about yesterday and came to the conclusion that having everything sit in the mix and blend nicely is more important that what the meter says. Trust your ears! Mr. Bill has also touched on your last part before on some RUclips videos. Great video as always! Thank you!
on Football Sunday lets go!
Fucking brilliant. I continue to wish I’d had you back in 2005… but obviously you’d not have as much experience 😂 curse my age!
19:53 Speed it up and you’ll have a Gabber track 😅
You traversed this minefield of a subject with the grace of a Metropolitan Opera dancer.
There’s nothing like having a debate with an audiophile engineer that owns $20,000+ dollar amplifiers, converters, and cable risers.
This channels is the one of the best in the field of music production. Thank you for all the pragmatic and helpful knowledge that you share!