Hello everybody, i want to ask you, what your opinion of new mastering technices
especially in house music,with dynamic range about 4, or 5, is this the end of music, or distortion
and overcompressing is the rule now? This new track i like it so much and the dynamic range
of this track is 4, something tips at mastering 2014, if you know, share these!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3drqHM-Ofmk

 

Not my cup of tea... i try to Master @-3db or -6db to preserve the harmonics not the Hard attacks but just IMO *yes*

 

yeah. squeeze the juice out of them. -50db gain reduction

 

it depends, and there is no factors, some times you only compress add some exciters, a little bit eq and you're done, some times you need a lot of compression with a multiband..., don't want even to talk about it,anyway it doesn't depend on genre or anything...

anyway i would share your opinion, mastering these days is not the same, some times i hear a really good mastering/quality that makes me attracted, some times they over compress, with 0 dynamic range, anyway i still love the old school mastering, wish when you hear a track, every things goes smoothly together, i've lost faith in some producers as well, they used to have a good mixing/mastering tracks, now every thing is loud.

probably because lately sounds are aimed to be played in public, not the same as few years ago wish we was hearing it at home.

 

The so-called “Loudness War” is entirely based on a modern myth – a fairy-tale full of nonsense that has somehow hypnotised the entire music industry for the last ten years – and is permanently damaging the music we listen to as a result.

http://dynamicrangeday.co.uk/

 

meh I heard this before,
some times it's even impossible to get my long term dynamic range above 10 so thats were I leave it

 

*yes* Yes that's mostly true……but on the other hand if a track sounds too low on volume it will be quickly ignored because our ears tell us that the "louder" version is better! The music industry with all its servants are just taking advantages on the human psychology about this fact.

 

4 what? 4 out of 5? -4dB Average RMS?

Interesting that the track (on youtube) peaks at -3dB, instead of -0.3dB (as used to avoid mp3 compression clipping artifacts).

My mastering tips would be EQ, compression, parallel compression, exciter, lowcut, highcut and limiter.

Not to be an ass, but most of you write db and not dB. Please, show some respect to Alexander Graham Bell. ;)

 

Yeah, but if you follow my link ( http://dynamicrangeday.co.uk/about/) and watch the vids there, you will see that the dynamic mixes actually sound louder than the squashed mixes

Plus the squashed music causes listen fatigue and damage to the ears.

 

Professional, world class, hip hop albums are even mastered at -5,-6 dB rms, like a couple tracks on Drake's Nothing was the same.
Mastering at that level is perfectly fine if you automate the master channel of your mix.

I personally don't care as much about the dynamic range as I do regarding how the transients sound.

I typically close my eyes and push my limiter till the transients sound funny, and with my secret limiting chain that's usually -5 dB rms and then I back off a bit for some air.

Whats messing up music is when kids try to crush instrumentals to those volumes, not knowing they they're pretty much rendering the track useless.

Agreed, can we also write dBfs? please show some respect to the Full Scale

 

Agreed.

Spot on!

 

Most modern tricks are based on psycho acoustic...like MP3 compression
You "squash" more, but at the same time, you play with generated harmonics, transients...what i call "micro-dynamic"

There are three levels of dynamic to me :
-Macro dynamic (chorus louder than verse, automated gain, start softer than end...) : Several seconds, even minutes scale
-"Normal", "Regular" dynamic (what we mostly speak about...and too much) : Around under a second scale (compression, limiting...)
-Micro Dynamic : transients, sharp harmonics spikes, distortion variations...under 10 (even 5) ms scale

After that point, the more you "squash" your audio cubes, the more you need to EQ and/or multiband to take the "cubes" in place And more "micro dynamic" to separate them in your brain.
Especially when you put your tracks in a mastering chain after...that's why most ppl will "crash test" they mixes with a "dummy" mastering chain, even if they don't master their own tracks.

My opinion : you can do GOOD aggressive GR...but it takes a lot more skills than most of the tracks i hear.

