How To NOT Master Your Tracks
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- čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
- The McGurk Effect:
• McGurk effect - Audito...
Why EQ cuts add 'loudness'
(I'm still looking for the Dan Worall video)
I found one of my old Hip-Hop Mixes / Masters!:
/ 06-leader-of-the-highw...
(for anyone wondering the track was
Skrillex & Boys Noize - Fine Day Anthem
Buy Me A Coffee
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00:00 - Intro
00:43 - Which is Louder Game
08:42 - Guess the Track
10:40 - Ears Vs Eyes
12:33 - Dr Dre & Bob Katz
14:44 - The Truth Of Clipping
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I am a professional musician, songwriter and sample creator who brings the world of music theory into electronic music. I help and collaborate with producers, djs, musicians, rappers, singers and songwriters creating new music and I also create instrumentals & sample packs of musical licks, guitar stems and melodies
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I didn't explain the reason EQ cuts make tracks 'louder', because I intended to link to the video already done by #DanWorall, but now I can't find it!
its the one where he rebuilds a saw wave by stacking sine waves, does anyone remember which video that was?
Man I'm always think of you as a Edm Dan Worrall. Collab will be super cool. You even got similar tones of voices.
Haha thanks that's because I'm trying to do my best impression of him! He's got far better diction though. I'm from the north where it's common to heavily abbreviate words or not annunciate which is terrible for the intelligibility of international audiences so I have to make a real effort to speak clearly! Whereas it sounds like it's natural for Dan, I'm convinced he's from further south in the country.
@Bthelick Since I am not a native English speaker, I have never had any problems with this while watching your videos. So I think you did a good job! And thanks for the great content!💪💪💪🔥
Great to hear, thanks for letting me know 👊
Would be awesome if somebody could find this video
This is hands down one of the best technical dives into audio engineering and DSP with direct applications for music production / mixing / mastering. Thank you!
Came here to write exactly this! Thank you!
It took a while before I realized “clipping” doesn’t always negatively impact audio quality, I just never fully understood why. Some of that went over my head, but was still good information. There’s so many things that can impact “loudness,” It’s overwhelming. I try not to obsess over it and be patient with myself though.
I appreciate your videos btw. You’re really good at breaking things down. It can get confusing with all the information out there.
I just got into music production after years of wanting to try it out. This channel has taught me more than all others combined!
Stick w this guy…music is the focus, and backed up by years of releases so it’s WHAT you NEED to have fun asap. All the details will come. 🖤😎🍭
Click the Thanks button and buy him a coffee. He deserves it
I JUST sat down for a quesadilla and this pops up. Perfect timing. Sup B 😎🖤🕺
Nom, Enjoy!
I am so happy when one of your videos pop up, just helps me get through my 9-5 and I also learn so much that I can apply them for my music afterwards. Thank you so much!❤️
This is by far the best one in this field on CZcams. Master craftsmanship!
This channels is the one of the best in the field of music production. Thank you for all the pragmatic and helpful knowledge that you share!
Congrats on 25k mate, your going from strength to strength.💪💪💪
It's really refreshing to see videos like this. We're forever bombarded with so many different ideals on how to produce. Not to mention the plugins we should be using. So often I've been guilty of adjusting tracks based on the headroom/ the dreaded red, it's ironic that it sounded so much better prior to all my tweaking. Square peg round hole. I'll try trusting my ears now. Love you channel. Keep it up!
Wasn't expecting a video at half past midnight but I'm here for it! 🤣🔥
Absolutely fantastic! The bit about the master bus was the final piece of the puzzle for me. Love tihs! :)
That was epically good! Never seen anyone explain things in so much depth like this..
Thankyou sir!
Lots of good information here! The first half of your video is something I thought about yesterday and came to the conclusion that having everything sit in the mix and blend nicely is more important that what the meter says. Trust your ears! Mr. Bill has also touched on your last part before on some CZcams videos. Great video as always! Thank you!
this answered some questions i was having about mystery master clipping on a track where i was confident all the individual elements were solidly not clipping, thanks man!
Outstanding info. Again
Very insightful stuff!
So true, thanks for this excellent explanation!
Great vid, I always struggle with volume, usually moving down track volumes not to clip in master and the final result is just very low volume even though master shows ~0 level, now I understand I should better trust my ears first, thanks!
What u say just makes sense for electronic music Production and mixing. A lot of advice is from a live recording view point and some live instruments. I've totally changed my buss set up based on what u do a it works. I was compressing the hell out of my music,now took it all out,and work on sound design,and EQ especially low shelf on stuff to clear the frequency range and things sound much better now. I'd see red but i couldn't hear distortion,now i know why.👍🏿👍🏿✌🏿
Thanks. Great video.
Fuck yeah. Love your videos man. Thanks for keeping this going. Big success is coming for you on this channel- you got me into making music which i will always appreciate.
Coming from an intermediate, the only piece of advice I'll give you to remember for the next couple of years is enjoy the journey! Its not all about the destination, take pride in the progress you make and the things you learn 😊
Eeee that were a grand video lad.
On the subject of not hearing things in actual music: I kept getting told by a couple of audiophile friends that tube/valve amps sound better because they introduce even harmonic distortion. So I used some of my VST plugins to introduce this harmomic (supposedly "euphonic") distortion. I personally didn't find it actually improved anything, to my ears. But what I did discover was that I, nor anyone else I did the experiment on, could hear ANY distortion until the distortion knobs on various plugins were over 50%. When you think of the money spent on hifi to avoid insanely low THD numbers, it really opened my eyes and ears.
