Just as an important point: sometimes in this video, the "bypassed" segment will sound "better" to the ear, but, he is actually making the sound better, its just that hes reducing the volume in certain parts, which is allways going to sound "worse" to us humans, cause we allways like the louder things, but in mixes and masters, pure loudness itself doesnt matter, what matters is the "propotion" of loudness between elements, both depending on frequency, and time, so what really matters is to have balance (and on the mastering stage volume does matter, but thats more something you control in the gain and such and sometimes, you need to make your whole song quieter, and it might sound "worse" but in order to have a clean master, its really what you need to do)
Paar dingen die mij helpen om nog cleaner te masteren, is het combineren van clippers zoals Oxford inflator en limiters, in kleine stapjes. Bijv in deze video wordt er met limiten 8db bij gelimit. Dit kan je vaak beter opsplitsen in kleinere delen zodat elk 'apparaat' een stukje van het totaal kan doen en daardoor krijg ik zelf veel cleanere masters en vaak ook luider. Bijv je kan 3x 3dB doen ipv 1x 8dB. Zeker als je eerst een clipper gebruikt, en daarna limit, krijg ik vaak een luidere track die wel clean is. Ook een ding wat ik je niet zag doen, je low end checken voor distortion nadat je de limiters hebt ingesteld. Dit is iets wat weinig mensen nog doen. Door te limiten kan je perongeluk de low-end distorten zonder dat je het doorhebt, doordat je de gehele mix hoort. Door na het limiten even te checken in je multiband en dan de subbass band te solo-en, kan je horen of de sub schoon blijft of dat je te hard limit. Soms heb je dan een kleine piek reductie nodig in de sub. Dit is wat werkt in mijn ervaring, kijk of het helpt en zo niet, dan niet.
Great input, and I agree. All the incremental clipping has already been done in the mix, as you can see @ 0:52 in the sound profile. And for choosing the limiter, of cause I would base it on more than just a few seconds of listening.
i think saturation can add a a little bit more bite to a track when added carefully, after all it all comes down to what kind of sound you want. i generally like a little bit of saturation on my mixes.
hey man thanks very much for this video to see your mastering approach. I am a young Audio engineer, that has been working on a lot of Hardcore/Hiphop and other Music Mixes/Masters for the past year. I have just bought a vitalizer Mk2-T and I think that with subtle settings I can get a Mix sounding fuller and especially the Kick/Bass gets separated very smoothly. I also combine the vitalizer with a Tegeler EQP-1 for analog freshness and at the end before returning in the DAW with a Tegeler Creme RC for glueing the Mix. In my experience Analog Equipment really makes a big difference in how smooth Tracks can sound. Do you implement such equipment in your Mastering chain or do you generally never use Compressors/Saturators? Sometimes i also use Transient shaping in Mastering just to give the Kick some Extra Punch. Would be really happy for Feedback and keep up your work, really amazing what you are doing here!
So I obviously believe different pieces of music needs different processing, and that's also true for hardstyle. But in my experience, within all the different genres I've been involved with, hardstyle is the LEAST suited genre for the use of saturation and compression during mastering. This is mostly due to the fact that there are so many elements where using saturation or compression would be directly counter-intuitive: Examples would be kicks, leads and bass. All of the above are already fully represented in the audiospectrum + we deliberately design those elements to have no dynamics. Using analog equipment can sometimes be an exception since it's often more about the "feel" that some equipment can bring to the table. But still to be used subtlety imo.
Thanks once again for a great tutorial! Looking at the waveform of your pre-master - I can see you have most of the sounds in busses with a clipper on it? I was wondering which elements you end up not clipping before you master your track (and why). Essentially where the spikes in your pre-master come from. I hope you understand my question :)
I totally understand, and it's a great question! The short answer is that everything is bussed together and clipped EXCEPT for things that shouldn't be sidechained under the climax. So what you see is crashes, the kick, and sometimes other elements that sound better routed to the master bus instead.
im listening on AudioTechnica headphones and I can hardly hear any difference throughout the whole video. Just the tiniest bright notes around 7:50 when the compressor is enabled.
Hate to say it pal, but that means I did a good job with the mastering. It's not about changing the sound (typically), it's about maximizing the potential of the music. And in this case everything is mixed really well, so it's really just about achieving the necessary loudness. Without the steps done in this video the master would probably be 1 dB lower and less consistent.
I am seeing in your example with the FabFilter Limiter, that you have gain reduction around 5-7db on your peaks. I feel like in my track when I do this, my kicks are losing their power and the whole mix starts sounding worse. Is it normal to have that much gain reduction from your limiter? Thanks for any feedback, I am still new to learning production.
I was under the impression that using linear phase down into sub frequencies would cause pre ringing and offset the timing. I was also told once that linear phase is used as a last resort for mastering so it makes sense that you're using it in the step I'm. Just curious it's effects on your sub information.
Why did you put a high cut on the EQ, wouldn’t that would reduce the clarity of the overall mix so when it is uploaded and downloaded the quality will be muddier?
I do it to get consistent high frequencies + it technically gives more headroom (fractionally though). It's good practice, and you would never notice it unless you critically listen through a hifi system. It's impossible to detect through streaming.
It's that low end cut that makes me find some hardstyle tracks weak. I'd rather throw on a compressor on those frequencies and clip the track before limiting. Just my opinion
