This channel deserves so much more attention than it has received. Being a mastering engineer myself, I learnt a thing or two from this channel that I never considered in the past. Thank you Thomas & Sofia!
Back in the day I did the full Katz system and the most important thing I got from it was how keeping unity gain through the chain enables one to hear EQ changes accurately.
I do something similar by using a VU meter and making its consistently hitting the mark as I use plugins. It could be wrong but I definitely try to make sure that the plugins accomplish what I want to without it being "louder".
Clear explanations of gain staging up through mastering. Tracking, mixing, mastering-super tricky. Always something to learn. Thanks Sofia & Thomas for sharing this insight.
Never ever thought of matching the gain on each plugin to the original gain like this, what a great idea! Going to have so much more headroom and clarity now, I can't wait to try this!
When I was starting out some 28 years ago gain staging was one of the first things I learned. Basically keep everything at unity gain until you need it loud.
Why oh why I didn’t see this channel when it first came out!!! Nonetheless I’m glad I ran across it now. Thomas you explain it in a clear and simple way to understand exactly what I should’ve been doing some time ago not to say I wasn’t getting good results but now better results. It’s almost like how Dan Worrell normally breaks everything down in detail. I’m doing a hybrid thing but probably 90% ITB. I agree you don’t want to get fooled by volume changes. Maybe slightly but nothing drastic thinking it’s better because it’s louder. Again thanks a lot Thomas and Sophia keep up the great work.
Fantastic video, Thomas. This is exactly my workflow, even when using an analog/digital hybrid chain. One comment: I personally use Short-term LUFS for setting the initial gain of the track as it feels more natural to me when mastering album projects.
Essential technique, well demonstrated. That being said, HG-2 plugin never fails to amaze me. It's just wonderful even just to run the program through it without any adjustments (though I always find myself doing some transient design after since it *loves* to trim them)
Excellent tutorial Thomas. Unity gain per plug-in makes a lot of sense, especially as you demonstrate that bypassing any plug-in doesn't affect loudness. Otherwise changing anything in that effects chain would affect the audio loudness downstream. I would think that's easier overall to be certain it's right and not just louder.
As a fellow Reaper user, I use the Delta function a lot to quickly gain stage and also get a good sense of the processing that is actually applied to the sound, helps speed things up in my case anyway.
Good video. *Listening* to the track, my approach would be EQ and a touch of limiting, little more than that. The mix simply doesn't feel that it lends itself to compression (overrated in mastering) or clipping. Of course a major problem with EQ plugins is that many of them add a fraction of a dB just by switching them on! Always test, and let the mix inform your decisions (by ear).
A few steps as possible with a minute 1 to 1.5 db in each With a good levels at first Then a good ear And a Trained sound engineer Who knows what to do in what sequence Does what you did here Thanks a lot
Just discovered this channel. I have a hard time at this stage of creation as I'm primarily a producer and vocalist, so I gravitate to mastering automation plug-ins. What do you think of Ozone?
Thanks for another great video Thomas, very clear and makes sense. Two questions I have, well one question and one possible Reaper point. The question is, have you worked in the box with a workflow that puts the gain at the beginning of the chain, rather than at the end, to better drive analogue simulations, and still leaving the limiter with not much to do (let the internal floating point manage the overs in the chain)? Secondly, Reaper has a clip/item gain which your template has switched to not visible, you could use that instead of the EQ plug-in at the beginning of your chain to set the initial desired level.
I keep everything at approximately -18 LUFS for the main part of my chain, but you can choose any operating level in the chain, including hotter levels if that sounds better. You can also have different levels in different parts of the chain by inserting gain plugins at certain points. The main point is to keep each plugin at unity gain. The item gain in Reaper will affect all the takes within the item, so it gets a bit messy if you render the FX to a new take. But there is a take volume hidden in the item properties that can be used for this. /Thomas
@@MasteringExplained Thanks Thomas. I love your presentations, they make perfect sense and when someone is not sure you reply straight away which also helps hugely :-)
Thanks, very clear video on your point of different gain staging strategies here. Could you try prove the point that plugins sounds better with -18 LUFS input?
