Losing snare with ghetto mastering

[videinfra]

As the title implies I'm losing my snare when i compress and limit my 2-buss. I hit my snare with event horizon and it sure does pop before mastering, but I still lose it afterward. I'm in logic 8, I use two stock compressors with one of the ssl settings 10ms attack each doing about a half decibel of compression then I use the stock limiter stock settings with like 7.5db gain.

 

[demirichris]

Gclip helps a lot and it's free. Lot's of good info on here already about this.

 

[videinfra]

Yea I believe Gclip is not mac compatible. I did clip it with event horizon, as I said it did make it pop very well but it still gets killed after comp and limit.

 

[soundsunderground]

a lot of this just has to do with the mix and the way things are occupying their own space. Also it helps to have the snare be loud and punchy with tons of compresssion and parallel compression. The more upfront on its own, the less it will get lost in the mastering phase.

Also helps to have the right reverb on the snare. The wrong reverb will push the snare back in the mix. A short verb with early reflections can help push the snare up in rms volume without affecting punch.

On your buss comp try a longer attack like 30ms and fast or auto release. Use a little more like 3-4 db reduction.

 

[StudioSamurai]

Use a meter that gives you peak and peak hold readings as well as just RMS levels and check that you're not peaking really high. Read; turn your faders down and up the threshold of your limiter a bit and until your snare transients magically reappear..

 

[Harry Hughes]

As the title implies I'm losing my snare when i compress and limit my 2-buss. I hit my snare with event horizon and it sure does pop before mastering, but I still lose it afterward. I'm in logic 8, I use two stock compressors with one of the ssl settings 10ms attack each doing about a half decibel of compression then I use the stock limiter stock settings with like 7.5db gain.

:zombie:

 

[AdamWathan]

The trick is to not do very much limiting or fast compression on your master bus. Clip the living fuck out of your mix and try and get maybe another 1db using limiting. Anything more than that and you are gonna kill your transients.

My personal favourite limiter is the Massey L2007 limiter, very transparent when used in small doses and cheap too, RTAS only though.

 

[Harry Hughes]

Indeed, it's quite true a lot of loudness needs to come from the mix.
You cannot just expect the Limiter to do a lot of work, it needs to come in small steps from everywhere in the mix and also to try using other plug ins (like maybe saturation) on the master bus to achieve loudness so you can minimize the amount of limiting gain you use.
When I first started out trying any of this AE stuff, I did the same admittedly, smashed the fuck out of it with limiting to try to achieve loudness and kept wondering why everything sounded lifeless and sterile.
I tend to apply saturation to every mix track now, which gives me a bit more loudness before the master bus and also makes it sound better overall anyway.
Wintersnow has a good guide on how to use saturation effectively, read up on that, because if you just start putting saturation on your mixes with no idea what you're doing, you'll do more harm than good. Get it right and it sounds awesome

 

[Harry Hughes]

To add to that, to really push the volume, you need to balance your mixes well. No excess frequencies happening anywhere. In particular I find having a build of lower mids becomes EXTREMELY apparent when you start pushing the limit (and hence turns into a bunch of severe mud), so keep things under control

 

[jval]

limiter will kill your drums, ditch it... or keep it to like 1db at the most. like Adam said just clip that shit.

 

[Force666]

I've also noticed keeping some extra low-mids in the snare pop helps keep it distinct. Of course this relies on there being room in the mix for the snare, which is no easy task, for me anyways.

 

[BLUElightCory]

You could also consider mixing INTO a compressor (i.e. engaging a master bus compressor towards the start of the mix). This way, you get your snare punching in the context of the mix, but the compressor will keep everything glued together.

This way, the level of the snare won't be jumping above everything else when the mix is finished (which is why your mastering limiter is attenuating the snare more than everything else - it's reducing the volume of the mix every time the snare is hit) but since you mixed the snare into a compressor, you will have (hopefully) mixed the snare to sound punchy in the mix.

This method can also give you a bit of extra headroom during mastering and will allow you to get a bit of extra volume on your mix if desired.

 

[darthjujuu]

You could also consider mixing INTO a compressor (i.e. engaging a master bus compressor towards the start of the mix). This way, you get your snare punching in the context of the mix, but the compressor will keep everything glued together.

This way, the level of the snare won't be jumping above everything else when the mix is finished (which is why your mastering limiter is attenuating the snare more than everything else - it's reducing the volume of the mix every time the snare is hit) but since you mixed the snare into a compressor, you will have (hopefully) mixed the snare to sound punchy in the mix.

This method can also give you a bit of extra headroom during mastering and will allow you to get a bit of extra volume on your mix if desired.

yeah...it's a guilty crutch, but seems to be a necessary one. the fact is if you're gonna try to "master" yourself, IME i end up effin with levels a ton once everything on the 2bus is right. and then when i flick off 2bus effects i'm stunned at what i ended up doing to my mix. my guitar is nearly inaudible and my drums end up being basically the only thing there. i'll post some clips from recent projects of 2bus on, 2bus bypassed, just to show how exaggerated this really is.

EDIT: also, voxengo elephant gets real loud and doesn't mangle drum transients too badly, and has a free demo.

 

[Gomez]

YOU GUYS ARE CRAZY!

Well, some of you are...

 

[Morgan C]

I think everyone has this problem. I have it with a lot of my mixes that have smaller/high pitched snares. Praying that Slate's plugin will help out a bit.

 

[jeid]

I know I'm gonna sound like a cock here, but I feel the need to ask. When you say clip that shit, do you mean... turn that shit up so the master is clipping and then use something like the L2007 to get an overall balance?

I ask because when I master, I get the exact same problem.

 

[NeilOC]

i'm getting better at getting my mix loud without sounding like absolute shit but I never feel good doing it. Fucking hate this loudness war, even when I hear an album that's crazy loud and still sounding good I can't help but wonder how much better it would sound if I the consumer could be trusted with something as complex as the volume knob

 

[videinfra]

When I mix I have plenty of headroom, with light comp and limit my mix sounds decent, it just has no volume.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Clipper that costs money, but is mac compatible:

http://www.audiomidi.com/T-RackS-3-Single-Module-Classic-Clipper-P12402C496.aspx

It rocks.

 

[jval]

digi trim. done.
api plugs sound pretty good clipping.