I work as a live audio engineer. To everyone talking about loudness at clubs or festivals - that is, through a PA of some kind - transients are important. I get so sick of hearing tracks that are so limited that the kick and snare are just smears of sound with no actual punch. The way to sound good through a speaker is to move air appropriately. All speakers DO is move air. If everything is as loud as your kick and snare then your track won't "bounce". No one will feel the kick or snare as a physical thing. They just disappear into the rest of the track. They become a louder smear of sound in a constant assault with no actual rhythm, because rhythm is created by dynamics. It's not rocket surgery.
I wonder if Club Mixes were ever remade for exactly this reason. To get the club air movement levels optimized instead of the "play it in the car" optimized mix for the regular studios.
Limited signals could really kill speaker drivers and even amps. Especially in a live situation I never understood people that wanted loud masters (or FOH for this reason), most DJs for example. You have this high performance PA which could easily handle transients way above specs without any issues - if you need loudness: Theres input gain, followed by a volume fader, followed by a master level...
I dont care about loudness wars. I care about tools. This thing is an excellent tool. The lack of distortion while making a sausage out of dynamic material is so awesome. You can use it in series with another compressor, where you get your flavor from that device and then use this one to make that sound into something that is very easy to set-and-forget in the context of a full mix. Think drum rooms. Its amazing.
Hi Wyste! This is a crazy plug in! I think for people who are doing very organic music and need an easy way to dial in a way to boost level to compete with incredibly smashed music! For music that's already smashed, I agree with you, I wouldn't necessary immediately reach for a tool like this, although this is a great tool!
I like that even though you clearly have a strong opinion on this type of plugin, you are still able to go to the task of examining this plugin with an open and curious mind, and actually speak positively about the things in it that you find positive
Okay. Let me explain. Streaky, the mastering engineer for Adele and Ed Sheeran, spoke about how literally zero professional clients of his, big labels etc want anything less than between -8lufs to -9lufs. He explains that the reason why it's going to continue and why its the only way the high level guys want it is because the crush is literally what makes the pop track sound the way it does. It's more about the -8lufs being the SOUND. He says it's a very different sound from -14lufs even if its normalized to the same thing. The -14lufs will never sound as full or "finished" as the -8lufs And I agree with him, I've had a lot of chance to test it. Even if its being turned down, you're not doing it for anything else other than to actually get the "sound" of crush. Its just what actual pop music sounds like. If you want your track to sound the same as the billboard tracks, and what the consumer is USED TO, in sound, then... you'll push it to -8lufs to get the SOUND
I do a lot of audio for adverts and corporate movies. I always want to add that thick sound which I make with a lot of compressors, saturators, limiters, multiband limiters. All subtle in but it changes the overall sound. It sounds to weak without it.
PERCIEVED loudness does matter though. Generally you get this with upper harmonics in the loudest perceived frequency range. You CAN make mixes SEEM louder by adding these harmonics, while still keeping the actual LUFS in the range of streaming services. This plugin seems to kinda do that.
Not really, most of the loudness analyser uses a frequency response that boosts the high frequencies so if you're increasing the higher frequencies volume, the loudness analyser will pull down the overall level of your track. (More info => search for "K-Weighting filter curve" or something like that) The LUFS norm is smarter than you would expect :)
@@PixalizOfficial yeah, but at least spotify can be tricked - or at least have been possible earlier this year, late last year. i did get a lot promos from majors where things around 2,5-5k-ish (and a bit above) was lifted up to a point it was unpleasant to listen to even on headphones and those got played louder in spotify. (then again spotify has not been using ebu r128 completely as far i've read - could be wrong nowadays though)
Thank you for actually trying out gear on camera live exactly how we mixing engineers & producers do it, fiddling with the controls & just using our ears!
People that only listen to music on streaming platforms: "Why are we caring about loudness if streaming services have loudness normalization?" People that (used to before Covid) go out to clubs: "You need to get out more"
I don't have enough thumbs to rate this plugin. Finally, a plugin that can tone-shape and control dynamics without requiring 5,000 knobs and hours of trial and error. What a well-designed interface with responsive algorithms that simply sound musical. Excellent - definitely not snake oil!
I am absolutely on your side. About 30 years ago, when working with Ronald Prent on a couple of albums (and have Bob Ludwig master them), he already predicted the loudness war. He taught me to maintain the average line. I'm deeply grateful for that.
Games still use maximized audio for their assets. Up until this year people would still go out to listen to music in clubs and festivals, so the quest for loudness still exists.
Watch Dan Worrall's video about loudness and the video he made about DJ's wanting loud masters. There really is no good reason except personal preference to want to crush your mix
I have a unique use case for this very plug. When preparing single drumhits in high resolution for old samplers in 12bit or lower, you want to minimize the bitnoise of low level audio and instead use the ADSR for sculpturing the sound. So, Ursa does not smash the transients, but still lifts up the tails, and when you do that before resamplibg to low bit audio you mask the bitnoise vere effectively. Yes, it is an extreme use case, but I have looked for years, and not found anything this smooth. Zero-crossing limiters does do a similar trick, but they destroy the transients when applying around 50dB of compression to a normalized sound. Ursa does not.
...but look out for truepeaks! It can do some ugly TP if pressed to the max, so keep a Fabfilter Pro L2 after, to grap the TP-spikes, or at least have control over them.
The plugin gives that commercial radio station sound. It reminds me of early 2000’s productions in what it does. Glad that era is over. I’d prefer early 90’s loudness levels any day.
Colin, can you elaborate a bit more please about why this plugin does not fit your mastering and mix chain? I have little experience with mixing and mastering limiters (currently I almost always use Ozone suite for my demos), but I want to educate myself about other (and probably better) alternatives.
Unfortunately for most of my work, my clients don’t want a lot of dynamics. They want an aggressive, up front sound the entire way through. It can be a little maddening when a client gives me notes saying “do you think the intro could be louder” or something to that affect
As far as I've noticed, low quality and low volume playback are where the overall loudness of the track really makes a huge difference. If you have the TV or radio turned on for some background noise, or you're at work surrounded by loud machines or a bunch of people and you just want to listen to something on your cheap Bluetooth speaker, the delicate details of your music might be inaudible and the dynamic range becomes irrelevant because you can't really hear it. That's why for instance pop music goes for that typical overly compressed loudness; you can bet it will sound roughly the same everywhere. Quality often comes *after* audibility when you're not in a controlled environment.
"WHY are we still doing THIS?" 1.- Because CDs, vinyls and physical media are still being released. People still download mp3's and listen to them in not loudness compensated enviroments. 2.- In Spotify (and I guess in other platforms as well) you can disable audio normalization. I do this because I like to listen to music the way it is. I wouldn't like my music to sound tiny when people do this. My oppinion is that eventhough I don't like to blast the loudness on my own tracks, music still needs some loudness maximizing. There's no need for loudness competition, just to add the right amount of loudness.
@@DM-hm4us As regards to UA-cam normalization algorythm, I feel it doesn't do the job because other videos still sound louder or quieter. I still have to compensate everytime another video starts, so it's useless. The only thing it does is lower the loudness on loud mastered songs, while in videos where someone speaks, or where there are many gaps where there's no sound, the volume is even louder.
I made a decision a while ago to avoid depending on "one dial" or "ultra easy" plugins to shape my sound. The truth is if you really try hard to learn about relative balancing, EQ, compression, saturation, and most importantly you respect and shape dynamics properly, then these kinds of tools become apparent that they are for people who want a quick and easy solution without understanding what is involved. My mastering chain involves minimal EQ adjustments to compensate for low and high end summing, glue compression to shape the overall transients to their final maximum potential, and Pro L2 to crank the LUFS somewhere between -9 to -14db. Since Pro L2 lets you hear the distortion applied from the limiting, you can tell precisely when enough is enough. It's also great to monitor the Integrated LUFS over the duration of the song to ensure a consistent perceived loudness between difference song parts. One thing I have learnt as my audio engineering has improved is there are no shortcuts or magic dials, it's knowledge and skill combined with patience and taste. You need to get it right in the mix, limiting is simple after that.
