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On the line Obelix mix
#11
Version 3 is on the way.
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#12
Hey Obelix.

I like your minimalist processing approach, but there are a few things that seem worth pointing out.

First problem that needs tending is that your mix is lightly clipping on occasion. I'm not aware of your process specifically, but usually when an MP3 clips it's because the WAV file was normalized to 0 dB before converting. Without getting too technical, the mp3 conversion process often creates barely audible, very fast transient peaks that are a little louder than the WAV source. That's why the EBU R128 recommends levels to peak at -1 dB or quieter, to avoid this problem, which some listening systems will punish mercilessly, even though you might not be able to hear it on your own device. This is really easy to fix, though.

Number two, I'd suggest you check your mix in mono. In another thread we talked about how distant panning of low end sources can result in comb filtering in mono and out of the listening position, but that's not how your mix has shaped up. Another potential hazard when spreading lower frequencies too wide is that it can create a false sense of separation that doesn't translate in different listening situations. In this case, I'm finding that when I collapse your mix to mono, the mix becomes quite murky from 100 hZ to 350 hZ. I'd recommend doing a little bit of EQ surgery while listening in mono so that stereo separation isn't fooling you... the cellos, bass and acoustic guitar all seem to have important content in this range, so it may also help to pop and EQ on the master bus and bandpass the area while you trim so you're not distracted by other sounds. Some people hate that approach and other people swear by it, so give it a try.

Others have noted that you're pushing the treble frequencies a bit and I agree. Quite often that's a natural result of an undefined low midrange, that we push the highs to get the clarity we're looking for rather than getting the mids right.

One more thing I'll note. The mandolins are very, very dynamic in this song, which can be a good or a bad thing, depending. Here you've got them panned out to the stereo extremes or very close to them, and the occasional loud transient is jumping out very sharply, which is a bit distracting for me. My personal opinion is that the mandolins could be pulled in a little bit, because they're a bit unnaturally wide and outside of the mix for this genre. They could also use a good bit of gain riding (or compression if you like that better) to keep those transients under control.

Otherwise, though, you've got a lot of good stuff going on here. Ease up on the treble, sort the low mids out and tame those mandolins and you'll be in pretty good shape.

Cheers,
BB
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#13
Version 3.


.mp3    line mp3.mp3 --  (Download: 9.79 MB)


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#14
Now when v3 is there, I would like to know what is EBU R128. Listen to a song called Boat on the River by Styx. I think that they have very nice mandolin in their mix which is even brighter than mandolins in the song we mixed.
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#15
A quick explanation of EBU R128:

In order to discourage advertisers from using compression to make their commercials way louder than the music on the radio and TV, EBU R128 is an international broadcast standard that requires broadcasters to normalize playback by average loudness rather than by their peak level. So until a few years ago everything on the radio was normalized so the highest peak landed just under unity gain, so heavily compressed audio was subjectively much louder.

The current standard has become law in several nations requires broadcasters to normalize the average loudness of audio to -27 LUFS. LUFS isn't precisely the same thing as RMS because it's calculated slightly differently but you can think of it the same way. Broadcast material that is on average louder than -27 LUFS will be turned down, and vis versa. Heavily compressed audio is now played back at the same subjective level, which severely punishes the perceived quality and makes it sound dull and unexciting. This is why you're starting to see music turn up on the top 40 charts with larger dynamic ranges than we've seen in the past.

In addition to loudness normalization, as I mentioned in my comments, the standard also requires the true peak level of outgoing audio to be no greater than -1 LU. Think of LU as dB and LUFS as average dB over time. The true peak is a more sophisticated method of detecting peak levels that catches spikes in level between samples, but I'm not 100% sure how it works. Basically this is to prevent accidental clipping during broadcast, and it also prevents your audio from clipping when you convert it to mp3. Lots of the really early mp3s sounded so crappy due to an incomplete understanding how the algorithms were affecting the audio.

Hope that's helpful and I'm glad you're showing an interest in learning.
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#16
Just a quick addendum. It's ok for sections of music to be louder than -27 LUFS, it's the average loudness of the entire piece of audio that's being normalized, so unless your music is way too dynamic, which is never really a problem, the standard will only adjust the level of the music as a whole.

Nor do I suggest you master your music to -27 LUFS. ITunes normalizes to -15 LUFS or thereabouts, so it's be unwise in my opinion to go much more dynamic than that or your music won't sound competitive if released on that medium. Mastering engineers used to submit one final masters, but now often release masters appropriate for a single on the radio, for the album as a whole, for ITunes, for vinyl... and it's made their job much harder. -27 LUFs is really only necessary at the mastering stage for film/tv.

Cheers.
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#17
Thx. I learned something. Music needs to have some dynamics to it, otherwise it will sound squashed and compressed like hell. Recomended DR or dynamic range is around 8 to 12 dB., For vynil records it can be as high as 20 while mp3 usually has a DR of 7 or even less (thats why it sounds shitty) .
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#18
(04-08-2015, 12:10 PM)Obelix Wrote: Thx. I learned something. Music needs to have some dynamics to it, otherwise it will sound squashed and compressed like hell. Recomended DR or dynamic range is around 8 to 12 dB., For vynil records it can be as high as 20 while mp3 usually has a DR of 7 or even less (thats why it sounds shitty) .

Nowadays we're not using DR values anymore because the algorithm used to measure them is fundamentally flawed. The current standard measurement for dynamic range is LRA, or "loudness range average." Unlike RMS verses LUFS, these measurements are generally not the same, because the TT meter doesn't take as many variables into consideration.

Get yourself an EBU compliant loudness meter. There's a very good and inexpensive one that's free to try here:

http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-ebuloudness/

If your LRA doesn't go any lower than 4 or 5 you're probably ok, but if it gets up to 10 it's probably too dynamic to be heard in the car/club/noisy environment. That's rarely a problem, though.

The TT meter is still a decent tool, but it's designed to be very simplistic and as such it isn't very accurate. While you're on the Toneboosters site, check out his other plugins that are free to try. They're about the best cheapies I've ever heard and I use them in every mix.

Hope that helps,

BB.
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#19
I learned something again. But I am confused a little. Which of these metering options are the most accurate ? I would go with RMS, cause this is what I have available in my DAW.
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#20
RMS is perfectly fine for metering during mixing. However, an EBU compliant metering plugin will give you additional data that your native metering won't, such as loudness range, true peak and loudness average. In my opinion, you don't need to worry too much about loudness average in the mix phase, but loudness range is more important. DR values are significantly less accurate in many cases, and never more accurate. True peak is also important, because it picks up on intersample peaks that your DAW probably won't. Keep the true peak to -1 LU and you shouldn't have any unexpected clippings when converting to mp3.

Not sure if you have the Melda Productions free plugin bundle. If not, you should, because they're all outstanding. A few of those plugins wind up on every single mix I do. In any case, that bundle comes with a free EBU R128 compliant meter if you're interested in the latest standards, but it's mostly mastering engineers who have to really think about this stuff in any detail. And a mastering engineer I am not.

Cheers,
BB
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