Why does my mastering smash my snares?
- Thread starter Javi Perera
- Start date
TheWinterSnow
Den Mørke Natt
I do a high pass on the snare then compress it pretty heavily, gets more sustain the ambient reverb comes out more and it brings down the down the peak but ups the RMS. Tape Saturation on the Drum bus and then t layers of GClip on the master bus. If you achieved the right amount of compression/RMS and eq'd the snare to have the most amount of cut with as little volume possible, you can limit the master fader pretty hard before you begin to loose the snare.
Dexter_prog
New Metal Member
With GClip it's kinda hard to gauge (there's no meter for how much is being clipped, though having one that would be similar to the gain reduction meter in a compressor would be useful), but I usually just turn the gain up until it starts clipping on the meter, and then push it up like 3-4 dB from there (the other instance of GClip on the master will take care of the rest)
AdamWathan
Member
Dude the GClip UI is brilliant, I LOVE being able to visually see how much of the transient I'm actually taking off, way better as it is now than it would be with a meter IMO.
Ermz
¯\(°_o)/¯
Always use your ears. As with all things, there is a sweet spot. What you essentially do with clipping is gradually destroy the snare drum transient, so after a certain point you will lose the 'pop' of the snare as you overdo it.
Clipping works by programming the DAC to overshoot on those cut-off peaks, since a square wave cannot exist in analogue. If you cut off too much of the peak, you're left with basically no transient.
So all good things in moderation.
GarethSE
New Metal Member
- Jul 5, 2008
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I think it could be great to upload a piece of one of my mixes without mastering and let you trying it out, couldn't it?
I'll happily have a play with it
beechstudio
Member
I don't think the visual meter is accurate. I did a test where I had the threshold set quite a distance away from the highest peaks of the source material. I rendered the file to see if any of the peaks were actually hit by the clipper or not, and they were by quite a bit. The knee was set to 0 as well. So now when I use the clipper, I'm a little more conservative than I used to be, but I don't do anything that drastic with it anymore anyway since I've been using a mix saturator.
Ermz
¯\(°_o)/¯
You know I've been a bit here and there with using a mix saturator on the master bus. How well has it been working for you, Splatt? I recall on that last master you had us do I did like a 50/50 parallel mix of tape saturation and clean both to retain transients and clarity but also smooth things out. It certainly helps get higher RMS level easier, but I'm not sure if there's too much of a trade-off with clarity. Prior to this I experimented with using the Sonnox Inflator, which had a similar effect.
I really like how the saturator has been working on my mix bus. I mix into it, and then a compressor so the mix sounds terrible and really odd with it disengaged, especially the drums. I really drive the drums into the PSP's Vintage Warmer. I used to use this plugin a lot several years ago, but then stopped after I bought a UAD1 card. I just recently started using it again and I like it on this application. I use the 'lightly driven tape' preset and keep the gain reduction between -1 and -2 on peak mode. Its a pretty big effect in terms of clamping down on transients. I'm not sure if many would approve of this method, but I seem to like it for the time being. For the compressor, I've just been using Cubase 5's compressor - 2:1 ratio, 3ms attack, 300ms release, and an average of -2dbs gain reduction for a very subtle effect.
rsf1977
New Metal Member
Where the heck is the problem with reading a thread before replying?
myownsilence
The Influenced
So a limiter is a clipper? I thought a limiter is just a compressor set to high ratio? Is there something inherinitly different or can I just use Logics limiter?
........... Sorry just read the bit on Stillwells site, so a clipper is a digital saturation?
........... Sorry just read the bit on Stillwells site, so a clipper is a digital saturation?
ahjteam
Anssi Tenhunen
Just stating the obvious, but it seems nobody else said it yet: You are limiting it too much. Using a soft clipper only makes it distorted and you may get louder percieved loudness, but when looking at the peaks, it really doesn't get louder than -0dBFS that you can get without hitting the limiter. But I'm a oddbird in the forum anyways because I would rather listen to a dynamic mastering instead of brickwalled (metallica mastering comparison: black album vs death magnetic). You have seen this already, haven't you?
Last edited by a moderator:
Yes, a limiter is a compressor with an infinite:1 ratio, the reason stillwell's event horizon was mentioned is that it has a clipping function, so it's more or less the only free (well not really, but infinite evaluation) mac compatible clipper
Harry Hughes
âââ¬â¬
- Apr 25, 2009
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Fucking plus 1.
Seriously, I don't get the fascination with supreme loudness either.
What, do people listen to their 90s albums and think "OH FUCK, NOT LOUD ENOUGH, I HAVE TO THROW IT OUT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T COMPETE WITH THE SHEER LOUNDESS OF DEATH MAGNETIC!".
Have people stopped buying Master of Puppets because it isn't loud enough?
Of course not, people just buy it because it's quality music.
If there is one thing that has disappointed me a little about this forum, is that people seem to be mastering their shit really loud.
It just doesn't make sense, because given this is a metal based place, you'd think metal listeners listen more deeply to their stuff (on average, compared to the average person who isn't into music as such) and would go for the quality of the music over how fucking loud it is).
I'd love to see this place really start to reverse that trend. Listen to some of those classic 90 albums, they were still fairly loud, but no clipping or pumping or any of that shit that comes with mastering/limiting too hard.
Ermz
¯\(°_o)/¯
One of the few things that's beneficial from loud mastering is that it forces you to have a very well balanced mix in order to pull it off. Everything has to sit neatly in its place because you're dealing with so little headroom. Beyond that i think metal is certainly one of the genres that suffers least from over-mastering. We deal with such copious amounts of mix distortion in everything from guitars to vocals, that a bit of slamming during mastering doesn't hurt it half as much as it would 'purer' forms of music. So as long as people don't go overboard, I'm easy.
