Rendered mix sounds quiet and lacks punch

[Khazul]

Limiters/maximizers are very transparent today music doesn't sounds bad if you use them carefully. Download this and put it in your master channel, it's free: http://www.yohng.com/w1limit.html

I use this settings for my DJ mixes but them should also work on a single track: Ceiling=-0.2dBs Threshold=-6.0dBs Release=40ms.
If you like what it does to your music think about buying a good one like Voxengo Elephant or Waves L3.
And never normalize.

Why can't you normalize? You already normalize when you limit your track and hit the ceiling. What happen if yu normalize it after that?

Part of what a brickwall limiter does is to effectively chop off the top of a waveform's curve, then match the signal level to a preset ceiling that is generally set to be below 0dBfs (ie maximum possible sample value). When this clipped waveforms is eventually played it gets converted to an analog signal. Depending on the specific analog signal chain (and DAC) used, power supply etc, you tend to get a degree of apparent analog reconstruction - ie where the lost curve gets recreated due to resonance/limited slew rates in the analog signal chain - ie the analog level overshoots the the level that should strictly result from the digital sample values. With poor power supply headroom, you get other very audiable problems as well.

So, when applying a brickwall limiter, you typically set the limiter to clip at a little below the 0dbFS threshold -0.5 to -0.3dB being a common range of settings so that the overshoots generally stay under 0dbFS.

If you were to normalize the result back upto 0dbFS, then when the waveform reconstruction occures in the analog domain, on poorer equipment with little or no head room (mp3 players, ipods etc sufffering worst from this), then the reconstructed waveform can clip very audiably, especially if battery charge is a bit low. Also as mp3 encoding in some ways represents a digital version of analog reconstruction depending upon the specific pre-processing employed by the mp3 encoder, then normalizing clipped waveforms back upto 0dbFS can make a right mess of the resulting mp3 resulting in very audiable distortion on pretty much any player.

[The Carpet Cleaner]

Limiters/maximizers are very transparent today music doesn't sounds bad if you use them carefully. Download this and put it in your master channel, it's free: http://www.yohng.com/w1limit.html

I use this settings for my DJ mixes but them should also work on a single track: Ceiling=-0.2dBs Threshold=-6.0dBs Release=40ms.
If you like what it does to your music think about buying a good one like Voxengo Elephant or Waves L3.
And never normalize.

Why can't you normalize? You already normalize when you limit your track and hit the ceiling. What happen if yu normalize it after that?

Part of what a brickwall limiter does is to effectively chop off the top of a waveform's curve, then match the signal level to a preset ceiling that is generally set to be below 0dBfs (ie maximum possible sample value). When this clipped waveforms is eventually played it gets converted to an analog signal. Depending on the specific analog signal chain (and DAC) used, power supply etc, you tend to get a degree of apparent analog reconstruction - ie where the lost curve gets recreated due to resonance/limited slew rates in the analog signal chain - ie the analog level overshoots the the level that should strictly result from the digital sample values. With poor power supply headroom, you get other very audiable problems as well.

So, when applying a brickwall limiter, you typically set the limiter to clip at a little below the 0dbFS threshold -0.5 to -0.3dB being a common range of settings so that the overshoots generally stay under 0dbFS.

If you were to normalize the result back upto 0dbFS, then when the waveform reconstruction occures in the analog domain, on poorer equipment with little or no head room (mp3 players, ipods etc sufffering worst from this), then the reconstructed waveform can clip very audiably, especially if battery charge is a bit low. Also as mp3 encoding in some ways represents a digital version of analog reconstruction depending upon the specific pre-processing employed by the mp3 encoder, then normalizing clipped waveforms back upto 0dbFS can make a right mess of the resulting mp3 resulting in very audiable distortion on pretty much any player.

Wow, that's actually really well explainned. Thank you very much.

So now let say, you brick wall at -0.2dbFS. And then you apply normalisation with a setting at again -0.2dbFS.
I suppose if I understand everything, that there will be no change, am I right ?

