Well, that's a loaded question.

Personally I prefer not to put anything across my stereo mixing bus. Many folks tell me my mixes already sound mastered. They're not as loud however as other notable well mastered CDs frequently sound. So for that, I'll do a little "DAW" mastering in the box, for my clients that don't want to pay for a mastering engineer. But the overall integrity of the mix isn't modified that much. Sometimes a simple little normalization is all that's required. Other times, I might add some additional equalization, then some broadband compression, then some more equalization, then some multiband limiter to finish things off in software. But that's usually when I get other tracks handed to me that I'll pile up all that stuff. The above also applies to rockers that care more whether their CD is as loud as Metallica's as opposed to the integrity of the overall sound. Go figure? It's not like everything is heard on FM radio anymore much less AM. I think streaming audio sounds pretty awful? How about you? So what's with that eh? It sounds like everything is underwater.

Drowning in bad sound
Ms. Remy Ann David

Thanks for that advice. And yes, as a "rocker", I've been sucked into the trend! I've made great mixes with TINY compression and solid EQ and not much at all... and the first things my friends or listeners say is, "Why isn't it loud?" of course, given their lack of audio knowledge...

Streaming audio does make me sad. All of my songs on myspace sound miserable it's almost embarrassing,

One thing Im curious about that you touched on is EQing, compressing, and EQing again. What do you usually intend to accomplish with doing that? My ears have found if I filter off the lows and notch out muddy mids (for metal/rock), and then compress, it sounds SUPER punchy and doesn't need alot of bass at all really. (It's all in the kick drum and compressed guitars).

Basically I'm just trying different approaches to the final stage of my mixing. KEEP EM COMIN'!

All of my songs on myspace sound miserable it's almost embarrassing,

Post them on Soundclick, then.

Like I do.

Put a link on your MySpace page to your Soundclick page.

MySpace players suck!

Any page that automatically plays music when you visit it should be destroyed! Pages like that sucked in the 90's and they still suck today!
If I'm really looking to listen to someone else's crappy music, I'll gladly spend my time searching the page for a link...
And another thing, any page that throws up some lame ass video, photo album, etc. that I've gotta wait through, or has the video window with a link or button that I have to waste more than 250ms searching for, so I can Skip It, really ticks me off.
Marketing folks beware, you'll always lose my business if your site contains either one!

Oh, yeah, Waves L1 on the mix bus ITB.

Nothing when mixing analog, but then again, outside of live sound, I haven't mixed OTB in years...

:wink:

I don't mix much anymore - But it's pretty rare that the Vari-Mu isn't across the main bus when I am (from the start - not added later).

bent wrote:

All of my songs on myspace sound miserable it's almost embarrassing,

Post them on Soundclick, then.

Like I do.

Put a link on your MySpace page to your Soundclick page.

MySpace players suck!

Any page that automatically plays music when you visit it should be destroyed! Pages like that sucked in the 90's and they still suck today!
If I'm really looking to listen to someone else's crappy music, I'll gladly spend my time searching the page for a link...
And another thing, any page that throws up some lame ass video, photo album, etc. that I've gotta wait through, or has the video window with a link or button that I have to waste more than 250ms searching for, so I can Skip It, really ticks me off.
Marketing folks beware, you'll always lose my business if your site contains either one!

Oh, yeah, Waves L1 on the mix bus ITB.

Nothing when mixing analog, but then again, outside of live sound, I haven't mixed OTB in years...

:wink:

AGREED. haha. Might have to try out Soundclick, because I hate how they give you a 6MB limit on myspace. I had a 8 minute song at probably 60MB .wav file and do you know what quality I had to export that as?! Yay for compression right? Jeebus.

Always hear good things about waves, just never really had the money to invest in some plug in packages.

Speaking of analog, coming right out of a Neve onto tape sounds amazing. I wish digital sounded that amazing sometimes haha. But then again... I should just buy some Neve Pre-amps!

There's an interesting idea...a compressor/limiter/EQ on the mains at a live setup. Is it done? (EQ speaks for itself actually).

*shrug* I haven't done much live sound, although speaking of, I am assisting my friend at a live show next weekend.