Great content, please make a video how you mix, balance levels and more. Your videos are gold and practical. :)
x2 🙂
Pretty sure Noisia said something in an interview once, that if it sounds good surely that’s what matters! Nice one B
Perfect timing. I am in the middle of mastering a project and always struggle with volume.
Sensational video. As a self taught producer I have always been confused by the need to master - why not just get it right in the mix? Thank you and keep the videos coming!
You're right, it doesn't make sense, not today anyway.
Mastering was originally for other necessary reasons. Putting the album in order, making sure it fit onto radio, tape and vinyl without distortion or groove skipping, meeting certain broadcast standards.
These days it still has value from the lending of a 2nd pair of ears alone, especially if those ears are more experienced and in a good room, but it's no longer technically necessary.
Thanks again for making this video. I understand a teeny bit more about clipping the master ("it is a visual sign that 3 consecutive samples are in the red, which is more accurate than a limiter, but ultimately trust your ears"). What I still want to understand is how far you can push the clipping, or more accurately why you can push it so far with certain tracks and not others (even when trusting your ears). I appreciate the answer is still 'trust your ears'.
Also, I was experimenting earlier this week with bouncing a clipping track to a new track (via direct routing not resampling via the master), and it also clips to zero which is weird given tracks are 32 bit floating (just another anomaly I discovered that reveals my lack of full understanding). Buying you a coffee, now ☕ ❤
In a nutshell keep it dynamic. Don't use compression, limiting or saturation on dynamic elements so the only things that clip are transients too fast to detect aurally
@@Bthelick Awesome! I haven't been using limiters lately. And I have been using compressors less and less (Pancz and Glip have been getting more use in their place). I'm getting happier with my mixes (cleaner and louder) mixing into the master like this. And I now have more of an understanding, 'why'... But upon recent self-reflection, I need to focus more on the song writing / creative side (as per your recent video referencing Kush) because I have noticed I am spending more time on mixing than creating... (ie it's important and I love learning about it, but I need to prioritise creativity, arrangement, and referencing so as to match the mixing skills I have recently developed...).
Explaining “difficult” music theory while the related music is playing is the USP what makes this channel good and very understandable.
It is easy to forget alot of info when someone is ranting for 10mins in a facecam and giving 2 mins of examples, … usually even after the short plug/sponsor announcement.
This workflow of explaining with the music is very easy to follow along. Big up bthlick
Would love a video on how to do Tom basslines and more of that square tough style with the 1/8 hi-hat pattern I feel like that’s the foundation for every track that I’m really into.
THANK YOU. I had to learn to stop using hi passing in the master the hard way.
So many established CZcams edm music educators still show that, even some with over 100k subscribers. I have reached out to them couple times, they ignored me.
We shouldn't hi pass/low pass on the master because we see a CZcamsr declaring it's part of a pro-level mastering chain.
Great stuff Bethelick! This one was quite something to wrap the head around. If I want to do more ear training to be able to steer towards the "no limiter workflow", where would you suggest me to start?
Great question.
Regards getting an ear for clipping, it's most obvious on softer / acoustic sounds, like voice, piano, Rhodes, and bass so you can try play around with free clip and those kinds of sounds (lower the ceiling so you don't have crank everything) and get used to what digital distortion sounds like.
I would also get used to listening for healthy transients , try to identify drums in your library that are 'spikey ' or 'punchy' and have a play with a transient shaper plugin (the free one from kilohearts is great) to get an ear for transients in general, then play with compression and distortion vs clipping to see how it effects them.
If you ever get the privilege to see a live orchestra at any point , take it! That will give you a better appreciation of good dynamics and loudness too 👊
Thank you @@Bthelick , much appreciated 👊🏼
I love how you explain this stuff! I did all the maths and technical stuff shown here on audio uni and I remember how hearing that technical info felt super empowering.
It's super fun to watch the topic being slowly introduced and explained, it's like re-living that aha moment!
Just here's my constructive criticism....... I would still recommend against mixing near 0 dB FS even if you intend in getting a perfect mix that don't need no mastering. First reason being that if you work near zero and somethings too loud by accident you can blow out your own ears 😂
Also, if your monitoring situation is not 100% proper you could run so hot out of Ableton that in an accidental burst of noise you could damage your speakers.
Another issue with mixing near zero is the fact that when you upload your track after mixing / mastering it will be converted into a lossy format like MP3, and Spotify actually streams those lossy files. On the conversion process the peaks actually change, intersample peaks that used to last for 3 or 4 samples will then be exaggerated into noticeable distortion. That's why mastering engineers that know their shit will try to leave 1 dB FS of headroom even if the mix is squared off. Coz you want the master to be clipped and limited like the artist intended, not like spotify's mp3 encoding wanted.
A good alternative would be to put a clipper plugin at (let's say) -10 dB FS and mix into it as if that was the ceiling. This is to "emulate" that Spotify will turn down your master to be around -14 LUFS. That would make your master sound exactly like a turned down by Spotify type of deal. That will mean you can clip intentionally into the ceiling instead of letting mp3 encoding do extra clipping.
But at that point you might as well mix at any other level other than at zero ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That's the issue with missing at zero, those pesky intersample peaks, but the thing is you can avoid them by mixing with any amount of headroom.
