Wow, this is pure gold imho. After watching a lot of your videos, this one made me finally completly rethink my approach on mastering. Believe it or not, i was avoiding to use software clippers. This only because of some advise from someone i respect (who btw uses Lawry Golds for this purpose). Made me believe that clippers just give harshness to my masters. After applying your tier-list to the processing chain of a current mastering session, i was simply blown away by the fact that i can achieve the same loudness or even more with way less processing, and instantly more transparency. Not that my results before where bad, but many times it took me a lot of time just tweaking and finetuning the settings to achieve them. Also i found out that i was mainly fighting with phase issues. Probably because i used to highpass almost everything to achieve loudness. Of course as carefull as possible, but still i always had the feeling i compromise something. Also i was using sometimes 2 or even 3 limiters in a chain....wtf? Can not thank you enough for sharing your knowledge and experience! Carefully applying your recomendations to my workflow will probably save me countless hours of work in the future. Keep up the good stuff, Big respect!
Another no nonsense BEAST of a video Nicholas. I actually just pinned this in the comments of my recent video on why Loudness Trumps Everything (psychoacoustics of loudness). Big points on this one that should stand out to people are 1) Not being afraid to hand edit your stray peaks in RX - too many people are lazy and leave it all to the limiter, 2) Testing things for yourself vs just taking the opinions of others as truth. In terms of anything missing, I think you really thoroughly covered things. One topic I'd like to see is talking about hard vs soft clipping vs saturation and saturation in mid-side (especially for a master). The transfer functions are all different. I like the approach of hard clipping micro-transients that you don't miss, and then adding more audible soft-clipping (with a tiny little knee) to shave some peak level off the real transients (IE more than a couple of samples, more like 25 ms of the signal) and to add harmonic density to them. I really like the HG2MS for saturation on the master in mid-side so you can saturate the mid of the signal a bit more, while backing off saturation on the more delicate reverbs and decays that sit in the sides. Awesome video! More like this please.
That is the reason I didn t agree with stacking clippers, if you clip once with hard clipping and then you do soft clipping it s definitely helping you for the master in my opinion, of course if you stack hard clipping that s useless.
Waveshaping - like Sonnox Inflator. It's also known a "maximizing". Combined with clipping, downward compression and limiting you can make mixes "stupid loud" 😉
+1 for Inflator. It definitely has a sound and you have to SLAM it for it to work so it isn't subtle, but in certain situations it just adds magic. Have used it in parallel a couple of times as well to get the sound without the loudness.
Great video! I would take stacking limiters out of the trash can and put that into the Be Careful category. If done in a way that makes sense it will work.
You nailed all those points. I use saturation on most individual tracks and busses in the mix, some clipping on things in the mix too, with 500 series tape emulators on the master providing some peak taming too. That leaves the mix in a good place crest factor wise. For my mastering steps I use a bit of Oxford inflator, 2db or so clipping with standard clip and 1db with Pro L2 and that gets me competitive level wise pretty transparently. Keeping clipping to 2-2.5 db or so and limiting to 1-1.5db or so will get good results and keep the mix intact.
Love this bro!! I’d definitely argue saturation to be pro level if not god tier. I’d also have harmonic excitement in pro tier, which we can argue is saturation 👊🏽
Arrangement. Automation used to bring out a lot of contrast between different sections of the song. So, whilst the average loudness of the song stays the same, the choruses or other sections designed to "shine", shine even more being louder.
Agree on everything but the stacking limiters. Having different limiters, each with different release settings can actually help shaping the envelope and sound cleaner and punchier than applying the same amount of gain reduction within a single instance. Plugins like Ozone and Pro-L2 have respectively Transient Recovery and Clipping that makes them more than just limiters. I'd have put it in the good result, and probably would have made a distinction about stacking limiters and using multiple limiters alternated with transient shaping and clipping. It especially makes a difference in fast-paced genres that have more transients to deal with constantly. I would also have mentioned exciters, upward compression, transient shaping/dynamic expansion into clipping. With that being said, mixing into a limiter is probably the best way to craft a mix that will be easier to master.
I just mastered a tune to play in a set I have coming up, which requires a really loud master (lol). So to do that, I used Pulsar's 495 emulation for Broad band EQing, and then I had a Pro Q 3 just taking some of the fluff out of the Kick area (which was causing distortion). Then I had a Clipper into an instance of Ableton's Glue Compressor into Pro L 2 and into Ozone Maximizer. I did use Pro MB at the start of the chain as well just to sort out the low end. Everything is doing a little bit at a time and it works. Two of my reference tracks were at about -5.4 LUFS and I managed to get it in the same ballpark.
stacking limiters that have two different characters or program dependencies will have a different sound, on a good number of track I love to use the vintage limiter going into the maximiser, the vintage limiter with the ceiling and threshold at the same point, linked, and then brought down until it just touches the loudest peaks. going into the maximiser with soft clipping on low and up to about 20% sounds great, the vintage limiter can sound "transparent" in the way that it doesn't sound like it's doing a lot but is actually giving about 2-3db of extra headroom on the conservative side means you can get very loud without any audible distortion.
One thing I want to note is when he's talking about stacking clippers he is referring to standard full band clippers. Spectral clippers actually would need a full band soft clipper clipper if you need to flatten out audio. This is because sometimes aggressively flattening out audio with a full band clipper(even if a softclipper) results in a harsh and noisy top end(due to inter-modulation distortion). Although the spectral clipper itself can't flatten audio, it can prepare the audio before going into a full band clipper.
I agree with most of what you said, except manual limiting … i did this 20 years ago when proper limiters weren’t around or affordable. But if you have several short high peaks you can just use one instance of Pro L2 to bring them down properly instead of the hustle to bring them down manually. It‘s time saving and sounds the same 😊
For parallel compression i really love using the fab pro c 2 and ill use the side chain eq to focus more on the mids or some highs depending on the song... and ill mess with the ratios attack release and releases to really make it pop a lot more but this can also mess it up and create tons of pump. Thats where i mess w the ratio
Just to clarify: by clipping into a limiter, do you mean first clipping off the peaks with a clipper and then applying limiting? Clipping "into" the limiter could technically be interpreted as clipping the fader (going over zero db) and then limiting, which is essentially just pushing the limiter harder.
