Hello!

Context:
I'm mixing and mastering a synthwave song for streaming platforms

Problem:
As you can see in the attached files, in every second hit the overall volume increases because the kick and snare stack up.

This confuses me because I used to mix and master very compressed edm, and if that happened to you, that was a problem, because you wont be able to push the limiter harder.

Also, this is the first time I mix and master for streaming platforms, so I don't even know if I have to compress like before.

So my questions are:
1-should I think this is a problem considering this is synthwave and it's for a streaming platform? and if so, how am I supposed to fix this?

2-streaming platforms require less compression?

Thanks in advance!

 

Nothing confusing here. Two sounds at the same time are louder than each of them on its own, that's normal.

Why?

This question doesn't even make sense.
Compression is first and foremost a matter of sound and sound is a matter of taste. Without context (mix) no one can tell you if these sounds work the way they are, whether they're too loud or too low or would benefit from some compression.

Most streaming platforms have a loudness target (in terms of TP and LUFS) and will adjust your track accordingly (by levelling). They don't care about how much you compress the different sounds.

Oh, and you don't mix and master for platforms but for the sound - at least you should. You may adjust a track's TP and LUFS for a platform with a good TP limiter but that's it.

 

amen ¡

 

limit* is the answer

*= when you can

 

1) I don't even understand the question. Mixing, loudness, loudness normalization has nothing to do with genres. Just mix and master it so that it sounds good - at any loudness (or basically: at the loudness the track/song wants to be). The "problem" is not a problem. It's natural and part of mixing.

2) Streaming platforms have loudness normalization as a way to compensate when playing back music with various loudness. They loudness normalize to -14LUFS, generally.
83% of Spotify users use the default "normal" setting (of -14LUFS playback).

That snare has basically zero body/fundamental. Maybe you want to add some weight.

One/1 limiter is not the "be all, end all" answer to loudness. There are multiple (pun) ways to achieve loudness.

 

Last edited: Nov 25, 2022

you already acknowledge the issue where some elements in the mixed stack up which contribute to increasing gain..

why ignore the problem u already acknowledge? go revisit the mix and remix it back (assume as u said u mix and master it)

 

hehe, i think you may have been doing other fun stuff but not mixing or mastering lol.

Its a problem to confuse levels of audio and thresholds, and audio sculpting.

Listen to our dear cat, it knows its ways.

 

So I being reading what you guys said, Im going to answer to everyone more or less here, I said things that does not make sense, let me see if I understand, is this correct?:

"streaming platforms put every song at the same LUFS, that means that compresing with the objective to sound louder that the other songs does not make sense anymore, that used to happen in other situations but now on streaming platforms "compression for competition"(lets say) does not exist, that means that compresion now only makes sense for transient modification, sidechains, louder delays and reverb tails, etc"

-@EddieXx I used to mix and master years ago when I was a student, now I need to actually do it

-I said it wrong, I don't want to mix and master for streaming platforms, I'm trying to know what are their needs:

• I think I understand LUFS now
• I don't understand TP yet: Spotify recommends -1db, but my reference songs on that platform have: -1.3db, -3.1db, -0.6db, -4.2db,-4.4db

-and yes @Baxter, the snare is missing that, but I was thinking about asking for feedback in a different thread to not make a mess of topics, but I want to address that also, thanks

-and also thanks @No Avenger

 

Last edited: Nov 27, 2022

maybe an increase of gain is not bad, that is what I'm trying to understand in part

 

You should ask yourself this question:

"In general, how is the dynamic range of the sytle i'm mixing?" (EDM and Folk Music have different dynamic ranges, for example; Synthwave can handle a considerable amount of compression and limiting in most cases)

If the peaks are your only problem, you should try to clip the second hit, so the peak level won't be a issue anymore... but it will sound good? no one knows. The snare has lots of reverb and cliping or fast compressing it can bring this things up. As No Avenger said, compression for streaming is a matter of taste and feel. You should consider the groove, the style and shape of transients, that sort of thing.

