doing a mix is like facing the devil in hell with no weapons and you have PTSD mix with insomnia hunger dehydrated and schizophrenia...... while blindfolded........with 150 pound body weight......
When my mix studio was in a bedroom, when I wanted to take some distance from the production, I lay down on... the bed! I always heard stuff I didn't notice when in the sweet spot.
Overuse of compression in the "loudness wars" ruined the dynamic range of CDs. Good point about genres requiring different loudness levels. I try not to overcompress the mix just because I have room to make it louder. For me, the CD remasters done by Barry Diament in the '80s still sound the best compared to subsequent remasters of the same albums he worked on.
I've already wrote that somewhere, in an other comment maybe about an other video from an other YT channel, but listenning you mix at physical distance, doors open, in an other room and doing something else is a great tool. Realy. It gives you either the physical distance, the mind distance and the "EQ/bandwidth distance". You hear the music thru "bad conditions" and if the music is good despite thes bad conditions, the music is good. And if there's an issue on a detail you hear it. It's like hearing your favorite piece of music thru a crappy AM radio or when you're in the shower with the noise of the water on your head.
The in-phase out-phase test is called a null test! It's an absolutely useful technique to see what a plugin is actually doing, besides checking differences between masters.
So true about mastering studios, it got alot cheaper then they used to be so i noticed for myself that they also don't take it so serious anymore and get lazier and lazier on the job, resulting in better investing in learning how to master yourself instead
That method for checking the distortion looks awesome, great tip! I would insert the same plugin on the duplicate-phase-inverted track to match the delay and just make sure all the parameters are set to zero, that should sort out the alignment issue for perfect 180° phase cancellation - and then dial in some distortion on one track..
Thanks for this vid - I completely agree with the cafe comment where you then notice that the hi hat needs to be tweaked etc. I thought I was perhaps alone in this technique where I have a fair amount of paperwork that's associated with my audio business and will typically play a mix in the background while doing admin work. I'm always amazed on finding things to help improve the quality of the mix that as I'm "mixing", I'm overlooking. Although I do enjoy all of your tech vids / product reviews, this video for me was probably one of my favorites because you explain some of your process which is not something you can find in a classroom or text book.
So many good tips for mental and sonic fatigue, plus the technical tools that you use!! Thank you Great vid all around m8! As for the phase trick, I think it's called phase cancelling which btw the way you're using it seems really worth trying !!! (ps.: please don't mind my comment but.... 0:10 the correct is arose or rose. 6:13 caught instead of catched. :D)
ah! good to hear that I am not the only one that is a bit lost when it comes to master level. a lot of the tracks that I buy for dj'ing are on -10 LUFS. why!? when we finally seem to have a standard we mess it up again.
THANK YOU for saying what you did about speakers and acoustics. If it was all just EQ we'd just download the EQ curve for a Neuman U67 and apply it to an off brand sm58. You can't hear what you can't hear; you said it best. Thanks for your scientific approach to the techniques and your artistic approach to the music.
such practical advice! distancing… it is more difficult to do in music than in visual arts (i am a Designer). i can step away from my design ‘process’ easier than i can with sound. it travels INSIDE my skull, and in my skin!
Hey man, I had a very specific question. But idk if its nessecary to make a video on it, but I genuinely would like to have some tips from anyone possible. I have been producing since 1998 and I always had mental difficulties due Autism, ADHD and later on also an anxiety disorder. And lately I have quite some difficulties with producing due anxiety. Anxiety while producing is one of the most frequent moments when my anxiety pops up. I is not triggered by any concious thoughts, but I am pretty sure it is caused by a fear of failure. Even though I am just an hobbyist, and I mainly produce to have fun and to express. Does anyone have tips or tricks on this? maybe Mr whitey white? ^^ I am also from The Netherlands btw. :) I like your vids man! :D
I read a quote somewhere once, and I seem to think it was attributed to Sting. However, I have not been able to find the quote again, so I’m going completely off of memory. Anyway, the quote goes, “You never really FINISH an album, you just give up.”
