Ableton Forum

Hey there!

Hopefully someone knows and answer to this, because as far as I know there wasn't any discussion about it.
My problem is that every time I turn up the volume a bit louder, the filthy/dirthy sound on a instrument (for example Ableton's Operator)
starts hurting my ears, which makes it really uncomfortable listening to (especially with an extra BitCrush Disortion).
I've tried to master it with EQ and Limiter (or the Tone button in Operator to reduce high pitching notes) so far but it
all didn't really help, it just "destroys" the actual sound and make it sounds flat.
So i just thought it is normal, but when I listen to popular music (especially Dubstep - although im not trying to do this),
it doesn't hurt anything if you turn the volume up, and it's still a very clean filthy/dirty sound.

So my question is, are there any tricks with mastering, is it only possible to get that nice sound with a PlugIn like Massive... or is this such a mistery like Deadmau5' kick layering?

Cheers and thanks!

(An example of what i was talking about is the "lead" part at 0:40: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDXWBAOqV_w)

oops, missed that eq was destroying it, nevermind

My best guess is that you need to get the EQ just right. It may hurt your ears because of an overload in a specific frequency range, so you'll have to play with the EQ on all the instruments to make sure none are conflicting. I also find that any sort of compression and limiting should happen before the EQ, as they can sort of negate the effect. Could be wrong though, as I'm just starting to figure stuff out.

I presume you put threshold on limiter down too much, so GR is probably killing all dynamics and life in the mix

Will definitely have a look again at those two effects.

Thank you guys for all the help!

Do sound design at a reasonable volume. Human ears are most sensitive to frequencies around 2khz, as volume goes down frequencies above and below this point become harder to hear. Its really easy to compensate for this by adding loads of high frequency sound.

Proper EQing is really important. Find the bite and cut it! Also, analog simulation effects can help a lot to soften bitey dubstep sounds. There are several ones I like posted to my page:

Free VSTs