I guess you have to remember when loudness war startet! It was the advertisement industries that liked to stand out "against" the normal radio/tv show audio to gain more recognition for their customers. So who followed this bad habit? right! The artist management. Putting all this attitude towards possible more record sales. Since now when the complete audio market start to liberate itself by self distributing artists (and also this spotify and youtube thing by turning the volume down). The Musicians can now focus more and more to bring back the "emotional" sides of music where dynamics are very important for. So also because the "normal customer" now get bored and annoyed by loud advertisement. Its now clear for the ad-companys to step back because loud avertisment doesnt fit the brand anymore in sense of positive recognition. So clearly we followed the wrong prophet by putting our music to its max (in loudness volume). But now we have a total wrong trained/conditioned audience waiting for the loud song to hit else their is something wrong unprofessional etc. you called it in your video.
I think even though audio is compensated, “loudness” still matters or at least the illusion of loudness. If a song is exported at like -10 to -5 LUFS even though Spotify will reduce it to -14 it still retains the “illusion” of loudness from the energy of the original.
I just A/B'd this with my go-to limiter...and I kept matching LUFS while testing settings between the 2 plugins. The TDR Limiter 6 GE kicks this one's butt lol...it's so good that it makes Boost's coloration and squashing of transients really evident and definitely audible. The only reason this plugin will sell well and become relevant is for artistic level consumers who want to keep things organic and do everything themselves, or for professional engineers who aren't actual, legitimate mastering engineers, who want an easy way to auto-pilot making a track commercially competitive. For these applications, it's GREAT, so I'm in no way bashing the plugin....it's actually really cool technology. It's basically a Waves OneKnob plugin to achieve amateur quality mastering loudness.
but tdr limiter 6 is like a whole plugin chain with like 20 knobs you have to figure out can we have plugins for making things sound alright together quickly so we can go back to *actually writing music* instead of slightly adjusting gain settings for 12 hours
I'm going to give this thing a try, because I can see *track* level use cases for it - e.g. as an alternative to a basic gain plugin on an inconsistent vocal. Possibly as a shortcut around an extensive gain/compander automation session, in the editing phase, rather than as an output bus treatment.
I just bought Devious Machines Bundle. It is FANTASTIC. Perfect for spice and surprise. This, however, is an answer to the BBE Sonic Maximizer. Used subtley, I think the UrsaDSP Boost will warm up the mix on some genres that I create. I just downloaded the demo. Odds are, I will buy it. Especially since you see some value in it, sir. They are confident enough to add your honest review to their site, then I think its gonna be just fine in my setup. THANK YOU for your review.
upgrading our bit depth will also increase the dynamic range and headroom, even if it gets compressed it will sound better, and plugins will have more headroom as well, if they dont already have double precision.
You can use this in a live band performing. You can use studio one. This has a latency low enough for studio one to work in live show mode. This plugin is like a channel strip, drive, gain, compressor and limiter
As an audio editor, Boost's ultra-transparent limiting would be ideal for dialing in vocal levels for a podcast. In my musical workflow, that same transparent limiting would be used for tonal shaping on an individual channel (guitar, acoustic piano, Rhodes, Wurli, snare drum), or perhaps drum bus. Devious Machines might imply that this is a master effect, but I think I wouldn't use it that way all or even most of the time.
I wish there had been more focus on Boost as a channel- or bus-specific effect in this video. Upward limiting is often more pleasant to my ears than downward limiting for channels or busses. These snake oil tests would be more objective if the plugins were being used on dry tracks/busses rather than wet stems and mixes.
The Compensation of the platforms don't work. Or LUFS don't work. I don't know. What I found. The more I compress my tracks with a limiter, the louder they sound on UA-cam compared to less compressed ones. I've tested this many times. The loudness war is not over.
Yeah, I've also experienced that. I've heard a lot about streaming services compensating for loudness and whatever, but when I upload my trash ass sounding tracks through distrokid they still sound waaaay lower than professional tracks (at least on apple music)
Thats because youtube doesnt apply its own limiting, the idea here is that spotify will lower the volume in overcompressed tracks and apply an aggressive brickwall limiter to push softer music into -14 LUFS regardless of how that sounds (thats why youd rather do it yourself in a good master) while youtube just reduces the volume of louder tracks, spotify does limit those that are lower The percieved loudness can come even from more compressed music, like if you put a fast paced intense dubstep song or industrial it will probably appear louder in the same luf values vecause psychoacoustically your brain interprets the transients of electronic music, the compressed distorted sound and certain EQ as louder Another reason is that maybe you didnt have an even -14LUF value continously throughout your song because you wanted more dynamic range like with the intro or something, some mixers will reduce the dynamic range with fadering automations to make it sound more even and maybe the algorithm doesnt pick it up as a compressor, just like how you sometimes will send fader automation into the clip gain automation to make the vocal more even without it being really compressed, and then you can apply a compreasor to glue the EQ etc
So the FOCUS is a tool to remove reverb from vocals? BTW: There is still a lot of mastering going on for non-streaming platforms, such as for DJ sets etc.
For club music it is essential to reach -6dB RMS which is the standard limiter, a very dynamic volume produces pumping. This plugin is great for electronic and pop music. I can easily compare it with Bettermaker Limiter.
I would like dynamics and fidelity to be prioritised but I also think something like this is amazing for bringing out the Lower details from brining up the RMS so that when it is normalised it still remains loud, I think that because it gives you the option to make it crazy loud without distortion it’s up to the mastering engineer to decide how much is too much, instead of designing the whole mix and master to be centred around getting it crazy loud you can focus more on the tonality and dynamics and use this to get it to a competitive level.
I just wish today's artists would spend more time creating better music instead of constantly trying to make their mixes louder. Loudness won't cover up a shitty song.
It's so true. I like older music from the 70, 80, 90, some others too. I have to lower my volume at times, because I don't want to disturb the neighbors. I just moved out of a place where a neighbor plaid their music at 5:00 am until 12:00 midnight. So this loudness is not good for anyone trying to rest at all.
"WHY are we still doing THIS" - one the few simple questions that when asked honestly and answered correctly, can truly help to make the world a better place :) Good work, as usual, my friend!!! PS - in this context, "better world", I think, would be roughly equivalent to the choice of "more dynamic range in musical recordings". CHEERS!
I'd personally use this as a production tool instead of a mastering tool. I think it would do a great job of glueing and fattening up a drum mix or bringing out characteristics in individual samples or instruments.
It's a psychoacoustics thing. Once things are loud, return to dynamic content at lower volume is difficult to accept by the (damaged) hearing/brain. I hear you btw, i hate loudness. Unfortunately, there's still a lot of loud stuff being made. It's sometimes sad ... when I have to delete airplay submitted tracks to preserve the quality of our show/podcast. Some pretty big music talents have gone wasted due to their bad mastering results. I will not mention any names ;-) Thanks for this video, well done! greetings, Cyril.
Hi, Is it possible to have a look at AUMultibandCompressor? I really like the Analog setting and I’d like to know if it could reproduced using other plugins. Cheers
I was wondering why it had to be shown /played as a booster of volume. If you were to use a makeup increase decrease to bring the output db level the same then we could really tell what it is doing to the final output volume. T he volume boos you shown was just way louder than a regular boost, like say "Boost 11", sounds pretty good though
I live tracked my friend's grindcore/death metal band, and the music definitely benefited from obnoxious limiting on the master bus. I used Airwindows NC-17 on it. I wouldn't do it for music with a lot of intricate parts, but sometimes it's cool if you want a wall of sound.