Thank you !! So I understood that stacking clippers is useless. But is it useful to clip the kick and snares into individual tracks and then clip the master? Is it dangerous?
For something like manual limiting, what would be the difference between going into RX and manually editing the peaks compared to using a limiter that catches only those peaks with a fast attack and release?
There is an art to stacking limiters. If you use different limiters with different settings all doing no more than -1db reduction, you can really control things and get God Tier results, especially with mutliband limiting options like Limitless and Elevate.
If you need to stack limiters in the first place, to hit a requested loudness level, it's a band-aid for a less than ideal mix. When all you have is the mix and you can't get a revision, tastefully, super precise stacking of limiters can get you there without distortion- as long as you known what you're doing. Exploiting the advanced parameters of Limitless and Elevate you can very transparently increase loudness, but it can be dangerous if in the wrong hands, granted. Manual limiting FTW btw.
Nobody ever mentions waveshapers in stuff like this, definitely a pro level tool imo (although technically just distortion the versatility is what makes it so useful!) you can so easily get another db or two from your masters in the most transparent way with a gentle curve.
Try mid side limitng into a normal limiter. Based on some old streaky video i can recommend faraday limiter in mid side into l2 in stereo mode. It does sound cleaner, especially if you need to limit alot.
Apparently you've never heard a modern Drum & Bass track, because stacking limiters does make a difference. Not a huge one, but using two limiters with different programs in series can actually make your tune a little louder
Stacking clippers, that sounds more of a mixing tool really. I can clip every channel tastefully, then group channels by type of sound (drums etc) then clip that group. Then, I can group the groups together and clip that. It always sounds so awesome and soo transparent. Luv it
The only caviat would be using a clipper in-between earlier stages in the mastering chain. I've been toying around with having three or four clippers. One at the start before inflator, one between eq and compression if necessary, one before the limiter and one right at the end to act as a ceiling instead of using the true peak feature on ozone. I'm using soft clip pro on StandardCLIP for all but the very last one. It's pushed me to -6 lufs without noticeable distortion and seems work pretty well. None of them are doing more than 2 dB. I'm not sure if it's the most efficient way of doing it, but I've been liking the results.
Stacking clippers, especially if you are hard clipping, is probably the same as doing 1 round of clipping. With stacking limiters tho, isn't that a good way of creating less pumping?
So l see for Pro level you put Clipping and clipping into the limiter, are you clipping first and then by the end of the chain you add another clipper into your final limiter? Or are you doing all your process first and for the finale you clip into the limiter, raising to your desireable lufs? And one more question, Do you have any video on what is a good True peak and how we should deliver to spotify for the truest audio quality? l usually like my masters to hit -9/10 LUFS.
It depends; I tend to clip upfront if there are a lot of offshoot peaks that need taming; I tend to clip just before the limiter; if the limiter is pumping and working too hard on its own; As for what is a good true peak; anything below 0 is perfect; it's important to audition your masters with an AAC codec to hear how the encoding to a lower bitrate will effect the highest sample points / any subsequent distortion; Delivering for spotify; LUFS, whatever sounds good; ;)
I am not sure if its my me, my ears or my headphones (Sony MDR-7506) or UA-cam's processing or something else, but I can almost never hear the these plugins work. e.g. this video I could barely hear the differences between any of them. The saturation plugin was slightly noticeable. 🤷♂
missing manual volume automation (mix or master, doesn't matter); for sure it is better to resolve within a mix but too often is made purely in the mix which causes unnecesary loudness/density
Hi thanks for your video, not much to add. I guess on the clipper stacking thing, one of the usefull tricks is a clipper early in the chain just catching peaks that triggered comp or dyn Eq etc. Then do your stuff and it’s similar to manually remove peaks as far as I ve understood what you described. I cross fingers this comment makes some sense and is usefull. Best
@@panorama_mastering sometimes I use a clipper at the very beginning and at the end before an eventual final limiter or directly clip the ad when I m otb. My go to is the tdr limit 6 clip module or the alpha comp plugin clipp module .
Loved this! Just wondering, were you talking about stereo imaging by frequency range, or as a whole? I use range imaging on every project it feels like lol
interested to know where you'd rank multiband distortion (eg ff saturn with oversampling + linear phase), and also de-essing/dynamic eq (i particularly often hear about mastering de-essers, and i was wondering if that would have been handy in your example where you boosted 3db in the highs and brought out the shaker maybe a bit too much, event though you sorted it later with the pro-mb... suppose i need to go watch the dynamic eq vs multiband video)
Good point. De essing is huge with a lot of mastering engineers- those masselec HF limiter units are very popular. The HF compressor on the Fusion is popular as well. Good question
Multi-band distortion is a tool I use sparingly; And I'd rank on Be Careful to Good results; can't rely on it to get loud masters; but it will help shape the master along the way; As for dynamic EQ; the dynamic EQ vs multiband video will give you an insanely comprehensive look at both those tools and use cases;
@@panorama_mastering that's interesting, i've been a firm believer in multiband saturation ever since doing my own diy masters back in ozone 4 - it can really help bring out lower level details so they're intelligable at lower volume levels (and tbh it's probably helping with things i could be doing better in my mixes) - i generally use it to do a similar job to the parrallel multiband compression... but it does take some careful setting up, it's really easy to overdo
Sweet video as always my friend. I havent watched all your videos i think. However i was thinking that i have never seen you showcase Dmg plugins. Would love to see your take on Multiplicity for example. Its an amazing multiband dynamics tool. As to your question , i would put eq+knowing how to use an eq to Pro Level. Sometimes you might be tired and having overmixed something and using an eq you can completely shift the balance and transform a track in very few moves without killin&messing up all dynamics, often giving you a fresh perspective, which results in much better masters or drives you to revisit the mix more specifically which again results in a much better master. I call Eq the „Perspective forming tool“ :-)
@@panorama_mastering ps2: regarding your manual limiting (though i would describe it as „non realtime gain riding editing“ ) , A long while back i discovered a tool that i use exactly for these rogue peaks . It saves you tons of time. Once you get faniliar with the plugin its a breeze to set. Its called Drum Leveler by Sound Radix. It pushes the peak down without compressing it (or better said without the „compressor sound“, it is compression in a way i guess) but more like a ultra fast manual volume leveling meaning it is almost perfectly transparent
Ooo yes, the mix (although that's a bit of a cop out 🙃) Used to struggle to get something like -10lufs without pumping and flattening everything into a weak sounding blob of noise, now -8 sounds near transparent without even trying. It's all in the bus processing, after some careful choice of sounds that fit together, combined with not giving a shit about what x famous mixer once said you have to do, just do whatever sounds right in the moment. Definitely not a mastering guy, but we're forced to learn all sorts of stuff these days just for a cheap demo, so... I gotta do it.
