Here’s my master of this track. Any feedback is highly appreciated.
The mix wasn’t great but not too bad either, in my opinion. Two issues I had to deal with were lots of harsh noises on the “shhh” sounds in the vocals and “sss” sibilance too, and a large imbalance between the kick and the bass. I dealt with the first one using 2 instances of a de-esser and the 2nd one with a fair amount of compression on the low frequency band.
Loudness is set roughly to -12.5 LUFS, which is too much for digital media but I figured it was suitable for this genre and the artist’s expectations (he mentioned reference tracks that are very hot).
Hi I didn’t read the other posts. I might be the least talented here in mixing, but here it is:)
In studio one, at the bottom where it lists bpm, I change the numbers from lets say 102 to 106. bingo done in about ten seconds…change them right back if I don’t like it
that is tracks that I played on my guitars, vocals, and Ezdrummer. I go back and listen to see if anything was altered and can’t find anything??
The only thing I noticed while listening through my laptop speakers was the s’s being somewhat bright, but I doubt it will bother many people , if anyone. I didn’t listen to it on my studio monitors and I wasn’t listening to it in a particularly critical fashion but it sounds fine to me.
12.5 LUFS doesn’t sound like a lot, especially for this type of music, but I understand it probably won’t make much of a difference when that’s uploaded to music sites online. It might not keep up with the dance music that DJ’s play in the club though. Maybe the guy will ask you to make a mix specifically for clubs. Always good to have a few different mastered version for different playback purposes.
I know that the OP doesn’t need more opinions on the time stretching thing but here’s my two cents.
I’ve sped up music using REAPER. If you’re only increasing or decreasing the speed by a few bpm’s, you’re unlikely to notice artifacts. It’s really simple to do it in reaper. It’s just a matter of typing the bpm in a voila, all done.
Yeah, it’s very unlikely anyone will notice artifacts from a 2 bpm increase. I’m a bit biased but I would tend to agree with you that amateur rappers are not likely to be audiophiles.
The track is to be released on Spotify, iTunes, Toutube, SoundCloud… all of which compress and normalize loudness, and recommend between -14 and -16 LUFS. It seems to me there is no point in going for the loudest master.
Hey there!!
From what I read, I have few comments:
is that noticeable when you speed tracks up by 2 bpm? (with proper algorithms and settings and/or keeping pitch)
I don’t know which references the artist gave you but I found the kick in that song could have a bit more high end to get a better impact and cut thru the mix.
I was thinking about layering the track with a (real) sample with a different character and mix them together to get bonus from each one.
(I found thosetwo songs as examples)
Mixwise I would prefer something more vox and drums in (very) front, so with less other instruments
I know the point of getting the a high LUFS value but:
-> is that not too early to fit that standard since every platforms aren’t using the same
-> is that not too early for the audience to match this goal since it’s pretty new and people are not used to this kind of sound/way of mixing/mastering (it’s a different sound in a way)
-> what about PLR (Peak-to-Loudness ratio) and mainly LRA (Loudness range) values, which this last one is somehow the most important value I think (regarding both your mix and the references)
By the way, it’s very far from what I used to listen from you, very nice work!
The time stretching matter isn’t relevant anymore, but no it wasn’t noticeable at all when I tried it “varispeed style” (ie without pitch compensation) in Reaper. I haven’t tried the other method, I was just initially worried because I once tried to stretch an audio recording (piano) and it really sounded ugly.
References I was given:
Lost in Paris - Tom Misch
Alright - Kendrick Lamar
Apparently - J. Cole
Interestingly enough the first one, even though very good from a mixing perspective in my opinion, has been mastered very (too?) loud. When I play it from Spotify in high quality and with the “normalize” option unticked, it clips all the way to the end with peaks up to +1.5 dB.
I had thought of layering a kick sample because the original kick sound has no high frequency content at all. I quickly tried it but my plugin-in (ReaGate) didn’t pick-up the transients at the exact right time so I gave up, as this shouldn’t be my job at this stage anyway.
I also think that bass, drums and to a lesser extent vocals should be more prominent but I didn’t want to bury the rest too much because that is where all the stereo content lies. I tried various combinations but most of them sounded very mono so I ended up with this compromise.
About loudness, I’ve been conservative but apparently he has also received a sample master from the studio that mixed the song, and this master is very loud so I’ll probably send him a revised version with more loudness.
Yes it is very different from the music I usually make but I enjoy working on other’s music in every genre (except maybe hardcore metal and EDM). Thanks Phil!
I know, but mp3 conversion from a very loud file is more likely to involve clipping and distortion, which is why I mentioned that I didn’t think it was a good idea to aim at a very high loudness in the first place.
I use some numerous times (with constant pitch) and no-one said it sounds odd.
That last one is very interesting because some parts are more on drums and vocals but without laking of stereo and instrumentals.
As the Soundbreaking video serie explains very well, production in hip-hop is very different from what other producers used to do.
I use “Audio To MIDI Drum Trigger”, bundled with Reaper as well.
For the mix I’m playing with, I use it on the rimshot because I found there is too much room sound printed into the track.
I use a really dry sample instead to get something that popped less than the original track.
So you’re about to join a lot of other sound guys complaining that clients prefer when tracks are hotter… Nothing new
I think this what you’re going to do
Edit:
Lossy compression also plays with peaks… that why you should be careful with them at the mastering stage and try MP3 conversion to see if (and how) it would messes up your track.
“True Peak” algorithms are right there for that.
What I usually do now is not going above -1 dB TP of headroom before compression and it avoids clipping and inter-sample clipping after compression (mostly )
Thanks Phil, I have never tried this plugin, I’ll definitely check it out. It is more straightforward and quick when you have a multitrack, I just had the stereo mix so I needed to solo a frequency range in an attempt to try and pick up only the kick hits. I would probably have been able to do this with ReaGate if I had spent more time on it but I didn’t wish to.
I’m not sure whether you were just asking a question or trying to make a point actually, sorry about that.
Anyway I was meaning to say that with almost all streaming platforms now normalizing loudness, it seemed pointless to me to go for a loudness level that is significantly above their threshold.
Obviously not everyone thinks that way, my potential customer sent me the competitor master and it’s completely squashed (somewhere around -8 LUFS with lots of clipping all along). It is sad to have to either explain why this is bad or send an over-compressed master too.
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