How to Master with Fabfilter

welcome to sage audio today let's talk about how to master with fabfilter but first if you have a mix that you need mastered send it to us to receive a free mastered sample of it with the link in the description starting with subtractive eq for this video i'll use the latest version of fabfilter plugins but if you have previous versions those are going to work well too i'm going to start the chain off with the pro q3 with which i'll attenuate various aspects of the mix that i don't want to amplify i'll typically set this to low latency linear phase mode so that i can affect my low frequencies without phase issues i often use the mid side mode to attenuate some lows from the side image making them more mono and some from 250 hertz on the mids by reducing 250 hertz i'll reduce masking in the high frequencies which is going to add a lot of clarity optionally or if the mix really needs it i'll reduce some of the siblings frequencies but for this mix i'll save that for the next chapter let's take a listen to what this eq does and keep in mind that the effect is going to be subtle [Music] do yes with multi-band compressor like i said in the last chapter i wanted to attenuate some of the siblings but instead of using a dynamic band on the pro-q3 i'll use the pro-mb since it gives me control over the attack and release i'll isolate the sibilance range and compress i'll use a small range of only about one to two db at most and carefully set the threshold i'll lower the ratio to about two to one use a softer knee and a little look ahead and use a quick attack and release let's take a listen and notice how the siblings in the highs become controlled [Music] if you're enjoying the video hit the like button and subscribe if you haven't already it's free and it helps us bring you more videos saturn 2 for saturation and transients for the next three chapters i'm going to use saturn 2 but i'm going to use it for specific purposes in each chapter first i want to identify important frequency ranges usually i'll use three bands one that isolates the lows up to right before or on the snares fundamental one for the mids up to about five kilohertz and then one for the highs and air then i'll carefully pick my saturation types tube saturation is great for emphasizing transients so i find that clean tube works well for the highs and mids while warm or subtle tube often works well on the lows but be sure to use your ear to further emphasize transients i'm going to create an envelope follower change it to transient mode shorten its adsr and then link it to the drive dial of each band i reduce its impact on the drive function using the new slider that pops up if i want a higher baseline amount of distortion i'll increase the drive dial and compensate accordingly on the envelope followers slider this is going to cause distortion to my transients making them stick out and increasing both my dynamics and impact let's take a listen [Music] saturn 2 for upward compression this next effect is subtle but definitely worth the short amount of time it takes to accomplish i'll take the same envelope follower and attach it to the dynamic style then i'll click the negative sign to invert its impact before reducing its value with the slider then i'll subtly increase the dial itself before balancing the followers effect with the dial's static value so what i'm doing here is increasing low level detail with the dynamic style but only when transients are not present since the envelope follower reduces the dynamics when a transient is hit will retain a dynamic but full sound let's take a listen to the difference that these settings make [Music] saturn 2 for stereo imaging lastly saturn 2 is great for stereo imaging during mastering first i'll change the processing to mid side in the output section then i'll create another envelope follower set it to transient mode but increase the length of its adsr before linking it to my drive pan functions for my mids and highs i'll use a subtle positive value meaning whenever the envelope follower is triggered by a transient the distortion will be panned to the side image in turn increasing stereo width on the lows i'll use a negative value meaning its distortion will be dynamically panned to the mids making the lows more mono and focused we could also use this follower on the overall band's panning so i'll do that to a subtle extent for the demonstration let's take a listen and notice how the mids and the highs become slightly wider while the lows become more focused [Music] multi-band upward compression with pro mb with the pro mb we could set a positive range but use the compression mode to cause upward compression whenever the signal falls below the threshold by adjusting the level of the band and the range we could determine how drastic we want this to be i'll set the bandwidth to the same as the saturn 2 so that we're affecting the same frequencies that we were a moment ago let's take a listen and notice if we can hear more detail [Music] optional subtle compression with pro c2 now i don't like to use more compression when mastering but sometimes it can be helpful when you want a louder sound without too much clipping additionally the pro c2 is good for using compression on a master in creative ways for example we could dynamically widen the image with mid-side processing or we could use the internal side chain to control the compressor's triggering which when paired with a low ratio and soft knee can cause nearly transparent dynamic control let's take a listen to these two settings but know that i'll take this processor off for future demonstrations [Music] if you're enjoying the channel use the search box to watch more of our videos additive eq with pro q3 next i'm going to insert another instance of the pro q3 i'll keep it in a zero latency mode to preserve transients and then emphasize what i want more of for example i might pump three to five kilohertz by a db or two to add some clarity or i could create a high q valued shelf around 12 kilohertz and above to amplify air additionally i could amplify the kick around 80 hertz and really just shape all of the processing that came before this eq as i need to let's take a listen with some changes made to the signal that have been tailored for this specific mix [Music] stage one limiting with pro l2 after my additive eq i'm going to add the pro l2 for limiting the different styles make tailoring this limiter to a mix much easier but i'll stick with the modern mode for now i'll reduce the attack and then the release to 50 milliseconds before reducing channel linking i'm going to turn off look ahead and true peak limiting but increase over sampling then i'll increase the gain slider let's take a listen to how the limiting increases loudness but doesn't cause a lack of detail or unwanted artifacts [Music] stage two limiting and l ufs measurement last step i'm gonna use one more instance of the pro l2 but this time use a more musical sounding limiting style like transparent and only achieve about a db or two of attenuation like before i'll keep lookahead off and disable true peak limiting but this time lower the output this when combined with lowering the channel fader of the output by 0.2 to 0.5 db should keep us from having any unwanted clipping using the loudness meter let's increase the gain slider until we achieve anywhere between negative 14 lufs to negative 9 lufs i'll settle on negative 12 since youtube is gonna normalize this audio anyway let's take a listen to how this additional limiter helps us achieve a louder level while tying the dynamics together [Music] if you have a mix that you need mastered send it to us to receive a free mastered sample of it with the link in the description thank you so much for watching

Channel: Sage Audio

Views: 78,751

Keywords: Audio Engineering, Music Mastering, Music Mixing, Vocal Mixing, Music Production, Audio Mixing, Audio Mastering, Audio Recording, Audio Production

Id: vxqf8MbeLnk

Length: 9min 55sec (595 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 25 2022