Mastering With Live

[FavoriteStation]

Looking for a little recommendation for mastering audio tracks with live for my bands cd. Any ideas for getting a higher levels with out the audio distorting? I have the master fader set so the audio doesn't clip or distort. However, when I listen to it in my cd player for example, I have to crank it up way louder than I would normally have it to get the levels right. I guess I am just wondering how i can increase the over all volume, and or quality with out a distorted mix.

Any ideas would be welcomed! Thanks!

-Matt

[sweetjesus]

Looking for a little recommendation for mastering audio tracks with live for my bands cd. Any ideas for getting a higher levels with out the audio distorting? I have the master fader set so the audio doesn't clip or distort. However, when I listen to it in my cd player for example, I have to crank it up way louder than I would normally have it to get the levels right. I guess I am just wondering how i can increase the over all volume, and or quality with out a distorted mix.

Any ideas would be welcomed! Thanks!

-Matt

My mastering chain is often something like>

Compressor > Eq > Multiband Compressor > Limiter

You would also be able to get pretty good levels with a Compressor > Limiter on the master channel.

[leedsquietman]

I usually use a good mastering compressor (such as PSP Mastercomp or Voxengo Soniformer) then EQ, then limiter (Voxengo Elephant is my favourite but Kjaerhus MPL-1 PRO is also good). I use spectral analysis tools and sometimes Harbal 2.3 to correct any frequency notches or unnatural peaks. Occasionally stereo widening too but very subtle. Occasionally enhancers e.g. Maxxbass by Waves or equivalent and exciters and transient restoring plugs too, but I prefer not to use them, KISS (keep it simple stupid), a good mix usually negates the need for this.

I don't generally like to use Multiband compressors, if the mix is good there should be no need, although there are exceptions to this because with audio, nothing is set in stone, every song, every mix brings it's own challenges. No easy Preset button on a compressor/limiter will optimize the audio for a range of tracks, usually not even for one song.

You need to be careful with squeezing levels not to hypercompress. That will make your music loud but ear fatiguing and with no dynamics. Most people who ever used an L2 just crank it up to loud and kill the dynamics totally, loud only equals punchy if done properly. Good ME's have the tools to pump your music a bit without losing the vibe and the feel, bad MEs throw an L1 or L2 or Wavehammer or Ozone or whatever on full tilt just because it's easy to get extra loudness but they do so at a terrible cost to the sound quality.

As Bob Katz says, what's better, a nice sounding record with dynamics and punch that you will gladly reach to turn up, or some loud hypercompressed, ear fatiguing song that you will be quickly reaching to turn down ?

I generally do mix finalizing (mastering is the whole process including edits, fades and all the stuff associated with burning the CD, PQ lists etc) in Soundforge with VST plugins, because I like it's ease of use and I am usually sorting out fades and edits when mix finalizing and this is a snap in Soundforge. Although that's a personal preference, Live can be used productively for this task too.

[pepezabala]

There are many ways to achieve good levels, and most people believe it's an art that only well payed engineers should practice.

But you can also do this:

Download this plug in: http://www.yohng.com/w1limit.html. Throw it on the master. Turn the threshold down a little, but carefully, if you turn it down too much your recording will sound like daft punk.

[leedsquietman]

Well, this would certainly push the levels up and cost you nothing, but if you were just going to use a volume maximizer/limiter, you should consider something like Voxengo Elephant 2, because it can be more transparent and also detects intersample peaks/clipping not detected by most freeware plugs (it has 4x oversampling and several modes, some of which are very transparent, others colour the sound in a way that Waves type limiters often do). The MPL-1 Pro also has oversampling and extensive features.

I'm not knocking the Yohng plug in, which is very good for free, and for demo purposes should be fine. But for more serious releases, a good ME is the first consideration (if you can afford it), or something like Tarekith's mastering (for a reasonable price he can enhance your music quite a bit, maybe not to the same level as a dedicated Mastering House with top, top, gear but then again, he's only charging a quarter of what they ask). Failing this, read up on mixing techniques and mastering. Bob Katz'z book 'Mastering Audio - The Art and The Science (2nd edition)' is an amazing book.

Bonne Chance.

[stonee]

I've messed around with a few plugins for mastering, but in the end, I always end up using ableton's effects.

I usually put my volumes to the middle so that the master is peaking just a bit under 0 db.


my chain goes eq 8>saturator>compressor II>eq 3

saturator- I just bump up the drive a little bit (1-2), and it really fills out the track. makes a big difference.

compressorII- I set it up just enough to keep my volume level at 0db. usually about 2:1 ratio. usually i'll bring up themultiband to drive 100-300 hz or so to help drive the kick a bit.

eq 3- I cut off everything below 80, and everything above 10 khz


this has worked out well for me. give me a good amount of control over my tracks, and gives me good clear music, considering how dense some of my songs get.

