I quite often get asked to make a track as loud as xyz. There are certain processes involved in mastering which are used to make the record appear loud, and some tracks benefit from these processes better than others. A track can only be pushed so far before negative artifacts start to affect the sound, and some tracks can be pushed much further than others. This is down to how the track is arranged, recorded/produced and mixed. So i thought I'd post some to tips to help achieve a well balanced, clean mix that will allow your track to have high ‘loudness potential.’ They are by no means exhaustive, just some helpful hints which you can choose to use or lose!

1) PLAN your arrangement from the outside so that each instrument or sound has it’s own place in the mix. Instruments fighting for the same frequency content will become blurred and unclear. Decide which aspects of your mix are important. Is it a vocal based track? Then try to fit the other parts around the vocal and give it some room.Our ears our most sensitive to those between 2-5khz, so bear this in mind if you are mixing for loudness and make sure yuou have enough content here. Get it right at the beginning. Fixing it in the mix (or master) is always a compromise, so make sure you spend plenty of time getting the right sounds in production and recording.

2) UTILISE the entire fequency range and stereo field. Pan hard left and hard right, have the important aspects you want to be heard at the front of the mix. Wide mixes will sound much louder and fuller.

3) CONTROL individual tracks and busses. Get rid of any unwanted noise using eq or high pass filters (but be carefull not to make your mix sound too thin.) Compress and even limit tracks/busses if they need it to try and maintain dynamic control throughout the track. If you do have sounds that are fighting for space, use eq, panning, reverb/delay to create new space for them. Sometimes if your kick and bass are fighting for the same space, having the kick trigger the sidechain of a compressor on your bass track can help it poke through and create a pumping effect if desired. Kicks with a lot of frequency content from 200-400hz often interfere with an electric bass, so a little EQ dip here might be all that’s needed. Getting your kick and bass to sit well together is often the hardest, yet most important part of the mixing process. Don’t be afraid to carve the sound of your kick using EQ so it fits around your bass. Try not to let the low mid range get clogged up. Often, the punch of a snare, lower vocal frequencies, guitars, bass and synths can all be adding to congestion in this area, so decide what needs to be most prominant here and eq the rest to fit around this.Too much going on here and you have a dense, unlcear, congested mix, too little and you have a thin, weka and possible harsh sounding mix, so pay close attention here.

4) KEEP IT SIMPLE. Busy arrangments and mixes will be much harder to get sounding loud. If your planning a loud track you should be aware that reverbs and delays will be accentuated. Keep their use to a minimum, eq or use high pass filters to stop them clogging up the low midrange of your mix. You can even use the sidechain input on a compressor, so that the reverb/delay is compressed when the vocal is playing, and released when it stops, for instance.

5) HOW LOUD DOES IT NEED TO BE? Ask yourself why you are trying to make your record sound loud. As with everything in music, loudness comes at a price. Decide what your track needs, if you really want the chorus to have impact, you can’t have it loud all the way through. Do you want a wall of sound or do you want to keep plenty of punch? If it’s the latter, be careful not to overcompress, especially on the drums and bass. And whatever you do, don’t use compression or limiting on the master bus to achieve loudness, this will only make the mastering process harder and most probably less effective. If you use compression on your master bus for a specific effect, it’s probably best to provide the mastering engineer with 2 versions of your track, one with and one without the extra processing.

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Cheers, David. www.platinum-mastering.com

Very interesting & useful.
Thanks for sharing..

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Wide mixes will sound much louder and fuller.

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Interesting point of view, I have found exactly the opposite to be true.
In fact the more mono, the louder they sound.

My advice to musicians would be to consider musical content and conveyance of your music message rather than having the goal of "mixing for loudness" at the forefront on their mind. Luckily this seems to be the case anyway. I would not let mixing for loudness get in the way of the importance of your musical arrangement, textural choices, melody, harmony or dynamics.

SafeandSound Mastering

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Mastering online mastering

Quote Dave Rose:

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PLAN your arrangement from the outside so that each instrument or sound has it’s own place in the mix.

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There's plenty to agree or disagree with in the rest of the post. But this one bears repeating. There's far too much discussion in this forum about how to "fix in the mix" - remedial mixing seems to be almost accepted as normal! No, compose it, perform it, record it RIGHT in the first place. Polish a jewel, not a turd.

Quote SafeandSound123:

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I would not let mixing for loudness get in the way of the importance of your musical arrangement, textural choices, melody, harmony or dynamics.

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Good advice.


Herbeck

Quote SafeandSound123:

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Quote:

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Wide mixes will sound much louder and fuller.

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Interesting point of view, I have found exactly the opposite to be true.
In fact the more mono, the louder they sound.

My advice to musicians would be to consider musical content and conveyance of your music message rather than having the goal of "mixing for loudness" at the forefront on their mind. Luckily this seems to be the case anyway. I would not let mixing for loudness get in the way of the importance of your musical arrangement, textural choices, melody, harmony or dynamics.

SafeandSound Mastering

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I agree, it should definately not get in the way of your musical goal. However I (and I'm sure you) get asked all the time to make a track sound loud, and however much we think it may be right or wrong, it is better if loudness is planned for in the production and mixing stage, rather than at mastering alone....if that's what the artist want's from the track.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the mono/stereo aspect, to me a track that utilises the entire stereo field (as opposed to one where instruments have only been panned slightly) usually sounds fuller, less congested, and 'loud' although this is completely dependent on the mix of course and there are many examples where this is not the case!