I love metal, but how many time i heard sub basses distorting all the mix ? Not so hard to lower gain and do some high pass...
How many time i heard double kick making even the cymbals "pumping" like in a badly mixed trance mix ? Multiband drum bus or kick track direct on master
And more and more...
Worst being tracks making you "feel" they were nicely mixed...but totally ruined by a bad mastering

You want another headache ? Think there is enough computing power in any device (MP3 player, car radio, CD player...) for at least 10 years to do "mastering" like process (like broadcast racks do on the radio/TV...) directly in the device.
Multiband, exciter, bass loudness...
And so, this could have been implemented since the beginning of the loudness war...without squashing the signal on media but when listening only

Good headache ! (because this is what i get when i listen to most of those "modern" tracks...i lower gain...and after i stop listening)

 

If you got a volume knob at your hands with some pretty powerful speakers, you can make the loud ass song to sound quiet and nice (just by keeping the volume low) and you can make the unsquashed song to bring fatigue too if you crank up the volume till you hear nothing else in the room.
A squashed song is not fatiguing as long as you don't check it on max volume on a powerful sound system.
Anyway, Kook is right, the so called "Loudness War" is still available for the commercial masses because the labels and music industry overall take advantage over human psychology, so why not? Ask any young LISTENER, not producer or musician, they will ALWAYS choose the louder song, just because they feel the "louder" sounding better, while we, the musicians/producers/trained ears will know the unsquashed song is better. We sometimes just don't have a choice... we just have to feed up their requests/preferences... We can't tell them "We will provide you unsquashed music, ok?" while they actually raving and yelling for "bring us only squaaaashed caaakes", can we say no?
If we do it for a living, we don't have choice... if we do it for ourselves or other purposes which don't require squashed music... then yea', we can keep it low. Drop it low, drop it low

 

Its not the same, a squashed song have a constant maximized soundpressure and is more damaging to the ears, even at lower amplitudes. This is backed up by statistics and not just my opinion

 

I'm going to me very BOLD so please excuse my style.
In my opinion the 'louder sounds better' is a myth. It's just about equipment used and room acoustic properties.
Actually 'quieter sound better' should be established as main motto, here's why:
Louder music attracts attention immediately, but when it remains loud for long time it starts to sound dull and fatiguing. All transients are lost in punching bass that your ears starts to limit (just like Auto Gain Control) and sparkling highs becomes bloated and faded. When someone (not just Someone ) listen to your track at very low volumes (about 45dB above ATH), they start to hear all the distortion and pumping just like on a silver platter.
Quiet music does not attract attention immediately and the brain has to adjust, which is somewhat uncomfortable at first, but then you'll start to hear all the subtle nuances and start to feel the Nirvana behind music. Also listening over 2 hours is no longer a difficulty. You'll also train your ears to distinguish various sounds and become more sensitive. *yes* (tried it)

Music industry today however is about HERE and NOW and STAGGERING SALES, that's why most audiophiles are going alternative routes. It would be hell of a job to explain the 'quiet music' concept to adolescent female with earbuds and iPad, but once you pop HD800 on her head, she will probably becomes conscious about the change

 

I have nothing much to say, i bow to your statement.
All this squashed music thing is based on the "first moment impression" fact, which is clearly a "tactic" for their digital sales, that's why the loudness war can't stop yet.

 

Thanks for your answers, but i am wondering also how in this track with dynamic range at 4 dB,

there is no distortion (or not so much), and it sounds also too clean and warm?

 

I found a cool tip here on SOS:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan11/articles/qanda-0111-1.htm

When it needed, I can make my songs pretty loud, about +4 to +5 db without distortion, but the problem is that loudness kills my song's dynamic.
Example: the piano & vocal chop sound fine with the beat (part that has kick, bassline, etc...) but in the breakdown part, they just suddenly become very loud. And I have no idea how to fix it.
My master bus usually has:
SSL Comp
EQ
Multiband Comp
Fab filter limit
Ozone 5 (reverb & stereo img)
Waves L3

But I don't like to create very loud songs anyway, I love the emotional, smooth songs :D

PS: sorry for my bad english, hope u guys understand what I mean

 

Today's (lack of) dynamic range is terrible. I try not to go past the mid-Nineties. in terms of overall dynamic clarity, so I keep my average RMS at around -14 dB or so on a master. If I can't see my snare hits in a waveform, it's too loud.

 

The great news is that people are finally getting aware.
One way to end this war is to decrease demand for squashed albums.