master-level

[martsave martin s]

from 0 to +6 on mastering i hear i degradation in quality of the sound(mix)

do my ears hearing corectly??

thanks

martin

[chuckebaby]

I might not be understanding your question. Are you saying you Master, aiming for between 0 to +6 ?

You should be aiming for 0db. and nothing over.

[martsave martin s]

26 minutes ago, Chuck E Baby said:

You should be aiming for 0db. and nothing over.

yes i mean -6 to 0

when im mastering then i go to -0.3 in this range i kind of hearing a degradation of the sound..

Edited August 6, 2019 by martins

[Jonathan Sasor]

1 hour ago, martins said:

yes i mean -6 to 0

when im mastering then i go to -0.3 in this range i kind of hearing a degradation of the sound..

That's very dependent on everything else that is in your chain, particular on your master bus. If you're using a brick wall limiter to boost the level to -.3, that limiter is going to impact the sound more as you boost the signal going into it. 

[martsave martin s]

4 minutes ago, Jon Sasor said:

to boost the level to -.3, that limiter is going to impact the sound

that's where i start to hear a degradation of the sound..(loodness war some kind..)

[Grem]

But are you using something in the master buss fx bin?
 

By your last response to Jon, I am assuming the answer to the above question is yes. The way you worded the first post made me think that you were hearing this with just a signal going through the master buss.

Case in point, the old Boost 11 was a good limiter, as long as you didn't drive it too hard. And on the other end of that spectrum, IK Stealth Limiter is really clean, even when you drive it really hard. But even it has it's limits, and will distort really bad when it does go beyond it's limits.

So if your driving your limiter/comp hard, then your ears aren't deceiving you. If you got nothing in your fx bin, or PC, on your mastering buss, then you may have another problem.

[John]

This is perhaps the most difficult subject to deal with.  One can compress to the point any wisp of musical dynamic is gone.  One way I think to think of this is putting each instrument in  its own dynamic space without letting any other sound over power it. Try to avoid compression at this stage. 

I think -6 dB  to 0 is much too narrow a band for peaks. What about RMS? Where should that be? 

I have talked about pulling all the faders to zero or infinity to start off mixing.  Than bring each one up so it can be heard. Than adjust each so everything is heard well. ( A note on this is if you are doing  many instruments of the same sort  use a bus for making a section of them. Balance within the section the balance each section to one another.)  Don't worry much about making it louder rather make it balanced. Here EQ can carve out frequency space so instruments aren't masking any other instrument. 

I think once you have things balanced then you can look to the right over all loudness (RMS) then give the peaks lots of room.   I think it takes judgement. 

 

[martsave martin s]

@John what do you advice for RMS-peak at ?? (mastering)-0.3 ??

Edited August 6, 2019 by martins

[martsave martin s]

you both Grem and John help me alot with your reply!!!

thanks

martin

Edited August 6, 2019 by martins

[msmcleod]

Personally I find keeping the master level fairly low during mixing works well for me. With 24 bit, even having a mix at -6 or -12 db still gives you loads of dynamic range.

If it's too quiet I just turn my monitor speakers up.

The only time I worry about loudness is at the mastering stage, which I'll do on stereo audio file itself rather than within my project. The only exception to this is if I want a quick & dirty master, in which case I'll probably just stick Waves L2 on the master bus for that purpose.

Sticking to mastering the stereo audio removes the temptation to go back to tweaking (and probably ruining) the mix.

[martsave martin s]

the projects im working on my master(whitout fx)peak at-18db

is it ok?

[msmcleod]

1 minute ago, martins said:

the projects im working on my master(whitout fx)peak at-18db

is it ok?

That's fine.

Plenty of headroom there.

[martsave martin s]

cool thanks Marc

[John]

2 hours ago, martins said:

@John what do you advice for RMS-peak at ?? (mastering)-0.3 ??

I was hoping no one would ask that.?  For many and they are right  an RMS of around -12 dB is often used. However, my view is let it be what it is. I see no reason to adjust it  up wards or not because it isn't at a proscribe level. To me if the over sound is good and nothing is close to clipping yet it is fine otherwise why doggedly force something where it really doesn't want to go simply to do what some others do? 

I think we should view any of the target dBs as guidelines not hard and fast rules.    

[martsave martin s]

2 hours ago, John said:

 

thank you John