The use of limiters in modern metal....

[stringyo]

...more specifically, over the stereo mix.

What are your thoughts on this? Is it destroying the music?

I was listening to The Haunted's "One Kill Wonder" the other day and it got me thinking. The drums...are GONE. I attribute this to the brickwall limiting. If you take a song off of that disc (or virtually any modern metal song) and take a look at the waveform, the entire song seem to be one giant square wave, ha! The song rides the meters right on 0db the ENTIRE time.

I'll be mixing my stuff, and it'll sound great. The snare has a nice tight attack, the bass drums have a nice click to them, etc. As soon as I start putting multi-band comps and limiters over the mix the drums disappear. I have experimented with attack times, release times, and threshold levels and I can never get a mix to be loud and have good drums at the same time. Any pointers?

To the layman, a quiet mix is a bad mix. I have experienced it time and time again when I pop my own mixes in for friends to hear and they'll reassure me that it NEEDS to be louder.

To the amateur and pro engineer a quiet mix usually means a good helping of dynamics which generally sounds quite nice, but the general public doesn't hear this.

I've read articles on how brickwall limiting in fact DOES affect the casual listener, but only in a subconcious way. They'll find themselves turning off really loud music, but they won't know why. They won't know the difference between a song that is loud because the volume on the stereo was turned up, and a song that is loud because of brickwall limiting.

My main gripe I suppose is my drums in my own mixes. They suffer so horribly because of the limiting and comps, but yet at the same time I would like to compete with the pro studios churning out all these loud CDs.

What are your views on the subject? Any tips to help me with getting a good strong, loud mix with good dynamics (especially preserving the drum attacks)?
I'm using two good mastering limiters, the limiter from Ozone's Izotope and the Waves L2.

 

[Torniojaws]

I have experienced it time and time again when I pop my own mixes in for friends to hear and they'll reassure me that it NEEDS to be louder.

Play the songs louder to them (adjust the speaker volume) while keeping the good sounding mild compression As for ridiculous compression, the more I hear songs that CRACKLE due to the combination of poor mixing and downright hilarious compression/limiting - I've even heard a few CDs that are over 0 dB on the CD itself with peaks hitting +1-1.5 dB - the more I start to hate such "mastering" (I think slaving would fit somehow )

It works also for personal mixing to put your speakers slightly louder than you would really listen to, so as to bypass the subconscial need to have it louder In fact, if you put it rightly, you'll even want to mix a bit quieter and then you also "forget" the need to compress the song unnaturally loud - resulting in a better mix almost automatically

Hell, listen to Metallica's Black album (the original print from 1991). The levels are very low, but the album sure does sound amazing sound-wise

 

[kev]

yep this is it, the giant square wave form of 2006. louder = better to the untrained ear and if you want to sell it it'll have to be loud

 

[stringyo]

I've even heard a few CDs that are over 0 dB on the CD itself with peaks hitting +1-1.5 dB - the more I start to hate such "mastering" (I think slaving would fit somehow )

Are you serious?!?!?!

 

[Torniojaws]

One very bad example is Fear Factory's newest, Transgression. Throughout the album, you'll hear a lot of crackling on the peak parts especially prominent in the first track and the intro to the second track.

 

[Suicide_As_Alibi]

If your drums are getting lost at the mastering stages, why not over-compensate slightly in the mixing - make them a bit louder than you think they should be.

If you have Izotope etc. running in your mixing software, can't you A/B the mix with it on and off, and remix accordingly on-the-fly?

Personally, I don't use limiters on my mastering - I mix down with my peaks a few Db's off 0, put on an EQ if it needs if (I don't use monitors so I have to allow for that), put a bit of light compression on it, and bring the volume up. Then I normalize the end result. It doesn't end up as loud as commercial releases, but it's not that far off, and I've never had any complaints. I got my band's demo mastered and it made very little difference to the overall volume but it was noticably more compressed but a lot less dynamic.

Steve

 

[stringyo]

If your drums are getting lost at the mastering stages, why not over-compensate slightly in the mixing - make them a bit louder than you think they should be.

If you have Izotope etc. running in your mixing software, can't you A/B the mix with it on and off, and remix accordingly on-the-fly?

