How to Master Loud and Clear Without Sounding Harsh

welcome back to the sage audio channel today we'll discuss how to master loud and clear without sounding harsh we'll cover some techniques that you can use to make louder masters that still retain their clarity we'll also discuss particular topics and concepts that when understood will help you think of new and related ways to retain clarity in your master when mastering loudly additionally we'll listen to examples throughout the video so if you could like subscribe to the channel and stick around for the full video but first if you're an artist engineer or producer and you have a mix that you need mastered send it to us at sageaudio.com we'll master it for you and send you a free mastered sample all you have to do is set up an account upload the song and we do the rest up first let's talk about how look ahead and over sampling reduce harshness when mastering loudly pushing the signal into a brick wall ceiling is a quick and effective way to make a master loud however it's also a quick way to create inter-sample peaking distortion and subsequent aliasing distortion now let's start by looking at inter-sample peaking if you push a limiter hard enough you may still not see any distortion on your channel meters however the level may be so consistently loud that it's going above the maximum amplitude set by the bit depth and sampling rate now although we typically think of bit depth as determining the amplitude of quantized signal sampling rate can also help or hinder the accuracy with which bits of the signal are encoded a lower sampling rate will result in less accurate encoding and subsequent distortion with that in mind if we increase the over sampling of our limiter we can reduce inter-sample peaking distortion additionally if we increase the look ahead of a limiter we give it more time to process the signal resulting in less unwanted clipping now if these don't do the trick try true peak limiting but this might reduce the impact of your transients another thing to consider is aliasing distortion if the sample rate of our session is low enough say 44.1 kilohertz then clipping distortion and other forms of distortion may exceed the frequency limitations of what our sampling rate allows for when this happens the signal that exceeds this limitation will be reflected down the frequency spectrum as aliasing distortion which almost always has an unpleasant and harsh sound introducing over sampling solves this problem as well allowing you to push the signal a little louder without unwanted harshness let's take a listen to it [Music] go [Music] next let's talk about how low level compression and transient shaping cause perceived loudness and clarity it's pretty common for mastering engineers to use downward compression in order to eventually make a signal louder the idea being if dynamics are controlled then the signal's overall amplitude can be increased without clipping but there might be a better way to achieve a louder master than this method if you use low level compression or upward compression you can take quieter aspects of the signal capture them and amplify them all while keeping the peaks of the signal at the same level this means that the detail of the signal is pushed forward making the overall signal sound louder but without the artifacts created from downward compression after introducing low level compression we'll have a less dynamic mix or master but one without truncated transients or peaks we can make these transients even more distinct by using transient shaping transient shaping is like a special form of expansion in which only the peaks of the signal are captured and expanded this makes it perfect for increasing the clarity of snares kicks and other instruments with a quick transient by introducing transient shaping after low level compression we make the signal loud but with its transient detail intact let's take a listen to it [Music] foreign and make me go [Music] last up let's talk about how setting the right limiter release is crucial for reducing harshness when we think about frequencies we often think about them as how they sound which makes perfect sense but we also need to conceptualize frequencies as things that take up physical space and travel through time now i'll get to the part about compression and release times in a moment but let's consider and understand this concept first by definition a frequency is a particular wavelength more specifically a frequency is a wavelength as it results to one second of time for example one hertz is a sound wave with one complete oscillation per one second of time 20 hertz is a sound wave with 20 complete oscillations for one second of time and so on now this means that each frequency takes a specific amount of time to travel so let's look again at a 20 hertz wave if a 20 hertz wave has 20 oscillations in one second how long is each oscillation well if we take one divided by 20 we get 0.05 seconds if we multiply that number by a thousand we get that time in milliseconds so it takes a 20 hertz wave 50 milliseconds to oscillate fully the higher the frequency or pitch the quicker it travels so a 200 hertz wave completes one oscillation in 5 milliseconds so what does this have to do with the release time of a limiter well if we set the release time of a limiter too short it can drastically alter the amplitude of our signal in the middle of a waveform in turn causing distortion so if our release time is 10 milliseconds but we have 20 hertz waves in our master odds are some of those waves are going to get distorted with that in mind we need to set a longer release time than 50 milliseconds however if we set our release time too long then the limiter will continue to attenuate the signal for too significant of an amount of time when this happens transients and peaks that are unrelated to the peak which triggered the limiter to begin with will be compressed resulting in a lack of definition and detail so to sum this up if we set our release time to at least 50 milliseconds we know that every frequency that's within the range of human hearing will be able to pass without being distorted but we need to make sure we don't set that release time too long lastly the same concept applies to attack times but if you see an attack function on a limiter odds are it's the amount of time before the release begins let's take a listen to it [Music] way [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Music] so these are our thoughts on how to master loud and clear without sounding harsh but what do you think are there some additional techniques that you can think of let us know in the comment section below also if you're an artist or an engineer send us one your mixes at sageaudio.com we'll master it for you and send you a free mastered sample of it all you have to do is set up an account upload the song and we'll do the rest but thank you so much for watching we really hope you enjoyed it if you did please like and share this video with your friends this way we know that you'd like to see more videos like this one also you can subscribe to the channel we release three to four new videos every week and subscribing is the best way to stay up to date there's a comment section where you can leave your thoughts on this video or you can make a suggestion for a future video and again if you're an artist or an engineer and you have a mix that you need mastered send it to us at sageaudio.com we'll master it for you and send you a free mastered sample thank you so much for watching we'll see you in the next video

Channel: Sage Audio

Views: 94,058

Keywords: audio mastering, how to master music, Audio Engineering, music mastering, why my mix sounds harsh, sage audio, master sounds harsh, make music loud without distortion, mastering music, mix sounds harsh, vocal sounds harsh, how to mastewr music

Id: cy-S6YmVe2U

Length: 10min 48sec (648 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 18 2021