INSIDE an -8.1 LUFS Mastering Chain!

[Music] Yes [Music] [Applause] [Music] you heard that right the before mix hanging around 14.7 laps and now it's blasting at a whopping negative 8.1 laughs long-term integrated it maxes out at negative 6.2 luffs but you need to guess what guess what the artist loved it the mixing engineer loved it and it sounds absolutely insane even at full volume everything's punching and coming through so I need you to not forget to smash the like button and subscribe because in this video I'm going to show you exactly exactly how I did this the first thing I always try and do is buy Headroom now I'm going to use the word buy because every process is always a trade-off and if you're conscious that every process you're trading off with either the Fidelity or the Integrity of the mix you start to think like a mastering engineer not only do you use critical listening to inform your decisions but also your knowledge of your tools and how they interact and impact the sound of a mix so throughout this walkthrough while we're adding plugins to the chain I'm going to keep a tally of how each process affects the overall loudness and we're going to do that by subtracting the peak value from the long-term integrated loudness of the whole master so what's my first purchase for Headroom we are going to buy some Headroom using a Clipper now I usually start with manual limiting or clipping but for this session I chose clipping and I'll show you the waveform now all the Peaks are consistent drums snare kits happening consistently sometimes if there's an offshoot of one Peak I don't bother to clip at all I just go in and manually edit it but here every Peak is very consistent very easy to manage and how I dial this in is I actually use the d-clip mode in audio editor to give me a visual representation of where all the Peaks are now I use a negative six decibels for this session I use an English six decibels on the Clipper so you can see all the Peaks it's clipping and you're probably wonder bring this about three four dozen Peaks that you're clipping Are You Gonna Hear It Go to the loudest Peak the loudest Peak is needed 1.2 decibels over here okay we're over here how many samples do you reckon that is okay let's zoom in and this is the beauty of audio editor you can actually see all the sample points that's a total of 32 samples 30 samples divided by 48 000 you're in the thousandth of a second that that clippings occurring so any of the distortions any of the harmonics being introduced is on a very micro scale and I actually went through and looked before this video to see what was the longest amount of samples clipped at any one stage it actually happens just after that initial Peak there let's go across there 65 samples so that's still within a thousandth of a second that it's clipping in any single instance so you it's inaudible you won't hear that clipping and to show you this let's actually listen turning the Clipper off and then back on [Music] [Applause] [Music] that's ridiculously subtle maybe it's just taking a little bit of the poke out of it but really the mix is holding together nicely and with just 62 consecutive samples clipped at any one stage at a thousandth of a second to trade-off for that to get five decibels of additional gain is what I call a bargain when we're discussing the trade-off to keep with our tally we're now at negative 10 luffs overall not everything's all about loudness I wanted to create a bit of separation between the sustain of the guitars and the smack of the drums so I set up this compressor here okay the catalnikov you know I love this compressor it's awesome and I use a relatively slow attack time relatively slow release and that was just allowing me to sustain the guitars behind the smack of the drums now this didn't get me any extra loudness if anything it might have put me back a few fractions of a luff however it was mainly about feel and getting the feel of this master right because I'm not willing to sacrifice the loudness for feel so take a listen to this and get an idea for how it's sitting the pocket makes it sit in um because this is part of the chain and I had to share this with you because it's not always just about making it as loud as possible [Music] associated [Music] [Applause] [Music] now that compressor brought us back to a total of negative 10 luffs following that compressor I wanted to add some depth to the overall master we're dealing with live drums and I wanted it to feel like the kick was subtly bleeding into both the left and right channels so have a listen to the side Channel with this turned off Baseline Pro turned off [Music] all right I don't get any bleed from the kick and I think the drum bus might have had an elliptical filter on the subs and none of that punch or movement is happening out on the sides but fear not you know I love Baseline Pro for exactly this take the mid signal add some harmonics to the side signal and then blend it in [Music] okay so it's just moving a bit of those drums out the side especially the transient stuff from the kick and some of the snare in the middle it's just giving it a little bit out the stereo field now haven't listened to this before and after because I really like what this does to the overall master [Music] yes [Music] [Applause] [Music] I love the way that it gives it this nice breadth and depth to the overall mix it's actually pulled the overall down so it actually created a few more Peaks especially between the left and right Channel and the overall loudness has went down to negative 11.3 next in the chain was this sontek four three two now believe it or not this low shelf EQ here for negative one decibel was actually the request by the client they felt as though the first master I sent them was a little bit too much too much Subs in it and in hindsight I actually agree there were too much Subs in it so this is a really cool move this negative one decibel of 50 hertz but I did boost at it's a half DB boosted around 740 Hertz to help that guitar and vocal cool just sit a little bit more aggressively in your face so when you're playing it through just feels like it's hitting you a little bit now when it comes to the two models the analog models is a four three two there's the pure analog and the aggressive analog mode I tend to prefer the aggressive analog as when I'm aiming to add a little bit more Edge to a signal this just I I feel and feel is it a good word to use but because it's not objective it's not measurable this does add more fourth and fifth order harmonics but it's so micro you really shouldn't be able to hear it however I just use the aggressive analog mode when I want a little bit more Edge okay a little bit more Edge Let's have a listen to this all right [Music] [Applause] [Music] might not be as exciting now but as we start to drive the signal it makes a lot more sense because there was quite well there is quite a lot of low end energy there but overall this 432eq move just helps bump our Lofts up a little bit to negative 11. I was also listening through this in the mastering session and I wanted the snare to pop a little bit more to make the snare pop and really stand out I employed using the impact module let's have a listen to the Delta signal to hear exactly what this is doing okay now let's listen to a before and after without the impact module and then with [Music] yes [Music] [Applause] [Music] and doing that subtle process it's only adding like after this about at single instances in that frequency range it didn't change the overall loudness breeding so we're still at negative 11 lufts then I've used the maximizer with no more than a decibel of limiting using the transient mode and why transient mode you ask well I feel like this particular mode gives me the best low end extension and that's really important to give it that extra oomph we're using the soft Clipper here on Media mode and that helps us bring us to our negative 8.1 lufts and that's really important this here helps us get us to that final loudness that soft clipping which is really important and there's also a little Easter egg at the end of this because you're probably wondering if you're using true Peak mode you're definitely going over zero decibels and here's the thing I was this is this is a trick I learned from somebody I know and I had to do it to believe it I used true Peak limit mode in maximizer and I've always used tripping limited maximizer and they told me use true Peak mode in maximizer on a separate maximizer but just how the ceiling set to zero decibels okay like this and they go it will sound better trust me and I thought well that's you just you just use the true pick one there why would you have to use a second one it won't work any different but trust me I did some blind tests it actually sounds better so the overall peak level of this 8.1 loss Master is zero decibel now let's have another listen to this before I give you my final thought [Music] that's how we boosted the final laughs of a mix which was negative 14 negative 15 lufts all the way up to eight luffs if you're interested in exploring mastering more here are two videos where I break down some really interesting techniques regarding mastering and processing so click on one of them and enjoy

Channel: Panorama Mixing & Mastering

Views: 24,693

Keywords: mastering, mastering chain, lufs, mastering plugins, lufs mastering, best mastering plugins, loudness metering, mastering tips, mastering chain live, how to master loud spotify, how to master loud track to -14 lufs, master chain, super loud mastering chain, mastering chain for song

Id: NjCZmUgJ2Sw

Length: 11min 10sec (670 seconds)

Published: Wed May 17 2023