apocalyptic love mastering

[ajazzie]

Well its been a while since I was last debating mastering levels, make everything louder than everything else as John Lord once said.

Anyways, I often use 2 or three tracks that I know intimatley in a mastering session to A-B bass , verb etc as I go.

Recently a client brought in apocalyptic love, by Slash, you all know it, and asked to emulate the overall type sound. The song in question was track 5 No More Heroes.

ok, thats more in the mix yet overall the sound is kinda unique in some respects, HOWEVER...
the overall output volumes of the tracks were all hovering around the -5.5db range, this had me curious.
you can also see it has not been hyper cprsd either, nice compression and kinda fuzzy.

Have I missed something, the out levels are normally aimed alot closer to 0db than that? more to .01 or even -1 but -5.5?

Perhaps toast reduced it on extraction? it was from the original cd.

this seems a bit extreme?

anyways, hi to all, hope you are all doing well.

[crizdee]

Originally Posted by ajazzie

Well its been a while since I was last debating mastering levels, make everything louder than everything else as John Lord once said.

Anyways, I often use 2 or three tracks that I know intimatley in a mastering session to A-B bass , verb etc as I go.

Recently a client brought in apocalyptic love, by Slash, you all know it, and asked to emulate the overall type sound. The song in question was track 5 No More Heroes.

ok, thats more in the mix yet overall the sound is kinda unique in some respects, HOWEVER...
the overall output volumes of the tracks were all hovering around the -5.5db range, this had me curious.
you can also see it has not been hyper cprsd either, nice compression and kinda fuzzy.

Have I missed something, the out levels are normally aimed alot closer to 0db than that? more to .01 or even -1 but -5.5?

Perhaps toast reduced it on extraction? it was from the original cd.

this seems a bit extreme?

anyways, hi to all, hope you are all doing well.

Hi,

Just played it and measured it...

Peak -0dbfs
RMS -7dbfs momentary RMS @ -5.5 dbfs

Ignore top meter its not displaying in real time!
Track isn't mental loud! quite tame compared to some tracks.




Chris

[Emcha_audio]

Some mastering engineers are finally revolting against the loudness war. Just my hope.

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

Some mastering engineers are finally revolting against the loudness war. Just my hope.

Mine too, and it also may have been a conscious choice to have that song softer as an artistic choice, relating the songs around it on the CD(another example is that Steve Vai always buts a slower or ballad type song as the 7th track). Sometimes what makes sense for A song, doesn't make sense in a BATCH of songs

[ajazzie]

Hey Chriss,

thanks for the info and check,

i pulled the same track from another disc and what would you reckon eh, back at .01

perhaps....well I dont even know that one, toooo hard basket!

on a side note: as others stated here I am all for reducing the total output levels for sure, hyper compression and loudness = inherent distortion at higher levels. Bob katz explains this so well.

Ive been using protools since 2000, its come a long way but mixing has gone backwards I feel, too many distractions with software and plugs.
I still use a TDM system on os9 as a favourite (although I have 10 on x), sad I know but it works a treat, minimal plugs and stable to the core! It still ends up on a cd either way and I do love not being in the constant upgrade/compatability/problem fixing war.

As for the ballard on track 7, agreed!!
(the bigest mistake I come across often with mixes handed to me is the rms is taken for peak (usually a vocal or somewhat) and so the mix gets gain added or normalised and ruined at that stage.

up front vocals on ballards are difficult to fix when too loud as when trying to get unity with other tracks as the music always seems to get lost.)

Oh well....

[Emcha_audio]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Mine too, and it also may have been a conscious choice to have that song softer as an artistic choice, relating the songs around it on the CD(another example is that Steve Vai always buts a slower or ballad type song as the 7th track). Sometimes what makes sense for A song, doesn't make sense in a BATCH of songs

True.. true and again soo true!