To answer your question: I make my stuff louder to make it easier to listen to in a car or in other situations with background noise and / or quiet listening situations
How about boosting loudness for artistic reasons, like for extremely aggressive music, or boosting loudness on busses or tracks for taste? Think Doom soundtrack by Mick Gordon. That's a good type of thing to use it on. Also aggressice EDM stuff. For mastering I agree with you 100% though. Dynamics = more punch, more kick, more slam, more energy.
@@Jaburu it doesn't matter really, it fits the message being conveyed. Asking if it sounds good is like asking if black metal production "sounds good tho", or if dadaism "looks good". The point of them is to not sound good by these standards.
@@iurigrang the thing is that producing in those genres forces you to match existing music. a more dynamic track wont fit into a DJ session with other crushed ones. now my problem is with calling this "artistic reasons".
@@Jaburu these styles are not made to be in DJ sessions. If they are, they will already pop out because of everything else, not because of compression.
Its pretty good sounding. Maybe Im just not thinking right...What is the difference between this and parallel limiting? I think I can pretty much replicate what this is doing with tools I have already.
I'm boosting the loudness because I heard one of my tracks in a spotify playlist once (mastered to -12db LUFS) and it sounded so much quieter and weaker than all the other tracks. It isn't hard for me to push most of my tracks to -8 or even -6 during the chorus due to the way I mix, so that's what I do.
I think the place for this is a file that was exported really low or too low and then the original project files were lost so it could not be edited. I see for myself the use of this is for old songs I have as a WAV but no longer have the project files.
I agree that if the only place you are presenting your music is streaming platforms, loudness doesn’t matter, however if you DJ (or would like other DJs to play your music) loudness in line with other songs of a similar genre does matter. I DJ drum & bass which you often see tracks around -6 to -4 LUFS and if your track is a lot quieter than that it can be an issue when performing live. Of course there are trim knobs to compensate gain variation between tracks, however if you bring your much quieter and more dynamic song up to reach the same loudness of a track that’s -6 LUFS, there’s a good chance your signal will be clipping on that track because your peaks will be louder than the song that was mastered to that loudness level in the first place. Best case scenario the clipping just sounds terrible, worst case you end up blowing out a speaker. I’m not saying I agree with the way things are and would honestly prefer if everyone would just master to a more reasonable loudness, but that’s the way things are so we’ll have to live with it.
Or, DJs could leave enough headroom on their mixer for lower LUFS tracks, say -8, that way when you bring the -8 track up it's going to sound better on a club system than the smashed tracks, because the dynamics will make the rhythm more defined (dnb is all rhythm). From there on, the club engineer handles the system's spl levels. Also, producers who are not looking to smash their tracks, could do some transparent trimming of peaks (whichever method works), so that if DJs do smash the levels, it will have a bit more room before it get's wrecked.
Looks interesting. But as you have said, loudness is not everything.... What do you think about the ToneBOOSTERs Plugins? Eq4 and Barracuda. Are they worth bthe money? What is the quality compared to fabfilter?
i make the song loud so that when i turn it down then the streaming services turn it up , i actually hear what people will be hearing and it can compete
I think the concept of loudness can be very useful at a time when many artists have experimented with different structures in their music. I think this type of plugin is a good way to go when we think about "mastering" sections instead of simply applying this effect at the end of our master chain.
this can be dope for bass or vocal note consistency, or any consistency issue, also bringing out details etc. also, some genres require you to be loud, for these, tools like boost can really help. would have been interesting to have a levelmatched comparison of before and after. if it makes things sound better while reducing peak to loudness ratio, its a win-win and might help avoid the necessity to smash your mix at the mastering stage
Do we actually need another loudness maximizer??????...........I agree it's a good sounding plug. I think the idea of getting density within a mix(before the final mix and mastering) is a good thing. David from MixBuss TV really opened my eyes to this. Used tastefully it could be very useful tool during mixing........but again, how many of these LOUDNESS tools do we already have?? As always a very fair review ;:-)
I used L2 Ultramaximizer on our Tucana - Legacy album when I mastered it. Threshold was at 0 and Out ceiling at -0.5 and Release at 0.1. I didn't smash it at all with the L2. It's pretty loud anyway but there are a lot of dynamics in some of the songs. Wounded Heart starts with som really quiet orchestra and builds up until the rest comes in and tears your head off. You can find it on UA-cam and Spotify.
Sounds good actually, I'm 'mastering' some tracks for sound system use, heavy 'afro-techno' - to be distributed on USB stick. It's important to be pretty loud, without being 'limited to death' - maybe this plugin could be useful?
when I'm listening to music..it's at a level that suits me in that moment..so if a song comes in superlouder than the rest, what happens? I turn it down of course....it's annoying......
I've often had to give clients a separate file that's the louder mix/master they asked for. With it I explain (more accurately STRESS) to them that the loud mix is SOLELY for them to crank up in their car because they insisted and I didn't want them to get the impression that I was declining to do so because I was incapable in some way. Then I give them the ready-to-release file(s) and explain to them what will happen if they submit the wrong file for streaming and why it's better to have people hearing the version that was made specifically to be played at the level its going to stream at anyway.
Why make it louder ? Because I CAN (!!!) 🙂 - I also see this plugin helping with increasing density besides the many other uses pointed out in the comments. Anyway, I will mess around with this for a while but first look, touch and feel of this was amazing. We shall soon find out where this stands and if it will bake, make our mixes.
Hi, like your videos very much, i make my tracks loud, cause the major platforms change them on their level, but when i play them in the club as a dj, or listen at home, at my mobile phone etc. i want to have them loud. When i say loud, loud means not flat, but sometimes a bit louder as spotify etc. would desire.
I still have both types of clients, those who still want extremely compressed and limited masters and those who like dynamic music. I myself prefer dynamic music, I'm a child of the 80s. 20+ dB of dynamic range is still something, I love and feel as totally normal - but I also have the equipment for music like this. Speakers that could deliver +20 dB Peaks on a 70-85 dB base level and that is not the usual case these days with in ears and small speakers where flat mixes and masters translate much better. You're totally right with what you said about loudness in general but if a clients wants a certain sound, I also see no reason why not to deliver.
When I see multiple uploads of a certain song from different channels in UA-cam, I still notice some very subtle differences in the sound, even with them being normalised to fit -14 LUFs. One example is a track called Aeries by Synthe. Sometimes, the mix of a song is done in a certain way that no matter how hard a track is mastered, it may be very hard to notice how loud it is with normalisation.
I think there are just new plug ins which combine different functions. This thing has a limiter with an compressor built in (sounds weird because both are compressors) the focus button is more an release button. Correct me I’m wrong. The annoying part of it is just that u don’t have to understand the theory behind a compressor or an equalizer or what ever. U press one button and the track will go from 0-100%. Of course it’s sound great, but is this the way we should go threw? Sorry if I’m describing it in a misleading way.
