Any tips to get the master loud enough?

[Christian_R]

Hi,

I'm trying to master song now, but I struggle to get the sound loud enough.

My reference track is Swedish House Mafia's "Redlight":
https://youtu.be/D64a2fb72sE?si=Ia1lkkFPWwW7Yv6E&t=25

It's a fairly simple song, so I don't understand why my song get distorted if I push it to -7 LUFS, which is volume of the reference track.

I use a bass from Massive, and the kick I bought at Splice. KASHMR made the kick, and he's known for having high quality products. I've also removed the low end on most of my instruments except the kick and bass.

On the master track I use Fabfilter Pro L2, a limiter plugin with very good reviews. My volume is around -6dB before I turn this on.

If anyone has some good tips here, I would really appreciate it

[Tarekith]

Arrangement actually has a lot to do with it. It’s easier to get sparser songs loud so things like limiters and compression have room to recover, compared to a really busy song with a lot going on all the time.

Honestly though it’s hard to say without hearing your song what to suggest to improve.

[jlgrimes]

Arrangement actually has a lot to do with it. It’s easier to get sparser songs loud so things like limiters and compression have room to recover, compared to a really busy song with a lot going on all the time.

Honestly though it’s hard to say without hearing your song what to suggest to improve.

This.

Sound selection, arrangement, level balancing, frequency spectrum, dynamic processing, saturation are all key components.

I would probably try to hone more in to the songs arrangement/sound selection. If that part is too different from your song, you might even want to consider finding an alternative reference that more matches your song in sound selection/arrangement.

Loudness (that sounds good) is a tricky task.