[Tarekith]

There shouldn't be any change at all if the normalization software was done right. Think of it this way, you want to EITHER normalize OR limit, there's no reason at all to do both, doesn't even make sense. I'll throw this out here yet again for people looking to 'master' their tracks:

http://tarekith.com/assets/mastering.html

You don't need to make it a complex process to get loud and full sounding results, infact often the more tools you use when trying to master your own work, the worse it sounds. Keep it simple and learn to use a basic limiter first, then decide if you need other tools as part of that process.

[Sage]

Normalising is only useful for raising the peak to 0dB or -0.1dB or something if you're putting a number of premastered tracks onto a CD for playing on various systems.

For mastering it's completely pointless.

[nopattern]

whatever... mastering is bullshit. if your tracks dont explode on a system its your fault.

if you need another person to make your art "good" than you are not the artist

[Tarekith]

You tell 'em man, fight the good fight.

[3phase]

whatever... mastering is bullshit. if your tracks dont explode on a system its your fault.

if you need another person to make your art "good" than you are not the artist

maybe you should change your name from no pattern to no clue?

especially music is an artform that benefits from multiple creative hands and refinements.. as film its not s solitary art.. can be, but defently dont has to be..


besides..when live is rendering wrong it points either to a user error or a bug.. in abletons case a bug is likely

[Short Scope Boy]

If you want to use your own loops/ stems etc when playing out just remember to get your peaks right and the clubs limiter will do the rest. Loud is not always important; knowing your peaks is.

[The Carpet Cleaner]

All right, thanks a lot Tarekith and Sage.

I understand the whole thing better now.

By the way, 3phase : "maybe you should change your name from no pattern to no clue?"
that was a really good one !!

[yush]

I have read through the page.
And before I get labelled as someone who should read mastering books, let me assure you I know what I am talking about.

The easy answer to the question --- you have to get it mastered by a STUDIO .

NO MATTER what you try in ableton -- ( unless you redline your master mix -- which is obviously not good)your final track will not sound as good as it does inside ableton.

So take my advice get it mastered by a studio.
Now another thing that you could try is to run it through firewire into a firewire friendly audio mixer from which you record your track again through firewire into an audio program.

You can mess around limiters and compressors but in the end you WILL NOT get the sound you want -- beatport sounding tracks--- you need a mixing board- each audio track gets connected to their own channel--- etc etc---
there is a reason why engineers charge 100-150 bucks an hour .

[leedsquietman]

Many releases I've heard on Beatport were mastered with ozone or t-racks or just run through a waves L2 preset. Many of the tracks on beefpork are overcompressed and not great sound quality wise, and ditto with some major label releases on CD and Itunes. I wouldn't personally use Beatport as a measure of a good sounding mix or master, there is a real mixture of quality from poor to (occasionally) fantastic.

You do not need to run your mixes through a summing mixer or outboard analogue gear if you know how to use in the box mixing and plugins and understand about things such as headroom, dynamics and clipping - more advanced users who have a good grip on recording and mixing should read Bob Katz's book 'Mastering Audio : The Art And The Science (2nd edition)' and will learn a lot on audio techniques and rules and what NOT to do.

Using outboard/analogue mixing is an OPTION and in some cases, MAY get better results (or subjectively different results) but it's not the only way to catch a fish and have it presented nicely in a gourmet meal. A lot of material is processed ITB (in the box) these days and sounds good (some of it) and this trend is growing. It's all subjective - I personally love analogue and outboard but in my home studio I don't have budget to do this, yet still have people asking me to mix and master their material, so it can't be all that bad !

Knowledge is power - learn to master the basics and then take it forward one step at a time. If you can afford someone to master your material, then you should do it, but even if you hand your mixes over every time, it is good knowledge to know the processes and techniques anyway, some of this will filter back down into how you record and mix and improve your quality there, because mastering cannot polish a turd, if your mix is poor, there's only a small amount of improvement that mastering can make.

[nathannn]

post the song butthole!

how is anyone suppose to tell you how to fix the song without hearing it?

do you see what you just did here op!

as soon as you say anything about mastering you are going to get 20 reply s from the same people each time who think they are writing a column in sound on sound.

how can you long winded jack asses give advise when you haven't even heard a snippet?

[nathannn]