To ask the question, I think that "loudness" sells, today it is more a question of marketing, at a professional level, looking for a correct balance, overmaximizing always ruins the songs, of course depending on the sound material and this plugin can be very useful in mastering but not at exaggerated levels, it is more useful in the mix, removing the "punch" has the "drive" mode that acts differently and in the voices for example with a bit of that process it brings the voices forward without the need to equalize add exciters of harmonics etc etc etc... Also that of the SSL vocal strip that combined facilitates the correct placement of the voices that in general is the most complex. Now I think that the compression of the platforms is a separate issue, if I am going to buy an "album" I want it to be heard in good quality and that is what I will always look for in mixing and mastering, and in fact there are some like the by Billie Eilish that are not one of my favorites that maintain a balance and dynamism and that if the platforms ruin it to a greater or lesser extent it is the problem of the developers and the people who do not complain about better quality. It's a shame how spotify, for example, being a platform dedicated to music, has those resolutions. And if my productions sound bad in acceptable resolutions, it will be worse on the platforms. And it's nice to have those two options in one plugin for clients who prefer "loudnes" to "quality" and that I don't have to go through a lot of processes to get the result that some want.🤗
As my grandpa used to say "Every style of music is good if it's loud" :D Jokes aside I do use a limiter on my master bus but I set it so it only limits the absolute peaks, most of the time it's 0 gain reduction and here and there it goes to -2 dB gain reduction. I do metal and rock and I have to say that loudness definetly doesn't help the sound one bit. Overcompressed metal music or where there is too much limitng going on sounds like crap to me. When everything is loud, nothing is loud. When everything is in your face, nothing is in your face. Or something like that :D
The typical listener doesn't know why a pop song sounds the way it does. They just know if your song sounds like a pop song or not. The typical pop song is LOUD. So if that's the genre you're going for, you're going to have to be creative about the way you use loudness. I personally think the Billie Eilish team did a good job of this.
Some people have pre-amps, amps, and tube amps these days. All they need is a clean defined 24-bit signal that's dynamic with good separation that's in phase. On the other hand, the average person just wants to listen to music on a $25 mp3 player with $9 headphones.
So many plugins aspire to play a role in the 'end game' while they often are best suited on one buss. This plugin for example, I can see this being used on a radio station or for narrating. It sounds good for what it is.
Technically you might call it an upwards limiter. Revision B (released after this video) added a wet / dry for convenient parallel compression which also adds to the capabilities in that area.
My limiter goes from -0.1 limiting to -2,5 db limiting, just depends on what sounds the best, gain compensated. To dynamic can make it sound a bit cold and unvibey in comparison. I never worry about numbers in terms of loudness etc.
As a broadcast engineer we use compression with equipment such as the Orban Optimod to maintain legal levels. In the early days of FM the louder sounding stations would grab listeners from competing stations more often by sounding powerful. Something learned however is too much compression loses dynamics and causes listener fatigue. It's a delicate balance to be powerful, within your allowed modulation and still have music people could listen to for hours. Now fast forward. Most modern music are so over compressed that the waveform looks like a brick wall without any dynamics whatsoever. I play that in the air, which then runs through the optimod and you are pumping out nothing but listener fatigue. I wish recording engineers would put the music back into music. Back to basics, please!
Perhaps the problem is much more for dialogue/sermons. I have a case where I'm having a sermon that needs to be "boosted" when the preacher goes low and then excited/etc. and to "play" with the volumes live is not that much fun, thus the need to have compressors/limiters in play but more so loudness boosting for those that listen on sub par speakers that complains about having to turn the volume full and still not hearing
I think we now know how to trick Wyste into reading the manual, just include it in the interface. As to the plug-in description, 'warm' is harmonic distortion, so how can it have no harmonic distortion and yet be 'warm'? Lastly, crushed sounds are still useful no how loud or quiet the master ends up.
For up and coming producers etc. attaining comparable loudness is important when demoing, because you're sending stuff to record execs, managers, friends, peers and you need to compromise a little to have something that stands up to the next track on their playlist, as they're gonna be listening in between other stuff. Not saying you have to smash your mix though. There are plenty of tools for this, but from the demo, it sounds like it does a good job without having to settle for a gross clipping sound.
This tool shocked me it seems to not smash the record and I agree with you where this could play in well with radio stations especially underground radio stations to help them get a more professional quality.
i heard about a new technique where in mixing the melodies aka synths r being downsampled so they can heard properly as well as give space to vocals can tell please tell about this science or this is a snake oil !
It's alot easier to compare before/after, if you then (after rendering or whatever) match the loudness with something. That helps you hear what is being lost, as far as transients/peak signal. Of course, you know that already. Seems like it could have it's usage in mixing, more so than mastering.
i am a metal head but i prefer to keep it balance not to laud not to quite if you ask me this plugin can be perfect for summer songs , epic sound and build ups maybe dubstep but it needs to be used more subtle i mean if you have a song where you cant barely hear it then this can work out
I work as a live audio engineer. To everyone talking about loudness at clubs or festivals - that is, through a PA of some kind - transients are important. I get so sick of hearing tracks that are so limited that the kick and snare are just smears of sound with no actual punch. The way to sound good through a speaker is to move air appropriately. All speakers DO is move air.
If everything is as loud as your kick and snare then your track won't "bounce". No one will feel the kick or snare as a physical thing. They just disappear into the rest of the track. They become a louder smear of sound in a constant assault with no actual rhythm, because rhythm is created by dynamics. It's not rocket surgery.
I wonder if Club Mixes were ever remade for exactly this reason. To get the club air movement levels optimized instead of the "play it in the car" optimized mix for the regular studios.
@Gerhard Schöner And I'm picturing brain rockets!
what clubs or live mixes......everything has been closed months before you posted your message, and months after...
And this why you can feel the cones moving properly when bass and kick are working together.
Limited signals could really kill speaker drivers and even amps. Especially in a live situation I never understood people that wanted loud masters (or FOH for this reason), most DJs for example. You have this high performance PA which could easily handle transients way above specs without any issues - if you need loudness: Theres input gain, followed by a volume fader, followed by a master level...
I love Darude's Sandstorm - I hear something new every time I hear it.
He chose a masterpiece, that's why
He's the only artist who can make a single song that never gets old. Always fresh and new. ☺️
In reality: Sandstorm is about 10 hours long. A masterpiece so to speak
I dont care about loudness wars. I care about tools. This thing is an excellent tool. The lack of distortion while making a sausage out of dynamic material is so awesome. You can use it in series with another compressor, where you get your flavor from that device and then use this one to make that sound into something that is very easy to set-and-forget in the context of a full mix. Think drum rooms. Its amazing.
Hi Wyste! This is a crazy plug in! I think for people who are doing very organic music and need an easy way to dial in a way to boost level to compete with incredibly smashed music! For music that's already smashed, I agree with you, I wouldn't necessary immediately reach for a tool like this, although this is a great tool!
Hey
@@PharaohLawLess1 hello!
great channel!
Wow my favourite channels are conversing together ❤️❤️❤️
@@rohinagrawal9727 thanks ever so much!
I master everything through Windows 3.1's Sound Recorder - given everything that old school 8bit hard clipping sound.
I seriously thought I was thr only one
USB 1 - because of the vintage sound.
I do my mixing in audacity, wanna collab?
hahaha! but i remember the time when i was recording audio in Windows 3.1')
I like that even though you clearly have a strong opinion on this type of plugin, you are still able to go to the task of examining this plugin with an open and curious mind, and actually speak positively about the things in it that you find positive
Okay. Let me explain. Streaky, the mastering engineer for Adele and Ed Sheeran, spoke about how literally zero professional clients of his, big labels etc want anything less than between -8lufs to -9lufs. He explains that the reason why it's going to continue and why its the only way the high level guys want it is because the crush is literally what makes the pop track sound the way it does. It's more about the -8lufs being the SOUND. He says it's a very different sound from -14lufs even if its normalized to the same thing. The -14lufs will never sound as full or "finished" as the -8lufs
And I agree with him, I've had a lot of chance to test it.