Good technique for setting up processors; but those processors have to keep the phase coherency between the mid and side channels when it re-encodes back to L-R!
Subscribed! I wish I see here some Sonnox Oxford plugin tests because I just want to buy the Oxford Limiter. If you can do that, I'm here for the rest of my life. 😅
These days I always add about 0.3db hard clipping at the end of the chain. I feel like no matter what I’ve done previous in the chain that last little bump of the kick hitting the hard ceiling always makes the master feel loud even if the rms is lower
@@panorama_mastering mainly hip hop/electronic. I guess it probably requires hard transients and lots of high end in order to be transparent enough. Big fan of the channel btw!
I saw God Tier coming, you can't get something loud without ruining it if you haven't used all of the other processes in the mix. Personally I don't find I use limiters any more, maybe just something with character or grit because then I can justify it. Otherwise it's like distortion for loudness which I don't care about (I've got a volume knob for loudness). I agree with you on cutting the lows, I've never even noticed extra headroom from doing it. On the contrary, the signals peak level with often increase slightly (with autogain off). Do you know why this happens? Could some kind of change in phase have this effect?
thank you (again) for great content and the time you put into checking everything read online as there is much bullshit told and people just repeating what they heard.. So real thank you and props for your professionalism and not taking bullishit. This being said i personally came up with a more nuanced conclusion when it comes to stacking limiters. For me stacking THE SAME limiter had no audible results BUT i recently started to play around and balancing things between Pro-L2, Elevate and Smart Limit and i came to interesting improvements. Mostly because they all have some peculiar features: L2 and the way it balances between clipping and limiting, Elevate and this "band dependent" or "adaptative" aspect and also how you can at the same time "push" transients while limiting and lastly with smart limiter (i guess you'd love its auto and delta features) and how you can also gently balance the spectral response and the character (soft to hard) of the clipper. It's a not always straightforward process and there's some trial and error but it allowed me for example to push some punch with elevate(avoid some "mushiness limiters can induce afterwards), while gently taming excessive lows and adding some "density" with "between soft and hard" clip on the smart limiter and then getting the last bits in pro-L2... maybe i'm crazy, maybe i'm biased (never did a real scientific test) but my ears were pretty pleased with the results (while keeping the gain compensation "on" on all the units to not be tricked by loudness changes until the last moment when lifting it on the last limiter before printing).. Would be really curious to hear your thoughts on this :) And thanks again for all your passion, dedication and all the time spent sharing all this content !
I agree with all of these ratings. if you start with a great mix, perhaps one that utilized clipping on busses for individual instruments or groups, then a master is easier, and with the addition of just these 4-5 steps, anyone can make a great master. With an overly dynamic mix, or one that is way too heavy in the low end....good luck.
What if limiters just happen to stack up and between limiters there's different processing? Or what about using one limiters to catch weird peaks and another one for tone with more precise pumping/ bouncyness?
It depends on what kind of loudness we're going for... Is it literal loudness that meters can read? Then clipping into limiters and all that is the way.... But if it's making a track SOUND louder without the meters picking it up (and therefore not getting penalized on Spotify) then EQ / Tonal balance is the way... in which case i'd put EQ on Pro Level or God Tier Saturation prob gets bumped up a tier in this scenario too
LUFS uses two stage K-weighting filters to compensate for any tonal or EQ adjustments; so both EQ and saturation will change the overall read loudness;
Nice! Thanks for sharing! please always repost the original comment whenever UA-cam deletes; I leave all comments up, good bad and ugly! This isn't the first time YT has deleted your comments automatically; and I don't know why :(
@@panorama_mastering They did it again, I wrote you a reply telling you no worries, I figured it was YT and not you. Wild stuff. No clue why they're doing that... but thanks for telling me you've seen it happen before.
Good stuff! I have a question about that horisontal line i the RX audio editor. How do you get that to show up and how do you define the “threshold” at which it displays. It’s such a helpful way of seeing which samples shoots over. Thank you in advance!
Thanks for watching; No worries in the bottom toolbar there are three boxes denoting hori, vert and box highlighting; I define the threshold using the "declip" function; as it visually places a line in the waveform!
i disagree with your premise of using two hard clippers in series. I think a more common approach would be soft clipping for warmth and body followed by hard clipping for peaks and loudness.
As alwalys very interesting info ! I have a question with stereo imager, sometimes a feel that i can revover a little bit of the punch of the kick and bass if i put a dynamic EQ after the imager. I know there are "no rules" but i want to know your opinion about it. On the other hand i'll put saturation on the pro level :) Thanks a lot for your content !
Thanks for watching mate! Nothing wrong with that if it works; my aim in this tier-list was to rank by way of most effective; I grade most effective by what allows us to improve loudness with the least impact on the audio fidelity/integrity from the original mix;
I got clipping into a limiter stacked as my god tier. But then again I have never been able to replicate Skrillex loudness cleanly. So I dont know shit.
The best trick is actually not trying to be LOUD no matter the cost. Apart from that: - CLEANING. Unmasking between colliding FQ tracks (if you can go back to the mix process). - Intelligent FQ control on master bus: Soothe 2, Gullfoss, and Izotope Ozone's LOW END FOCUS module (This last one is key! Most engineer's [not so] secret weapon! - Use M/S processing on your master bus plugins as much as you can! - Tape emulation for soft saturation and ear-pleasing & natural-sounding peak shaving. Now hit your multiband dynamics + clipping + limiting and see the magic happen!!