Good point, My interface obviously isn't running zero to my monitors / monitor station. I forget people might not know that.
Regarding lossy conversion yes I'm aware of what happens post conversion.
I used to check that more often, but It's not been an issue for over 8 years now though so I've stopped checking as often.
That's why I don't recommend it lightly. I'm only clipping mostly inaudible transients and those take ear training to appreciate.
I had one client try to do their own mix once when I was ill and couldn't make the deadline, it was a distorted mess! They just couldn't hear it and thought going onto the red was fine in general after seeing me work 🤦. They released on time at least! 🤣
@@Bthelick yeah of course no one should ever run at max volume from the interface into your speakers, and it's supper cool to see this level of good advice on CZcams.
Just the audiophile in me obsessing over distorting at Spotify 😅
Plus if you stopped checking it's provably because you can actually hear the subtle distortion as it creeps in and thus you end up with a loud but clean song, stamp of great engineering 😎👍
I've been reading about the Clip to Zero strategy lately and some people do that by putting clippers on every track or group bus and let it get as high as -9 LUFS and even 0.1 true peak. Don't know the tech side of it but I guess it works for them.
I think this left me more confused then I was before. I am really unsure how to go about mastering or mixing now if all those illusions exist.
By using your ears!
I'm conflicted by the advice too, since the loudness illusions appear to suggest that my ears (indeed most human ears) cannot be trusted. If track B sounds louder than track A to my ears, but the LUFs meter says the opposite is the case, I find it very hard to "trust my ears", because my ears are easily fooled. Since my eyes are also easily fooled, I think I'll try mixing with my nose! ;)
Great 👍 video. Subscribed.
Great vid again! I seen another engineer advising to turn off True Peak Limiting on your final master limiter to preserve the punch on the drums. Would you recommend this?
He said a lot of popular tracks taken off beatport would show as clipping as they don’t have TPL on either.
Yeah, well I take it the extra step because I don't use a limiter. If I have to use a limiter though, true peak Is a fine theory using upsampling and interpolation to pre-empt over shoots after conversion, but it always sounds worse to me on transient heavy material. when you see what kind of 'true peaks' digital is capable of (and analog actually that eq cut phenomena is not a digital thing) then it makes sense why true peak sounds worse. Technically 'safer' but doesn't work nicely with music
wow very interesting . thank you
Game changing knowledge!!!!!
Excellent video Ben, I had been wondering about your red master fader for ages! I was going to ask whether you did a just a -1dbfs cut or something after your 24 bit export but then I noticed you had linked to one of those hip hop masters so I ripped it from SoundCloud, purely for educational reasons of course. It came out as 320k mp3, it's absolutely smashing the meters but it sounds superb! So I think I will try this one my next tune, full bareback is the way to go. Do you go this way for absolutely every track you release? I take it from your other comments you have no truck with all the spurious LUFS requirements of the various streamers.
Bareback lol.
Yeah for all modern edm/ pop/ rock / hip-hop I use this. I will lean on a good limiter occasionally when there is audible distortion on soft sections if I don't have time (ozone's max is pretty transparent and appears to be intelligently clipping anyway)
But by that point all the hard work is done and it barely has to do anything.
For softer or acoustic material like solo piano / orchestral I don't use this method.
That hip-hop mix/master is a good 10 years old now, glad to hear you liked it though 👊
I know some old BBC dubbing mixers and that's what they always used to call mixing without the limiter. But in those days they had to hit PPM 6 in telly, now it's -23 LUFS! pretty tricky to bareback....
But it's so true, don't trust your eyes. When I looked at the waveform of the Sonix track I thought it was going to sound LOUD like that dreadful early 2000s period when everyone was hard limiting. But no, just sounded great.
amazing video!
This is perfectly competent. What do you think about doing the clipping at a higher sample rate to avoid aliasing, and then downsampling at the mixdown?
It's a thought sure, I've never deemed it necessary though. Given that I'm only clipping mostly inaudible micro transients I don't think it would make an appreciable difference.
If I had ever experienced a rough sounding master hindering the performance of a song then I would be a lot more precious over the sound quality in general and wouldn't be clipping at all.
Luckily in the real world that's not the case!
Great info once again. I have been using reference songs and creating custom curves in various metering software. Just to get a general ballpark. That said; You mention ear training several times across your videos. What do you find is the best way to upgrade ear training for electronic dance music? Thanks!
Recreating your fave tracks is always a good one.
There's websites like sound gym now or tone gym now too.
If you don't have an ideal monitoring set up then switching up your playback system often is a must. Check on a mono Bluetooth speaker, phone, laptop, headphones as much as possible so the brain can connect the dots and fill in for what's missing on the speakers. Especially in an untreated room situation
Kicking myself after the reveal of what the mystery track was in the video description. So obvious from the Span analyser now watching it back!
lmao the british snark is epic in this one, i love this channel
on Football Sunday lets go!
Wow must watch again
reminds me of a lecture from electronic engineering course days. Police force was always blowing out speakers, they tried better speakers but no change ... suggestion was to increase power of the amplifier driving. Turned out the original amp was clipping and producing square waves with lots of energy which would blow the speakers. Bigger amp ... original sine wave ... no blown speakers.
Fascinating deep dive! As a software engineer, I appreciate the details you explained. How does all this factor into playing through an audio system? I imagine speakers have their own threshold and after a certain dB level, they would distort or am I wrong?
