K-14 metering when mastering?

[Sidney Earl Goodroe]

Just curious! I have found myself relying on K-14 and wondered how many would pound me for doing so.

(Visions of the old Karloff Frankenstein scene where the villagers are chasing him down the road with torches and pitchforks!!!!!!?

[Kevin Walsh]

No, but I've long been curious about it. Any process that takes the frustration out of gain staging is one I'm interested in. How has it been working out for  you?

[Sidney Earl Goodroe]

I am a stone cold fanatic about the use of dynamics in music. Most of my compositions are chock full of them. While my songs are mainly classic rock, jazz, blues, ballads, etc., I have found it helps immensely.

Otherwise, the mastering I do for my clients is another story! They just want it body slammed to the nth degree.

I do encourage anyone to at least give it an honest try.  There is tons of info and some good freebie plugins for K-style mastering for anyone out there.

Thanks for asking.

[Craig Anderton]

I wrote a pretty comprehensive article about the K-System, mixing, and speaker calibration for inSync, some might find it helpful. With LUFS some feel the K-System isn't as relevant, but I find the aspect of speaker calibration and consistent monitoring levels is still very helpful.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Craig Anderton

[Starise]

I usually make a comparison between the K-System and  other methods. To my ears the K-System has on kid gloves compared to  the prior db "just under zero"methods. In these discussions RMS usually comes up as overall more important. LUFS is probably more relevant now as Craig mentions. Clipping is still clipping no matter how it's measured.  Dealing with the peaks through gentle compression and multi-band limiting can really help when the material only has a few offending peaks. This lets me bring the master up higher in a more controlled way. You certainly won't be called on the carpet for using the K-System. I suspect they used some of that data when coming up with LUFS. I seemed to always be pushing the limits of it for some of my material though. 

I still rely a lot on the older db/RMS ways. Then I throw a metering plugin on the master to see how that looks on LUFS and the K. My mixes seem to pop better that way. Very often an acceptable mix using only the db meters is too high in the K-System......and that can potentially be frustrating. So I might ignore the K-System  Depending on where the master is going the site you upload it to will limit it to their specs. It's all enough to make you pull your hair out.

[Craig Anderton]

The K-System is great when you want to make sure you're monitoring at consistent levels. Thanks to Mssrs. Fletcher and Munson, we need some consistency - or something that sounds "too bassy" might sound "not bassy enough" the next day.

What makes LUFS so important is that streaming services (which are now the #1 source of music dissemination/distribution) make sure the perceived level of any music is the same, whether it's a Bach violin partita or a squashed Metallica master. This has taken away the incentive to participate in the loudness wars.

You still have some latitude, for example even if Spotify turns down your master with compression in the master bus, that compression may give the effect you want. FWIW with my own music these days, I master to around -11 LUFS. Although I know streaming services will turn it down a bit to matched perceived levels, I do want a bit of limiting in there.

 

 

Edited March 2, 2020 by Craig Anderton

[bitflipper]

^^^ Craig has succinctly identified the main advantage of the K-system over LUFS: the former is built around monitor calibration while the latter ignores the problem of subjectivity in the mix in an attempt to make the process a completely objective exercise. They are really two different things, even though they have similar goals. LUFS solves the longstanding need for standardization in broadcasting and streaming, but it does not help you get a good mix to begin with. For that you need to monitor at consistent levels, and that's a prerequisite for implementing the K-system.

I use both systems. K-14 or K-20 while mixing, LUFS for the final master. If I have to alter overall volume to hit the LUFS target, monitoring at the same levels as dictated by the K-system helps me hear whether that volume change has made it necessary to tweak the mix.

[Starise]

Another thing that further complicates the issues here...not all of the online music sites use the same exact criteria. K-20 almost never works for me and I often peak occasionally using K-14. I might need to re calibrate with pink noise again. The overall perception of loudness usually increases when I disengage ARC or my Sonarworks plugin in the headphones. This is probably important in headphones because this is what most hear in reality because ear buds are often boosted or cut in similar ranges. 

It's good to know that Craig reports similar in  mastering to -11 LUFS which also pushes the limits some, but not too much. Craig are you seeing red on the meters? I get the occasional peaks. If it isn't too bad I release it.

[Craig Anderton]

On 3/3/2020 at 12:48 PM, Starise said:

It's good to know that Craig reports similar in  mastering to -11 LUFS which also pushes the limits some, but not too much. Craig are you seeing red on the meters? I get the occasional peaks. If it isn't too bad I release it.

I always aim for a negative true peak value, along with -11 LUFS. FWIW I like using IK Multimedia's Stealth limiter as the final "maximizing" stage, which isn't used for squashing as much as peak control.