@@panorama_mastering ua-cam.com/video/dD6_Bajj2DI/v-deo.html&ab_channel=DanWorrall I think that he mean to turn on mid side mode in saturation/distortion plugins on master
It's trash for loud masters because it doesn't work. Try it yourself and watch the meters while you do it. At best, on Linear Phase mode, the HP will not significantly change peak level (at least not until you sweep up way beyond the bass area). At worst, it actually makes the audio peak louder. It's the worst tip from UA-cam fake producers. You can even watch the meters in their own videos and see that the technique is not doing what they're telling you it does. It caught on because it seems logical -- surely, less signal means less level, right? -- but it's a misunderstanding of how audio works.
@@joechapman8208 ok thanks ! I see ! And when high pass a synth or a lead sound, like around 100-200 hz, does it do the same as a bass cut on master about peak level ? Like should we never cut with eq on anything ?
@@Boaugustin If you high-pass an individual element, such as a synth, then you're only affecting that instrument. This is different to high-passing the master, assuming that other elements in the song go deeper than that synth. I'm not saying you shouldn't cut the lows. Absolutely, do it for the purpose of removing any bass information that you don't want to be there, but just don't do it thinking that you're making anything louder. You should be aware of the effect on phase (unless in Linear Phase mode), too, and remember that Low Shelf filters have less of an effect on phase and can be preferable. Again, I'm not saying you should never high-pass with a Zero Latency filter, either! Everything has its uses, but remember that you should re-examine the phase relationship after you do something that you know will change it. Another thing people will swear is true is that you need to clean the bass of everything that's not a kick drum or a bass instrument, and that by doing so you will be able to get your kick and bass louder. This also does not stand up to scrutiny. Yes, loud bass signals at the same frequency as others will cause a build-up, but quiet signals do not simply add on to whatever level your bass synth or bass guitar is producing. The definite bass signals will nuke quiet ones. Owen Palmer has a great video about this where he likens this fear to cancelling the takeoff of a plane until you've cleaned a leaf from the runway; in reality, the plane will rip through the leaf, and it's a similar thing with low-energy bass signal. This severe approach to audio hygiene is a tough one to argue against, because, yes: if you follow this principle of "cleaning" then you do get a very pin-sharp result, but sometimes all you have to do is turn those HPs off and the mix sounds better. Sometimes the HPs are sucking the soul out of non-bass instruments and robbing the music of some nice interplay. The joy of music tech is that it's so easy to A/B and see which is better, but we deny ourselves that if we get hung up on a hard rule such as "HP all non-bass".
@@joechapman8208 haha i see, the comparison is quiet good ! Thanks for you’re answer ! I’m actually just trying to deconstruct everything I saw on the internet about cleaning everything, I was a bit fuck up about that, it’s not easy to accept the fact quiet low bass from synth vocal or perc can coexist with bass ! I have another question, when we saturate a signal, there something happened in the ultra low, next to 0hz, like if a sound is going in the other direction after -0hz, what’s going on there and should we cut this ? I’m not really sure about what is it
Can you confirm that stacking different limiters one after another, with gain reduction 3db each is the same thing if you add one limiter with 6db gain reduction? :)
damn dude I am a prof mixing engineer, trying to learn how to master. You really taught me something today with that pro3 !!(tonal balance tip) game changing.
Wow, this is pure gold imho. After watching a lot of your videos, this one made me finally completly rethink my approach on mastering. Believe it or not, i was avoiding to use software clippers. This only because of some advise from someone i respect (who btw uses Lawry Golds for this purpose). Made me believe that clippers just give harshness to my masters. After applying your tier-list to the processing chain of a current mastering session, i was simply blown away by the fact that i can achieve the same loudness or even more with way less processing, and instantly more transparency. Not that my results before where bad, but many times it took me a lot of time just tweaking and finetuning the settings to achieve them. Also i found out that i was mainly fighting with phase issues. Probably because i used to highpass almost everything to achieve loudness. Of course as carefull as possible, but still i always had the feeling i compromise something. Also i was using sometimes 2 or even 3 limiters in a chain....wtf? Can not thank you enough for sharing your knowledge and experience! Carefully applying your recomendations to my workflow will probably save me countless hours of work in the future. Keep up the good stuff, Big respect!
Sound selection and a solid mix is 90% of the battle every time.
Spot on!
How to make it solid?
@@aslan0697 You must not have experienced one before my condolences.
@@prodbyecee thats why I asked u :)
@@aslan0697 I don't know if you're trolling or you are taking my word solid as literal when I'm using it as a figure of speech!
how can you add new harmonics yet not change the tonal composition under the peak you're clipping?
Thanks, this info is super valuable!
Another no nonsense BEAST of a video Nicholas. I actually just pinned this in the comments of my recent video on why Loudness Trumps Everything (psychoacoustics of loudness). Big points on this one that should stand out to people are 1) Not being afraid to hand edit your stray peaks in RX - too many people are lazy and leave it all to the limiter, 2) Testing things for yourself vs just taking the opinions of others as truth.
In terms of anything missing, I think you really thoroughly covered things. One topic I'd like to see is talking about hard vs soft clipping vs saturation and saturation in mid-side (especially for a master). The transfer functions are all different. I like the approach of hard clipping micro-transients that you don't miss, and then adding more audible soft-clipping (with a tiny little knee) to shave some peak level off the real transients (IE more than a couple of samples, more like 25 ms of the signal) and to add harmonic density to them. I really like the HG2MS for saturation on the master in mid-side so you can saturate the mid of the signal a bit more, while backing off saturation on the more delicate reverbs and decays that sit in the sides.
Awesome video! More like this please.
Thanks man! That’s a fun topic to dive into!! Leave me to it!!
That is the reason I didn t agree with stacking clippers, if you clip once with hard clipping and then you do soft clipping it s definitely helping you for the master in my opinion, of course if you stack hard clipping that s useless.
One on the best channels on the youtubes
Thank you!!!
thats a fact
Waveshaping - like Sonnox Inflator. It's also known a "maximizing". Combined with clipping, downward compression and limiting you can make mixes "stupid loud" 😉
Nice, thanks for sharing!
+1 for Inflator. It definitely has a sound and you have to SLAM it for it to work so it isn't subtle, but in certain situations it just adds magic. Have used it in parallel a couple of times as well to get the sound without the loudness.
Clipping is waveshaping ;)
Great video! I would take stacking limiters out of the trash can and put that into the Be Careful category. If done in a way that makes sense it will work.