Well clipping certainly isn't kind to tweeters that's for sure! But that's usually a sustained clipping problem. That's why I don't advise this lightly to anyone without ear training because I'm only clipping of the inaudible transients which would be bright anyway (or clipped 'intelligently' in a good limiter) so I don't think what I'm going here is that damaging, as I'm keeping an ear on dynamics in general my material can't be worse than some of the squashed to hell stuff I'm hearing out there.
@@Bthelick hi when you say squashed, do you mean over compressed?
@@shaunsadler6769 yes I mean over compressed.
Thank you so much 🙏
Great video, but you forgot a very important explanation. The reason why the signal went into red after cutting some lows and highs with EQ is because of phase rotation, which modifies the waveform. To see how an EQ or multiband compressor changes your waveform you need to use an Oscilloscope. EQs work by copying the signal and rotating the phase of some frequencies then adding it back to the original signal in order to add or reduce volume of some frequencies. So if you have a waveform that does not clip or activate a limiter, by adding some EQ to it you change that waveform and it might end up clipping or activating the limiter.
well, it's more accurate to say that all minimum phase filters create post-ringing artefacts through phase rotation, with high pass filters being among the worst offenders
Correct, but that's not what i'm talking about in my above post... post-ringing wasn't the cause of the waveform going into red @@UnfortunatelyTheHunger
Yes correct. It's the result of constructive harmonic interference via phase rotations caused through the pass band!
I didn't explain that because I intended to link the great video Dan Worall did on that, but then I couldn't find the video!
Can you remember which it is? He reconstructed a saw wave on it with sines and showed the phase interference in a very clear way.
8:55 this whole bit had me giggling like a child
This video blew my mind man
Thanks for the great explanation! But what are saying the streaming services, when you deliver > 0db peaks? i made by accident a mixdown in the red, but without hearable distortion. This track was not accepted from the distribution service. Therefor i insert always a limiter.
I've been doing this nearly 10 years , not had any problems yet.
Not with streaming services anyway. There is sometimes an issue with the player inside Dropbox for some reason but no where else.
Like I say though I don't recommend it lightly. I've had clients of mine try it themselves and what they thought was inaudible distortion was far too much to my ears it still takes skill to get right and a trained ear for detail.
@@BthelickI also was wondering about true peak over zero being rejected by streaming services.
I'm not delivering > 0 rememeber. > 0 doesn't exist in the usual 16 or 24 bit final format, which is what I deliver to stores
@@Bthelick Ah, i see, that was the problem.
My distributor suggest to upload the best quality as possible, so that the streaming services habe the best basis to convert the track in different streaming formats.
So i upload 32 bit float wav. When open the track in Audacity, you see the red peaks.
So it is better to deliver in 24 bit.
Thanks!
@@Positive_Tea The distributor (recordjet) rejected the track. They are bit more strictly, i think. They want to avoid trouble with streaming services.
lol love this and needed this
I have a question related to clipping vs limiter's limiting. My understanding is that clipping is simply if waveform > max, then waveform = max, or else if waveform < min, then waveform = min. I assume that DAWs have been designed not to WRAP AROUND. However, I though Limiter would do clipping with a configarable max/min. Or I am wrong?
Limiters introduce a time element because a gain reduction is performed via reaction to the material. That reaction is not instant , at start or in recovery, it's also not linear. A limiter with instant attack and instant recovery could be considered similar in theory to a clipper but in reality would introduce a different distortion. Clipping doesn't perform gain reduction at all, it just produces a square wave per sample clipped at the sample rate.
Thank you for the clarification, that makes more sense to me now. I think it would be interesting to see mathematically what exactly limiter is doing. I understand that it can decrease the gain with release and attack. The tutorial is great and many thanks for it. Limiting is the last thing I need to learn after the more important musical parts so excuse my silly question. @@Bthelick
A limiter is an infinite ratio compressor that's it really. Modern limiters are sophisticated and integrate all kinds of techniques to handle a wide range of material, typically by adjusting recovery times depending on input as to be as transparent as possible, and some have intelligent clipping behavior built in too.
Great video! Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't feel like the master high and low shelf eq comparison was fair, as ableton's stock eq is not linear phase, so the impulse response may have cranked some of the shelfs's points up, so in theory with a linear eq it should not clip. Or am I wrong though?
You're on the right track, that particular example changes amplitude because of constructive interference brought about through phase changes . But I think it was fair in that most people aren't aware of that behavior, and minimum phase eqs are far more common.
But no impulse response is flat. If you do the same experiment with a linear phase high pass, you'll see it still adds amplitude!
Explaining that one is a little bit beyond the scope of this paragraph though. Maybe another day!
@@Bthelick that clears it up, thanks for the vid! 🫡
Interesting video. But how you deal with the True peaks that comes out after you export your music to mp3 or 16 bits Wav files? at the end you just export the song into clipping? I hope your response on that. It could be interesting a video on how to get certain levels of loudness like -5 lufs, etc.
Yeah I just export it like that. What I'm hearing from my speakers is occurring after analog interpolation is with true peaks after all.
I double check the mp3 conversion obviously but I rarely find issues except in cases of extremely distorted genres like d'n'b / dubstep, and even then the only issues were on playback through dropbox's internal player only.