Even if its being turned down, you're not doing it for anything else other than to actually get the "sound" of crush. Its just what actual pop music sounds like. If you want your track to sound the same as the billboard tracks, and what the consumer is USED TO, in sound, then... you'll push it to -8lufs to get the SOUND
Finally someone understand it!!
I agree! But I must say, even when my tracks are on - 7 lufs, professional tracks with -9 sound 2 times louder than mine!
I do a lot of audio for adverts and corporate movies. I always want to add that thick sound which I make with a lot of compressors, saturators, limiters, multiband limiters. All subtle in but it changes the overall sound. It sounds to weak without it.
@@d3gig490 the difference is between pro mixing and is hobby types
S Amaliel That’s because professional songs are mastered on analog gear ;( same thing happens to me lol
PERCIEVED loudness does matter though. Generally you get this with upper harmonics in the loudest perceived frequency range. You CAN make mixes SEEM louder by adding these harmonics, while still keeping the actual LUFS in the range of streaming services. This plugin seems to kinda do that.
I'd like to know more about it!
that just makes the music unplayable on big systems, like clubs etc etc.
Not really, most of the loudness analyser uses a frequency response that boosts the high frequencies so if you're increasing the higher frequencies volume, the loudness analyser will pull down the overall level of your track. (More info => search for "K-Weighting filter curve" or something like that)
The LUFS norm is smarter than you would expect :)
@@PixalizOfficial yeah, but at least spotify can be tricked - or at least have been possible earlier this year, late last year. i did get a lot promos from majors where things around 2,5-5k-ish (and a bit above) was lifted up to a point it was unpleasant to listen to even on headphones and those got played louder in spotify. (then again spotify has not been using ebu r128 completely as far i've read - could be wrong nowadays though)
Yeah I was kinda shocked. I thought this was gonna do an ass job. Pretty impressed by it.
Thank you for actually trying out gear on camera live exactly how we mixing engineers & producers do it, fiddling with the controls & just using our ears!
Noone said Upward Limiter can be only used on Mastering stage. This tool is a Pandora's Box for sound design.
Normal producers: How loud should our mixes be?
Brostep/Riddim producers: Yes.
0 LUFS is about right
Have you ever considered writing for the theatre? That was wonderful.
Client: "Yes, I understand. But can I have the mix louder now?" ;-/
Set the Dim level 6db down and play that for them first, when they ask for louder, pretend to make some changes, but just turn off dim. Done and Done!
Ima do this lol @@kniferideaudio
Haha. Yes. It's due to those damn lo quality MP3 streaming services the youth is listening today :(
Bass player: "Especially the bass needs to be louder!"
@@MixedByDotRob give them higher frequencies :)
Well, what that Focus parameter is doing with the reverb tail is a very interesting effect to have.
Not to take away from anything cool about this plugin, but you can get similar results using stock compression after your reverb plugin.
People that only listen to music on streaming platforms: "Why are we caring about loudness if streaming services have loudness normalization?"
People that (used to before Covid) go out to clubs: "You need to get out more"
My ears: Oh no, you don't.
I don't have enough thumbs to rate this plugin. Finally, a plugin that can tone-shape and control dynamics without requiring 5,000 knobs and hours of trial and error. What a well-designed interface with responsive algorithms that simply sound musical. Excellent - definitely not snake oil!
I am absolutely on your side. About 30 years ago, when working with Ronald Prent on a couple of albums (and have Bob Ludwig master them), he already predicted the loudness war. He taught me to maintain the average line. I'm deeply grateful for that.
Games still use maximized audio for their assets. Up until this year people would still go out to listen to music in clubs and festivals, so the quest for loudness still exists.
But a good DJ will compensate that as much as possible, to make all those songs fit into another
I always thought clubs sounded bad because most DJs don’t understand how to set their gains properly not because of maximised music
There still is an art to slamming a mix for electronic music. Music done wrong has a lack of energy.
I totally understand why games do it. They are very likely to be played straight out the tv speakers or even worse mobile device speakers.
Watch Dan Worrall's video about loudness and the video he made about DJ's wanting loud masters. There really is no good reason except personal preference to want to crush your mix
I have a unique use case for this very plug. When preparing single drumhits in high resolution for old samplers in 12bit or lower, you want to minimize the bitnoise of low level audio and instead use the ADSR for sculpturing the sound. So, Ursa does not smash the transients, but still lifts up the tails, and when you do that before resamplibg to low bit audio you mask the bitnoise vere effectively.
Yes, it is an extreme use case, but I have looked for years, and not found anything this smooth. Zero-crossing limiters does do a similar trick, but they destroy the transients when applying around 50dB of compression to a normalized sound. Ursa does not.
...but look out for truepeaks! It can do some ugly TP if pressed to the max, so keep a Fabfilter Pro L2 after, to grap the TP-spikes, or at least have control over them.
@@skinnyhastrup4614 Hi, thanks for the feedback. I added full True-Peak in the new version (out yesterday), all existing customers get a free upgrade.
The plugin gives that commercial radio station sound. It reminds me of early 2000’s productions in what it does. Glad that era is over. I’d prefer early 90’s loudness levels any day.
I have this plugin, I'd never use it on the mix buss or in my mastering chain, but I have found it very useful in sound design.
Interesting as I do SFX and such how do you find this useful in Sound Design?
@@vidworxsfx I'm talking about sound design for music.
@@ColinBennun Ah ok, thanks ...
Colin, can you elaborate a bit more please about why this plugin does not fit your mastering and mix chain? I have little experience with mixing and mastering limiters (currently I almost always use Ozone suite for my demos), but I want to educate myself about other (and probably better) alternatives.
Unfortunately for most of my work, my clients don’t want a lot of dynamics. They want an aggressive, up front sound the entire way through. It can be a little maddening when a client gives me notes saying “do you think the intro could be louder” or something to that affect
Gerhard Schöner I never said it wasn’t my job.
As far as I've noticed, low quality and low volume playback are where the overall loudness of the track really makes a huge difference. If you have the TV or radio turned on for some background noise, or you're at work surrounded by loud machines or a bunch of people and you just want to listen to something on your cheap Bluetooth speaker, the delicate details of your music might be inaudible and the dynamic range becomes irrelevant because you can't really hear it. That's why for instance pop music goes for that typical overly compressed loudness; you can bet it will sound roughly the same everywhere. Quality often comes *after* audibility when you're not in a controlled environment.
The. Truth.
"WHY are we still doing THIS?"
1.- Because CDs, vinyls and physical media are still being released. People still download mp3's and listen to them in not loudness compensated enviroments.
2.- In Spotify (and I guess in other platforms as well) you can disable audio normalization. I do this because I like to listen to music the way it is. I wouldn't like my music to sound tiny when people do this.
My oppinion is that eventhough I don't like to blast the loudness on my own tracks, music still needs some loudness maximizing. There's no need for loudness competition, just to add the right amount of loudness.
Besides, at least to my ears, loudness normalization makes almost every mix sound shitty, regardless of how loud it has been mastered.
@@DM-hm4us As regards to UA-cam normalization algorythm, I feel it doesn't do the job because other videos still sound louder or quieter. I still have to compensate everytime another video starts, so it's useless. The only thing it does is lower the loudness on loud mastered songs, while in videos where someone speaks, or where there are many gaps where there's no sound, the volume is even louder.
"just to add the right amount of loudness". And therein lies the problem. We've already gone way past the "right amount", hence the loudness wars.
