4 Key Tips for Getting LOUDER Mixes
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มิ.ย. 2024
- Build the loudness of your mix from the ground up with these 4 steps.
☛ Learn the go-to starting points for EQ and compression in heavy mixes with my FREE Mixing Cheatsheet: mixcheatsheet.com
Music I’ve Worked On: open.spotify.com/playlist/6I7...
Website: hardcoremusicstudio.com
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Grab your free Mixing Cheatsheet to learn the go-to starting points for EQ and compression in heavy mixes: www.mixcheatsheet.com
Saturation and clipping make such an insane difference. Even using them on an "invisible" level took my master's struggling to hit -10 without destroying dynamics to hitting -6 before I've even pushed the limiters output up.
Agreed, and as an electronic producer half of my waveforms (bass, synths, pads, leads, ambiance) are already "sausaged," so compression mostly adds peaks rather than controlling them. It sounds back-asswards, but adding a well tuned compressor before distortion can add dynamics without creating extra work for the mastering chain. Amp simulation and clipping work a lot better on synthesized sound than traditional recording tools do.
Then again, take my advice with a grain of salt. Sometimes I'll set a compressor's time settings as fast as possible to use as a weird sounding waveshaper. I never said I make "clean" music 😂😂
Hey, if it sounds good… it IS good!!
I’ve never heard anyone showcase a mix that ended up sounding like what I can to do in the studio until you played the mix without saturation, which means you may have pinpointed an exact problem for me
right? samesies
Here as well
Same!
More people should be doing videos on this topic. There is an absolute art to making mixes hold up to being slammed and still sound punchy. Thank you!
Build into the composition is best tip I ever learned. Some sounds just create massive peaks when stacked. Careful layering, ducking and delaying can create space, but loud mixes should seriously restrict sound placement choices from the very start, it only gets worse the more is added.
And to know if those sounds work loud, gotta work with them loud. Some sounds fall apart when pushed/squashed, even more so when summed to a bus with other sounds.
Like layering, if not paying attention to it from the very start, it only gets worse. Why hope it stays together when pushed at the end, when it's easy enough to find out first, and only use sounds that work.
Jordan you’re killing it with these videos as of late! Some real breakthroughs for me as a mixer happened when I dug into clipping and saturation.
I recently came across your channel and it has significantly changed the way I mix. Thank you for all of your knowledge! I feel as if the industry has been gate keeping this info for years and just recently I've been able to dig deep enough to find the answer to my mixing questions.
You keep surprising me with extremely useful and practical content. The difference the midrange made was night and day.
Great video! I agree that focusing on loudness in the mix is where it is at. Make's mastering so much easier.
I knew these things and used them already, clipping on buses and saturation, only slight final clipping on the master. But you highlight some more dimensions and aspects with it, so I pick up a lot of useful stuff here.
This is awesome, saturation is something I dont know very much of, I only know through the sound differences, not the theory, these vids are very reassuring while delving into the mixing world.
pure gold as usual!
Shout out to Mike, he did a couple masters for me and absolutely nailed it!
Spot on! Thanks for this!! 👍🏻😊
I make mostly modern pop with some rock elements sometimes and I've learned so much from Jordan. Incredible video once again. ometimes
very helpful and clear - thanks!!
Great content man, so helpful 👍🏻
I NEED USE YOUR TEMPLATE DEFINITELY , I LIKE HOW IT SOUNDS EVERYTHING
Dude. This explanation is pure gold.
Thank you, was just struggling with some dynamics last night and limiter on master track was too much, will go back and limit drum bus a little and i think it will make a big difference.
Phenomenal channel.
Thank you once again HCMS!
i found this album through your mentioning of it & it's soooo good. i listen regularly
ayeeee cool to see you here
This is one of those gold dust videos, similar to Marc Daniel Nelson's. Doesn't matter what the genre, the lessons apply everywhere and the way it is explained is so very helpful. Really timely for me too. I've only mixed my band's stuff up to now and whilst I do a lot of this, it's all accumulated knowledge and long term templates. Having just taken on mixes for someone else I was struggling to find this balance. This video gave me the palm to face moment I needed. I'm just not doing these fundamentals right. These are the very foundation blocks I've just not done. Went back and did them methodically.... Whadya know, the mix sounded better, more balanced and ultimately came up to mastered volume with way more loudness and no big issue. My goodness, thank you!
Awesome to hear!
