I'll Be Louder Now
- Thread starter CaptainMoto
- Start date
BraylonJennings
It's all blues
Interesting product. The captain moves into AI. assisted mixing and mastering. The video is good, I might try a 30 day trial if I have the time, but not likely. I realize I don't have the ears, room, or equipment to do true mastering, but I wanted to stay as close to the traditional process as I could. In Studio One I use the Mastering page for all of my music, usually with multiple instances of Fat Channel and Softube Tape. Last Christmas I splurged on a big sale of Brainworx mastering plug-ins and now use that, too.
I don't hear well enough to really master, basically I use the metering to make all my tracks loud and at equivalent volumes. When I make up a Cd or flashdrive for friends, I can grab songs from the past and have them fit together pretty well while also matching commercial releases in volume. I tried to be a purist, but with so much to learn and do, these kinds of programs can make life easier. Looking forward to your next project, see if I notice a big change.
I don't hear well enough to really master, basically I use the metering to make all my tracks loud and at equivalent volumes. When I make up a Cd or flashdrive for friends, I can grab songs from the past and have them fit together pretty well while also matching commercial releases in volume. I tried to be a purist, but with so much to learn and do, these kinds of programs can make life easier. Looking forward to your next project, see if I notice a big change.
CaptainMoto
Blues Voyager
My studio is a hybrid setup, anaolog on the way in and then again on the way out.
I use outboard preamps & compressors on my vocals, then mix in the box.
I send the mix out to an outboard EQ & Compressor to finish it off.
So, by the time I'm thinking about mastering, things are prety well done.......just looking for a little touch and a volume boost at the end.
Usually, I only master the stuff that goes onto Spotify and such.
When you put your stuff out there, it's competeing (well I'm really not competeing) it is compared to the pro stuff and if the volume is week......it's like sitting at the kids table while the grown ups occupy the real space.
I to, use the mastering page in S1, that's a great tool.
I'm pretty sure most folks can get pretty good results with tools they have.
I bounce between various plugins or relying on Ozone.
My ears are shot to, so If I use a tool that's listens better I'm all for that.
I like the way this works and will probably start using it on my official releases.
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CaptainMoto
Blues Voyager
That’s the idea , even though I see people shooting that idea down.
sdbrit68
Student Of The Blues
I seen both, some make a good point that if you place it on spotify, they will compress the sound anyways so why worry, but then I have also heard that your quality is better the less you allow the streaming service to do
Cowboy Bob
Horse Player/Guitar Wrangler
Hey guys, long time no hear.
As the Captain says; I too typically use -14.0 dbLKFS (same scale as LUFS) integrated, with a true peak of -1.0 dbfs with a dynamic range target of 12.0 dbfs
Spotify Has two standards actually; normal and loud. They don’t compress louder audio, rather they normalize it, up or down to fall within the standards of the platform.
The bulk of the masters I do wind up going to CD duplication and the rest to streaming services. Each has somewhat different requirements. It gets confusing.
Izotope has some really good resources. They also offer Insight 2 meter plugin.
Personally I use Youlean 2.
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sdbrit68
Student Of The Blues
for some reason, the insight 2 one bugs me, I use youlean also
CaptainMoto
Blues Voyager
@Cowboy Bob
Nice to hear form you Bob,
We've had a flurry of recording / mixing discussions lately, glad to see you participating.
Thanks for the nudge on YouLean, I've been ignoring that of late.
I'm liking the Sonible smart limit tool.
Nice to hear form you Bob,
We've had a flurry of recording / mixing discussions lately, glad to see you participating.
Thanks for the nudge on YouLean, I've been ignoring that of late.
I'm liking the Sonible smart limit tool.
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Cowboy Bob
Horse Player/Guitar Wrangler
@CaptainMoto ain’t nothing wrong with the Sonible solution at all. I’ve not used it myself, but I like what its advertised capabilities are. AI is absolutely here to stay, for sure.
Youlean just happened to be the first one I grabbed because of a recommendation, and have been using it since. I did go pro with it.
Avid has their Pro Loudness Meter as well, which is part of my Pro Tools system of course, but I can’t use it with S1 Pro sessions, obviously.
