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Home » [Cakewalk Products] » Music Creator » what db level do I master at?

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what db level do I master at?

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doshus Max Output Level: -90 dBFS Total Posts : 9 Joined: 2009/06/29 18:32:34 Status: offline 2011/04/29 05:52:48 (permalink) what db level do I master at? Hello. I love Music Creator 5, and I am ready to master my songs for iTunes...I am mixing using the 24 bit option, but I am exporting and dithering to 16 bit WAV....I am trying to mix and master at the same time before exporting. I figure if I can fix something in the mix it is better than trying to after exporting. I recorded every track below 0 db, and I have mixed to where the peak of the master level is almost 6 db. The reason I did this is because I am familiar with the loudness war, and I compared my mixes to popular songs to get an idea of where they peak. The new Bob Ludwig remastered Rush Moving Pictures cd peaks just around 5 db...My question is: is this a good way to do it yourself? Mixing at a 0db peak seems weak sounding...Any advice? post edited by doshus - 2011/04/29 05:55:18 #1 7 Replies Related Threads
Kalle Rantaaho Max Output Level: -5 dBFS Total Posts : 7005 Joined: 2006/01/09 13:07:59 Location: Finland Status: offline Re:what db level do I master at? 2011/04/29 06:28:56 (permalink) If you really mean 6 dB, it's tooooo high and clipping. Could it be you mean -6dB?? It mustn't go over 0 dB, otherwise the sound quality gets decreased. You're safe somewhere around -0,5 - -3 dB, depending on the quality of your limiters and such, but many experienced forumites think -3- -6 dB is better. It's not the peaks and the limiter that are essential, though, it's how you use compressors. For iTunes you need to convert them to MP3, which requires extra headroom to keep the sound from distorting. Bob Ludwig uses gear worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and has maybe a little more knowledge than you, so I strongly recommend starting more modestly. :o) I recommend books by Bob Katz and Roey Izhaki. They give you much usefull info about mixing and mastering. post edited by Kalle Rantaaho - 2011/04/29 06:30:50 SONAR PE 8.5.3, Asus P5B, 2,4 Ghz Dual Core, 4 Gb RAM, GF 7300, EMU 1820, Bluetube Pre - Kontakt4, Ozone, Addictive Drums, PSP Mixpack2, Melda Creative Pack, Melodyne Plugin etc. The benefit of being a middle aged amateur is the low number of years of frustration ahead of you. #2
Beagle Max Output Level: 0 dBFS Total Posts : 50621 Joined: 2006/03/29 11:03:12 Location: Fort Worth, TX Status: offline Re:what db level do I master at? 2011/04/29 07:49:12 (permalink) +1 to what Kalle said, especially about not going over 0dB and about leaving extra headroom for mp3's. http://soundcloud.com/beaglesound/sets/featured-songs-1i7, 16G DDR3, Win10x64, MOTU Ultralite Hybrid MK3 Yamaha MOXF6, Hammond XK3c, other stuff. #3
Guitarhacker Max Output Level: 0 dBFS Total Posts : 24398 Joined: 2007/12/07 12:51:18 Location: NC Status: offline Re:what db level do I master at? 2011/04/29 08:18:54 (permalink) Yes...very true.... I was thinking the same thing...that you really meant -6 db which is a good level to aim for. I really don't pay much attention to the actual average numbers. I simply aim to keep everything "out of the red" in the console view..... from the tracks, to the busses, to the master buss. This is a method that seems to work well for me. I use Ozone as a mastering tool. I use some preset's that are tweeked by me to "pump it up" in the master buss. It is totally possible to master a track with the plugs included in MC5. Although, there are some really nice 3rd party plugs on the market like Ozone that just seem to make the job so much easier. I prefer to call it "sweetening" as opposed to mastering since (IIRC) mastering refers to making all the tracks on an LP or CD pretty much the same in volume and other characteristics. But, yeah, we all call it mastering although we know it's technically, really not.... After mixing to set the levels correctly...