This is the ticket. My mixes started to get way louder when I started putting a lot of focus on the overall EQ curve on my mix. A lack of mids, specifically low mids will always leave your mix sounding hollow and quiet. This problem always happened to me when I boosted a lot of high and low end on my guitars, which sounded great in solo but left the whole mix sounding weak. A great tool to keep the curve of your mix in check is Tonal Balance Control by Izotope. This visual tool is amazing to check the balance of your mix and is extremely helpful when you are mixing on less than flat monitors or in a acoustically poor room. A total game changer in my opinion!
To tie into some of your other lessons, balancing the mix for solid, exciting midrange does many beneficial things. For one, getting some low-mid/a little high-mid content going for your bass and kick adds a bit of clarity and definition to them and helps them be distinguishable in the wall of heavy guitars. Next, it also makes these instruments much more audible on bass-light speakers/headphones, which helps a lot with translation. Finally, that midrange content almost cues your brain into filling in the blanks as far as how loud the lower instruments are without those very low frequencies actually having high volume/amplitude (more bang for your buck)
Thank you for this !!
Totaly agree 100%...By using saturation and cliping(wisely) on tracks &busses can give you at least 6db more headroom on master buss with almost no unpleasant side effects
hi question , when using those do i use makeup?
Thank you so much!!!!
Awesomeeee!
Thanks mate👏🏾👏🏾
Perfect content for me!! Now please sell these drum samples 🫶🏻
excellent video
clipper at drum buss is great tip dude
There is no "loud" without soft. If everything hits the same ceiling, it's actually not loud and becomes fatiguing. Optimal compression of the '90s was better than smashing mixes today with digital plugins
Oasis would like a word with you about how ‘90s compression was better than digital plugins… haha. (I do take the rest of your point though)
@@anglach3l Plugins are getting quite good, but for my own stuff at this point I am not reaching for them (for mastering purposes) but rather paying someone who uses hardware and tape even. Granted, he uses a Fabfilter digital limiter but I'm not a purist. I simply question the notion of "progress" and that things are necessarily improving over time. There is something magical, for instance, about physical tape and tape machines, not to mention real tubes and transformers.
I think most music in the 90s sounded good because there was a good mix of analog and digital.
They were basically using the same techniques but instead of using clippers they pushed analog compressors and eqs which actually clipped the audio the same way but it didnt have that digusting digital aliasing
About Key 1, yes I've come to suspect that on my first home made mastering. My reference seemed to have a fair less amount of gain on the low end, and yet it sounded great, I have noticed that in the end it had the same LUFS as my track but still sounded louder and it was driving me crazy. Thanks for pointing that out, I still have to understand by how much am I supposed to level down that low end not for my mix to sound thin.
Something I discovered just this week is that the more clean, in-key and digital the source material is, the less your advice seems to apply. I made a little experiment dnb demo with no samples, only synths just for fun, even the hi-hats were in key, and for the first time ever ended up with a tight loud slammer of a master peaking at -3.5 lufs when normalized to -1db. In that mix I tried adding saturation using FabFilter Saturn 2 but pretty much every time it ended up completely removing the punch and I ended up removing all instances of it. I also initially mastered the track to sound quite midrangy with a lot of 700hz energy but in the end decided to target a different reference track and changed a mid-range boost that I had on master to a high shelf and that gave me a whole +1 lu. Of course, maybe I am just really bad with Saturn and maybe my mix had too much midrange already so the original master just overcooked it but i find it surprising how much I want to agree with you and how much this advice would have not helped that experimental demo.
very nice infor
Nice video, really good tips and concept, the problem is that the beginners overdo and then the mix sound too harsh and flat because there is not dynamic. You need to do that with taste.
Did he mention where he uses the saturation plugins? Is it one plugin for each bus or on all individual tracks? I currently only use a saturation plugin on snare, bass, and sometimes vocal tracks. Not sure if this matters but Im mainly recording with analog mic pres and compressors set for more grit and character before going into pro tools. Would it be overkill adding more saturation on top of that?
I always make my lead guitar louder with a few db boost with the ssl around 700 I'm really surprised more people don't do that its amazing!
I do this also, but with an API! :)
@@DaveJLamar good call!
A broad boost between 700 and 1K works the best in this case 🙃
haha.... Love you work...
Wow
I don’t know what I did other than filter my guitars once, but once I took out the top end fizz it’s almost like the “desired notesy tone” just absolutely got louder and stood out more in the mix. This has happened only one time and I don’t even entirely know why
Do you ever use a transient shaper on your drums?
If I'm mixing an album of songs that would fit into the soft-rock or adult contemporary genres (think Beck, Morning Phase) would you still use clipping on the drums to control the transients?
Omfg whats that song called? Sounds killer! Thanks for this awesome video once again..