LUFS is just another number. Like I said in the video, a 1 dimensional number in a 4 dimensional world. It doesn't take into account frequency, balance or frequency density or transient punch. You don't get loud by aiming for a number please stop thinking that way. Take off all your compressors , clippers, and limiters, learn to listen for true punch and dynamics in the sound sources on selection, and before you know it you'll have achieved "loud" without realizing it.
I just work to a reference , (see my 3 simple steps video) I don't even have to check any loudness numbers before I hit render. It's either in a similar area to the reference or it's not.
Class video what’s the prog tune in the background ?
In the 2nd half? it's called Polymetric. (it should be reaching streaming services by now)
if you mean the hidden track that was skrillex / boys noiz Fine Day
Illuminating content! Which Dr. Dre interview are you referring to? Would love to read that!
Good question, it was a good 10 years ago now! I did try to find it before finishing the video, but unfortunately couldn't.
I'll keep you posted if I find it.
@@Bthelick yes, please! Thank you very much!
At the time we were also in touch with and getting help from his then-engineer Focus, so I made have heard it through him
But how do you go for the loudness on youtube for example? You had this kick at the beginning where the 2nd one sounded louder to me. However i often struggle to get my kick to sound as loud on youtube compared to how it sounds in my daw or as plain audiofile on my computer, even when trying to match to youtubes lufs requirements? May you could give me a little hint. :) Anyway thanks for the video :)
Like all streaming services they attempt to adhere to a 'custom' loudness standard. I don't know what CZcams's is these days but I don't do anything special to accommodate them. Unless you happen to make music at exactly the loudness standard of a steaming service it will always change level compared to the original don't worry.
Thanks!
Thanks John! Appreciated 🙏
Thanks for re-replying! 🙂
hahaha you are a joker. these videos are gold my man glad youre finally getting some subs
I get the feeling I'm going to need to watch that one a few times.
Hmmm never thought of the conversion from internal 32bit float to external 24bit for the dac, pretty logical after your explanation. I am by the way surprised the audio engines are still 32bit as we left the 32bit era long time ago in other software.
Checked the specs of my own dac, seems to have a range of -129 to +120, a lot less than the internal fader channels 😂
Really enjoyed the experiments, cool to see how the brain reacts on stuff like this.
As usual, many tanks!
I think it's because largely any errors at the least significant bit of 32 float are so far down the resulting noise is still way below the self noise of any analog system at the output. so any further precision is just a waste of CPU.
Hey, I have a question demanding bass levels. What I've learned from CZcams Tutorials is that a flat mix ist a loud mix. However, when just mixing with my Ears and not looking at the meters, I always end up with the bass beaing louder than the rest of the mix by at least 6db. From whatching this video I'd guess you think this is fine. Still i want to ask:
1. Is there a general rule of thumb for the maximum bass level, in order to maintain compatibility with most playback systems?
And 2. Do you think having the urge to always push the bass can be due to other mixing issues that I'm subconciously trying to "overshadow"?
Your help would be super appreciated since I'm struggling with this particuar mixing challenge for quite some time now.
If that's how it sounds good to you then that's how it sounds good!
Do you mean bass frequencies, Or bass part loudness? Are you referring to sub bass or main bass? And 6db louder than what, the kick?
My span settings aren't stock so what you see on my screen isn't something to be copied.
If you are going by ear then make sure what you are hearing is 'true' is your listening environment capable of recreating what you are judging down there?
Either way check on as many systems as possible and always check to a reference.
Have you compared different clippers vs Ableton master track clipping? Like free ones or say, Voxengo OVC-128 that is modelled after converters used by mastering engineers when they clip the converters. How about over sampling in clipping? When you clip converters it is what it is, but in plugins you can choose between 0 and 128 oversampling. While clipping "is just" creating zeros, all clippers seem to do it a bit differently.
I haven't tbh. I'm sure they all make tiny differences to some people, but I learned years ago that tiny differences like that are just for people to argue about on the gearspace forums , those of us that release hundreds of tracks in the real world know those differences don't effect its reception to a real audience.
@@Bthelick I was watching a masterclass of Brittish d'n'b producer Ed Rush. He had a theory section where he argued that he needs to use analogue clipping instead of digital clipping so that the bass made with analogue synth is clipped "smoothly". He zooms in the waveform to compare that analogue version (=he used old cheap analogue eq for clipping) has smoother edge than the digital version. As he plays for massive festival crowds of 50k people, he argues than in huge festival PA system those tiny details make big differences in bass region. But that was about clipping single channel not the master. (Mr Bill clips pretty much everything and the master and the recent live sets are not very pleasing sounding to my ears, but that's just me )
Well that's very a much an apples to oranges comparison. Those 2 don't use the same sounds so it's impossible to say Mr Bill is harsh because of his choice of clipping. It's sounds are already extremely harsh long before that!
Likewise I bet Ed hasn't played back to back sets with a control audience to see if the digitally clipped set had any less people dancing. It's all gear porn speculation until someone actually shows real world results!
You can get "round waveforms" in many ways in the digital domain. Bear in mind when it leaves the digital domain to get to a converter it's no longer square anyway because of the voltage interpolation. I'll say it a million times, what you see in a daw does not represent the real world, and that includes waveforms.
Most daws draw them in different ways to conserve performance and memory better used for other tasks (just look up the 10k waveform test) so comparing the roundness of a waveform in the digital domain is utterly moot. You'd need a proper analog oscilloscope to have any clue what was happening after conversation.