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Cheers, David. www.platinum-mastering.com

I can only report on experience.

I have yet to hear a well mixed piece of audio sound anywhere as "loud" to the ear compared to when it is mono summed. (thats as unwide as it gets).

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Mastering online mastering

It's also worth remembering that humans are pre-disposed to react to high dynamic changes in the auditory field (that's why we 'jump' when film editors slam in something really loud and fast, out of nowhere) and tend to ignore 'steady state' sound (your mother -in-law droning on, new age music) If your music is basically the same level, all the way through each track, and all the way through the album, guess what ... you'll bore the [ ****** ] out of the listener. Yes, we do have to pay some attention to the way people now use music (earbuds in a noisy environment require lower dynamics to avoid quieter stuff getting lost) but some of the albums out there these days are just horrible - brick-shaped waveforms with all the peaks chopped off. Best avoided !

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http://anotherfineday.bandcamp.com/ http://anotherfineday.co.uk http://apollomusic.co.uk

Tomafd = nail on head.

cheers

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Mastering online mastering

Hey, I'm by no way endorsing 'loud' or 'overcompressed' tracks in any way, and your right, we need dynamic range for impact and punch. The article was merely meant as a few tips to those, who for whatever reason, decide they want their track to be 'loud.' I get a lot of tracks sent to me with people asking it to be made as loud as so and so, and often have to explain that the mix simply won't allow it without horrible side effects. It's just worth bearing in mind that if you're going to ask for a loud master, make sure the mix can handle it first!

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Cheers, David. www.platinum-mastering.com

Personally, I have no idea what you're all on about.

I use Turd Polisher Pro and get top results with all my mixes.

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Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

TPP,lol.

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Mastering online mastering

I think most people misunderstand themselves when they say they want their song to be loud. Most of the time, they mean that they want the song to be clear and unmuddy. The exception here is for heavy metal songs (which I don't paricularly enjoy listening to ).

My point is that Dave's first post is more relevant to clarity than loudness. His use of the word 'loudness' might have confused the hell out of everyone.

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http://soundcloud.com/father-son-and-alcohol

And I'm with Dave in that wide mixes tend to sound clearer than centered ones.

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http://soundcloud.com/father-son-and-alcohol

They may have a sense of space. But you would think a "master of audio" would know the basic terminology of audio by now.

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Mastering online mastering

Perhaps I may have confused people somewhat by using the word loudness alone, but the term 'loudness' is pretty subjective, and I think loudness and clarity are linked in a big way. My opinion is that something appears louder if it sounds clearer, compared to something that is outputting the same sound pressure level but sounds more congested. Utilising the whole stereo field helps to obtain a clear mix which to me sounds louder.....horses for courses though! Also, a tilt in the mix/master towards those frequencies that our ears are most sensitive to (3-5khz) adds to our sense of loudness. When mixing and mastering with this in mind the balance between the low mids and upper mids is vital, and by reducing the low mids the high mids can become more prominant, and vice versa. By getting the balance right for the desired effect, the song can also sound more open and clear...as well as being perceived as louder.

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Cheers, David. www.platinum-mastering.com

Quote Dave Rose:

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My opinion is that something appears louder if it sounds clearer, compared to something that is outputting the same sound pressure level but sounds more congested. Utilising the whole stereo field helps to obtain a clear mix which to me sounds louder.....

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You can argue that one out with Phil Spector :-)

I don't want want to argue with Phil Spectre about anything to be honest lol! But I see your point and it's a valid one. I suppose it depends what we are referring to when we say loud..some people may be referring to 'noisy' or 'full' others to that 'upfront' and 'clear' sound. Both are very different but could definately be considered 'loud.' Perhaps I will edit the title of the original post to avoid any further confusion! I have to stress though that it was never intended as an exhaustive list of do's and dont's in mixing, just a few points that might be useful for some people who are after a particular sound....more useful than being forced to crush the track to death in mastering anyhow!

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Cheers, David. www.platinum-mastering.com

Of course mixing is incredibly important and "the sound" should not be left for mastering. But with the advent of DIY everything there is a tendency for mix quality to be suffering somewhat. Mastering has to "take up the slack" at times, not always but sometimes.

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Mastering online mastering

Loudness isnt the important thing, but making sure your still clear and loud enough when played on radio is essential.

Quote Shareshank:

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Loudness isnt the important thing, but making sure your still clear and loud enough when played on radio is essential.

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Which actually argues for mastering to leave some dynamics and peaks intact, the radio station processors will spindle and mutilate the audio in ways no mastering engineer would get away with anyway, so why supply audio with pre destroyed dynamics, the Optimod/Omnia really does NOT need your help in that respect.

R128 might eventually help with the race for louder,louder,louder among the broadcasters but I would not hold my breath.

Regards, Dan.

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

Interesting article on the subject of loudness in recordings from The Australian (newspaper).

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/studios-turning-rocknroll-into-r aucous-noise-pollution/story-e6frg8n6-1226054893862

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"Guitar for Life"

Amen dmills.

Also, you have to be careful with wide mixes, if your music is going to be played in a nightclub half of it will disappear! A lot comes down to the quality of the mix in many cases unfortunately.. Luckily most of my clients have great mixes! http://www.soundonsound.com/images/forum/icons/cool.gif

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DCDM Audio Mastering/CD&DVD Duplication/Replication/Authoring Crows Nest, Sydney, Australia
Audio Mastering Sydney