You nailed all those points. I use saturation on most individual tracks and busses in the mix, some clipping on things in the mix too, with 500 series tape emulators on the master providing some peak taming too. That leaves the mix in a good place crest factor wise. For my mastering steps I use a bit of Oxford inflator, 2db or so clipping with standard clip and 1db with Pro L2 and that gets me competitive level wise pretty transparently. Keeping clipping to 2-2.5 db or so and limiting to 1-1.5db or so will get good results and keep the mix intact.
Amazing :D Thanks for watching and sharing your process too!
Love this bro!!
I’d definitely argue saturation to be pro level if not god tier. I’d also have harmonic excitement in pro tier, which we can argue is saturation 👊🏽
Awesome! Thanks for watching!
The most complete video on the topic, best bang for your buck! 🏅
Arrangement. Automation used to bring out a lot of contrast between different sections of the song. So, whilst the average loudness of the song stays the same, the choruses or other sections designed to "shine", shine even more being louder.
Definitely!
Agree on everything but the stacking limiters. Having different limiters, each with different release settings can actually help shaping the envelope and sound cleaner and punchier than applying the same amount of gain reduction within a single instance.
Plugins like Ozone and Pro-L2 have respectively Transient Recovery and Clipping that makes them more than just limiters. I'd have put it in the good result, and probably would have made a distinction about stacking limiters and using multiple limiters alternated with transient shaping and clipping.
It especially makes a difference in fast-paced genres that have more transients to deal with constantly.
I would also have mentioned exciters, upward compression, transient shaping/dynamic expansion into clipping.
With that being said, mixing into a limiter is probably the best way to craft a mix that will be easier to master.
Ehi Marco!
Thanks for sharing these thoughts and watching :)
Your videos are unreal. Thank you!!!!
I just mastered a tune to play in a set I have coming up, which requires a really loud master (lol). So to do that, I used Pulsar's 495 emulation for Broad band EQing, and then I had a Pro Q 3 just taking some of the fluff out of the Kick area (which was causing distortion). Then I had a Clipper into an instance of Ableton's Glue Compressor into Pro L 2 and into Ozone Maximizer. I did use Pro MB at the start of the chain as well just to sort out the low end. Everything is doing a little bit at a time and it works. Two of my reference tracks were at about -5.4 LUFS and I managed to get it in the same ballpark.
stacking limiters that have two different characters or program dependencies will have a different sound, on a good number of track I love to use the vintage limiter going into the maximiser, the vintage limiter with the ceiling and threshold at the same point, linked, and then brought down until it just touches the loudest peaks. going into the maximiser with soft clipping on low and up to about 20% sounds great, the vintage limiter can sound "transparent" in the way that it doesn't sound like it's doing a lot but is actually giving about 2-3db of extra headroom on the conservative side means you can get very loud without any audible distortion.
One thing I want to note is when he's talking about stacking clippers he is referring to standard full band clippers. Spectral clippers actually would need a full band soft clipper clipper if you need to flatten out audio. This is because sometimes aggressively flattening out audio with a full band clipper(even if a softclipper) results in a harsh and noisy top end(due to inter-modulation distortion). Although the spectral clipper itself can't flatten audio, it can prepare the audio before going into a full band clipper.
I agree with most of what you said, except manual limiting … i did this 20 years ago when proper limiters weren’t around or affordable. But if you have several short high peaks you can just use one instance of Pro L2 to bring them down properly instead of the hustle to bring them down manually. It‘s time saving and sounds the same 😊
For parallel compression i really love using the fab pro c 2 and ill use the side chain eq to focus more on the mids or some highs depending on the song... and ill mess with the ratios attack release and releases to really make it pop a lot more but this can also mess it up and create tons of pump. Thats where i mess w the ratio
Nice! Thanks for sharing!
Forgot referencing “MetricAB” it’s a must for me.
Just to clarify: by clipping into a limiter, do you mean first clipping off the peaks with a clipper and then applying limiting?
Clipping "into" the limiter could technically be interpreted as clipping the fader (going over zero db) and then limiting, which is essentially just pushing the limiter harder.
Clarification CORRECT! Clipping the peaks off with a clipper; then applying a limiter! Thanks for asking! :)
Would you use wider on the master?
You hit it!
Hey man great video, do you have any favorites and why?
Everything in good results up!
Thank you !! So I understood that stacking clippers is useless. But is it useful to clip the kick and snares into individual tracks and then clip the master? Is it dangerous?
great video
Thank you!
For something like manual limiting, what would be the difference between going into RX and manually editing the peaks compared to using a limiter that catches only those peaks with a fast attack and release?
Correct!
Putting saturation in that level is just crazy. Great video btw. Good job!
Thanks mate!
Yea I reckon you're about spot on there. Nothing can beat a good mix.
There is an art to stacking limiters. If you use different limiters with different settings all doing no more than -1db reduction, you can really control things and get God Tier results, especially with mutliband limiting options like Limitless and Elevate.
Fair enough; and I understand that; IME the other methods mentioned have produced more consistent and favourable results in my sessions;
If you need to stack limiters in the first place, to hit a requested loudness level, it's a band-aid for a less than ideal mix. When all you have is the mix and you can't get a revision, tastefully, super precise stacking of limiters can get you there without distortion- as long as you known what you're doing. Exploiting the advanced parameters of Limitless and Elevate you can very transparently increase loudness, but it can be dangerous if in the wrong hands, granted. Manual limiting FTW btw.
What's that track? Sounds brilliant
Going Home - MorningMaxwell, Jade Alice
Nobody ever mentions waveshapers in stuff like this, definitely a pro level tool imo (although technically just distortion the versatility is what makes it so useful!) you can so easily get another db or two from your masters in the most transparent way with a gentle curve.
Try mid side limitng into a normal limiter. Based on some old streaky video i can recommend faraday limiter in mid side into l2 in stereo mode. It does sound cleaner, especially if you need to limit alot.
Do u typically only use one limiter then?
Apparently you've never heard a modern Drum & Bass track, because stacking limiters does make a difference. Not a huge one, but using two limiters with different programs in series can actually make your tune a little louder
How do you feel about limitless?
Like this is the 1000th time someone has mentioned it and I'm needing to do a video on it in the future!
This song is OUT ?