I made a decision a while ago to avoid depending on "one dial" or "ultra easy" plugins to shape my sound. The truth is if you really try hard to learn about relative balancing, EQ, compression, saturation, and most importantly you respect and shape dynamics properly, then these kinds of tools become apparent that they are for people who want a quick and easy solution without understanding what is involved. My mastering chain involves minimal EQ adjustments to compensate for low and high end summing, glue compression to shape the overall transients to their final maximum potential, and Pro L2 to crank the LUFS somewhere between -9 to -14db. Since Pro L2 lets you hear the distortion applied from the limiting, you can tell precisely when enough is enough. It's also great to monitor the Integrated LUFS over the duration of the song to ensure a consistent perceived loudness between difference song parts. One thing I have learnt as my audio engineering has improved is there are no shortcuts or magic dials, it's knowledge and skill combined with patience and taste. You need to get it right in the mix, limiting is simple after that.
Does Spotify apply the perceived loudness maximization no matter what, our only when you enable the “normalize” option?
I guess you have to remember when loudness war startet!
It was the advertisement industries that liked to stand out "against" the normal radio/tv show audio to gain more recognition for their customers.
So who followed this bad habit? right! The artist management. Putting all this attitude towards possible more record sales.
Since now when the complete audio market start to liberate itself by self distributing artists (and also this spotify and youtube thing by turning the volume down).
The Musicians can now focus more and more to bring back the "emotional" sides of music where dynamics are very important for.
So also because the "normal customer" now get bored and annoyed by loud advertisement.
Its now clear for the ad-companys to step back because loud avertisment doesnt fit the brand anymore in sense of positive recognition.
So clearly we followed the wrong prophet by putting our music to its max (in loudness volume).
But now we have a total wrong trained/conditioned audience waiting for the loud song to hit else their is something wrong unprofessional etc. you called it in your video.
That and Broadcast bandwidth guidance from the FCC ...crappy lossy compression algorithms... steaming...and the needle jumping of the vinyl
I think even though audio is compensated, “loudness” still matters or at least the illusion of loudness. If a song is exported at like -10 to -5 LUFS even though Spotify will reduce it to -14 it still retains the “illusion” of loudness from the energy of the original.
I just A/B'd this with my go-to limiter...and I kept matching LUFS while testing settings between the 2 plugins. The TDR Limiter 6 GE kicks this one's butt lol...it's so good that it makes Boost's coloration and squashing of transients really evident and definitely audible. The only reason this plugin will sell well and become relevant is for artistic level consumers who want to keep things organic and do everything themselves, or for professional engineers who aren't actual, legitimate mastering engineers, who want an easy way to auto-pilot making a track commercially competitive. For these applications, it's GREAT, so I'm in no way bashing the plugin....it's actually really cool technology. It's basically a Waves OneKnob plugin to achieve amateur quality mastering loudness.
but tdr limiter 6 is like a whole plugin chain with like 20 knobs you have to figure out
can we have plugins for making things sound alright together quickly so we can go back to *actually writing music* instead of slightly adjusting gain settings for 12 hours
I'm going to give this thing a try, because I can see *track* level use cases for it - e.g. as an alternative to a basic gain plugin on an inconsistent vocal. Possibly as a shortcut around an extensive gain/compander automation session, in the editing phase, rather than as an output bus treatment.
I just bought Devious Machines Bundle. It is FANTASTIC. Perfect for spice and surprise.
This, however, is an answer to the BBE Sonic Maximizer. Used subtley, I think the UrsaDSP Boost will warm up the mix on some genres that I create.
I just downloaded the demo. Odds are, I will buy it. Especially since you see some value in it, sir. They are confident enough to add your honest review to their site, then I think its gonna be just fine in my setup. THANK YOU for your review.
upgrading our bit depth will also increase the dynamic range and headroom, even if it gets compressed it will sound better, and plugins will have more headroom as well, if they dont already have double precision.
I like loudness by the feel it gives to the track, the actual osund of it.
You can use this in a live band performing. You can use studio one. This has a latency low enough for studio one to work in live show mode. This plugin is like a channel strip, drive, gain, compressor and limiter
As an audio editor, Boost's ultra-transparent limiting would be ideal for dialing in vocal levels for a podcast. In my musical workflow, that same transparent limiting would be used for tonal shaping on an individual channel (guitar, acoustic piano, Rhodes, Wurli, snare drum), or perhaps drum bus. Devious Machines might imply that this is a master effect, but I think I wouldn't use it that way all or even most of the time.
I wish there had been more focus on Boost as a channel- or bus-specific effect in this video. Upward limiting is often more pleasant to my ears than downward limiting for channels or busses. These snake oil tests would be more objective if the plugins were being used on dry tracks/busses rather than wet stems and mixes.
The Compensation of the platforms don't work. Or LUFS don't work. I don't know. What I found. The more I compress my tracks with a limiter, the louder they sound on UA-cam compared to less compressed ones. I've tested this many times. The loudness war is not over.
Yeah, I've also experienced that. I've heard a lot about streaming services compensating for loudness and whatever, but when I upload my trash ass sounding tracks through distrokid they still sound waaaay lower than professional tracks (at least on apple music)
Try loudnesspenalty.com, it tells you how the algorithms of most major streaming platforms will affect your audio (not an ad lol)
Thats because youtube doesnt apply its own limiting, the idea here is that spotify will lower the volume in overcompressed tracks and apply an aggressive brickwall limiter to push softer music into -14 LUFS regardless of how that sounds (thats why youd rather do it yourself in a good master) while youtube just reduces the volume of louder tracks, spotify does limit those that are lower
The percieved loudness can come even from more compressed music, like if you put a fast paced intense dubstep song or industrial it will probably appear louder in the same luf values vecause psychoacoustically your brain interprets the transients of electronic music, the compressed distorted sound and certain EQ as louder
Another reason is that maybe you didnt have an even -14LUF value continously throughout your song because you wanted more dynamic range like with the intro or something, some mixers will reduce the dynamic range with fadering automations to make it sound more even and maybe the algorithm doesnt pick it up as a compressor, just like how you sometimes will send fader automation into the clip gain automation to make the vocal more even without it being really compressed, and then you can apply a compreasor to glue the EQ etc
Its like if you record someone screaming or singing with a powerful voice, your brain will make it sound louder than when it really is
Yep, LUFS is no where near perfectly adjusted to human hearing. At least not to my hearing.
So the FOCUS is a tool to remove reverb from vocals? BTW: There is still a lot of mastering going on for non-streaming platforms, such as for DJ sets etc.
For club music it is essential to reach -6dB RMS which is the standard limiter, a very dynamic volume produces pumping. This plugin is great for electronic and pop music. I can easily compare it with Bettermaker Limiter.
Do u have bettermaker Limiter to make this comparison for real? because if so, then this plugin is amazing!
I would like dynamics and fidelity to be prioritised but I also think something like this is amazing for bringing out the Lower details from brining up the RMS so that when it is normalised it still remains loud, I think that because it gives you the option to make it crazy loud without distortion it’s up to the mastering engineer to decide how much is too much, instead of designing the whole mix and master to be centred around getting it crazy loud you can focus more on the tonality and dynamics and use this to get it to a competitive level.
I just wish today's artists would spend more time creating better music instead of constantly trying to make their mixes louder. Loudness won't cover up a shitty song.
Joe yep... i just listen to Rush on vinyl, and then remember what it was like to listen to REAL journeymen musicians....
it will since your ear drums wont be a thing
It's so true. I like older music from the 70, 80, 90, some others too. I have to lower my volume at times, because I don't want to disturb the neighbors. I just moved out of a place where a neighbor plaid their music at 5:00 am until 12:00 midnight. So this loudness is not good for anyone trying to rest at all.
I think this one can be interesting for creative processing on individual tracks.
"WHY are we still doing THIS" - one the few simple questions that when asked honestly and answered correctly, can truly help to make the world a better place :)
Good work, as usual, my friend!!!