(no red line violations) and applying O4 to the master buss, I export the file and open it in my wave editor where I can see the wave form to see how compressed or not, that it is at this point. I will often use the normalize function in the editor to raise the level to 0db at the highest peak, with everything else being under that...proportionally. Hopefully, if I have done my job correctly in the mixing stage, there will only be a handful of 0db peaks in the whole song. If I find it's running at 0db throughout, I must decide if I wish to leave it there or go back and turn my compressors down and make the adjustments to give it breathing room. In this photo, there are a number of 0db hits in the center, everything else is below 0db This song has been normalized at this point. Notice how it "touches" 0db in only a few places, mostly in the middle "louder" section of this song. In this one, I have the compressor up... notice the dynamics are reduced but the entire level is under 0db.... I don't believe I had applied the normalize to it yet at this point. Normalize it normally the last thing I do.... In this last pic, the compressor is wide open, bringing it all to the peak. This is how many modern songs look, but it is not how I aim to mix. I did this just to illustrate what it looks like when it's overly compressed. This screenshot was actually BEFORE I used the normalize function which took it border to border...and yeah, it was really loud. You should aim for the top pic as representative of your mixes, that will of course depend on the genre.... rock will sound really good if it resembles the middle picture. My wave editor is WavePad. My DAW is MC4 . post edited by Guitarhacker - 2011/04/29 08:20:58 My website & music: www.herbhartley.com MC4/5/6/X1e.c, on a Custom DAW Focusrite Firewire Saffire Interface BMI/NSAI "Just as the blade chooses the warrior, so too, the song chooses the writer " #4
AxlBrutality Max Output Level: -90 dBFS Total Posts : 44 Joined: 2010/11/30 15:20:00 Location: Laramie, Wyoming Status: offline Re:what db level do I master at? 2011/05/25 22:41:15 (permalink) I really like using George Yohng's version of the W1 limiter; I use it for any kind of mastering/heavy compression I need to do. You can accomplish it through the plug ins Cakewalk gives you, but I've really gotten hooked on this plugin. i actually also use it in track on a lot of metal vocals and drums for aggressive compression. And I'd like to reiterate what someone said about it depending on the kind of music you're mastering. Things like Jazz and Classical need more "breathing", whereas extreme metal (death, black, grind) often needs to be compressed all to hell to really get the right effect. In my experience, rap vocals are also the same. I prefer to get my overall mixes pretty hot, but obviously never clipping. That way, mastering EQ and limiting is as it should be...very, very subtle. Also, I would like to point out that in my experience, if you need to have something in mp3/wma/any compressed format, DO NOT export directly to that format. Export from your editor/daw as the original wave file, then use a file conversion program to make copies in whatever other format you need. The quality will be better that way; you won't have any problems with gain, clipping, distortion, etc. And NEVER delete your original Wave file, haha. I made all of the above mistakes on a demo of mine a couple years ago....now all I have left of those songs are mp3 files that are slightly clipped in parts and annoying as hell. Lol. Good thing they were just demos, and were extreme metal. Sonar Platinum/Cakewalk by BandlabMSI Trident 3 Gaming Packagei5 Quad-Core, 3.0 GHZ8GB RAMNvidia GeForce GTX 10501TB HDD+External DrivesWindows 10 64-BitFocusrite Scarlett 2i2 My Projects: Agony By Default [Death Metal]www.agonybydefault.com Ashes of Denial [Rock]www.ashesofdenial.com #5
RobertB Max Output Level: 0 dBFS Total Posts : 11256 Joined: 2005/11/19 23:40:50 Location: Fort Worth, Texas Status: offline Re:what db level do I master at? 2011/05/25 23:33:12 (permalink) AxlBrutality And NEVER delete your original Wave file, Just thought that was worth repeating. We can mangle the sound 'till the cows come home, but sometimes you realize that you need to go back to square one. My Soundclick Page SONAR Professional, X3eStudio,W7 64bit, AMD Athlon IIx4 2.8Ghz, 4GB RAM, 64bit, AKAI EIE Pro, Nektar Impact LX61,Alesis DM6,Alesis ControlPad,Yamaha MG10/2,Alesis M1Mk2 monitors,Samson Servo300,assorted guitars,Lava Lamp Shimozu-Kushiari or Bob #6
