Why do my masters look like this?

[[UEAK]Clowd]

Just decided to check out what my latest mix/master "looks like" compared to a similiar song in a similiar genre with similiar production at a similiar RMS level. just for shits.

mine is at the top, the other song is at the bottom.

why is mine all squared off? I use a -0.3 margin, is that why?

edit: i'm awesome at forgetting to post the actual picture lol

http://www.gamesiren.com/fhd/masters.jpg

double edit: for some reason you have to copy and paste that link?

 

[MetalSound]

the top one is chopped off by a limiter. the above is clipped. try gclip and it will look like that.
but if it sounds good i wouldn´t care too much how it looks. ;-)

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

the top one is chopped off by a limiter. the above is clipped. try gclip and it will look like that.
but if it sounds good i wouldn´t care too much how it looks. ;-)

you think? i always hear distortion and stuff when using clipping on the master

i agree as far as not caring how it looks, i was just kinda interested...it sounds pretty good but not AS good. just trying to explore every possible avenue.

edit: just tried it anyway, at least just to compare the visuals. its still pretty much just a square. hmmmmmm

 

[Soundlurker]

Did you import an mp3? Save your song as mp3 and import it - it will probably look like the other song.

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

Did you import an mp3? Save your song as mp3 and import it - it will probably look like the other song.

ah, that would do it. interesting... didn't know mp3s did that!

damnit. that sucks. i was hoping that was some easy to fix fundamental flaw with my mastering that i could fix up right quick. back to the drawing board.

 

[greyskull]

The bottom one looks like a sterling sound master

 

[s34nsm411]

The top looks like theres some severe squashing going on

The bottom is the result of careful dynamic control on each track, not relying on one master limiter to give it punch. This results in a very easy to master song that barely needs limiting

 

[OneDaySky]

The top looks like theres some severe squashing going on

The bottom is the result of careful dynamic control on each track, not relying on one master limiter to give it punch. This results in a very easy to master song that barely needs limiting

 

[TheDarkProject]

Looking at the overall file like that is only ever a guideline. Don't get too hung up on how that graphic looks because you have no idea how that particular application is choosing to render a bunch of aggregated audio values as pixels. Only when you zoom in close enough to see the actual waveform can you know whether your audio's truly been squashed or not.

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

The top looks like theres some severe squashing going on

The bottom is the result of careful dynamic control on each track, not relying on one master limiter to give it punch. This results in a very easy to master song that barely needs limiting

hmmm, that sounds appealing.

care to share any more info on that? i feel like something, somewhere, has to get squashed, regardless of where you do it. you know what i mean?

 

[Damage, Inc.]

Are you mixing with a compressor on the 2-bus? That can help even out levels for a solid, dense mix.

 

[chrisrivalry]

It looks to me like the bottom one, based on the advice given already, has each individual track compressed so that the noise floor of that track is raised, as opposed to having an un-limited track with a bunch of dynamics already there and then hitting the limiter hard with either the threshold or the input gain. That's just my really convoluted and more than likely unhelpful answer!

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

Are you mixing with a compressor on the 2-bus? That can help even out levels for a solid, dense mix.

yes sir

 

[pikachu69]

As already stated the bottom one is a result of MP3 compression for sure. I will not comment on the top one on looks only as it is possible it will still sound ok like this but this is VERY typical of a song mastered to extreme levels to look like this. If you extract a .wav from your favorite metal band and view it in a DAW or Sound Forge etc it will look just as 'cut off'. If you then re save as an MP3 and look at it again it will look different, just like your last pic example.
I find this SO FUNNY that the people on here that say, as if it is law, use your ears NOT your eyes (quite often the same person will say in another thread they never use the eyes) but when a thread comes up like this everyones eyes are an expert pair of eyes!

I am going to go right against the grain here and say, in thes computer age of recording your eyes can be just as much help as your ears! Because we now have the ability to 'see' our music too. I will not elaborate on this topic any more as I don't want to hijack this thread, but I am going to start a new one to have a rant about this. If you find this interesting please look for the thread later today so we don't hijack this thread as mentioned.

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

As already stated the bottom one is a result of MP3 compression for sure. I will not comment on the top one on looks only as it is possible it will still sound ok like this but this is VERY typical of a song mastered to extreme levels to look like this. If you extract a .wav from your favorite metal band and view it in a DAW or Sound Forge etc it will look just as 'cut off'. If you then re save as an MP3 and look at it again it will look different, just like your last pic example.
I find this SO FUNNY that the people on here that say, as if it is law, use your ears NOT your eyes (quite often the same person will say in another thread they never use the eyes) but when a thread comes up like this everyones eyes are an expert pair of eyes!

I am going to go right against the grain here and say, in thes computer age of recording your eyes can be just as much help as your ears! Because we now have the ability to 'see' our music too. I will not elaborate on this topic any more as I don't want to hijack this thread, but I am going to start a new one to have a rant about this. If you find this interesting please look for the thread later today so we don't hijack this thread as mentioned.

you've gotta be right, because i've got some pretty heavy handed dynamics control going on within the mix. bass is limited, guitars are limited, vocals are limited, snare is clipped... then the master bus compression and finally the mastering chain.

 

[P-E]

I find this SO FUNNY that the people on here that say, as if it is law, use your ears NOT your eyes (quite often the same person will say in another thread they never use the eyes) but when a thread comes up like this everyones eyes are an expert pair of eyes!

This.

 

[s34nsm411]

hmmm, that sounds appealing.

care to share any more info on that? i feel like something, somewhere, has to get squashed, regardless of where you do it. you know what i mean?

I chase masters that look like this all the time, its definitely the "ideal" looking waveform to me, not completely flatlined but still squashed right up there with transients still poking through... tis a beautiful thing

try using a limiter on a lot of your main elements in the mix, transparently to just get rid of peaks and give it a defined ceiling it cant go over. also the popular gclip trick on the kick and snare or just the whole drum bus helps a lot. the goal is to make it as easy as possible on the master limiter.

also try looking at your master through a spectrogram visualizer type plugin when youre setting the master settings, even gclip kinda works for this with the little window that shows the audio scroll by. try using lower output volume on your limiter also and you might see a picture that looks more like the bottom in your example