With waves ultramaximiser or other brickwall limiters...

how do you achieve this? i'm mainly into making hip-hop, trap and dance music, especially for nr.2 and 3 i need that loudness in my mix. often it's too soft and i hear the soundquality degrading as i push these plugins to make it louder...
what am i doing wrong, i want my mixes to be as loud or somewhat as loud as commercial tracks.

 

Hey Pirate,

Can you send me a mix (or a sample/part of a mix) with loudest peaks at -3 dBFS in wav, so I can experiment to get it as loud as commercial tracks?

If it works, we could discuss afterwards how I did it.

 

Me usualy after I add FX plugins I add also Izotope Ozone plugin and there I set the proper loudnes i want. It's consume a lot CPU power. But when I achieve what i want then i turn off all plugins and working on another part of the mix and so on.

 

@ Amsterdam Pirate,

Well, I don't want in any way to denigrate your skills, but if you get the 'sound quality degrading' is that perhaps something is wrong with your own settings done...
Some of these 'Maximizer', 'Ultramaximizer', 'Brickwall/Limiters',... Plug-Ins come with some 'Factory Presets', but these are of course, only provided as examples and templates. You have to tweak them afterwards according to your own audio material to be processed... *yes*

Don't forget too that many of the studios and/or broadcast radios that either record, master, or play these 'commercial tracks' which you're talking, use very often (to not say always !) dedicated 'Hardware Units' for this purpose and these units cost several thousands of $ !!! *yes*

But don't misunderstand me, in any way it means that 'WAVES' or any others professional Plug-Ins available for this purpose don't make their job well, a contrario, some of them are really powerful little 'beasts', but unfortunately some of them maybe can't to achieve the exact results as stated for these specific 'Hardware Units'.

 

thanks for replying and yes, maybe it's part me not understanding how to make good decisions in this matter, but what i actually ment is that when i try to get for example this waves l3 to get it as loud as commercial tracks i end up with a way too 'squashed' sound where the commercial tracks sound loud and not TOO squashed.. maybe that explains it a little bit better.. i will upload a concept beat when i'm @ home later on, hopefully i can get some cool and useful tips from y'all!

 

yeah will do when i get home

 

That's because commercial tracks are mixed to be the loudest before ever applying a limiter. Than you can squash out some more db to get it even more louder...a good rule is not to gain more than 6db with a limiter.

Anyways, it's the mixing, not the limiter. ;)

 

I usually just put a SLAM VST on the masterbus and mix through it. Everything should be as flat and lifeless as possible. Not a decibel of dynamics. Sounds wonderful.

People are deaf anyway, so why even trying to sound clean and decent... eh.

 

this is some useful information which makes complete sense to me, i should be mixing it louder before even trying to squeeze it out even more with a plugin.
but how sir? just pulling up the volume faders and carefully watch the meters and 'naturally' maximise it? i guess not, maybe explain to me some more please, i would greatly appreciate it!

(by the way if it is, i'll jump up in church sundaymorning and scream audiosexxxx! no, it can't be that simple )

 

Loudness doesn't mainly depend upon maximizers,limiters etc ...It depends upon the the frequency content of your track as well as the arrangement

Id suggest that you should observe those commercial tracks both by ear and visually and see for yourself how they where arranged and why .. You can use different spectrograms to get an idea what frequencies/notes are being used or not being used..Also consider the mid-side aspect of sound design/mixing .use tools(loads of vsts out there) to separate the mid and the side of a track and observe what is being used where.....But this certainly dont means that you should only do what others producers do ...Just learn from their art

best of luck

 

Give this plugin a try my friend, just might be what you are looking for:


http://www.slatedigital.com/products/fgx


Need to have an iLok dongle....

 

u can try to use a compressor... ssl compressor... or alchemist from flux, witch is a multi-band compressor... limiter, I am using one from flux too, pure limiter...
what daw do u use?
don't know if u do this... but after mixing the track, when u begin the mastering process, u got keep your track in a channel... then u get a commercial track that u like put in another channel... put an eq in each one, than u compare the levels between the tracks in the eq analyzer... u try to achieve the closer u can to the commercial track.
but have in mind that u can achieve 80%, maybe 90% of the quality of a track that has been mastering in a studio with hardwares, not only with softwares... to achieve this kind of level u got after finishing your mix, send the track to a studio and mastering, then u have the best quality possible.