Stacking clippers, that sounds more of a mixing tool really. I can clip every channel tastefully, then group channels by type of sound (drums etc) then clip that group. Then, I can group the groups together and clip that. It always sounds so awesome and soo transparent. Luv it
I clipped your clippers clipper to clip the clip!
Thanks for watching! Just having some fun in the comments :)
@@panorama_mastering exactly!!
The only caviat would be using a clipper in-between earlier stages in the mastering chain. I've been toying around with having three or four clippers. One at the start before inflator, one between eq and compression if necessary, one before the limiter and one right at the end to act as a ceiling instead of using the true peak feature on ozone. I'm using soft clip pro on StandardCLIP for all but the very last one. It's pushed me to -6 lufs without noticeable distortion and seems work pretty well. None of them are doing more than 2 dB. I'm not sure if it's the most efficient way of doing it, but I've been liking the results.
what is the name of the songgg
What's the name of song that's playing ?
Going Home - MorningMaxwell
Underrated channel for sure
Thanks mate!
How do you clip into the limiter?
The very Luca Pretolesi would, ironically, teach you to reduce the lows in order to make loud masters : )
What is your opinion on dithering and oversampling in L2?
Stacking clippers, especially if you are hard clipping, is probably the same as doing 1 round of clipping. With stacking limiters tho, isn't that a good way of creating less pumping?
Just turn the bass down
So l see for Pro level you put Clipping and clipping into the limiter, are you clipping first and then by the end of the chain you add another clipper into your final limiter?
Or are you doing all your process first and for the finale you clip into the limiter, raising to your desireable lufs?
And one more question, Do you have any video on what is a good True peak and how we should deliver to spotify for the truest audio quality? l usually like my masters to hit -9/10 LUFS.
It depends; I tend to clip upfront if there are a lot of offshoot peaks that need taming;
I tend to clip just before the limiter; if the limiter is pumping and working too hard on its own;
As for what is a good true peak; anything below 0 is perfect; it's important to audition your masters with an AAC codec to hear how the encoding to a lower bitrate will effect the highest sample points / any subsequent distortion;
Delivering for spotify; LUFS, whatever sounds good; ;)
@@panorama_mastering Bet, thank you bro
I am not sure if its my me, my ears or my headphones (Sony MDR-7506) or UA-cam's processing or something else, but I can almost never hear the these plugins work. e.g. this video I could barely hear the differences between any of them. The saturation plugin was slightly noticeable. 🤷♂
missing manual volume automation (mix or master, doesn't matter); for sure it is better to resolve within a mix but too often is made purely in the mix which causes unnecesary loudness/density
Good suggestion!
ok so no more streaky method then to gain stage a couple of limiters?
Hi thanks for your video, not much to add.
I guess on the clipper stacking thing, one of the usefull tricks is a clipper early in the chain just catching peaks that triggered comp or dyn Eq etc.
Then do your stuff and it’s similar to manually remove peaks as far as I ve understood what you described.
I cross fingers this comment makes some sense and is usefull. Best
Spot on! You're right; I actually use the clipper earlier on in the chain too!
@@panorama_mastering sometimes I use a clipper at the very beginning and at the end before an eventual final limiter or directly clip the ad when I m otb. My go to is the tdr limit 6 clip module or the alpha comp plugin clipp module .
A thousand THANK YOU's for sharing this knowledge!!!!
My absolute pleasure; thanks for watching!
why is manual limiting pro? Isnt that exaclty what a limiter does, turns down random transients?
Loved this! Just wondering, were you talking about stereo imaging by frequency range, or as a whole? I use range imaging on every project it feels like lol
As a whole.
@@panorama_mastering Thanks for clarifying! xD
I love this channel!
interested to know where you'd rank multiband distortion (eg ff saturn with oversampling + linear phase), and also de-essing/dynamic eq (i particularly often hear about mastering de-essers, and i was wondering if that would have been handy in your example where you boosted 3db in the highs and brought out the shaker maybe a bit too much, event though you sorted it later with the pro-mb... suppose i need to go watch the dynamic eq vs multiband video)
Good point. De essing is huge with a lot of mastering engineers- those masselec HF limiter units are very popular. The HF compressor on the Fusion is popular as well. Good question
Multi-band distortion is a tool I use sparingly; And I'd rank on Be Careful to Good results; can't rely on it to get loud masters; but it will help shape the master along the way;
As for dynamic EQ; the dynamic EQ vs multiband video will give you an insanely comprehensive look at both those tools and use cases;
@@panorama_mastering if you havent, try Spectre by Wavesfactory. Its an very very good sounding „multiband saturator thingy“ :-)
@@panorama_mastering that's interesting, i've been a firm believer in multiband saturation ever since doing my own diy masters back in ozone 4 - it can really help bring out lower level details so they're intelligable at lower volume levels (and tbh it's probably helping with things i could be doing better in my mixes) - i generally use it to do a similar job to the parrallel multiband compression... but it does take some careful setting up, it's really easy to overdo
record to cassette and run back into focusrite with air on or rme.
That's god Tier.
Nice one!
dude when is that song gona come out that you've been showing examples on for the last two vids
Going Home - MorningMaxwell, Jade Alice!
@@panorama_mastering thank you!
Sweet video as always my friend. I havent watched all your videos i think. However i was thinking that i have never seen you showcase Dmg plugins. Would love to see your take on Multiplicity for example. Its an amazing multiband dynamics tool. As to your question , i would put eq+knowing how to use an eq to Pro Level.
Sometimes you might be tired and having overmixed something and using an eq you can completely shift the balance and transform a track in very few moves without killin&messing up all dynamics, often giving you a fresh perspective, which results in much better masters or drives you to revisit the mix more specifically which again results in a much better master. I call Eq the „Perspective forming tool“ :-)
Nice! Thanks for sharing; I've had so many people consistently hit DMG into the comments on my videos; I will need to jump on them in the future!
@@panorama_mastering Am curious to see what you will come up with. I enjoy your approach on things
@@panorama_mastering ps2: regarding your manual limiting (though i would describe it as „non realtime gain riding editing“ ) ,
A long while back i discovered a tool that i use exactly for these rogue peaks . It saves you tons of time.
Once you get faniliar with the plugin its a breeze to set. Its called Drum Leveler by Sound Radix.