AxlBrutality Max Output Level: -90 dBFS Total Posts : 44 Joined: 2010/11/30 15:20:00 Location: Laramie, Wyoming Status: offline Re:what db level do I master at? 2011/05/25 23:51:08 (permalink) "sometimes you realize that you need to go back to square one" It took me all too long to figure that one out, haha. People all too often get in the habit of overprocessing things, and when they mess up, they process the stuff even more to try to correct it and it sounds even worse. And then you're stuck with it if you haven't kept copies of the original. I really wish I had figured out that concept a long, long time ago...much earlier than I did. Anyway, back on topic....I'd like to point out that mastering and levels depend on a lot of variables...what kind of equipment/plugins you use, what tweaks you do to the equipment (knowing how to use it), how it sounds on various mediums, etc., in addition to how loud it is. Mastering is a completely different art form; it is [supposed to be] an extremely subtle use of compression and EQ, assuming the mixing engineer has done his job correctly. There is a long standing concept we were taught in school that as a mastering engineer, most of the time, if you have to make an adjustment in compression or EQ of more than 3dB, then a) you are overdoing it, or b) you're getting stuck having to compensate for incompetence on the part of the mixing engineer. Anyway, I want to reemphasize that a lot of it is not necessarily how loud it is, but how it sounds. I just recorded a simple little piano/strings demo, and did three different "masters" to demonstrate my point. All of these, to the average ear and on a couple of different consumer mediums, are about the same amplitude, but they sound completely different, and not all good: This is a lightly limited mix. It sounds good; has some headroom and dynamics (which is good for that kind of music)...but it is ever so slightly quieter than the other two: This is a more moderately limited version, which is perfect...it's a little bit louder and still sounds pretty good. Has a little less dynamic to it though, but this version sounds the best: This is a heavily (and carelessly) limited version. Its slightly louder still but any halfway trained ear can definitely hear the compression in it. This is what most commercial songs look like waveform-wise, but the engineers who master this stuff have much more expensive equipment, far better listening environments, and spend hours upon hours making very subtle adjustments to make sure that you can't hear the compression/limiting here. Your home recorded stuff should never look like this unless you have a ton of experience and some very good equipment, otherwise I guarantee it's going to sound crappy to anybody other than the average, stupid music hound: And just for reference (and giggles), this is the waveform of Trapt's "Who's Going Home With You Tonight", from 2008's "Only Through The Pain". The dude that do this stuff know what they're doing...and get paid big bucks to play with rather fancy equipment all day long: So yea, there's my two cents. Oh, by the way guys, in reference to the whole clipping at 0dB thing, not necessarily. 0dB is the absolute clip point for digital audio, but not for analog. You can push levels on tape to 6 dB, and there are a few studios around that still strictly record to tape. However, (to the OP), since you're recording digital, yea, you don't want to go over 0dB unless you want some nasty distortion....when you do that, you cut the peaks and valleys of the waveform off (clipping) and unintentionally create what are called sawtooth waveforms. post edited by AxlBrutality - 2011/05/26 04:59:04 Sonar Platinum/Cakewalk by BandlabMSI Trident 3 Gaming Packagei5 Quad-Core, 3.0 GHZ8GB RAMNvidia GeForce GTX 10501TB HDD+External DrivesWindows 10 64-BitFocusrite Scarlett 2i2 My Projects: Agony By Default [Death Metal]www.agonybydefault.com Ashes of Denial [Rock]www.ashesofdenial.com #7
Kalle Rantaaho Max Output Level: -5 dBFS Total Posts : 7005 Joined: 2006/01/09 13:07:59 Location: Finland Status: offline Re:what db level do I master at? 2011/05/27 03:28:06 (permalink) AxlBrutality To me all your pictures look like being at 0 dB or clipping. I see no headroom whatsoever even in the first one. Maybe I'm somehow misinterpreting the borders of the pictures, because they look like being framed differently?? SONAR PE 8.5.3, Asus P5B, 2,4 Ghz Dual Core, 4 Gb RAM, GF 7300, EMU 1820, Bluetube Pre - Kontakt4, Ozone, Addictive Drums, PSP Mixpack2, Melda Creative Pack, Melodyne Plugin etc. The benefit of being a middle aged amateur is the low number of years of frustration ahead of you. #8

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