So many solutions for the same task. Great time to be in music production!
Youlean just happened to be the first one I grabbed because of a recommendation, and have been using it since. I did go pro with it.
Avid has their Pro Loudness Meter as well, which is part of my Pro Tools system of course, but I can’t use it with S1 Pro sessions, obviously.
So many solutions for the same task. Great time to be in music production!
CaptainMoto
Blues Voyager
@Cowboy Bob
I see Sonible as an assistant and Youlean as a tool.
I've tried to avoid leaning on AI, prefering to learn how to use the tools first
Can't say I'm an expert at any of this but, I feel I've got the basics so, now if I reach for some help I have some clue what I want it to do.
I see Sonible as an assistant and Youlean as a tool.
I've tried to avoid leaning on AI, prefering to learn how to use the tools first
Can't say I'm an expert at any of this but, I feel I've got the basics so, now if I reach for some help I have some clue what I want it to do.
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Cowboy Bob
Horse Player/Guitar Wrangler
@CaptainMoto Absotively! Education via experience/examples is, in my opinio, invaluable. Now, knowing, or being able to sonically predict what certain movement may mean, you can get there much quicker.
CaptainMoto
Blues Voyager
I've had some disappointing results when aiming for 14 LUFS so, I've been trying to educate myself on that subject.
There are way too many opinions out there from, so called, experts, home studio folks like me and everybody in the middle.
I've just had a hard time accepting the -14 LUFS standard as gospel as a mastering target
What I'm landing on is -14 LUFS can be a good level but not for all types of music.
Also, even if the streaming services normalize at -14 LUFS, depending on the content, mixes that are mastered at a lower LUFS (meaning louder) may be perceived louder than others.
Anyhow, when we're talking about this stuff, it's good to understand what the term LUFS actually stands for and how it is measured.
Most of what I've seen & read tells me LUFS is = to average loudness.
A deeper dive suggests that it is not the average but, rather the difference between the average and the peaks.
At the same time, we don't want to exceed -1 peak level
If that's true, I'm thinking, a mix with less dynamic range can be turned up more while a mix with greater dynamic range will end up sounding quieter if turned down to meet the LUFS standard.
Therefore, to get a really dynamic mix to be perceived as loud, it must be highly compressed, squashing the dynamic range.
Said another way, a less dynamic mix can achieve the LUFS target easier because its average loudness is closer to its peaks requiring less compression.
Any of this make sense?
There are way too many opinions out there from, so called, experts, home studio folks like me and everybody in the middle.
I've just had a hard time accepting the -14 LUFS standard as gospel as a mastering target
What I'm landing on is -14 LUFS can be a good level but not for all types of music.
Also, even if the streaming services normalize at -14 LUFS, depending on the content, mixes that are mastered at a lower LUFS (meaning louder) may be perceived louder than others.
Anyhow, when we're talking about this stuff, it's good to understand what the term LUFS actually stands for and how it is measured.
Most of what I've seen & read tells me LUFS is = to average loudness.
A deeper dive suggests that it is not the average but, rather the difference between the average and the peaks.
At the same time, we don't want to exceed -1 peak level
If that's true, I'm thinking, a mix with less dynamic range can be turned up more while a mix with greater dynamic range will end up sounding quieter if turned down to meet the LUFS standard.
Therefore, to get a really dynamic mix to be perceived as loud, it must be highly compressed, squashing the dynamic range.
Said another way, a less dynamic mix can achieve the LUFS target easier because its average loudness is closer to its peaks requiring less compression.
Any of this make sense?
BraylonJennings
It's all blues
It's the search for apparent volume that drives the loudness wars and super compressed signals. I'd learned to always try to maintain 8-10db of dynamic range while driving the overall signal to -.1db. The latest mastering plug-in I'm using suggests 6-8db. I get into this range then fine tune from there. Sometimes I use -14 LUFS metering,but i don't pay it much attention.
CaptainMoto
Blues Voyager
I think that makes sense.
If you check the top songs on the steaming services, you'll find none come in at -14 LUFS.