At the start of the video I said to myself “well I usually use my ears rather than having set numbers to aim for” glad to see by the end of it I felt relieved I might actually know what I’m doing
HI,Bthelick - i hope that i get it right since English i a second language for me.... btw i have have a bout 8 year in creating music.
reference video and dan worrhall one has helped me a lot.
please correct me if im wrong:
audible
when i do export the mix at these levels it will be clipped by the d.a.w. is this the process?
Yes, if you export at a fixed bit rate (not floating point) the daw will clip to zero.
@@Bthelick
Thank u for answering so fast
Minor quibble and some additional info if anyone wants to investigate further: The two data types are floating point and integer.
Fixed point does exist, but it’s not common and not really used in DAWs. Thanks for another solid video.
Ah right thanks for the clarification it's been a while since I learned this and have used them interchangeably for a while, I forgot they were separated. Fixed point JUST sounded much better as laymen's term to explain the concept than integer so I went that way.
So integer is wholly integer based? effectively 'no point'? All bits used as non-decimal?
@@Bthelick I think the video got the main ideas across really well, especially the critical parts, like clipping detection and that the amount of headroom provided by floats is astronomical.
And yep, the integer type can only represent integers. There can be a bit for the sign (signed integers). That means the range for 16 bit signed integers is −32,768 to 32,767, and the values can never be fractional.
Oof, gonna have to give this one a few spins. Tons of info 🤓
What a perfect lesson
however having any kick peak at 0db makes zero headroom for any additional element in the mix right?
In 1 dimension for the peak only.
Look at a kick on an FFT spectrum like SPAN and you'll see it's not reaching 0. it's combined energy reaches 0 but that's a 1d measurement made up of energy distributed over time, space, and frequency.
WOW Thanks so much for that... does this mean mastering isn't necessary? I can just export the sound from ableton in the red as long as it sounds good, its good?
Kind of. It still takes ear training to hear distortion though so be very careful.
It doesn't just magically replace mastering.
I replace mastering by choosing the right sounds at source and getting the track finished as I make it. Even then it still takes care.
I once had a client try it themself, I was ill and couldn't finish the track in time for release deadline. They had seen me go into the red and thought it was fine in general.
When I listened to their track it was a mess! Just way too crushed.
I'm only clipping those inaudible fast transients remember, and it requires careful management of low frequencies. I'm not just going red for sake of it carelessly. Lots of distortion can destroy speaker tweeters so listen very carefully, especially on headphones.
If it sounds better than limiting ( not just volume, but groove and dynamics) then go for it.
If I put a limiter on my track it's not doing much work because I've already selected the sounds well and balanced the track beforehand. The track still has to be finished!
@@Bthelick thanks so much I’ve been trying it today and honestly I’m so amazed at this little trick. Great for an in your face sound. Thanks! 🥂
For the last year I have stopped mastering tracks. I transparently clip tracks in the mix to basically produce at a mastered level as I go. Personally I find this is an amazing way to work because you don’t leave any surprises for yourself like you usually get when you come to master a track traditionally. By the time I’ve finished the mix down the track is done and usually hitting between -6/-7 lufs without any distortion. It’s also great for trying out sounds because I find certain sounds just simply can’t be made loud enough to work in modern dance tracks.
Exactly! Glad to hear it's not just me that came to that conclusion. People thought I was nuts when I suggested it in 2014!!
@@Bthelick haha they still think we’re crazy now!
@@Bthelick also there’s an amazing free gain plug-in called blue cat gain. It allows you to link it to other instances of the plug in so they all move when you adjust one. It’s super useful to
have before all of your track clippers so if you’re coming in to hot or not hot enough you can either push the gains up into the clippers or back them off. Also handy for sharing stems or when labels want to master themselves. Saves a lot of time trying to get some headroom on the master.
@@nihftyy ah right you're talking about the clip to zero method? I don't do that. I have no track clippers at all. I find clipping before the clipping makes the final clipping infinitely worse.
@@Bthelick yeah that’s right! Interesting, I’m going to have to try your method too. I usually have a clipper on the master bus but it is never actually doing anything. It’s more of a safety precaution more than anything haha.
Supreme knowledge
Manz a auido g 💯💥
Hello ! Is there a way to resample my files from 24 bit to 32 bit floating point? I only saw plugins that do it but they are for Windows and I have a Mac
Thank you very much, the channel is very good!
Technically you can change the file format, but you can't recover any data, it's the same as rendering an mp3 as a wav, you can't recover the lost data after it's gone.
As soon as you make any change to a lower file format in a daw (like eq or even just changing volume) it becomes a 32 float because the calculations are done in that domain but that's only new data being generated not recovery of the lost.
There are clever 'unclipping' algorithms in restoration programs like izotopeRX but it's not recovering what was there, only estimating.
Fixed formats like 16 and 24 are perfectly fine for final renders and playback , you should only need 32 float format when trying to preserve data in situations like back up storage, or when sharing files to other projects or engineers.
Bass eq cut trick blew my mind! Never thought something like this ever happens.
Have you ever came across the Skrillex way for mixing/mastering the tracks ?.There are plenty of videos here on youtube . I was just wondering if we can use same concept here with mixing/mastering house/edm etc .
your insight will be valuble to us .
Thanks.
I take it you're referring to his engineer Tom Norris's technique from the pensando interview?