It pushes the peak down without compressing it (or better said without the „compressor sound“, it is compression in a way i guess) but more like a ultra fast manual volume leveling meaning it is almost perfectly transparent
I cant argue with your tier list… good job sir. 😊👍
Thanks mate!
Ooo yes, the mix (although that's a bit of a cop out 🙃)
Used to struggle to get something like -10lufs without pumping and flattening everything into a weak sounding blob of noise, now -8 sounds near transparent without even trying. It's all in the bus processing, after some careful choice of sounds that fit together, combined with not giving a shit about what x famous mixer once said you have to do, just do whatever sounds right in the moment.
Definitely not a mastering guy, but we're forced to learn all sorts of stuff these days just for a cheap demo, so... I gotta do it.
A cop out and the truth!
What are your views on mid/side routing? Great video also?
Good technique for setting up processors; but those processors have to keep the phase coherency between the mid and side channels when it re-encodes back to L-R!
Okay thanks. Think I need to learn about the processors as I don’t know about that yet.
Subscribed! I wish I see here some Sonnox Oxford plugin tests because I just want to buy the Oxford Limiter. If you can do that, I'm here for the rest of my life. 😅
Bro
.
You the 🐐 nobody on the entire net explains this the way you just did!
Thanks man!
I’m surprised at the cut low end because almost everyone I’ve watched says that’s key
What's the Song ID in this video, has it been released? Very cool tune.
Going Home - MorningMaxwell, Jade Alice !
These days I always add about 0.3db hard clipping at the end of the chain. I feel like no matter what I’ve done previous in the chain that last little bump of the kick hitting the hard ceiling always makes the master feel loud even if the rms is lower
Interesting; what style of music are you producing?
@@panorama_mastering mainly hip hop/electronic. I guess it probably requires hard transients and lots of high end in order to be transparent enough. Big fan of the channel btw!
I saw God Tier coming, you can't get something loud without ruining it if you haven't used all of the other processes in the mix. Personally I don't find I use limiters any more, maybe just something with character or grit because then I can justify it. Otherwise it's like distortion for loudness which I don't care about (I've got a volume knob for loudness). I agree with you on cutting the lows, I've never even noticed extra headroom from doing it. On the contrary, the signals peak level with often increase slightly (with autogain off). Do you know why this happens? Could some kind of change in phase have this effect?
No sweat; here's the answer ;) ua-cam.com/video/ZtijR8bWzpc/v-deo.html
thank you (again) for great content and the time you put into checking everything read online as there is much bullshit told and people just repeating what they heard.. So real thank you and props for your professionalism and not taking bullishit.
This being said i personally came up with a more nuanced conclusion when it comes to stacking limiters.
For me stacking THE SAME limiter had no audible results BUT i recently started to play around and balancing things between Pro-L2, Elevate and Smart Limit and i came to interesting improvements. Mostly because they all have some peculiar features: L2 and the way it balances between clipping and limiting, Elevate and this "band dependent" or "adaptative" aspect and also how you can at the same time "push" transients while limiting and lastly with smart limiter (i guess you'd love its auto and delta features) and how you can also gently balance the spectral response and the character (soft to hard) of the clipper.
It's a not always straightforward process and there's some trial and error but it allowed me for example to push some punch with elevate(avoid some "mushiness limiters can induce afterwards), while gently taming excessive lows and adding some "density" with "between soft and hard" clip on the smart limiter and then getting the last bits in pro-L2...
maybe i'm crazy, maybe i'm biased (never did a real scientific test) but my ears were pretty pleased with the results (while keeping the gain compensation "on" on all the units to not be tricked by loudness changes until the last moment when lifting it on the last limiter before printing)..
Would be really curious to hear your thoughts on this :)
And thanks again for all your passion, dedication and all the time spent sharing all this content !
loved this one!
Thanks man! Much love!
I agree with all of these ratings. if you start with a great mix, perhaps one that utilized clipping on busses for individual instruments or groups, then a master is easier, and with the addition of just these 4-5 steps, anyone can make a great master. With an overly dynamic mix, or one that is way too heavy in the low end....good luck.
What if limiters just happen to stack up and between limiters there's different processing? Or what about using one limiters to catch weird peaks and another one for tone with more precise pumping/ bouncyness?
I love using Black Box for my saturation.
I love using the Black Box too!
I suspect the Dynamic Diamond Saturator might be based on the Black Box as Luca has the hardware in his Studio DMI.
It depends on what kind of loudness we're going for... Is it literal loudness that meters can read? Then clipping into limiters and all that is the way.... But if it's making a track SOUND louder without the meters picking it up (and therefore not getting penalized on Spotify) then EQ / Tonal balance is the way... in which case i'd put EQ on Pro Level or God Tier
Saturation prob gets bumped up a tier in this scenario too
LUFS uses two stage K-weighting filters to compensate for any tonal or EQ adjustments; so both EQ and saturation will change the overall read loudness;
I’d say even more important is a good song . Make good music and the work does itself
Spot on!
Can we get a wallpaper version of this please 🙏
What do you mean?
@@panorama_mastering The tier list itself, I want to print it as a chart as I master. Also, hello!!!
Saturate then limit the lows, clip the highs with a linear phase crossover. My other comment got deleted so I'll try again.
Nice! Thanks for sharing! please always repost the original comment whenever UA-cam deletes; I leave all comments up, good bad and ugly! This isn't the first time YT has deleted your comments automatically; and I don't know why :(
@@panorama_mastering They did it again, I wrote you a reply telling you no worries, I figured it was YT and not you. Wild stuff. No clue why they're doing that... but thanks for telling me you've seen it happen before.
im happy because this seems like an interesting tip
Good stuff!
I have a question about that horisontal line i the RX audio editor. How do you get that to show up and how do you define the “threshold” at which it displays. It’s such a helpful way of seeing which samples shoots over.
Thank you in advance!
Thanks for watching;
No worries in the bottom toolbar there are three boxes denoting hori, vert and box highlighting;
I define the threshold using the "declip" function; as it visually places a line in the waveform!
@@panorama_mastering Nice, thanks!
Great video!
i disagree with your premise of using two hard clippers in series. I think a more common approach would be soft clipping for warmth and body followed by hard clipping for peaks and loudness.