Auras (band) , if I ain't wrong , and Jordan usually mix them
Your videos are great the content absolue pro.... but for me its realy difficult to handle with the music genre.... ;-) i tryed some heavy metal music back in the 80s... but this is not my buisiness anyway thanks for your great work....
Hi how loud do you monitor with the CLA 10 ? SPL ? And what VTPC setting you ended up using ? Thanks.
I like a scooped sound and a loud master. Fml
I think it sounds good when you scoop the guitars and then raise the mids on the vocals it always feels like a puzzle piece that fits right in
Hey Jordan, what’s your thoughts on the mix on the new blink album?
I'm not Jordan but the album sounds like a pop mixer doing punk rock.
Scooping can be great on a Marshall amp but not ideal for mixes. 👍
I can’t seem to find many videos about this, but how does this work with submitting to Spotify? They want it around -9db to -14db. So they would have to be bringthing the master down by 4-5db. Any insight would be greatly appreciated
Dont worry about it make it as loud as possible without compromising sound quality. If that ends up being -10 lufs great if its -6 lufs whatever just make sure your track is loud and clear
what is the point to achieve -5db integrated LUFS for a mix out of studio, when Spotify later pushes it down to -14 LUFS ?
the overall "loudness" will still be there. It wil still sound "louder" than -10db LUFS master uploaded to Spotify and got alligned to -14 Spotify LUFS
Taking the midrange out sounded better to me 😢
Same.
LoL monitor blaming ! It happens
- the human ear loves scooped sounds
- this video is about louder not better sounding
I have never done clipping, so it's totally new to me but i want to experiment. What would be good clipping plugins? Looks like I only have soft clippers in my arsenal, are they the same thing at all?
The guy in the video created one called BSA Clipper.
flatline is good
There is a good free clipper called K-Clip Zero as well
Well i tested a free plugin called GClip on a snare. Yeah, totally works (i mean clipping in general) if you want that slamming sound.
I still don't know exactly what's the difference between clippers and soft clippers. Can someone explain?
@@seitsen soft clipping is rounding off the peaks (more signal is being clipped but more gradually, it starts clipping below the threshold a bit) while hard clipping is shaving it off as soon as it's above the threshold (hard cut of the peak). Generally drums like being hard cliped while other elements like being soft clipped/limited more
what's in that external ssd??
Nice! But, where's the delay at 3:03 coming from?!
Huh, is he maybe switching to his actual mix bus at the end instead of the print?
@@mrcoatsworth429y, maybe 👍
What is this from?
That’s superb! Let’s connect?
Or maybe we should just try to stop getting louder mixes in general. When people complain that their mixes aren't loud enough, usually the problem is that it's a crappy sounding mix to begin with.
Gee.... I must totally be off here I do my mix's at -14.5 LUFS. Am I doing this wrong ? Mind you, looking at your track you seem to have almost zero dynamic so perhaps were on a different page.
Well what kind of music are you mixing?
@@mrcoatsworth429 Yea that's what I just went back to check and yes I do mix for SoundCloud and TH-cam and that's exactly what's required sorry my mistake.
But I do still keep things quite dynamic. Total low zero to total high max. And anyway I do find this slightly ridiculous. Dont they put a volume knob for a reason?
ears > eyes.
depends on the track - this one was full force balls to the walls but if you take into account softer parts of the song and intros outros etc or a more dynamic less in your face song then I would expect to see a lower lufs #
I guess nobody has a volume knob on their stereo system anymore. I prefer huge dynamics above ear fatiguing crushed mixes.
Modern mixing is ass, it's all loudness with no substance.
Plot twist: EQ IS dynamics
How ?
-5 lufs? Wouldn't that mean your song will get turned down by -9 dbs on streaming services or am i missing something? 😅
Thats not the point though, by bringing up the loudness he is bringing up sounds that were quiet and the listener wouldnt normaly hear making the track more interesting and sounding fuller
@@Durkhead Ah yes I understand a bit better now. I was a total newb when I made that comment 😅but thanks!
@@avasta. so i just got home from work and im kinda tired and i was watching this video reading the comments and i guess i kinda went on a reply spree idk.
Thers just so many ppl worried about the wrong things
you don't apply saturation on distorted guitars right?? Only drums/bass?
Hey Jordan great video, I'm a little confused about how your masteringengineering - 5 LUFS. I thought that the goal is about -14 LUFS because the streaming services will normalize to that anyway. Can you say a bit more about your approach to this I think it might even be a good future video.
Master for CD, let the streaming service do what it does.
@@progressivelibertarian2570I understand what you're saying in rational terms, but is this really a best practice that folks are using? For one thing, I don't have any bands that want to make CDs. They all do streaming and occasionally will do cassette and/or vinyl. Anyway, I don't disagree with what you're saying but I am curious to know what pros out there are doing and really the WHY of what they are doing. I'm not a pro but I like to do good work when I work on albums for people.