@@Bthelick Here are the videos I am talking about.
czcams.com/video/2dYFJdQf7rs/video.html
czcams.com/video/QM6OwLTpO9s/video.html
Many youtubers have made videos regarding his Mixing/Mastering Setup. Looking into these videos.
I am sure you will have a different take on This🙂
yeah I'm aware of those , its just a track advert/video isn't it? they don't show any actual mixing or concept right?
@@Bthelick I think basically the concept here is to clip audio to attain maximum loudness per channel
and again do clip at bus and the again at pre-master and master . If you ever came cross this Guy name Baphometrix here on youtube.He spoke a lot about this.
yeah I'm aware of the clip to zero. Its not what I'm trying to achieve at all. Clipping pre master just creates more clipping, and not in a good way. I'm not here for a loudness war. I'm showing this just to answer those that asked why I'm in the red. I do it because it retains more dynamics and lends itself to dance music better than using a limiter to my ears.
what they are talking about is just aiming for 'loudness' which I don't agree is a worthy goal. They get away with more because of the genre. Harsh sounds mask clipping I showed that in a live stream once. I absolutely do NOT process the death out of every sound in the pursuit of loudness, I choose a good sound and leave it alone. You'll see from my other videos I barely process anything, and therefore barely mix, I rely on my ear training vs a reference to pick/make the right sounds and that's it.
The whole point of the video is to show I don't sit there watching my meters , and that includes loudness. I have no idea what loudness figures any of my music is at before I hit render. It's either close to the reference or its not, and it's either making me dance or not.
Its the reason I'm trying not to make this channel about engineering, because us nerds find it too easy to get caught up in the numbers of stuff that doesn't matter instead of making music.
Loudness is not what people dance to or tell their friends about.
In all my years of learning/producing thus far (7.5 ish - self-taught through CZcams etc.), I have to say that you are by far the most enjoyable and fluid engineer to share your knowledge. I came across your one of your other videos randomly when I was looking for something to watch while eating (as we do haha) and I loved it. While I know/am familiar with a lot of what you have posted so far, I have watched a few of your videos now and am happy to say that I have learned something new with each one. The way you explain and share things is incredible. So clear and easily digestible. 10/10 recommend to anyone wanting to learn/learn more about music production/sound engineering. Bthelick knows his stuff. You're a legend my guy.
Thanks for compliments macca! Great to hear even those with years at it are finding value 👊 it just goes to show we're always learning I'm sure I can learn much from you too 🙏
@@Bthelick much love my man! 😎
trying to guess the edm track! -6 is loud af, so that might make it bass house, and it looks like it might have an offbeat bassline (that seccond peak frequency seems to be hitting opposite to the kick (asuming the lowest peak is the kick). the frequency tilt seems to be pretty dark tho (shifted to the lows, so i by that i would guess more tech house or uk bass.... IN THE END, no idea of the track, the first song that came to mind was fisher- losing it, even though it meetsnon eof those criteriea (this was made before finishing the vid! curious af on what the track is)
(the offbeat bass is rare in hosue so it could also be slow eurodance or techno/psyteck whatever housepeed genres are crutching on the 1/8 offbeat bassline)
The more I learn the less I know!
I love having a simple technical solution but there is none! Thanks for teaching me.
Just gonna go by vibes now, trial and error. Listen to my track on studio monitors, headphones, earbuds, bluetooth speakers.
Bass 2 goes hard 🔥
What do you export when putting out to Spotify / Apple music , don't they not accept 32 bit float. Sorry if I miss understood something
I send them 16bit dithered like everyone else . The explanation is just to explain why the different tracks clip or don't.
@@Bthelick thank you for your answer, so when mixing the master will be in the red, but I guess you need to reduce the volume to close to 0db when you export to 16 / 24 fixed point? I guess not exact 0db as you shown example a number 3 samples can set off the red light , so there can be a little bit of leave way. Sorry if my questions seem obvious to you and overs but this is all new to me.
@@thetree2044 no I just leave it at 0 , let the red light do what it wants, and if it's sounding good I hit export and send it to stores. Nothing more.
Well nothing more except 20 years of ear training, and 9 years of practice mixing like this!
Some of those overs could be 6db or more so I'm not going to turn it down! The point of mixing at zero is to match the reference tracks, and I can mix in a way that clipping sounds better than using a limiter (most of the time anyway) so it stays right there at 0. Like I say the red light isn't your ears and through good sound selection and arrangement I can get it to work well.
Rendering at 16/24 turns the red lights to zero like I said so it will not be 'over' then, thus the term "clipped" . Those overs are clipped off.
Keep in mind as I say at the end, I don't lightly recommend it to others, it's a dangerous work ethic for those without experienced ears.
@@Bthelick i am really enjoying learning about this so your insight is really appreciated.. I have been making House and Garage music. To my knowledge producers from the genre used to clip through Soundcraft mixing boards and or tape machines. I have only been exposed to the digital DAW world so seeing away of doing things inspired by producers ( also like Dr. Dre) on computers as supposed to analogue gear is very interesting.
When you use your ears in this approach what sort of sounds do you look out for to know if your pushing to far. Can you hear unwanted artifacts via headphones / monitors? Also do you need to check on different speaker systems and adjust accordingly?
Your video is brilliant, getting people to use their main instrument, their ears, which I myself need to do more.
@@thetree2044 it's probably easier to detect on headphones.