As alwalys very interesting info ! I have a question with stereo imager, sometimes a feel that i can revover a little bit of the punch of the kick and bass if i put a dynamic EQ after the imager. I know there are "no rules" but i want to know your opinion about it.
On the other hand i'll put saturation on the pro level :)
Thanks a lot for your content !
Thanks for watching mate!
Nothing wrong with that if it works; my aim in this tier-list was to rank by way of most effective; I grade most effective by what allows us to improve loudness with the least impact on the audio fidelity/integrity from the original mix;
I like this channel!
Thanks mate!
What about
fabfilterEQ>hardkneeclipper>maximizer>softkneeclipper>limiter
😈
I got clipping into a limiter stacked as my god tier. But then again I have never been able to replicate Skrillex loudness cleanly. So I dont know shit.
ha ! Why is that always considered the gold standard ;)
I agree in every case except one 😊
Which one!? I'm curious!
The best trick is actually not trying to be LOUD no matter the cost.
Apart from that:
- CLEANING. Unmasking between colliding FQ tracks (if you can go back to the mix process).
- Intelligent FQ control on master bus: Soothe 2, Gullfoss, and Izotope Ozone's LOW END FOCUS module (This last one is key! Most engineer's [not so] secret weapon!
- Use M/S processing on your master bus plugins as much as you can!
- Tape emulation for soft saturation and ear-pleasing & natural-sounding peak shaving.
Now hit your multiband dynamics + clipping + limiting and see the magic happen!!
Thanks for sharing!!
Why M/S processing as much as you can?
@@panorama_mastering fr, I need to know why too. Heavy M/S manipulation doesn't even sound right to me
@@panorama_mastering ua-cam.com/video/dD6_Bajj2DI/v-deo.html&ab_channel=DanWorrall I think that he mean to turn on mid side mode in saturation/distortion plugins on master
I need a raise to afford all these mastering plugins bruh
Why cut the low is it trash ?
The trade-off; especially when it's not necessery;
It's trash for loud masters because it doesn't work. Try it yourself and watch the meters while you do it. At best, on Linear Phase mode, the HP will not significantly change peak level (at least not until you sweep up way beyond the bass area). At worst, it actually makes the audio peak louder.
It's the worst tip from UA-cam fake producers. You can even watch the meters in their own videos and see that the technique is not doing what they're telling you it does. It caught on because it seems logical -- surely, less signal means less level, right? -- but it's a misunderstanding of how audio works.
@@joechapman8208 ok thanks ! I see !
And when high pass a synth or a lead sound, like around 100-200 hz, does it do the same as a bass cut on master about peak level ? Like should we never cut with eq on anything ?
@@Boaugustin If you high-pass an individual element, such as a synth, then you're only affecting that instrument. This is different to high-passing the master, assuming that other elements in the song go deeper than that synth.
I'm not saying you shouldn't cut the lows. Absolutely, do it for the purpose of removing any bass information that you don't want to be there, but just don't do it thinking that you're making anything louder.
You should be aware of the effect on phase (unless in Linear Phase mode), too, and remember that Low Shelf filters have less of an effect on phase and can be preferable.
Again, I'm not saying you should never high-pass with a Zero Latency filter, either! Everything has its uses, but remember that you should re-examine the phase relationship after you do something that you know will change it.
Another thing people will swear is true is that you need to clean the bass of everything that's not a kick drum or a bass instrument, and that by doing so you will be able to get your kick and bass louder. This also does not stand up to scrutiny. Yes, loud bass signals at the same frequency as others will cause a build-up, but quiet signals do not simply add on to whatever level your bass synth or bass guitar is producing. The definite bass signals will nuke quiet ones. Owen Palmer has a great video about this where he likens this fear to cancelling the takeoff of a plane until you've cleaned a leaf from the runway; in reality, the plane will rip through the leaf, and it's a similar thing with low-energy bass signal.
This severe approach to audio hygiene is a tough one to argue against, because, yes: if you follow this principle of "cleaning" then you do get a very pin-sharp result, but sometimes all you have to do is turn those HPs off and the mix sounds better. Sometimes the HPs are sucking the soul out of non-bass instruments and robbing the music of some nice interplay. The joy of music tech is that it's so easy to A/B and see which is better, but we deny ourselves that if we get hung up on a hard rule such as "HP all non-bass".
@@joechapman8208 haha i see, the comparison is quiet good ! Thanks for you’re answer !
I’m actually just trying to deconstruct everything I saw on the internet about cleaning everything, I was a bit fuck up about that, it’s not easy to accept the fact quiet low bass from synth vocal or perc can coexist with bass !
I have another question, when we saturate a signal, there something happened in the ultra low, next to 0hz, like if a sound is going in the other direction after -0hz, what’s going on there and should we cut this ? I’m not really sure about what is it
Who is the artist? Really dig the track. Also, maybe my new favorite channel…
MorningMaxwell ~ Going Home
@@panorama_masteringThank you!
The stacking limiter section I don’t know if I can agree with you on that bcuz they say you don’t want 1 limiter doing all the work but who knows
Fair enough!
Can you confirm that stacking different limiters one after another, with gain reduction 3db each is the same thing if you add one limiter with 6db gain reduction? :)
Its not, different envelopes and detectors
Ryan's correct; and I've done videos on this before; but in my opinion I just can't hold it in the same esteem as those processors in the top tiers
12:40 tbh was completely expecting it :D
TDR Kotelnikov GE for the win!
Absolute gentleman!
You forgot m/s processing
Manual limiting 💪
FTW!
Why everybody is using the same song ...but pretty cool video tho...thanks
damn dude I am a prof mixing engineer, trying to learn how to master. You really taught me something today with that pro3 !!(tonal balance tip) game changing.
Id say you're pretty spot on
Nice video Mate, I don't know why something tells me that you're a fan of Nico Leonard "GOOOOOD TIIIEEEER" 😂
Thank you! I actually don't follow Nico; but I've seen him before; but this whole video was inspired (Thumbnail & title too) by Clark Kegley!
I would move Stacking Limiters to the be careful row. But otherwise I would agree. How about Stacking Sausage Fatteners? 🤣
haha fair call!
Elevate ! from Newfangled Audio
Damn. I thought i was onto something by using two limiters.