Ok here we go. Tom Lord-Alge taught me and my fellow students - "To be a successful mixer you need to learn to live and die by your decisions". The concept of correcting things in the mix after the mastering has been done really is a worst case scenario, as well as a huge luxury which I'm not sure we should always have. The things you want correcting are likely to be small differences which may sound big to the artist, but are relatively inconsequential to the listener. That being said, a listener will care about a good master, subconsciously. A good external mastering engineer of course gives you the opportunity for it to really shine and translate across multiple systems. As a mixer you are too close to the project. I've found that maybe after a month or two I can get that objectivity back to master my own record, but I'm still mastering in my room on the same system. I'll still miss stuff. I've worked with Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound twice over the last 6 months and hands down it's been worth it every time. Yes there were things that were revealed that made me think I'd do things differently next time, but that's how you learn. This quest for perfection is a bit of a lost cause. My coach says to me "It's the lowest standard because it doesn't exist". On balance, for better or kind of for worse, get an outside mastering engineer to master your track. Commit to your decisions and accept what is. Doing your own quality control is a little oxymoronic. It'll hurt the band, the music and the mixer. Finally, with respect to LUFS levels. I'm working with a big mixer at the moment who mixes are hitting like -9LUFS without any limiting. This -14LUFS nonsense is really damaging so I'm glad you've mentioned the -4LUFS thing. I don't think it's something clients should be asking for though, if the mix is too dynamic then getting it to -4LUFS will be a car crash. One thigh that Ted Jensen said that really stuck with me is that he's really just trying to make the track the best it can be. His decisions are creative and not competitive (with regards to loudness). Mastering costs are very reasonable these days and for my money it's an absolute no brainer. You'd be surprised at how different some chart topping mixes sounded before mastering. Sometimes it's a good 20-30% better. To my ears, the difference between that song being a hit and not. So, essential. Basically.
Always enjoy your uploads. Listening outside your mixing room can give another perspective. But I wonder about acoustic coloration and reflections, even though I do the same thing! Pindrop listening is another useful habit and finally, having a reference track or some sort of eq matching plugin. The inescapable fact is that finalised tracks have to conform to the industry standard eq paramaters (keeping genre in mind!) and that is where pink noise is a valuable ref' plot. There are othets, but p/n is the default. Its what all successful masters are adhering to and why a great mixdown translates. Sadly, most prople are listening on tablets/notebooks/smartfones /mp3 players and earbuds. Mp3 gives a weird low end bump and you have to account for all these deficencies and variables! No wonder people have a nightmare self mastering! But if your mixdown is AOK, finalising shouldn't be such a headache. You can't polish a tutd!
Sorry for the stupid question, but what really is the difference between Flux's standalone Pure Analyzer Essential and the subscription version Pure Analyzer System? Would I even need to upgrade to the subscription?
A point to take note ! music will played back in many ways , mayb on vinyl or CD now they don't sound the same , good record deck with a £500 Cartridge will also sound better than a £20 Cartridge , then with spotify thats another thing all that compression same as radio . Then put the speakers into the mix or headphones , THEN at the end of this chain ADD EQ , how many people have never changed the Eq in there car A LOT of people , then look at who does . the whole mix will change many times on many systems and you can't mix for just one format. Do the best you can, make it as load as you can , If someone wants it to be mastered at a way they need it to be , send it to to mastered who knows what he is doing he or she has prob been doing this for 30 Years and knows what they're doing , its not a con they will be using gear that costs 300k .Or just use a izotope pre set if you dont know what your doing and have no gear.Play a song that sounds lie your tune your mixing see how they sound next to each other . Theres a reason your mix doesn't sound as good . Rome wasn't built in a day and no matter how much i think everyone should have a studio set up in there bedroom it don't mean every one should stop using pro studios .Yeah use reference music that's always a good way to put u off mastering it yourself lol
Could you explain why most people don't use subs? And how it's even possible to do a mix with out a sub? How are you meant to know whats going on in the low end?
I would just call it an A/B comparison for phase, or a phase A/B comparison lol There's probably a better term but that would be easily understood by most people. Also that's a killer idea, never heard of or thought of it before but it's actually amazing I never knew you could single out the distortion like that, definitely gotta try it in the future
Thanks for all the information. I have a question on dithering since it’s important in mastering. Why is it important? Sorry if you have somewhere a video on this.
Nice video, but with one detail you are very wrong: You simply can't hear the saturation of staturn 2 by playing a phase inverted dry track in parallel without EXACTLY compensating the PDC introduced by Saturn also on the dry track. Try two tracks, phase invert one, and delay the other by some samples: You will already hear a lot going thru, it will sound like some kind of highpass or lowpass filter actually. So without perfectly aligning to the PDC of your current Saturn settings (since it varies by quality setting), you can't judge about the saturation/distortion delta.
Loudness has been driving me nuts too. I really don't think it's in the best interest of the song to boost the loudness to extremes (just for the sake of being super loud). Here's a quote from the loudness penalty website - "these numbers are not targets. Streaming services apply loudness normalization so we don’t have to. Use them to Preview your music and compare with suitable reference material. If the results sound good, you don’t need to take any action. However, you may decide you’d like to experiment with lower levels to see if you prefer a more dynamic sound. We do!"
