Losing snare after mastering

Ermz

Ermz

¯\(°_o)/¯
Apr 5, 2002
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Melbourne, Australia
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Hey guys,

There's this one mix I have, whenever I master it the snare drops wayyy back. I have no idea what to make of it, since it doesn't usually happen to me. I've cranked the snare in the mix to be audibly louder than everything else, yet the mastering compression always pulls it WAYY back, like all you can hear is the verb tail. I've also tried the other way around, lowering the snare to sit in the mix, with similar results.

Is there anything you guys do to stop the master limiter destroying your snare?
 
I used stereo compression to smooth out the mix very slightly. I used EQ to clear up any problem frequencies and I used the Vintage Warmer to get it louder. It's not much different to my standard mastering chain, except I'm missing a multi-band compressor.
 
If you're using L2 from waves that's a typical problem!
I tried with Reneissance Comp and it's better, if you push the gain it acts as a limiter leveling the peaks, you see the gain light becoming from yellow to red, so you know it's limiting.
The snare doesn't disappear! you don't have to crank the snare while mixing this way.
Great tool, it's got a more vintage/warmer sound.
You can do this trick, I've read it here.
With L2 (or the limiter you're using) set a good threshold where you don't lose the snare, then set the output ceiling to 2 or 3 db above the threshold (say you got threshold to -6 then set output to -4 or -3) then bounce the file to disk.
Open it again in your daw and normalize this file.
You got a loud master and the snare is not lost.
there's no rule in audio engineering, try and see if it's good for you.
 
Master your drums first as a separate stereo file and get them loud and punchy. Then mix then back in with the music. Works much better than trying to tame everything at the same time.
 
I'm not an engineer but I thought this:
It disappears because the limiter tries to tame the peaks and get them to the same levels.
The snare attack is the loudest among all sounds so l2 tries to leveling the peak and get it softer. you lose the attack not the rest of the sound.
At least that's what happens to me.
I noticed that L2 kills the kick attack too sometimes, if it's a little bit loud
 
What i do is a little weird...but it works (for me at least).

I do the mastering on my song without the snare. I do everything i would normally do, like EQ and limiting. Then i import the file in nuendo and i also import the snare track. I have the mastered track at 0dB so that it peaks at 0dB. Then i rise the level of the snare as much i want. Don't be afraid to rise the level of the snare even if it clips, the attack is fast and you won't notice the clipping. You can also add a little compression/limiting to the snare.
When i find the level i want i export the project and then i normalize the file to remove the clipping.

I realise that method it's not exactly what you would call standard procedure but i had the same problem and that was the only way i could fix it...

You can hear the song "project X" here: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=346433
It was mixed using that technique.
 
Thanks guys, I might try this mastering the snare/drums seperately approach. It seems like it'll do the trick here.

The strange thing is that I use the Vintage Warmer on all my masters and this snare ducking issue has never happened before. It's so bizarre. But that's audio for you.
 
Do they seriously only make the Sonic Timeworks Mastering Compressor for pc? i went to the site and unless im retarded (quite possible) i didnt see it for mac.
 
It's definitely due to limiting. What I can't seem to work out is why only on this track and none of the other ones I've done. Unless this particular snare has some special characteristics that kill its attack more under limiting.

The problem is when I back off the limiter, I can't get a decent amount of volume in the final master. I'm not going for ridiculous overcompression or anything... but at the very least something 'competitive'.
 
Moonlapse said:
Unless this particular snare has some special characteristics that kill its attack more under limiting.
Click to expand...

This is most probably the case, yes. I've found that heavily compressed snares tend to get more flat, lifeless and "attack-less" than lightly compressed snares when the mix is limited/mastered, but this might be just a coincidence.
 
Set a longer attack for the compressors both in the mix and the mastering chain...
I'd also use a more transparent "maximizer" than vintage warmer (which is more like a comp/clipper) but that's just me.
 
Moonlapse said:
It's definitely due to limiting. What I can't seem to work out is why only on this track and none of the other ones I've done. Unless this particular snare has some special characteristics that kill its attack more under limiting.

The problem is when I back off the limiter, I can't get a decent amount of volume in the final master. I'm not going for ridiculous overcompression or anything... but at the very least something 'competitive'.
Click to expand...

mix with the limiter on so you can avoid the missing snare issue. not alot of limiting just a bit. then you are basically mixing the master kinda. it seems to work well for the snare issue though. give it a try.
 
I just tried taht Sonic Timeworks Mastering Plugin and it has Digital Distortion on every peak? Has anyone noticed this before? I compensated the output by three and ran it through a limter boosting by 3 just in case. Its very bad. Sounds great as far as transients go. But thought it was a bit harsh and once I checked the final product I noticed the clipping. Any Ideas?
 
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