PS - in this context, "better world", I think, would be roughly equivalent to the choice of "more dynamic range in musical recordings". CHEERS!
I'd personally use this as a production tool instead of a mastering tool. I think it would do a great job of glueing and fattening up a drum mix or bringing out characteristics in individual samples or instruments.
"...just make energetic music..." best quote
It's a psychoacoustics thing. Once things are loud, return to dynamic content at lower volume is difficult to accept by the (damaged) hearing/brain. I hear you btw, i hate loudness. Unfortunately, there's still a lot of loud stuff being made. It's sometimes sad ... when I have to delete airplay submitted tracks to preserve the quality of our show/podcast. Some pretty big music talents have gone wasted due to their bad mastering results. I will not mention any names ;-) Thanks for this video, well done! greetings, Cyril.
Hi,
Is it possible to have a look at AUMultibandCompressor? I really like the Analog setting and I’d like to know if it could reproduced using other plugins.
Cheers
I was wondering why it had to be shown /played as a booster of volume. If you were to use a makeup increase decrease to bring the output db level the same then we could really tell what it is doing to the final output volume. T he volume boos you shown was just way louder than a regular boost, like say "Boost 11", sounds pretty good though
I live tracked my friend's grindcore/death metal band, and the music definitely benefited from obnoxious limiting on the master bus. I used Airwindows NC-17 on it. I wouldn't do it for music with a lot of intricate parts, but sometimes it's cool if you want a wall of sound.
song's name? nice song
To answer your question: I make my stuff louder to make it easier to listen to in a car or in other situations with background noise and / or quiet listening situations
Do you not have a volume control on your playback device?
@@maqimusic not to make it easier listen to for me personally ofc lol
How about boosting loudness for artistic reasons, like for extremely aggressive music, or boosting loudness on busses or tracks for taste? Think Doom soundtrack by Mick Gordon. That's a good type of thing to use it on. Also aggressice EDM stuff.
For mastering I agree with you 100% though. Dynamics = more punch, more kick, more slam, more energy.
He mentioned that tho. In some styles, it's a desired aesthetic.
does it realy sound better though? I doubt it
@@Jaburu it doesn't matter really, it fits the message being conveyed. Asking if it sounds good is like asking if black metal production "sounds good tho", or if dadaism "looks good". The point of them is to not sound good by these standards.
@@iurigrang the thing is that producing in those genres forces you to match existing music. a more dynamic track wont fit into a DJ session with other crushed ones. now my problem is with calling this "artistic reasons".
@@Jaburu these styles are not made to be in DJ sessions. If they are, they will already pop out because of everything else, not because of compression.
When are you going to check out Unisum compressor from Tone Projects?
Its pretty good sounding. Maybe Im just not thinking right...What is the difference between this and parallel limiting? I think I can pretty much replicate what this is doing with tools I have already.
I'm boosting the loudness because I heard one of my tracks in a spotify playlist once (mastered to -12db LUFS) and it sounded so much quieter and weaker than all the other tracks.
It isn't hard for me to push most of my tracks to -8 or even -6 during the chorus due to the way I mix, so that's what I do.
Exactly the same experience I had.
I think the place for this is a file that was exported really low or too low and then the original project files were lost so it could not be edited.
I see for myself the use of this is for old songs I have as a WAV but no longer have the project files.
I agree that if the only place you are presenting your music is streaming platforms, loudness doesn’t matter, however if you DJ (or would like other DJs to play your music) loudness in line with other songs of a similar genre does matter. I DJ drum & bass which you often see tracks around -6 to -4 LUFS and if your track is a lot quieter than that it can be an issue when performing live. Of course there are trim knobs to compensate gain variation between tracks, however if you bring your much quieter and more dynamic song up to reach the same loudness of a track that’s -6 LUFS, there’s a good chance your signal will be clipping on that track because your peaks will be louder than the song that was mastered to that loudness level in the first place. Best case scenario the clipping just sounds terrible, worst case you end up blowing out a speaker. I’m not saying I agree with the way things are and would honestly prefer if everyone would just master to a more reasonable loudness, but that’s the way things are so we’ll have to live with it.
Or, DJs could leave enough headroom on their mixer for lower LUFS tracks, say -8, that way when you bring the -8 track up it's going to sound better on a club system than the smashed tracks, because the dynamics will make the rhythm more defined (dnb is all rhythm).
From there on, the club engineer handles the system's spl levels.
Also, producers who are not looking to smash their tracks, could do some transparent trimming of peaks (whichever method works), so that if DJs do smash the levels, it will have a bit more room before it get's wrecked.
Hmm...interesting! How about when you record on ribbon mics with a weak preamp? This seems like a good way to boost the signal to workable levels...?
Im mastering club tracks to be as loud as the other music i play so when i cue them in they will not sound out of olace
wait what. ursa dsp is still around ?
ah lol it seems companies in this space run out of names. i thought its the old URS plugin company which got lost in the 32bit to 64 bit transition xD
Looks interesting. But as you have said, loudness is not everything.... What do you think about the ToneBOOSTERs Plugins? Eq4 and Barracuda. Are they worth bthe money? What is the quality compared to fabfilter?
i make the song loud so that when i turn it down then the streaming services turn it up , i actually hear what people will be hearing and it can compete
The Orban Optimod is not only built to increase loudness but mainly to harmonize the sound of different decades
I think the concept of loudness can be very useful at a time when many artists have experimented with different structures in their music. I think this type of plugin is a good way to go when we think about "mastering" sections instead of simply applying this effect at the end of our master chain.
this can be dope for bass or vocal note consistency, or any consistency issue, also bringing out details etc. also, some genres require you to be loud, for these, tools like boost can really help. would have been interesting to have a levelmatched comparison of before and after. if it makes things sound better while reducing peak to loudness ratio, its a win-win and might help avoid the necessity to smash your mix at the mastering stage
Do we actually need another loudness maximizer??????...........I agree it's a good sounding plug. I think the idea of getting density within a mix(before the final mix and mastering) is a good thing. David from MixBuss TV really opened my eyes to this. Used tastefully it could be very useful tool during mixing........but again, how many of these LOUDNESS tools do we already have??
As always a very fair review ;:-)
I used L2 Ultramaximizer on our Tucana - Legacy album when I mastered it. Threshold was at 0 and Out ceiling at -0.5 and Release at 0.1. I didn't smash it at all with the L2. It's pretty loud anyway but there are a lot of dynamics in some of the songs. Wounded Heart starts with som really quiet orchestra and builds up until the rest comes in and tears your head off. You can find it on UA-cam and Spotify.
Yeah! Would be nice to hear more of what this plugin does on settings between 0 and 100%
Sounds good actually, I'm 'mastering' some tracks for sound system use, heavy 'afro-techno' - to be distributed on USB stick. It's important to be pretty loud, without being 'limited to death' - maybe this plugin could be useful?
I want to be loud enough to be mixable with others from the genre. but i never really understood how i get a -6 mixdown to the loudness i wanted.
when I'm listening to music..it's at a level that suits me in that moment..so if a song comes in superlouder than the rest, what happens? I turn it down of course....it's annoying......
I've often had to give clients a separate file that's the louder mix/master they asked for. With it I explain (more accurately STRESS) to them that the loud mix is SOLELY for them to crank up in their car because they insisted and I didn't want them to get the impression that I was declining to do so because I was incapable in some way.
Then I give them the ready-to-release file(s) and explain to them what will happen if they submit the wrong file for streaming and why it's better to have people hearing the version that was made specifically to be played at the level its going to stream at anyway.
