29-10-2014, 03:12 PM
That's a great article, Niells.
One of the very few interviews Andy Wallace ever gave makes a great point that's stuck with me since I read it a few months ago. He mentions that during the mastering process or during radio broadcast, his dynamic mixes were being compressed, and he felt as though it was compromising his vision and indeed the sonics as a whole. His approach, therefore, was to mix into a compressor, so he could have more control over the way his mixes responded to the additional processing once it was out of his hands. I've discovered, especially during the last couple months, that compressing my mix before mastering keeps the peak limiter nice and relaxed, only responding a few times over the course of the mix... and when I perform the mix with the compressor active, I'm not really "sacrificing" any dynamics at all... simply managing them as I go rather than trying to figure out how I'm going to do it in the endgame. And on top of it, I don't need half the compressor inserts on individual channels, or at the very least, I'm not pushing them nearly as hard... so my gain staging remains easier to loudness match as I go.
Gotta give credit to Dave for giving me a push in that direction.
As for limiting, I set my limiter to start responding at -0.5 dB, and the main reason it's there is so I can apply polish to the already compressed mix, like a smile curve EQ or some automated EQ boosts here and there for enhancement, without worrying that my dog will jump up on the keyboard and inadvertently blow my ears out.... lol seriously. Most of my loudness comes from the mix compression and gain staging like Alan said, and I don't often find I need more in mastering these days because I really don't care if it's as loud as what I hear on the radio... only if the loudness makes sense for the genre... a hard rock mix needs to be a bit tighter than a jazz mix, probably. The limiter usually only winds up kick in when whatever polishing I'm using during mastering is emphasizing a spiky transient... a lot of guys will deliberately clip spiky transients like that outside of a limiter, specially in urban genres it seems, but I've never much liked that sound.
Alan... please don't delete this thread! This is seriously the best conversation I've seen so far on the discussion zone. I think a lot of people could benefit from all the different perspectives represented here... I've learned a few things! In fact, when I saw your comment that much of your loudness came from gain staging, it inspired me to revisit my gain staging strategies because I've been a little slack on that recently. Hence my ill-defined mix of this song
One of the very few interviews Andy Wallace ever gave makes a great point that's stuck with me since I read it a few months ago. He mentions that during the mastering process or during radio broadcast, his dynamic mixes were being compressed, and he felt as though it was compromising his vision and indeed the sonics as a whole. His approach, therefore, was to mix into a compressor, so he could have more control over the way his mixes responded to the additional processing once it was out of his hands. I've discovered, especially during the last couple months, that compressing my mix before mastering keeps the peak limiter nice and relaxed, only responding a few times over the course of the mix... and when I perform the mix with the compressor active, I'm not really "sacrificing" any dynamics at all... simply managing them as I go rather than trying to figure out how I'm going to do it in the endgame. And on top of it, I don't need half the compressor inserts on individual channels, or at the very least, I'm not pushing them nearly as hard... so my gain staging remains easier to loudness match as I go.
Gotta give credit to Dave for giving me a push in that direction.
As for limiting, I set my limiter to start responding at -0.5 dB, and the main reason it's there is so I can apply polish to the already compressed mix, like a smile curve EQ or some automated EQ boosts here and there for enhancement, without worrying that my dog will jump up on the keyboard and inadvertently blow my ears out.... lol seriously. Most of my loudness comes from the mix compression and gain staging like Alan said, and I don't often find I need more in mastering these days because I really don't care if it's as loud as what I hear on the radio... only if the loudness makes sense for the genre... a hard rock mix needs to be a bit tighter than a jazz mix, probably. The limiter usually only winds up kick in when whatever polishing I'm using during mastering is emphasizing a spiky transient... a lot of guys will deliberately clip spiky transients like that outside of a limiter, specially in urban genres it seems, but I've never much liked that sound.
Alan... please don't delete this thread! This is seriously the best conversation I've seen so far on the discussion zone. I think a lot of people could benefit from all the different perspectives represented here... I've learned a few things! In fact, when I saw your comment that much of your loudness came from gain staging, it inspired me to revisit my gain staging strategies because I've been a little slack on that recently. Hence my ill-defined mix of this song
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!