Getting your loudness?

I could start a thread about 'Following bullshit sound-killing trends off a mile-high cliff and splattering your beautiful, beautiful mixes all over the canyon below' but that doesn't mean it would be a good idea.

Joking aside (I'm being at least 3/4 sarcastic any time I post, if you haven't noticed), if you're really trying to get a feel for this and some feedback on the mastering, post clips not just of the beginning and end but also of the middle steps so that it's easier to tell what should and shouldn't be done. I'm not going around screaming at people for mastering but photos without clips are like thank-yous without sex - yeah, might seem polite, but it isn't really getting you anywhere. The mastering is fine - no serious clipping artefacts on my 'what they hear' (read: Logitech speakers) setup, I'll go with headphones and fancy-pants superspeakers later because that does sound good.

Jeff
 
I edited my post with a link to the song awhile back,I usually just do that instead of double posting.

Jeff, you have the best analogies on this board hands down, and you're funnier than shit, so I am enthused when you reply to my posts
 
Kryptillusion pre prod tracks... ;)

flat.jpg


Frozen
Love Cuts Deep
Ding Dong (The Bitch is Dead)

edit: I know I already posted that pic, but it seems to have disappeared from my earlier post in a mysterious way.
 
Kryptillusion pre prod tracks... ;)



Frozen
Love Cuts Deep
Ding Dong (The Bitch is Dead)

edit: I know I already posted that pic, but it seems to have disappeared from my earlier post in a mysterious way.

I'm not sure what I'm looking at in your picture, is it a wave with no spikes at all? It sounds good even at 128kbps(low volume) (of course it's 6 AM here and if I turned it way up my wife would do something upsetting) If I turn up any 128k mp3s to head banging level they usually start to crunch
By the way, I came in my pants a little there while listening to your lead tone on Frozen
 
I'm not sure what I'm looking at in your picture, is it a wave with no spikes at all? It sounds good even at 128kbps(low volume) (of course it's 6 AM here and if I turned it way up my wife would do something upsetting) If I turn up any 128k mp3s to head banging level they usually start to crunch
By the way, I came in my pants a little there while listening to your lead tone on Frozen

You're looking at the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth... well, that's not entirely true. ;) Of course the wave has spikes, but when it's zoomed out like this it's like Flatsville, Ohio.

Creds for the lead tone goes to mr Mike Wead and his strat.

^^any hints on how you made it that loud?
my clients would love me if my recordings smashed like that... :)

It's clipped, and it's clipped like hell. :)
 
This is definetly one of the coolest threads I have read on here. thanks for all the info everyone.
 
May I bump this priceless thread ? :)

I tried the Slate Gclip+Gclip+Elephant trick yesterday, and omg, so much better than 5db boost with L2…
While trying to apply some multiband compression, I also noticed that Waves LinMB actually degrades the signal, rather than improving it. Any suggestion on that ? I'm satisfied with the loudness, I jsut want a "denser" sound and I thought that multiband compression was the way to go
 
Gyarr...

I haven't tried that. I honestly would recommend trying a good number of multibands, and also (just for the hell of it) manually multibanding things with a good compressor... some other plugs are more forgiving, Waves is really good at letting listeners know how good the user is at what he's doing. For density... multibanding is a TOOL, not a method. A tool. If you think it's any more valuable than a hammer or a chainsaw or a double-barreled shotgun you're not getting anywhere until you fix the way you look at mixing. Density comes from filling the sound spectrum and giving EVERYTHING its own little happy place... if you want it to sound like there's something everywhere, you're going to have to find what's 'missing' and put things everywhere. Hammering a puzzle box doesn't finish the puzzle...

I'll post more details later... between school and girlfriend stuff I've been on a bit less the last month or so.

Jeff
 
By bad, I should have said that I just wanted to glue things together in my mix a little more, not fix anything :) A couple of years ago, when I started using a computer for recording/mixing, my mixes were a little dull and I fixed it the noob way, using C4 and L2. Now, even before mastering, my mix sounds better than my mastered old version (I'm talking about the same album, which I've re-recorded). Besides getting the loudness, I don't find anything obvious to do - I'm not a mastering engineer, nor do I have the monitors for this kind of job. If only I had the budget, I'll get it mastered by a pro, I feel that I can't improve it myself…
Trailer of the album here, it's just a quick zapping through winamp, fast-forwarding the 13 songs (the last one still need vocals) one after the other. I recorded the output in real time with Wavelab, so no 24=>16 bits conversion with dithering, it's just an unmastered trailer for my band members, and most of the mixes will have slight adjustments :

http://pages.intnet.mu/fremen/Mp3s/Feedback_albumpreview_unmastered.mp3

plz be indulgent, it's completely self produced (I did everything minus singing)on a computer with a Creative Audigy soundcard, I dont even have decent monitors
 
Yeah, don't worry about mastering... your job is to make everything audible. Unfortunately I can't listen to that right now but I'll get to it shortly.

Jeff
 
I'm going to throw my 2 cents in... the only occasion where I will use multiband compression is when something is seriously fucked up. For mixbuss compression for modern rock and metal, use a VCA style comp with slow attack and medium to fast release, 2-4db gr. For plugins the URS 1980 and CSP are really nice for this. For mastering, its very rare that I'll compress more then 1-2db, of course it depends on how dynamice the mix is.. and I use whatever the most transparent thing I can find. Just give it an extra touch of final glue. Once you start using that multiband you're bound to start fucking things up. At the most, just use a two band comp with a split at 100Hz if you don't want the kick to be as aggressive and pushy.