Glad you like it! -18 LUFS is mostly from a general observation about where plugins tend to sound the best. Some plugins state their optimal operating level in the manual, but it's mostly about learning the limits of the plugins that you're often using. This is especially true for plugins with analog modeling, saturation or other non-linearities. There are also many plugins that sound the same at any level. /Thomas
@@MasteringExplained I've always seen people and usually manuals say -18 dbfs or what 0 VU usually gets calibrated to... I've never thought about -18 lufs that would be a great thing to test, and I like your point of view, in the end is the way it sounds and knowing the limits of the plugin/gear. Great video btw
Yes, both LUFS and RMS will get you close enough as a starting point. I usually tweak the input level by ear anyway and might deliberately set it higher in order to "push" the chain a bit more, or vice versa. /Thomas
@@MasteringExplained I dont get this logic neither? So you just compress the stuff up? I do it myself but I think going under 5dbs is just whatever... If I have my vocal tracks compressed well by 2-3 plugs so are the instruments in my beats, you just overcompress by lifting it up from -18db. Just start to sound like krrrrzzz and you get more piiips lightly!
Thank you for all your videos! With this technique of matching, are you matching True Peak or Integrated LUFS as you continue to add plugins to each stage? Would there be an audible difference?
Your mastering process is "loudness staging" (Unity Loudness), not "gain staging" (UnityGain). However, with this method, if you bypass the plug-in before dynamics processing, the peak of the chain signal will change, and dynamics processing may not be performed correctly. (Does keeping the loudness constant necessarily reduce the peak?)
Great tutorial as always can you explain how you analyze the loudness of the plugin at the start of the chain i use reaper but wasn't aware i could do that Thanks
What do think of Baphometrix (he has youtube tutorial regarding his method) clip-to-zero method? Clipping each track, bus to achieve max loudness before mastering?
great explanation.. whilst i understand the concept i still seem to struggle hearing some of the changes the plugins make whilst unity gained on your example.. i can hear the saturation the most.. i almost feel like my ears should be so much better after mixing my own stuff for decades haha.. ah well. still have to train them :)
Yeah it's hard to demonstrate tiny changes in a RU-vid video, a lot gets lost. Without added gain it's even more difficult to hear, and that's also kind of the point. Obvious "improvements" often boils down to mostly loudness bias, and proper gain staging will reveal that. /Thomas
Gain staging… something that was innately understood by engineers back in the day. It is now a term because people who don’t understand common sense make music now with midi packs and sample libraries.. gain staging: don’t turn your source audio file up all the way, boom, gain staging
You're comparing digital to analogue. Not the same thing. U can "turn your sauce up" as much as you want as long as it stays under 0 on the master, especially if not using analogue emulation processing🤓
forgive my laziness of not checking the Reaper manual, but that button that your pressed to analyse the loudness, is it a script or is it built in in Reaper? this is such a handy function to have. Thanx for the insights in this video. Fascinated by the mastering process and the facets of loudness .
This I don't understand is: What about Sends and parallel processing such as a Drum Crush bus or parallel compression? I run my Kick & Snare through send channels that I slam IVGI2 with. You don't want to go back and "gain stage" that into wimpered oblivion? That might not be the case all the time, but seems like the examples I shared would be exceptions?
Sure, when mixing there might be less need to meticulously compare and optimize each step of the processing chain of for example a drum bus. The main objective is to make it sound great musically in the context of the mix. It's also more difficult to loudness match when using lots of compression. Still, it's good to be aware of the loudness bias. It's very difficult to spot "louder but worse" when comparing to "way better but too quiet". /Thomas
Thanks for the info! I use that Black Box saturator sometimes. Do you ever use the WET/DRY setting with it, or do you just keep it %100 and change the density? Is it the same with the M/S newer version? Do you use a different approach to gain staging when thinking in terms of mid/side? (i.e. do you put more compression, saturation, more high end, or overall volume into the middle or sides as a rule? And if so, do you suggest doing it in small steps throughout the chain, or wait till the last step, or two?)