You're just listening for digital distortion, and basically anything 'uhnatural' to your track and groove.
It's pretty impossible to describe in text My best advice is just to push acoustic sounds too far like vocals pianos and you will hear what clipping distortion does.
Bthelick and Dan Worrall should do a podcast together
Petition him! It would be an honour! 👊
A question,when u work do use headphones or the monitors?
Both. When I'm in the big studio with the fully treated room I work mostly on the monitors, i know that room that well and haven't had a translation problem in years.
When I'm at home I work on monitors, headphones and check on other sources more because I have less ideal set up.
When I work on headphones I try to reduce their binaural traits by feeding a low and delayed copy of the opposite ears into each other so they behave more like stereo.
(Headphones aren't stereo btw if you didn't know)
@@Bthelick "When I work on headphones I try to reduce their binaural traits by feeding a low and delayed copy of the opposite ears into each other so they behave more like stereo.
(Headphones aren't stereo btw if you didn't know)" Wait what? That sounds like another video material :)
Dan Worall already explained that perfectly well.
czcams.com/video/uZ9WQDojQt8/video.htmlsi=ARew86KgUCbxash3
@@produccionesabuela8533 yeah sorta figured that out about them. I mainly use them as a alternative listening thing and to check bass low end. My monitors makes me think I have more than what actually come through with power on smaller speakers. And the music just pumping into my ears like that for hours , don't really like that. But if u have information on the long term use of headphones I'd be interested.not studies real people.
@@Bthelick You can still get stereo headphones though
🤯
Top G
Great user name 😁 👊 (except the presumption of gender of course)
You literally post this 2 hours after I finished my first track and was stuck on the mastering stage🤣🤣🤣
👌
wait, but not everybodys work in 32 bit floating point? Or everybody? I mean it depends on an audio interfece, if im not right or/and didnt understand something please correct me
DAWs have been 32 float since cubase brought it in the late 90s. (except pro tools. they took a while to catch up as they were restricted by hardware DSP)
Some will let you set a "recording" resolution less 32, but all calculations in audio engine still operate at 32 float.
Interfaces/ output audio drivers operate at 24 fixed, or 16 in the case of older sound cards.
The daw engine and interface driver are not the same, as I explain in the video only the master channel is directly related to your interface.
If you aren’t redlining you aren’t headlining has been my new favorite saying lol. I used to fear it while DJ’ing too but realized it’s not the end of the world and on occasions necessary depending on the setting.
Well, live is a different animal. Redlining live can destroy speakers!
This is a good reminder that LUFS, RMS, true peak, and FFT spectrum analyzers, etc are just abstractions from sound. They are not the sound!
**bthelick white glove slaps the wannabe mastering engineers** flies away to make more great content.
So you don’t use limiters or clippers ?
Technically I'm using a clipper, the one exiting the daw. But not in any other fashion if I can help it.
My tracks are usually released with nothing on the master.
Like I say though, I don't lightly recommend it!
Reminds me of old Baphometrix clip to zero stuff!
Sounds similar, but not the same at all. Pre clipping channels is far far worse imo. Much more audible and kinda defies the point of that I acheive here.
Clipping to save clipping just creates more clipping ironically!
@@Bthelick so its the same but your just clipping straight into master instead of pre clipping?
@@PatAllers What I just commented above, I guess also Luca Pretolesi uses similar strategy
@@lennyblandino just clipping into master channel?
@@PatAllers Did not dig into it that deep, I guess it's a mix of different strategies, they use clippers on all tracks I believe, while the TechnoBrit guy here just no clipper 🙂
13:50 ah, everyone loves a drugs story!
So, how do I do it then , cus every time I master my stuff it doesn’t sound like it’s “there” compared to my references. I honestly don’t know what to do anymore. I wish I could send you a link to show u what I mean. This is a cry for help lol
It sounds like that's where falling down , you're trying to master your music!
If you're not a mastering engineer, then trying to master your music after you finished it i's already too late. The track should sound like the reference as you make it through the sound selection , and some minimal mix tweaks.
Otherwise, if you make the music first and then try and 'bend' the sound after the fact towards the reference then it's going to be a uphill battle.
The benefit of working at zero is you can hear all the problems straight away because it will distort. Those that mix at a lower level and try to master later are dealing with all the problems they couldn't hear because they were working at a lower level.
Working at the lower level is fine if you intend to send to a proper mastering engineer, but for most people who aren't, it makes no sense to second guess your own mastering at master level when you have much more control at the creation and mix stage and can just hear it in real time. As you develop ear training and experience, you can then release the mix as is. My tracks go out without any mastering at all Because I matched them to the reference from the beginning. See my three simple steps video.
I did master at zero tho lol, I do “master” my stuff right from the jump I don’t wait for the track to be finished to that. I just don’t know what I’m doing “wrong”
Well is there anything on your master channel? What are you referring to as "mastering"?.
Because I'm talking about not needing to master at all.
You know what, I think it’s SoundCloud messing w me, because when I play the wav on my pc it sounds closer to the reference. I was trying to get some feed back from my friend , so I uploaded the track to the site and it doesn’t even sound as close as I wanted it to be. I have a clipper and invisible limiter on that hoe lol.
And by “mastering “ I meant to “distort “ it so its perceived as “ louder “ than it actually is
Clipping is your friend! ❤
Your intelligence blows my mind 😮