There's an interesting idea...a compressor/limiter/EQ on the mains at a live setup. Is it done? (EQ speaks for itself actually).

Yes, I have a [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.y96k.com…"]Waves96 [/]="http://www.y96k.com…"]Waves96 [/]card in my DM2K specifically for that purpose.

Many of today's digital crossovers contain comps and limiters in their settings. BSS, XTA, etc...

http://www.bssaudio.com/productpg.php?product_id=4

http://www.xta.uk.com/products-dp226.html

HEY, YESTERDAY WAS MY FIRST TIME ON THIS FORUM, AND I READ THIS ENTIRE POST.
I HAVE A VERY SUCCESSFUL ONLINE MIXING AND MASTERING BUSINESS, AND WORK IN SEVERAL STUDIOS USING BOTH HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE (TUBE TECH, WAVES BCL, SADIE, WAVES MERCURY)
I WILL ONLY TELL YOU THAT I, AND MOST OF THE TOP MASTERING STUDIOS IN THE WORLD REQUIRE "NO COMPRESSION OR LIMITING ON THE STEREO MASTER MIX CHANNELS, AND A MIX DONE AT -4 TO -5 DB".
THIS IS THE STANDARD SINCE YEARS.

Welcome to RO!

Thanks!

THANKS BENt, YOU DO A HELL OF A JOB AROUND ... HEAR!!!!

THANKEE-SAI, SpAcE!!!!!!

LOL JESUS I FEEL LIKE WE'RE AT A CONCERT AND CAN'T HEAR EACHOTHER OR SOMETHING.

But seriously, if I were to send my mixes to a mastering engineer I would not put anything on the stereo bus. Because... Thats what a mastering engineer does right? haha. But yeah, I'm wondering about my own recordings and friends recordings, and in the box mixing/mastering!

I like to add a limiter, and softly limit the transients. Oome times I like to string two compressors together. It truly depends on what type of music I am doing.
I only limit to grab transients. I use the compressor chain if I feel the songs needs a little excitement. I am still just experimenting. I have yet to settle on one technique.

Also I have a bit of an issue with making the vocals sound brighter then the rest of the mix, so I feel I am having this problem I use less boosting on the vocal channel and give the master a little high end bump.

RemyRAD wrote: The above also applies to rockers that care more whether their CD is as loud as Metallica's as opposed to the integrity of the overall sound.

So i listened to the Black Album, and it was quiet as shit!=)

Hi,
I usually stack a few things across the 2-bus. One thing that I find works very nicely there is multiband stereo expansion. I get a really nice wide spread on the highs without muddying up the lows that way. I multiband compress, limit, sometimes add verb, use dynamic enhancing... all of it. High pass, low pass, EQ's... hahaha. There is definitely something to be said for just leaving everything untouched (which I prefer), but from what I hear of modern music, it sounds like everything is extremely processed to me. Plus I don't have a ton of top notch mics and pre's here so I'm sure that has something to do with my processing habits. On the flip side, sometimes I'll just setup a few mics in the room and record the entire band to half track reel to reel with no effects on anything, if I can convince the band that it's a good idea that is. :)

multoc wrote: [quote=RemyRAD] The above also applies to rockers that care more whether their CD is as loud as Metallica's as opposed to the integrity of the overall sound.

So i listened to the Black Album, and it was quiet as shit!=)
The "Black" album was plenty loud - Just a whisker too loud.

The current stuff is beyond mere ridicule.

The current stuff is beyond mere ridicule.

+100

I'm actually wrecking an otherwise perfectly decent mix right now. :-?

But someone's paying you to (I hope) and I take it some producer is pointing a stick at you and shouting "Louder! Louder!"

Yeah, but it doesn't really help... Even when the client is present and I make a volume-adjusted A/B, they acknowledge that the loud one sounds like [SELF-CENSORED] by comparison, but that's the one they want.

Although seemingly more frequently, they're stopping a little shorter of "completely insane" than they were a year or so ago...

The tides are turning are they?
Good, in a few years we can be back to normal.

