Getting your loudness?

I'll have to try light clipping before my master comp...Never thought of it that way.

I usually start off my mastering chain with a light compressor to mimic an SSL type feel. Probably doesn't do much for me, but it makes me feel better. I'll have to try the GClip in front of the comp.

Anyway, is there a rule of thumb so to speak on how much to clip? I'm usually not going over 10%.
 
nwright said:
I'll have to try light clipping before my master comp...Never thought of it that way.

I usually start off my mastering chain with a light compressor to mimic an SSL type feel. Probably doesn't do much for me, but it makes me feel better. I'll have to try the GClip in front of the comp.

Anyway, is there a rule of thumb so to speak on how much to clip? I'm usually not going over 10%.
Click to expand...

Just like everything I've encountered that has to do with music production, there are no rule of thumbs. :)

I'd say drop the threshold for clipping down till you start hearing distortion, then back off a bit. Keep a careful ear on your mix though! Like slate mentioned earlier, if there are parts in your songs where there are big bursts of energy (tom fills, etc.) those will hit the clipper harder.

Now I'm going to head over to mercenary.com to drool over their $10k Prism converters. When I get out of school, I swear to god, I'm going to buy something like those. Just to look at.
 
I would strongly advise everyone to do the clipping LAST, after all compression. If you clip before the compressor, you're giving your compressor less headroom, and your also increasing the volume of your clipped peaks. Save clipping for the last thing, or at least last before you do an extra db of limiting.

As for Prisms... we clip our Lynx Aurora even harder then I could clip the prism. BUT, we use a BIG BEN which really helps the Aurora sound smoother on the top and bigger on the bottom. Best bang for the buck in A/D/A imo.
 
The problem I find with putting one single clip after the compression is that unless you set it to ignore the 'snap' in the front end of the hit entirely (which is what we're trying to tame) you're going to go between 'ineffectual' and 'pumping like a twelve-year-old' and it just won't sound right. I wouldn't necessarily keep to one clip stage if I could get away with taming stuff less noticeably.

Jeff
 
JBroll I'm thinking two things:
1. Your mix might be a tad too peaky. Maybe try to lessen the peaks a bit without relying on compression to tame them, or at least you'll need less.

2. What kind of compressor are you using? You'll want to use something very transparent, and you shouldn't need to use more then a db or two. If you do, I'd go back to the mix and fix the overly peaky things there.

Let me know if that helps. Or you might be doing fine.. at the end of the day if it sounds good it is good.
 
Slate said:
JBroll I'm thinking two things:
1. Your mix might be a tad too peaky. Maybe try to lessen the peaks a bit without relying on compression to tame them, or at least you'll need less.

2. What kind of compressor are you using? You'll want to use something very transparent, and you shouldn't need to use more then a db or two. If you do, I'd go back to the mix and fix the overly peaky things there.

Let me know if that helps. Or you might be doing fine.. at the end of the day if it sounds good it is good.
Click to expand...

Erm...

Seeing as how we were discussing fixes to peaky mixes, and properly done clipping is a great solution to that, such is precisely what I have been a proponent of. I was saying precisely that lessening peaks with clipping would result in the need for much less compression as a taming mechanism. Taming obnoxious peaks that result in a high peak value but a low RMS can only be done in so many ways...

Thanks for the effort, though. Just a bit of a misunderstanding.

Jeff
 
-7 is louder then what is standard. The standard average is -9.5 with peak choruses at -8. Its quite easy to go as far as can with clipping to bring a mix to -8.5 and then hit it with a limiter to -7. But does it sound good and have any punch? I doubt it, but joey can prove me wrong by pointing us to a master. Not being an ass, I'm really curious to hear it.
 
CJWall said:
okay, mind telling how you get there?
Click to expand...

mix -> ssl gcomp
ssl gcomp (very light) -> mastering chain

mastering chain:
multiband compressor (4 bands) (sometimes i skip this) -> multiband compressor 2
multiband compressor (3 bands) -> parametric eq
parametric eq -> transparent limiter
transparent limiter -> dither
dither -> export

and sometimes i add saturation excitement
 
Slate said:
-7 is louder then what is standard. The standard average is -9.5 with peak choruses at -8. Its quite easy to go as far as can with clipping to bring a mix to -8.5 and then hit it with a limiter to -7. But does it sound good and have any punch? I doubt it, but joey can prove me wrong by pointing us to a master. Not being an ass, I'm really curious to hear it.
Click to expand...

here's a little diddy with no vocals yet, kind of a test mix but i think its good to go for release

coming out on tribunal records, pretty loud master. havent touched the toms if you're gonna say anything about them, lol...

http://download.yousendit.com/B58BE1A674D86A3A

this one's reading -7.9 db rms right now, with little effort
 
This is the reason I stay with PC... The mac-platform is probably better (although I've NOT had any problems with PC for a few years. not one single program crash or hang), but the software possibilites are so much better with PC. There is ONE exception though... Metric Halo Channelstrip. I want it.
 
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