Yes I often use the wet/dry control in Black Box. I haven't tried the M/S version yet. I use M/S processing quite sparingly, with no big differences in level etc. /Thomas
This is a great video! But sometimes you’re interchanging the words “loudness” and “volume”. Which is unfortunate because the difference between those things is the base of this whole video. I’m sure it’s an honest mistake in such a lengthy explanation but it might make it confusing for beginners. So in your first approach there’s an actual volume increase. In the second approach you’re only messing with the loudness by controlling the output gain stage of each plugin. What would really interest me is to what you actually listen back to. Is your system average set to the beginning loudness of -18LUFS or the finished master of -10 to -8 or whatever LUFS? Thank you
I try to avoid the word "volume" since it doesn't have a clear definition and I don't think I used it in this video, but I could be wrong. Maybe it wasn't clear, but the purpose of this video is to demonstrate a workflow that helps you to avoid loudness bias and also keep the gain structure intact when switching plugins on and off. I usually monitor the full chain, including the final peak limiting. /Thomas
It's possjble to get the exact same result with both methods. But the point is that you will make different decisions depending on the workflow you use. The best workflow is the one that consistently gives you good results. /Thomas
I have a question. If I want to achieve the final loudness of -8dbfs or -6dbfs in this way, it will not be enough at present. Do I need to add another limiter or just add my target loudness to the final limiter?
I would add all the gain in the final limiter as a start, and then possibly add another limiter before that if needed. See this: ru-vid.comPSwEXvRqMlY /Thomas
Which action did you call for that analyze loudness button? I downloaded this yesterday (and then took the advanced course) but that button was not assigned to an action by default. I used the "Calculate loudness of selected items, including take and track FX and settings, via dry run render" action. Everything else was working as expected though. Thanks!
The action is "SWS/BR: Analyze loudness..." from the SWS Extension. It seems as if that extension is somehow missing from your Reaper installation. You could try to install it manually, see: www.sws-extension.org/ Hope this helps! /Thomas
The second track is a copy of the mix without processing. It's routed so that I can easily compare the master and original mix with automatic loudness matching. More info here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-D00k30V07do.html /Thomas
Whatever sounds good is the right thing to do. There are many mixing engineers who never use mix bus compression. I also master lots of songs without adding any compression. /Thomas
I see way too much “right way, wrong way” directed at music mastering and need to chime in. Mastering is often part of the production process which, I would argue, makes all the usual advice moot. I’m producing most everything I end up mastering, so arrangement is still on the table for almost all the mastering I do. This means I start by re-envisioning parts of the mix entirely. Different start and end points, B sections repeated or moved. It’s potentially the Wild West for me every time I master. So suggestions about process order and limiter style simply don’t apply. If this describes your work, you will probably be happy to see this. I assure you some of the classics of recording were mostly formed at the mastering stage to make an album more interesting.
All these videos always show some RU-vid background type music. I would like to see someone try to show mastering for some metal or industrial type music. I think anyone can master this type of music.
I see your point, the example in this video is literally just Garageband loops. It works well enough for demonstrating the concepts though. Using "real" music tend to be a bit complicated when it comes to licensing and copyright here on RU-vid. We do have a real-life metal mastering video that might be interesting to you: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HrEMWMsKuU4.html /Thomas
@@MasteringExplained I make industrial style of music. Everytime I try to master the kick disappears in the mix. It's really difficult to get many distorted tones to sound right.
Yes, it can be a bit of musical Tetris to make everything fit in a dense production. Drums disappearing in mastering is often due to too much, or non-optimal peak limiting. /Thomas
No heavy lifting was done by any limiter in this video. :) The peaks to average ratio was gradually reduced before the final limiter just to avoid getting all the gain reduction in the last step. The trick is to find methods to do that peak control without also adding gain/loudness at each step. /Thomas