Massive Mastering wrote: the loud one sounds like [SELF-CENSORED] by comparison, but that's the one they want

Now I'm no proponent of the current volume standard. In fact, it's unattainable by me: the sonic equivalent of a Victoria's Secret model. But I'm sure some albums (Our Lady Peace's Gravity comes to mind) would have lacked a lot of guts without the insane mastering.

My car's CD system starts to impart sound once it's driven beyond a certain level. Surely this is some reason to make the source material as loud as is possible, right?

I'm doing some self-mastering right now, and all I have to say is that L2 / L3 plugins suck a**!!! I have them set with a -5 threshold and it sounds like I strapped a high ratio compressor and some distortion over the master bus. I guess it's time to hire a real mastering engineer...

The L2 plugins do suck. hell the standard digi compressor works better when you switch it to brick wall mode.

In class we did a few side by sides of a real L2 and a bunch of digital compressors.

On their own the digi was the winner. chained together I am a big fan of two req axes. whats great about the axe is that it is cheap as hell, sounds great and automatically adjusts the ratio and release times. at first I was real hesitant to allow of a compressor to make such choices for me, but it truly does a stellar job.

Huh...the L2 and L3 are actually quite nice. They MUST be used properly though. The mix has to be pretty loud already going into them - don't try to squash the mix using the L2 or it (and just about any other BW limiter I've ever heard) will start to crap out.

the l2 hardware works like a dream. its the plugins that dont compare. At least not from my experiences.

The L2 hardware and the plugs are the same.

I've owned and used both for years - there's no difference. Once you convert your signal into digital using the onboard converters, you're essentially hitting a software L2 inside the box.

I personally prefer the hardware version simply because the conversion is GREAT and the convenience of not having to have another plug-in loaded when I'm going out of the box anyway is great too. It helps me keep my sanity when coming back in knowing I won't clip the digital input bus.

I would love to see the two used side by side in your hands then.

Well...the one is very heavy and might require 2 hands...and the other is a virtual device (software) though I could hold the box...
;-)

(JK of course).

I think it's all a matter of how they're used in the scheme of things. Again, with the software L2, there are tons of plugs loaded before it usually and you're usually trying to keep those plugs from clipping the bus and then squash the mix with the L2. Or the opposite, you set up all the plugs on the mix and then allow it to clip but going to the L2, it limits it.

Whereas with the hardware L2, you'd get your analog mix pumping along at a pretty decent (to insane) level and then you strap the processor on as it's going into the digital domain.

Granted, on the hardware L2, everything happens at 48 bit so your 24 bit signal is getting adjusted to the right in the binary world to keep from clipping that actual digital bus, then the L2 is applied and the signal dithered back down to 24 bit. In your software, it's doing the same basic thing only operating at 32 float (hopefully). The number differences between the two (32 and 48) shouldn't make any difference in this application.

patrick_like_static wrote: [quote=Massive Mastering]the loud one sounds like [SELF-CENSORED] by comparison, but that's the one they want

My car's CD system starts to impart sound once it's driven beyond a certain level. Surely this is some reason to make the source material as loud as is possible, right?
No, it overdrives the system's input stage -- Distorting it at the earliest possible chance.

Amplifiers aren't designed for the kind of input levels we're feeding them. Making discs as loud as they are now is bad for everything, start-to-finish.

My car stereo sounds like crap when it's overdriven. Yeah, it "imparts a sound" on it - that's for sure. But when it's distorted on the way in, there's never any reason to turn it up to where it's designed to run.

Now I'm no proponent of the current volume standard. In fact, it's unattainable by me: the sonic equivalent of a Victoria's Secret model. But I'm sure some albums (Our Lady Peace's Gravity comes to mind) would have lacked a lot of guts without the insane mastering.

I'm all about getting it to punch -- But I have never, NEVER, EVER, not once, never ever ever ever, heard a recording at -10dBRMS that didn't sound amazingly better at -14dBRMS. Never. Ever. Not ever, not even close, no comparison, ever.

Presently we use a Behringer DEQ 2496 to a Masterliknk --tried a lot in the last 30 years ..settled on the gear we now incorporate .