Personally, I don't use limiters on my mastering - I mix down with my peaks a few Db's off 0, put on an EQ if it needs if (I don't use monitors so I have to allow for that), put a bit of light compression on it, and bring the volume up. Then I normalize the end result. It doesn't end up as loud as commercial releases, but it's not that far off, and I've never had any complaints. I got my band's demo mastered and it made very little difference to the overall volume but it was noticably more compressed but a lot less dynamic.

Steve

Compensating during mixdown doesn't seem to help me. This will only further drop the perceived level of my mixes because the peaks are getting louder.

This also means the compressor will work harder to get that louder peak under control, meaning more compression is needed...which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid.

I think I'm about to drop limiters and heavy compressors all together. It's not worth ruining my mixes just for the sake of volume I say. If somebody comments on quiet mixes I'll tell them to piss off.

 

[EtherForBreakfast]

For a split second there, I almost thought stringyo was Dirk Diggler aka Albini's tea boy, ready to unleash the fookin fury and talk about how much better analog is. =)

Anywhore... I hear digital overs/brickwalled-to-the-ballz all the time on current stuff. The new God Forbid comes to mind in several spots. I like music loud, I like it brickwalled, and I like looking at big ass square wave forms. Fuck, listen to Dimmu's Spiritual Black Dimensions - that album is LOUD!! OTOH, listen to some semi older Rush stuff - the shit is RMS peaking at like -14dB but it still sounds really good. The Wall is an AMAZING sounding album but very "quiet" in relative terms.

Current metal has to be LOUD to be taken seriously (0dB peaks). I realize Andy does his own mastering and TGE is probably the best sounding metal album I've heard, in all its flawlessly brickwalled glory. The new Caliban also sounds fucking awesome.

I guess the point I'm making is that it is the "norm" to have your shit absolutely SLAMMED otherwise it just does not sound right - to me at least. I hate having to turn up the volume because of a shitty master. I also think it's wrong to just blindly strap an L2 or an L3 on your final bus, set it to -5dB thresh and 0dB output and call it a day. There is much more to it than that. I'm currently reading Mastering Audio by Bob Katz and his book has been a real eye opener.

 

[stringyo]

For a split second there, I almost thought stringyo was Dirk Diggler aka Albini's tea boy, ready to unleash the fookin fury and talk about how much better analog is. =)

Anywhore... I hear digital overs/brickwalled-to-the-ballz all the time on current stuff. The new God Forbid comes to mind in several spots. I like music loud, I like it brickwalled, and I like looking at big ass square wave forms. Fuck, listen to Dimmu's Spiritual Black Dimensions - that album is LOUD!! OTOH, listen to some semi older Rush stuff - the shit is RMS peaking at like -4dB but it still sounds really good. The Wall is an AMAZING sounding album but very "quiet" in relative terms.

Current metal has to be LOUD to be taken seriously (0dB peaks). I realize Andy does his own mastering and TGE is probably the best sounding metal album I've heard, in all its flawlessly brickwalled glory. The new Caliban also sounds fucking awesome.

I guess the point I'm making is that it is the "norm" to have your shit absolutely SLAMMED otherwise it just does not sound right - to me at least. I hate having to turn up the volume because of a shitty master. I also think it's wrong to just blindly strap an L2 or an L3 on your final bus, set it to -5dB thresh and 0dB output and call it a day. There is much more to it than that. I'm currently reading Mastering Audio by Bob Katz and his book has been a real eye opener.

Me? Who is Dirk Diggler? Analog? What's a tea boy?

No, no...as soon as the signal leaves my mic preamps, it goes to 1s and 0s.

I see where you're coming from. Metal these days needs to sound over-the-top, and by no means am I disagreeing with that. The only real gripe I have with brickwall limiting is the havoc it plays on drums.

Loud music is

 

[James Murphy]

bring your drums up louder in the mix... pre-mastering.

 

[Sinister Mephisto]

I thought it was worth mentioning (although it's already kind of been mentioned) that when I see a waveform for a nevermore song, it's a fricken rectangle but still sounds really great. Very impressive, Andy's the man.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

I've even heard a few CDs that are over 0 dB on the CD itself with peaks hitting +1-1.5 dB - the more I start to hate such "mastering" (I think slaving would fit somehow )

Impossible.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

I thought it was worth mentioning (although it's already kind of been mentioned) that when I see a waveform for a nevermore song, it's a fricken rectangle but still sounds really great. Very impressive, Andy's the man.

