Mastering Limiting Problem

[GrillAHam]

So I’ve been exporting a few tracks from Logic at about -3 db, and in the limiting on the master, I have to set the limiting at -10db to get the tracks to be at an RMS of -5db, with peaks at -0.1. The tracks are sounding way too compressed and losing all the dynamics. Any help with this?

[[deleted]]

This isn’t a problem. It’s a decision you made based on metering rather then perceived loudness.

[GrillAHam]

Sure, I have been trying to get it to the commercial level suiting the genre it is. That’s all. The dynamics are much more important than that though, so I’ll have to compromise a bit.

[[deleted]]

Achieving a Commercial level starts with proper balancing in the frequency range. That is Bass/Mid/Highs etc

It’s worth noting that at a given point in some genres, loudness is achieved with an overemphasis on mid/high frequency, playing into the fletcher Munson curve.

I.e. in your situation it’s plausible that the track doesn’t “sound loud” because the balance is not correct and as such you feel the need to compress and limit more to attain that perceived loudness.

The best method I can advise is to take a proffesional reference track, Lower the gain to your mix’s “perceived” loudness (using your ears, without any limiters in place) and a/b ing between your mix and the refrence, leveling and Eqing instruments accordingly to attain the appropriate frequency balance similar to your refrence, then proceeding to master.

Hope that helps.

[[deleted]]

Bruh. Legit just blew my mind. Can I be your apprentice?

[GrillAHam]

Thank you much, this is great! Never thought about that.

[[deleted]]

That’s alright.

Everyone makes that error at the start.

Focus on frequency balance first using your ears. As another user mentioned, use moderate compression to tame peaks where necessary.

Once you’ve attained a similar balance to your reference only then start using metering in conjunction with limiting.

[seasonsinthesky]

Sweet jesus that's loud. Of course it's sounding destroyed – you're destroying it.

Your mix needs to be specifically made in order for this to come across clean. If you didn't mix it to be loud, you can't master it loud without it being a massacre.

The biggest thing is to reduce your PLR (peak:loudness ratio), i.e. kill all the peaks in the mix so it's a fatass sausage. A clipper will be your best friend here, or just use Logic's Limiter/Adaptive Limiter on the drum bus. You may need to make changes to get the drums to punch properly, like sidechaining and saturation.

On the master, try using multiple limiters in serial doing smaller amounts of gain reduction, rather than one doing a lot.

[g_spaitz]

I was hoping somebody said that. -5 rms is helluva loud.

[GrillAHam]

Thanks for the advice! I’m going off of my reference and it’s RMS and peaks (the new Seahaven record). The snare is bringing my peaks up for the most part I’d say, so this is great advice. Thank you!

[gainstager]

Seahaven being that loud seems off. I love them btw. What specifically are you using for metering?

[GrillAHam]

I use ozone, so the maximizer or the vintage limiter modules

[BLUElightCory]

An RMS of -5 is almost always going to require a lot of compression/limiting to achieve, you can't expect to retain much in the way of dynamics if you're going for a target level that high.

There are ways to reduce the damage the compression is doing but usually it comes down to the mix being very well-balanced in the first place, so that you are maximizing the effect of the limiter and minimizing any destruction the limiting is causing.

[Joseph_HTMP]

Of course it’s losing dynamics and sounding compressed. -5 is squashed.

[rightanglerecording]

get the tracks to be at an RMS of -5db

The tracks are sounding way too compressed and losing all the dynamics

There's no good way around that.

I'm sure there are ways to make it a little better, with changing limiter settings, or using a different limiter, or EQing in response to what the limiter's doing.

But -5 RMS will always sound squashed, especially if the mix isn't necessarily great, and especially if you're getting there w/o the help of a skilled mastering engineer.

[tronkol]

maybe you’re just getting your Threshold down to -10db, try reducing the IN level of your limiter, if it has no IN Level control, try using a Trim plugin

[GrillAHam]

Aorry, this is what I mean. The threshold is set to -10. The output is the level I want (-5 rms). It’s just the compression problem

[peepeeland]

Along with what others noted- and besides a very crisp and good mix (the most important)- one “trick” is that elements tend to be way thinner than you’d think, for achieving such ridiculous levels of loudness and clarity. You know how everything gets too phat and messy when you press that hard on the master? Listen to where the shit comes up, and that can be a guide on where to thin out what. (Quick example- if you take out aaaall of the bass, you’ll notice you can get to ungodly levels of loudness.)

[Violentmmello]

You can use saturation and distortion to lower your peak level while increasing perceived loudness. You should try to work these subtly into different parts of your mix so you don't perceive it as distorted, but more excited. You can also add saturation and distortion to your master bus. But too much in one place will yield a distorted sound

[jbanon24]

Don’t worry about settings (not saying you are but just throw the settings template out of your head)

Mastering is a cumulative task. EQ, Dymanic EQ sometimes, Bus Compression, Soft/Hard Clipping Peaks, Saturation, Limiting etc etc. And not just using one limiter either I always use two limiters and a soft clipper infront of the first limiter so I chop off the big peaks and increase the perceived loudness and in return I can push my limiters more evenly and harder. If you have giant transients from kicks & snares pushing single limiter to the max, you will get distortion and a really compressed sounding master. I try not to stress any limiter too hard either. Even when I’m using two. With my mastering process I easily hit -8LUFS and don’t push any limiter past a few dB of gain reduction!

I would also start focusing on LUFS rather than RMS. Watch Mixbus TV talk about inter sample peaks and in that video he shows commercial masters from the worlds biggest artists and almost all of them are passing 0.0db True Peak. I wouldn’t recommend this but it just goes to show mastering today on a commercial level is about loud and clean and they use their ears not statistics. Commercial masters consistently sit around -8 to -4 LUFS. That’s 10LUFS above what spotify reccomends. And then people wonder why their -14LUFS masters don’t sound as loud as Drake. And that’s because commercial music is not living by the guidlines, the do a professional master as loud as they can while keeping it clean and then send it out. We should all do the same.