No that's a bad idea I've heard lots of people say not to do that. Make it as loud as you want dont worry what spotify will set it to
@@nilespeshay1734 This is very helpful. Thanks for this. It's good to know that the internet still has people who know things and explain them patiently and carefully.
@@progressivelibertarian2570even though basically no one buys them anymore?
bitcrush everything.
No
I hate to be contrary, but it seems like all you've done is pre-master your mix without "actually" mastering it on the stereo mix. Is the secret just layering compression?
Too loud. Mixing engineers should shoot for -6 dB below Nyquist. While most mastering engineers don't mind it all the way to -3 below Nyquist it limits the room they have to make subtle changes, then push the integrated loudness to about =9.5 or so.. Going below that just really don't do very well for most tracks, taking in account True peek should stay always below zero dB. Oh well, just my thought.
Mixing to try to get to a certain lufs is stupid whether your trying to make it a lower lufs or higher your just gona ruin your track just to hit a certain point on a scale that essentially doesnt matter.
The track sounded better when you scooped the mids. Todays mixes are sounding terrible the new knocked loose, falling in reverse are some of the worst offenders terrible crunchy mids of just pure digital static
All ur tutorials songs sounds aggressive
As a listener if I hear over processed "loud" tracks like this (talking about the master) I skip it immediately or lower the volume if I really care about the band so it can be tolerable. It's just irritating and unpleasant to listen to.
Good education for folks!…but, -5.5 LUFS is the absolute max and there is really no reason to have to tolerate the loss of fidelity that comes with this level. The loudness wars are over due to fact that streaming services turn down loud masters, and, for CDs, the idea that fans cared about average loudness was always bunk. No music fan would like an album more than another because it was smashed harder. That was some bunk that record labels were pushing. That said, some music, like metal, needs to sound up front and compressed but -7 or -8 is more than loud enough. Of course it depends on what the mix can handle as you’ve pointed out, but I would not recommend that any mixer really try to squeeze the last bits of dynamics out of their mix. Also, music that is mastered “loud” actually sounds worse in high fidelity playback systems and also worse when cranked up in volume compared to music with more dynamics. When you crank the volume knob up in your car to rock out, you will enjoy the more dynamic version of a song more than the less dynamic smashed version. Finally, I’m seeing folks who now know that the streaming services turn down music to -14 get this confused with the peak volume that a mastered track needs to be set to. You don’t want to set your mastering peak limiter to -14!!! Set your output level to -0.2 peak or so and then set your LUFS average level to what the track wants to sit at maxing out at something like -7 or -8 or so for metal music like the example here. The tighter the mix, the easier to get loud, but most mix engineers won’t have the skills so they should be happy with -8 or -9 max. Of course folk music or other styles will be different. -12 LUFS would be “plenty” loud for a folk acoustic song. Cheers!
It’s too bad the louder a mix is, the more numbing and irritating it is to listen to for more than a few minutes. I wish this horrible trend of slammed audio would just stop. Loud mixes rob the music of feel and dynamics. It’s like being yelled at constantly.
On Smartphone the difference is minimal
I hope nobody's out there mixing, primarily, for smartphones.
@@nilespeshay1734 me too. But reality is cruel, man )
I couldn't listen to that music for even two minutes, let alone mix it.
Then don’t.
@@aguydoingguystuff6289 I won't.
didnt you have crappier "music" to use?
I’m sorry your mix is great. But that master is trash. Sounds scooped and oddly out of phase. Hit me up and I give you a master that will knock your socks off.
You got a portfolio, Mr. Mastering Pro?
THIS SOUNDS LIKE THE DEVILS MUSIC... ALL THAT NOISE SHOUTING... IS THIS ACTUAL MUSIC OR NOISE
Lol
While hip hop stars doing some clean and angelic lyrics.
Uncomparable friend but i do agree some Hip hop is also terrble but this is just total NOISE ON A WHOLE DIFFRENT SPECTRUM. LOL.........The frequncy of this vocal and music disrupts the soul ... If this person was outside macys screaming like this we would call 911 .....while snoop raps some negitive stuff about his real life expericence in the ghetto that the usa created..... and the hip hop music has melodic beats melody and honest feelings this is just like ten metal bins and there lids rolling and flying all over the place close together down a tight stair case... Where is the angelic art in that? Its like a 400 pound person trying to beat usain bolt in a race... Just 2 diffrent worlds from hip hop music.....This is ust noise with NO SOUL..... @@BukanIbuMu