Why make it louder ? Because I CAN (!!!) 🙂 - I also see this plugin helping with increasing density besides the many other uses pointed out in the comments. Anyway, I will mess around with this for a while but first look, touch and feel of this was amazing. We shall soon find out where this stands and if it will bake, make our mixes.
Hi, like your videos very much, i make my tracks loud, cause the major platforms change them on their level, but when i play them in the club as a dj, or listen at home, at my mobile phone etc. i want to have them loud. When i say loud, loud means not flat, but sometimes a bit louder as spotify etc. would desire.
I try to build dynamics in the music I make without any plugins and only use loudness is for focus. We have volume knobs... use em.
I still have both types of clients, those who still want extremely compressed and limited masters and those who like dynamic music. I myself prefer dynamic music, I'm a child of the 80s. 20+ dB of dynamic range is still something, I love and feel as totally normal - but I also have the equipment for music like this. Speakers that could deliver +20 dB Peaks on a 70-85 dB base level and that is not the usual case these days with in ears and small speakers where flat mixes and masters translate much better. You're totally right with what you said about loudness in general but if a clients wants a certain sound, I also see no reason why not to deliver.
When I see multiple uploads of a certain song from different channels in UA-cam, I still notice some very subtle differences in the sound, even with them being normalised to fit -14 LUFs. One example is a track called Aeries by Synthe. Sometimes, the mix of a song is done in a certain way that no matter how hard a track is mastered, it may be very hard to notice how loud it is with normalisation.
I think there are just new plug ins which combine different functions. This thing has a limiter with an compressor built in (sounds weird because both are compressors) the focus button is more an release button. Correct me I’m wrong. The annoying part of it is just that u don’t have to understand the theory behind a compressor or an equalizer or what ever. U press one button and the track will go from 0-100%. Of course it’s sound great, but is this the way we should go threw?
Sorry if I’m describing it in a misleading way.
i think somthng like this can still be used in mixing or production stages
Thanks for a review! I think it can be used as a leveler for a single tracks
To ask the question, I think that "loudness" sells, today it is more a question of marketing, at a professional level, looking for a correct balance, overmaximizing always ruins the songs, of course depending on the sound material and this plugin can be very useful in mastering but not at exaggerated levels, it is more useful in the mix, removing the "punch" has the "drive" mode that acts differently and in the voices for example with a bit of that process it brings the voices forward without the need to equalize add exciters of harmonics etc etc etc... Also that of the SSL vocal strip that combined facilitates the correct placement of the voices that in general is the most complex. Now I think that the compression of the platforms is a separate issue, if I am going to buy an "album" I want it to be heard in good quality and that is what I will always look for in mixing and mastering, and in fact there are some like the by Billie Eilish that are not one of my favorites that maintain a balance and dynamism and that if the platforms ruin it to a greater or lesser extent it is the problem of the developers and the people who do not complain about better quality. It's a shame how spotify, for example, being a platform dedicated to music, has those resolutions. And if my productions sound bad in acceptable resolutions, it will be worse on the platforms. And it's nice to have those two options in one plugin for clients who prefer "loudnes" to "quality" and that I don't have to go through a lot of processes to get the result that some want.🤗
I was pretty like after a while "this is alright"... but then the way to remove too much reverb then it's quite good and may be useful.
As my grandpa used to say "Every style of music is good if it's loud" :D Jokes aside I do use a limiter on my master bus but I set it so it only limits the absolute peaks, most of the time it's 0 gain reduction and here and there it goes to -2 dB gain reduction. I do metal and rock and I have to say that loudness definetly doesn't help the sound one bit. Overcompressed metal music or where there is too much limitng going on sounds like crap to me. When everything is loud, nothing is loud. When everything is in your face, nothing is in your face. Or something like that :D
The typical listener doesn't know why a pop song sounds the way it does. They just know if your song sounds like a pop song or not. The typical pop song is LOUD. So if that's the genre you're going for, you're going to have to be creative about the way you use loudness. I personally think the Billie Eilish team did a good job of this.
Yeah their stuff is not very loud. It’s also very lofi. Just sounds like good bedroom recordings that has been mastered by someone respectful!
Did you do Scheps Omni channel from Waves already? Greetz
Some people have pre-amps, amps, and tube amps these days. All they need is a clean defined 24-bit signal that's dynamic with good separation that's in phase. On the other hand, the average person just wants to listen to music on a $25 mp3 player with $9 headphones.
I use it before my limiter and adjust how much I want with the wet dry. I use if more as an effect than an actual limiter.
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So many plugins aspire to play a role in the 'end game' while they often are best suited on one buss. This plugin for example, I can see this being used on a radio station or for narrating. It sounds good for what it is.
this thing is a good upward compressor?
Technically you might call it an upwards limiter. Revision B (released after this video) added a wet / dry for convenient parallel compression which also adds to the capabilities in that area.
My limiter goes from -0.1 limiting to -2,5 db limiting, just depends on what sounds the best, gain compensated. To dynamic can make it sound a bit cold and unvibey in comparison. I never worry about numbers in terms of loudness etc.
As a broadcast engineer we use compression with equipment such as the Orban Optimod to maintain legal levels.
In the early days of FM the louder sounding stations would grab listeners from competing stations more often by sounding powerful.
Something learned however is too much compression loses dynamics and causes listener fatigue.
It's a delicate balance to be powerful, within your allowed modulation and still have music people could listen to for hours.
Now fast forward. Most modern music are so over compressed that the waveform looks like a brick wall without any dynamics whatsoever. I play that in the air, which then runs through the optimod and you are pumping out nothing but listener fatigue.
I wish recording engineers would put the music back into music. Back to basics, please!
Perhaps the problem is much more for dialogue/sermons. I have a case where I'm having a sermon that needs to be "boosted" when the preacher goes low and then excited/etc. and to "play" with the volumes live is not that much fun, thus the need to have compressors/limiters in play but more so loudness boosting for those that listen on sub par speakers that complains about having to turn the volume full and still not hearing
I think we now know how to trick Wyste into reading the manual, just include it in the interface.
As to the plug-in description, 'warm' is harmonic distortion, so how can it have no harmonic distortion and yet be 'warm'?
Lastly, crushed sounds are still useful no how loud or quiet the master ends up.
Limiters often add brighter sounding odd order harmonics to keep the waveform shape balanced, so avoiding all harmonics can sound warmer.
For up and coming producers etc. attaining comparable loudness is important when demoing, because you're sending stuff to record execs, managers, friends, peers and you need to compromise a little to have something that stands up to the next track on their playlist, as they're gonna be listening in between other stuff. Not saying you have to smash your mix though. There are plenty of tools for this, but from the demo, it sounds like it does a good job without having to settle for a gross clipping sound.
This tool shocked me it seems to not smash the record and I agree with you where this could play in well with radio stations especially underground radio stations to help them get a more professional quality.
So is this a limiter also, not just a maximizer? I heard demos and it makes everything flat in terms of dynamics if you push it too much.
i heard about a new technique where in mixing the melodies aka synths r being downsampled so they can heard properly as well as give space to vocals can tell please tell about this science or this is a snake oil !
It's alot easier to compare before/after, if you then (after rendering or whatever) match the loudness with something. That helps you hear what is being lost, as far as transients/peak signal. Of course, you know that already. Seems like it could have it's usage in mixing, more so than mastering.
i am a metal head but i prefer to keep it balance not to laud not to quite
if you ask me this plugin can be perfect for summer songs , epic sound and build ups maybe dubstep but it needs to be used more subtle
i mean if you have a song where you cant barely hear it then this can work out
I could see this being useful for film work if you wanted to impart a radio sound to something that is playing over a radio.
Finally I loved the song you used in the video...though it's called the same as all others.
The webpage had a line about using this in mixing to bring up details. Useful?