 

it depends... what daw do u use?
u know there is a channel in the daw called "master"... then there r producers that use it in -3db... others in 0db...
u have to do the mix of your track, u know, putting the levels of each channel in a harmonic form of listening... all these channels, they r send to the master channel... then u can use in this master channel a compressor like ssl compressor, to increase the volume of the track, maybe an eq to adjust the levels...maybe a maximizer (there is one in the ozone 5 package)
each producer has is own style to produce... some like these, some like that... u have to keep trying and testing till u find a way that is better for u...
after this, u got record or bounce the track, after this u got mastering the track... in this process that u increase the level of the track, and may be similar or almost similar (80%, 90%) to the quality of a commercial track
commercial tracks r send to studio, then the engineers or whatever, mastering the track with hardwares, with compressors, eq, limiter... but not virtual plugins, they r hardware... that's why it has a better quality...
but u can learn and try to achieve the best volume and quality u can without this

 

and try to see video tutorials about mixing and mastering
I think that visualizing the process it's better for u understand the process people r writing to u

 

i use logic for a year or so now, haven't wached the frequencies of other mixes, but i realise now that i should! maybe check out my soundcloud concept page, it's full of idea's i made over time. it's not called concept page for nothing because i get feedback on my concepts there, don't expect fully mixed n mastered stuuf in there, but some might still enjoy some

thanks for all the help, y'all been great every time i have something to ask.. i had this account @ gearslutz and used to ask most of my questions there, but it seems like a real elite snob site, never get usefull answer over ther.. so yeah, thanks!


My Soundcloud Concept Page

 

@ Amsterdam Pirate,

I allowed myself to download one of your songs available on 'Soundcloud.com' : 'Summer Time' to be exact...
This is actually one of the few that I have been authorized to download...
I also took the liberty of re-treat it 'my way', and I hope it does not bother you too much... and if so, I'll just delete the provided 'Soundcloud.com' link as soon as desired. *yes*

Maybe it will not sound exactly as you would expect (or even not at all ! ), but it was more done in a quest of increasing a few its global loudness... perhaps the result isn't perfectly achieved !

Just a few 'technical' explanations :


Here you can see the global 'Track Gain' of both versions (the second one is yours, this posted on 'Soundcloud.com'). The gain of the first track depicted (my version) is this I got when exporting my Mixdown.
To compensate a few the difference between them, I just reloaded my version on 'Reaper', then I added exactly + 0.89dB of gain (I can't to exactly increase/decrease the volume on a 0.01dB basis !, maybe I need more practice with it ! ).

This ends then with the following 'Track Gain' for each track :

* 'Summer Time' by Papi Jay --> - 3.63dB
* Papi Jay - Summer Time (your version) --> - 3.76dB

Really not a huge difference, but must to be said...

Below, you'll find both 'Spectrum Analyzer' graphs for you to have an idea of the difference achieved. As you can see (circled in Red on the second snapshot), both have the same 'Spectrum Analyzer' settings (FFT Size : 4096 / Floor -120.00 / Algorithm : Blackman-Harris) for an exact and accurate comparison.


Papi Jay - Summer Time version


'Summer Time' by Papi Jay version

Both snapshots have been taken during the parts where the kick is 'slamming', but not necessarily exactly at the same moment (on a milliseconds basis). Hey, not so easy to very accurately deal with the screenshot's capture button and to anticipate the slamming kick at the same time !


'Summer Time' by Papi Jay
http://soundcloud.com/studio555/summer-time-by-papi-jay



Hope this can help you in some way... *yes*

More comments about your so prolific creations posted on 'Soundcloud.com' will follow. I must to take the time to listen them carefully (there are so many !) *yes*
I don't want in any way to just 'fly' over them because there's really very good and inspirational stuff in there ! *yes* Great, great job ! and congratulations.

 

Hey man, I really enjoyed reading you 'processed' my beat, always good to know that people enjoy listening/processing my tracks and please sir, don't delete it... no need for that

Anyway, I really like the result man, it subtle but i can hear it clearly if i focus, i've been listening a couple of times now and i think i must admit i like you version more than mine hahaha!

Only thing is, I realise i really 'overpowered' all of my low freq's such as the kicks, 808's n basses.. i had KRK rokit 5's back then and working in low frequency's with those speakers is not advisable so would say :P
Now I have KRK VXT8's, and I try to be way more focussed and consicous when mixing, keeping it more balanced, those speakers help a lot in that way..

But yeah... I'm really looking forward to hearing your opinion on more of my tracks and if you have a particular in mind which you would like to let your processing skills loose on, let me know ok? I would really like more of your treatments, it sounded more as a unity or something, are u sure you just made it louder?

allright sir, thanks again and speak to ya soon!

Peace from Amsterdam!