Mastering for Internet Radio

[Vernon Barnes]

I had a couple of tracks played on an Internet radio station.  At certain points there was a sharp decrease in volume.

I have consulted a pro mastering engineer I know and he does not see anything untoward with my master with respect to dynamic range.  He thinks my TP values are about 0.5 dB louder than he would reccomend.

We think a  AGC is being triggered in sections that are loud and bass heavy.  It seems the AGC is most sensitive to bass.

The songs were matched to the reference track after using isotope's tonal ballance control and I am happy with the masters when played on range of systems in different invironments.

Any suggestions would be welcome. I am going to make a rough master of the worst effected song with the bass cut back for the guy at the Internet radio station to test.

[Vernon Barnes]

The mastering engineer says in this latest email.

 That said, I personally wouldn't go chasing radio optimisation - have it mastered well and if the radio messes with good music then so be it. Most listeners won't notice and those who do will find it from a streaming service for better fidelity listening. Just my opinion!

Also- if the dynamic range of your tracks is resulting in that kind of GR, I'd hate to listen to Shine On You Crazy Diamond on it!

 

[Alan Tubbs]

Stations and down sampling can play havoc. I had a lead song for a cd baby project and the mp3 process for apple etc completely removed the big bass that came in on the second phrase of the intro.  A major element just gone.  And there was nothing to do but remix the song or live with it.

[Vernon Barnes]

An update. Looking at the problem areas on one song there is a lot low frequency energy, maybe more HP filtering in the mix was really needed. 

So I adjusted the static and dynamic eq in the Ozone processing chain and also added a multi band compressor.  If anything this slightly improves the sound of the master. The internet radio guy will check it through his system tomorrow.

[Vernon Barnes]

Well the adjustments I made on one track paid dividends, the AGC is still pulling it down in places a bit more that I would like, but its tolerable for what it is.

Bass is certainly the issue, on another track as soon as a (virtual) Taurus bass pedal drone kicks in the ACG pulls the volume  down even though the overall track level is not suddenly gone up.  This track is a "radio edit" from a longer track so I will try compress the lowest band a bit more as it would only be used occasionally for radio anyway.  I will leave the complete track as it is, it streams back from Bandcamp perfectly.

The issue of course could be peculiar to this particular station and the they way they have the AGC and or compression setup.

[bats brew]

so, the real issue is the mix.

 

[bitflipper]

3 hours ago, batsbrew said:

so, the real issue is the mix.

 

Not quite. Vernon's happy with the mix when it's streamed from BandCamp, and that's a reasonable reference because aside from downsampling for streaming, BandCamp is pretty neutral.

He's talking about a specific streamer that seems to be overreacting to low frequencies. It's unlikely you'd want to remix a song because one site has technical issues. It would be like remixing so a song sounded better in your car - I've tried that, and it failed miserably, sounding worse everywhere else.

Where you could be correct, though, is if the mix has excessive subsonic content. That'll throw any compressor off. Fortunately there's no downside to filtering it out because a) it's inaudible on 99.9% of playback systems, and b) unless you're recording a pipe organ there probably isn't anything musical going on down there.

[bats brew]

yea, i always have a linear phase EQ rolling off everything below 22hz anyway.

 

but if a mix can drive a compressor/limiter to do that,

no matter the platform,

then the mix could be improved.

[Vernon Barnes]

Certainly a few lessons to be learnt here. There were hp filters in mix but obviously not aggressive enough.

This particular stations AGC does seem to be over sensitive however. We tried another track. There was nothing below about 30hz but when a bass synth drone around 60hz came in the volume was abruptly attenuated.

[Vernon Barnes]

A little more on this. Following releasing the tracks on Bandcamp I went back and remixed, aggressively filtered every track and bus so there was very little content below 50hz. I also introduced more multi band compression to reduce dynamic range.  I had the "dj" run it through his system and send me a MP3 of the result.  Its better but its still happening a bit. Of course I am listening out for i, I doubt most listeners would notice now but it does reduce the dramatic elements of the tracks slightly.  When the virtual Taurus bass pedals kick in is the worst part even though I have reduced the levels and filtered 24db/oct right at the fundamental of the lowest note.

I am using these mixed to send to any Internet radio stations.

The original mixes remain on Bandcamp. I have a thread on the Songs forum with links to the tracks on Bandcamp.

 

[bitflipper]

Well, you've piqued my curiosity so I had to go over to Bandcamp and give a listen. There's still plenty of bass in there, particularly the kick drum. It actually sounds pretty good, though. Maybe the answer lies in compression rather than more filtering.