Don't aim a target on LUF's. If you master at 14 LUF's sometimes it will be too dynamic and incohesive. sometimes, the needed. There's no problem the gluening the mix on the limiter until you feel it can be reproduced ok at any level. If they bring you down, at least your song will be on the dynamic range you liked or whats expected for the genre, even at lower levels. That goes back to the first question i did.

 

in any streaming plataforms there will be mixes that would sound louder than others, even theorically all of them being at -14 LUFS. Because LUF's is perceived loudness so this thing enters in a very subjective realm, all that fletcher munson thing and etc. so you better eq and compress things right!! whats right? i don't know, and know one here knows because you're the mixing and mastering engineer of the song you're mixing and mastering

 

Also, it's *LUFS (Loudness Unit Full Scale). Not plural LUF.

We percieve louder as "sounding better". Even when two mixes are the same and one of them is played louder, we find the louder one to "sound better". Not only does the equal loudness curve come into play, but other factors that goes way back (to our primal brain and our "fight or flight instinct").

The loudness war is not really over. But the loudness normalization is a pretty good way to find some balance. The loudness war got really out of hand from 2000-ish to 2015-ish. I remember when Swedish TV normalized the commercials in 2010 (or so) and you didn't have to shit your pants anymore when the adverts abrubtly come in when watching an exciting movie. Loudness guidelines/laws (EBU-R128) was much welcomed.

Here's a database of shitloads of songs/albums and their percieved loudness:
https://dr.loudness-war.info/

 

Last edited: Nov 27, 2022

Maybe you should try a clipper
if i want louder levels without boosting the gain i use a clipper
Black salt audio clipper for example
For kicks i rather use a limiter or sidechain the kick to the snare

 

Almost all of them, but to a different value (-X LUFS is not a law) and especially YT isn't applying it correctly.

Err, in theory, yes, in pratice it became even worse in the recent years. You'll hardly find a song with less than -10LUFS in several genres, even halfway modern remasters of 80's song have such a high level.

A platform's loudness target consits of two values, TP and LUFS. For an uploaded track neither of these must be exceeded. When your track has -10LUFS at -1TP and a platform's target is -14 and -1, you track will be reduced so it's played with -14LUFS which will result in -5TP - in theory.

 

Rather than rehash other posts, and books, and so on; I'd like to hear a clip from the OP so this can be looked at in context of the rest of the material. 3 drum wavs (to me, anyway) is meaningless on their own. Unless there are already problems within the two uploaded samples, you are using EQ and Compression to move drums around so they have lots of space for themselves. And then in relation to the group.
Then more comp. or ... you get the idea.

Also, are you cooking stems like this? Drum hits on each individual channel? Screenshot a Mixer Window.

I think with a decent "workflow" or "compression system", these are no longer viewed as standalone and isolated decisions while you are producing your track. Then later worry about all of the streaming platform requirements later.

We go from how to build a cart to how to drive a Ferrari on here too quickly sometimes. Nothing wrong with the info, but we may currently not have the correct driver identified yet.

 

Right, that's why -> https://audiosex.pro/threads/asking-for-mixing-feedback.67868/

 

Whoops, and Thank you.

I'm on this computer with some very inferior scrolling options for this test. The loop is short but here is my ears. Loudness Wars on Vintage Mixes:

OK so it's going to be a synthwave thing. My opinion is that I would not compress either much more for this style. You can hear a decent little bit of the reverb tail at the end on the JP-8000 or whatever emulator or variant.

will there be a vocal on this? I wouldn't change any of it yet. You could end up ducking a lot of work out of your way for other things. And then when you want your elements to "gel" or "glue" at your mix buss you will be overcookin'. I'd leave it, sounds fine as is to me.

If you Really feel like checking out your compression approach, for fun checking out different compressors and circuit types I'd still stage it Channel EQ, Saturation (tape?), Subtractive channel eq, Compression, additive EQ, (multi band?) Limiter and then a clipper. Or something like this. After that it's just your streaming platforms "luff target" who cares, it's already clipped.

But it's all style and perspective you want of your mix. That specific chain will let you test any plugin you want if you insert them in such an order on your channels. bounce in place and then pull every fx instantation from the channel. (you already have this backed up anyway_). I'd most likely make this track sound worse, on purpose.

 

Last edited: Nov 27, 2022