That's interesting regarding FLUX and -24 sub, do these values work with SPAN? I heard not to exceed -30 in SPAN too aggressively. So it should be -24 if I'm doing pure sub without kick?
Pretty common in electronic music. Hardcore techno, drum n bass, dubstep. Most of all masters are this way. Everyone claims this sounds awesome, but once level matched with a softer master, then the -4LUFS sounds like totally flat and lifeless. But clients wants to impress customers with a super loud crappy sound and some people enjoy this… On a smartphone yes that is impressive, on good headphone or speakers… well… That is an other story.
@@GrumpyGr3g yeah I know once they are level matched those -4’s sound horrible. I wish everyone would just get the hell over it. Lol lately I’ve been trying to stick to around -11 short term at the loudest sections of my songs. -10 max and it seems to be working out just fine. To me it’s the sweet spot for the stuff I’m producing
@@slowhaunt If that fits your tastes and as long as you are happy with what sounds best for you, it's all good :) If people enjoy super loud/overcompressed things, well it's all on them ^^ I'm mixing and mastering hardcore techno, proudly fighting against all those over high volumes, some people like my approach while some other just don't respect me cause I'm not following the industry and clearly shit on my work. True that - 8LUFS is not enough compared to the majority of tracks on the market, but that sounds really hard when played at high volume. Punchy, clarity and guess what ? We also can get some nasty distorsion and still sounds awesome ! But yeah, more than 80% of sound engineers nowadays says this is absurd to do so for technical issues, but producers don't give a f about that. Well if they're happy with, let give them brick tunes !
Interesting but I'm puzzled. For streaming I'd read the loudness needs to be -14 LUFS, which is what I make my tracks to. So I tried Loudness Penalty (which I'd never heard off) and my track needed boosting by +4/5. I just wish these people (streaming services)would get together and make their mind up what they want and then I can work towards it.
2:18 - all I can tell you about speakers is: use headphones :-)). But seriously, for music production you don't need speakers at all - good headphones and reference tracks is what's counting. I wish I knew this like 8 years ago when I was buying my KRK VXT 6's, but never mind ... at least they look good on my desk although I almost never use them :-D.
@@zetrel Nope, I just use bare headphones :-). I have KRK KNS-8400, which I think are good. I mean, I have no comparison with any other headphones, so I just declared these as my norm lol :-D (and I am ok with that)
@@LittleLightCZ Thanks for the reply. I know a lot of people don't mix on headphones, but when there is no acoustic treatment, headphones would be the best bet to do it. I am in that boat right now, still trying to find the best headphones for me. :)
you’re a cool guy who explains things well- wanting to learn to master with Apollo UA stuff, which i recorded it on / but i may email you and get some prices on getting you to mix and master (I contacted you a year ago but then Covid hit. I’ve got some questions- if u got such great vintage gear, why even bother w UA stuff - anyway. i got your email - i’ll be i touch- been wanting you involved in one of my songs for two years! sorry for delay/ delighted you’re still at it...
I master all my songs between 6 and 9LUFs, and I look in RU-vid in the information of the song and sometimes they haven't even lower the volume, so don't master it at 14LUFs, NEVER. Know to master because mastering at 9LUFs is very easy.
You can right click on any video to see the "stats for nerds" and it tells you how much the audio was decreased during youtube's normalization. From what I've experienced, youtube has been going hard with that over the last year or so and it's particularly painful on general content videos that aren't normalized before being uploaded. I think it's been less a problem for music, specifically, on youtube because usually a lot more care and attention goes in to the level balance as the music get's mixed, even if they aren't being mixed for 14LUFs.
About -4 lufs, people like the squashed sound i guess that in the end will make your track seem louder while it isn't, you probably just compensated on bass/subbass volume
Or they could also just like the saturation/pumping sound that squashing your song into a limiter gives, saturation will also tend to feel like your track is louder cause all empty spaces on freq balance wil be filled up, making you lose transients though, but it will more feel like a soundwall hitting you this giving the feeling it's louder while it's stil -12 lufs cause of loudness normalisation done by streaming platforms
I constantly look at the level plugins and I think theyre very helpful. Its a pain tho and messes up the workflow so im thinking about buying the tc electronics screen so its just in front of me at all times. Would be dope and help speed things up.
Can I ask what the meter on the left stands for...bass hitting -24 as you say. What measurement? All my meter / eq plugins show db scale, so they would be showing my peak levels. I'm confused what that could be. Thanks!