[leedsquietman]

You're being too aggressive in your high and lo shelving IMHO.

I wouldn't shelve anything below 40 Hz and would only shelve 12 Khz or higher frequencies in a low bit rate mp3 mix. Those sparklies above 12 Khz make a lot of difference on cymbals and on 'air' in vocals. The kick drum usually resides around 60-85 Hz, so shelving 80 Hz and under will kill some low end punchiness (although if you're playing back through hyped club speakers, they emphasize 150-200 Hz typically, so it would probably sound OK there, just less so through a regular hifi)

Also, what you're doing, while it might be generally OK, is not really a safety net for clipping, a dedicated mastering limiter with oversampling will really tighten up any clipping - although I agree that saturation in modest doses can be a useful aid, this is why PSP Vintage Warmer is a tool appreciated by some, I sometimes use tape saturation plugs, especially for those tracks that need a bit of an edge or lofiness. I prefer Magneto for this duty, although Live's Saturator is fairly decent too.

[stonee]

You're being too aggressive in your high and lo shelving IMHO.

I wouldn't shelve anything below 40 Hz and would only shelve 12 Khz or higher frequencies in a low bit rate mp3 mix. Those sparklies above 12 Khz make a lot of difference on cymbals and on 'air' in vocals. The kick drum usually resides around 60-85 Hz, so shelving 80 Hz and under will kill some low end punchiness (although if you're playing back through hyped club speakers, they emphasize 150-200 Hz typically, so it would probably sound OK there, just less so through a regular hifi)

Also, what you're doing, while it might be generally OK, is not really a safety net for clipping, a dedicated mastering limiter with oversampling will really tighten up any clipping - although I agree that saturation in modest doses can be a useful aid, this is why PSP Vintage Warmer is a tool appreciated by some, I sometimes use tape saturation plugs, especially for those tracks that need a bit of an edge or lofiness. I prefer Magneto for this duty, although Live's Saturator is fairly decent too.

it depends on what your mixing down as well. i find cutting off below 80 helps make my mix sound less muddy.

I'm also using only synthesized sounds. so anything over 10 khz is usually unwanted noise.

however, yes, your right. if i was mixing a real drumset or vocals, i'd definatly have to back off some.


most of your "kick" from your kick drum comes in at 100-200. larger systems may be able to push lower than that so you can feel it, but most speaker make anything under 80 hz sound like a wet fart.

[leedsquietman]

Some speakers don't reproduce sub 100 Hz frequencies very well, and then in the Ipod generation you can forget about hearing most stuff at that low a level too, but a lot of hifi systems and some higher end car stereos do produce 50-100 Hz in a way so that you don't get the wet fart kick, although I have heard plenty of wet fart sounding kicks in my time .... I find that seperating bass from kick helps if you cut and boost them in different EQ ranges with 60-85 Khz emphasis on kick and 140-180 Khz emphasis on bass (with shelving at 60-85 Khz to keep it out of the way of the kick) but this varies depending on the sounds used and the track, each track needs a different approach.

Yes, the type of music and the dynamic range involved does influence how you mix and EQ. Stuff like pianos and vocals and cymbals benefit from that high frequency information (15-18 Khz) but if this is not a priority in your music then you can mix accordingly.

Sorry, not meaning to sound like some kind of know it all jerkoff, just expressing my opinion mostly based on the music I make, which tends to be quite complex and with huge dynamic ranges, I often do music that is 40+ tracks and dozens of plugins and more.

[DjViral]

There are many ways to achieve good levels, and most people believe it's an art that only well payed engineers should practice.

But you can also do this:

Download this plug in: http://www.yohng.com/w1limit.html. Throw it on the master. Turn the threshold down a little, but carefully, if you turn it down too much your recording will sound like daft punk.

is there a mac UB version to this?

[heavensdaw]

There are many ways to achieve good levels, and most people believe it's an art that only well payed engineers should practice.

But you can also do this:

Download this plug in: http://www.yohng.com/w1limit.html. Throw it on the master. Turn the threshold down a little, but carefully, if you turn it down too much your recording will sound like daft punk.

is there a mac UB version to this?

The W1 limiter is mac..

Hd

[DjViral]

really? cus on the site it says ppc in brackets unless there is one somewhere else i dont know about. or does it just not mention ub?