Zoom in

 

[Sinister Mephisto]

Okay, I'm exagerating A LITTLE.

 

[ReliXKeepeR]

Impossible.

agree
name a record...

 

[A Gruesome Discovery]

Andy can brutally master without "losing the center"; many can't. Even so, I do find the smash-kill-destroy style tiresome on the ears; again, Andy does it best, but I often wish it wasn't so necessary to compete. Hopefully, the extended dynamic range of next dominant format (after the 16/44.1 CD finally dies a well-deserved violent death) will be taken advantage of, and "dynamic range" will be the new "loud". Then I'll start buying all the awesome-sounding remasters.

 

[Niels]

I've even heard a few CDs that are over 0 dB on the CD itself with peaks hitting +1-1.5 dB

I think this is impossible too!

Explanation: CD standard is 44,1 KHz/ 16bit. That means you got 44100 Values per second (1 Hz = s-1 = 1/s), furthermore each of this values has a range of 16 bit that equals 2^16=65536 values(32768 for positive and 32768 negative phase). The highest values on each phase mark the 0dB point. So it should be impossible to go over 0dB, because there are no more values available beyond the 0dB point.

Am I right?:Smug:

Using Limiters on mastering: Imo limiters/ compressors can add more punch to a record, especially on drums! But I made the experience that it only works good to a certain point. I'm still struggling with mastering in a -6dB to 0dB range.

Listen to Andy's work! He knows how to do it!

I's already been said: but to avoid the drums being too silent after mastering, bring 'em up a few dB before mastering.

 

[TheStoryteller]

The trick for keeping the drums in a metal mix is to brutally CLIP the waveform (@ 0 dB of course, nothing over) during mastering, i.e shave of the peaks instead of pushing them down. I know it sounds funny, but it is done by mastering engineers everywhere to keep the punch of the drums. It seems that many ME's clip their external converters to achieve this; but there's a software plug that does it pretty good: Sonic Timeworks Mastering Compressor. When it comes to metal mastering, L2 & L3 can go fxxk themselves. I made an audio test at the Gearslutz forum, comparing L2, L3 and Timeworks. My post + the files is here: http://gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php3?p=657552#post657552

Please note that all clips are pushed a little too hard.

 

[kev]

The trick for keeping the drums in a metal mix is to brutally CLIP the waveform (@ 0 dB of course, nothing over) during mastering, i.e shave of the peaks instead of pushing them down. I know it sounds funny, but it is done by mastering engineers everywhere to keep the punch of the drums. It seems that many ME's clip their external converters to achieve this; but there's a software plug that does it pretty good: Sonic Timeworks Mastering Compressor. When it comes to metal mastering, L2 & L3 can go fxxk themselves. I made an audio test at the Gearslutz forum, comparing L2, L3 and Timeworks. My post + the files is here: http://gearslutz.com/board/showpost.php3?p=657552&postcount=20

Please note that all clips are pushed a little too hard.

Great post st! Yeh it seems the snare gets lost, yet in time works it stays fairly high. heres a link to the processors

http://www.sonictimeworks.com/products.php

 

[nuclearass]

bring your drums up louder in the mix... pre-mastering.

Interesting... I've always done this because I had noticed the same problems with limiting (drums disappear), but I always thought this was just because my "mastering abilities" are not that good . This is the reason I've started to mix with L2 in the master chain and then I remove it when I bounce the final mixes.

question:
Is this a common thing to do? So if I know that the material will be mastered "loud", even by a professional engineer, should I leave the drums a bit louder in the mix?

edit... I didn't read all the posts before I posted this...:-D , so it seems like it is a quite common thing to do.

Thanks for the great comparison Storyteller! After listening to your clips I'll never use L2 or L3 for metal mastering again :-D. I always thought my mixes sound really flat and lifeless after "mastering" the material with L2 or L3... and in my opinion so did the clips that you did with with L2 and L3, but the original mix and the timeworks clip sounded freakin' great!