Mastering is difficult because there is no wrong way to get there. Your equipment can only help but so much. It's like comparing Bose, Sony, and Sonos in a makeshift theater room, your ears are that unique.
people forget that each car sounds different..some have time speakers, some have a 2000Wbig sub in the Escalade (u know what im sayin) - gotta represent..and if u change cars a lot of have different cars - then it's always different..I don't judge mixes in the car... - plus the radio u hear in the car - has additional limiters,,compressors..exciters,,,, so they always sound louder than from ur iPhone or CD... some radio stations here go crazy - they slamming
The thing about listening in the car is to listen in YOUR OWN car where you tend to listen to a lot of music while you drive. Because a lot of us listen in our cars all the time, we know what music sounds like there, so if our mix is 'off,' we should be able to notice the difference from commercial recordings we are familiar with. I would NEVER use my car (well, minivan actually) as a final say in my mixes, but I do 'test drive' my mixes to see how they sound.
How can I make my productions more dynamic? (In terms of mixing). I create electronic music (kind of mixed styles, a bit goth, a bit darkish, kind of movie soundtrack like) mostly synth based but I struggle with making the sound dynamic to my taste. I have recently discovered the youlean loudness meter and it tells me my mixes are not very dynamic.
Imo this is as much a matter of composition as mixing. Try to write music that builds up and abates; add louder sections and quieter sections. If the track has had the same kinda energy for multiple minutes at a time you probably need to add in a new section that either ramps it up or calms it down for a while.
funny. i thought i'm the only one who does that with the pauses while listening. I always call this "passive listening" for me. along the way, clean the studio with a feather duster or answer emails. the only question is: is this working time that the customer has to pay? theoretically you are still concerned with the customer's music. even if you are not actively sitting in front of the computer, for example to edit or the like. what do you mean? is this passive listening session in connection with the break work time or not? when you settle accounts with customers based on hourly wages, i mean.
@@Whiteseastudio Thank you for your answer. very nice. I used to have a fixed price. that was sometimes good and sometimes rather bad. it makes a difference whether you have 20 tracks to work on or 100. so i decided to do it at a fair hourly rate. works great for me. Just by the way. i don't charge customers my "passive listening time". Of course, I have a fixed price for mastering. mastering is more predictable. and what I mainly do is produce. these are also fixed prices. thank you again for your answer. du schwerkraftmaschine :)))
“Passive listening “. Excellent description. An important part and how I know when the mix is done. I don’t charge for that time, I’m dusting, filing, wandering around the mix room....it’s how I catch the little things that are missed when your super focused in the mix position. It’s for me.
@@cary3428 exactly. it is very interesting when your subconscious "listens". if you focus as much as you would with a magnifying glass, you often no longer see the big picture. in germany there is an expression for this: you can no longer see the forest because of the many trees. lol. also interesting that apparently a lot of people do it that way. I always thought I was a little weird about it. apparently a lot of people have this intuition. very nice. great thing. thanks for your comment cary.
A $400 analyzer is ridiculous. You can get IK T-Racks 5 bundle (when they go on sale which is often) and the Frindle DSM V3 for that, and like another poster said, just aim for -2. Also...where is this guy's production history on Allmusic?
I disagree that the speakers and acoustics are the most important element. The most important things are your ears, your experience and your ability. Having incredible speakers will not help the inexperienced ear one little bit.
Your ears are important and you should look after them but if you don't have high quality full range speakers in a tuned and treated room you are making mixing harder for yourself and pro mastering shouldn't even be considered. Having incredible speakers in an incredible room would give the inexperienced ear an extremely good starting point to learn how to listen.
Before you buy new active dsp monitors with built in room compensation like Genelec or Neumann.Try mixing with Sennheiser HD-590 and Focusrite VRM Box. For me it worked very good but it takes a while to get used to the virtual mixing room. Also the headphone amplifier on VRM is weak so you need headphones like HD-590 that are easily driven by the headphone amplifier. In the VRM Box you have different rooms and studio monitors and HiFi speakers so it,s perfect for fast checking how a mix translates on different systems and rooms. Also try calibrating your Monitors with Sonarworks reference 4. Plug in.
Did you intentionally and why made your voice way lower volume compared to other popular yt channels and also compared to your intro sound ? If you and you do listen to others and observe your video set your volume on amplifier or speakers to comfortable and then don't touch anything just play some commercial tracks and some other yt channels for example some of >2M or more subscribers often you can see your volume is pretty low.
