Are some kicks on Splice too bad for mastering?

[Christian_R]

Hi!

I have struggled to get my kicks to sound good and clean then trying to master (they get distorted). These are Splice kicks from known producers like Kshmr etc., so I guess they should have been made for mastering?

But the other day I had an online lesson, and my teacher suggested trying another kick. We found a kick from Zenhiser and that kick could easily get to -5 LUFS and still sound great.

So I wonder if some kicks on Splice are just not good enough for mastering? I thought it was strange that Kshmr's kick got distorted since he's a big producer with many packs on Splice.

I hope someone can answer this and explain a bit

[slow.robot]

if it sounds fine on its own, but after output, it’s distorting, your kick and/or master level is probably too loud. turn down and export at a usable volume—usually you want at least like 2 db of headroom. it’s generally not a great idea to be concerned with your LUFS at the mixing stage. that’s what mastering is for.

[Christian_R]

if it sounds fine on its own, but after output, it’s distorting, your kick and/or master level is probably too loud. turn down and export at a usable volume—usually you want at least like 2 db of headroom. it’s generally not a great idea to be concerned with your LUFS at the mixing stage. that’s what mastering is for.

Thank you for the reply!

It does sound good on its own, so I will check out the volume. The mix is done and sound good, It's when I put on the limiter on the master it gets distorted (the rest of the instruments sound okay).

[Tarekith]

Just means you're hitting the limiter too hard, so the easies option is to just turn down the input or turn up the threshold to reduce how hard you're hitting the limiter. The new kicks are likely just compressed more and are making your song louder than it was before, so you're doing more limiting now than you were too.

[Christian_R]

Just means you're hitting the limiter too hard, so the easies option is to just turn down the input or turn up the threshold to reduce how hard you're hitting the limiter. The new kicks are likely just compressed more and are making your song louder than it was before, so you're doing more limiting now than you were too.

Thanks!

I will try that. Seems logical, since it's made by Kshmr and sounded good before I tried to master