The Mastering Show Podcast

We all want great low end – deep, fat, solid and punchy. But it can be one of the hardest things to get right – especially knowing how much of it is needed. Too much bass can sound boomy, flabby, muddy or dull.

And as a result, it’s easy to be scared of bass. It’s easier to be cautious and avoid all those possible problems, right ? Well, maybe. Except if the low end isn’t working in your master, you risk the opposite problem – everything can sound weak, thin and harsh.

In this week’s episode we talk about ways to avoid all these problems, including:

• The one thing you shouldn’t do – and why
• The deceptively simple thing you should always do
• Will a sub-woofer help, or hinder ?
• How EQ for better bass can sometimes make things worse – because phase
• Dynamic EQ versus multiband compression
• How distortion might help
• Ah, duck it

Links

Home Mastering Masterclass
TMS #2 – The Three M’s of Mastering
TMS #8 – You need this
Acoustic treatment in a home studio
Home Mastering Compression

All the online streaming services play music back at roughly -14 LUFS, so that’s the level we should aim for when we’re mastering, right ? Wrong.

That may sound strange, given how much we’ve talked about online loudness over the years – but we’re serious. In this show we dive deeper into one of the points we discussed in the last show: why you shouldn’t be aiming for specific integrated LUFS values when mastering you music for online streaming. But, why it is still useful to know how your music will be affected.

Topics we cover include:

• A quick introduction to normalization
• How it works
• Why peak normalisation is useless for matching loudness
• Why mastering songs to a specific LUFS value doesn’t work
• So why are LUFS measurements of streaming services useful AT ALL ?
• When Spotify’s normalization fails
• The biggest problem with normalization right now

 

Links

TMS #31 – What IS loudness ?
TMS #44 – Loudness units 101
TMS #51 – What is the ‘Loudness Penalty’ ?
TMS #41 – Eelco Grimm & TIDAL’s normalization upgrade
How loud ? The simple solution to optimizing playback volume online – and everywhere else

“How loud will my music sound online ?” It’s the question everyone is asking these days, and the answer has always been “it depends”. Until now.

In this episode Ian Kerr from MeterPlugs talks about the new tool he has been developing with Ian Shepherd to answer this question. It’s a website called Loudness Penalty, and it’s free !

Along the way we also discuss

• Why -14 LUFS isn’t the right target for online loudness
• Why Ian Kerr decided to make plugins that won’t change your audio – but will make it sound better
• How coding 3D computer game graphics helped him develop LCast and Dynameter
• Why the Ians decided to make Loudness Penalty free
• How to use Loudness Penalty to find out what your music will sound like online
• Why different streaming services all manage loudness in different ways

Links

www.LoudnessPenalty.com
Ian S demonstrates Loudness Penalty
Bob Katz’s K-System
MeterPlugs Perception
MeterPlugs Dynameter
Users prefer musical balances between songs – the proof
How to decide how loud to master

You can’t master on headphones, right ? Well, let’s see…

This year’s Dynamic Range Day Award-winner broke all the streaming records in it’s first week, debuted at Number 1 in the Billboard chart and… it was mastered on headphones.

In this episode we talk to Glenn Schick, the engineer who mastered KOD by J Cole about his decision to become a “mobile” mastering engineer, including:

• How (and why) he closed his analogue mastering studio to go mobile
• Why he thinks it actually helps him to get better results…
• And makes his job easier
• The type of headphones he uses, and why
• His mastering process for KOD, and
• The decision to master with more dynamics

Links

Dynamic Range Day Award Winner 2018
Glenn Schick Mastering
JH Audio
Chord Electronics
Perception
Audeze
Other Dynamic Range Day winners:
TMS #11 – Matt Colton
TMS #32 – Bob Ludwig

Our guest in this episode is Katie Tavini, who shares the inspiring story of how she got into mastering. It’s something we’re asked all the time, and Katie is a great example of one way to start in the industry, in a time when internships and junior positions are becoming less and less accessible. She also talks about the great network of engineers she’s discovered through Red Bull’s Normal Not Novelty initiative.

Other topics include:

• Why Katie got into mastering
• Do you need expensive gear to master effectively ?
• Katie’s favourite piece of gear
• Does understanding classical music help with mastering ?
• The challenges of being a female engineer
• The pros and cons of attended sessions

Links

Katie’s site
Katie in AudioMedia: Supporting other members of the pro audio community
Normal Not Novelty
Women’s Audio Mission
SoundGirls.org
TMS #37 – Does Gear Matter ?

It’s a question we get asked regularly, and our answer may surprise you. To answer the question, we put together a “shopping list” for the ultimate DAW, and then discuss which of the applications is the best fit, and why.

Topics include:

• Which DAW sounds best ?
• What does that mean ?
• Do all digital EQs sound the same ?
• What’s a DDP file ?
• Pro mastering applications
• Workflow versus features

Links

Wavelab
Reaper
Sonoris DDP Creator
HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master
TMS #28 – Remastering & Restoration
Sample rate converter comparisons
Good example: iZotope 64 bit
Bad example: JUCE 2.0.13
Ian Shepherd/Meterplugs Perception Plugin

Another chance for us to catch up with some of the questions you’ve been asking us. In this episode we talk about:

• Bass – where does it start, where does it begin ?
• How to use an analyser to assess EQ balance
• When NOT to use an analyser to balance EQ and
• What to do instead
• Adding saturation in mastering – should you do this, and if so, how ?
• The most difficult projects we’ve each worked on
• How to extend an abrupt fade-out

Links

Voxengo Span

Multiband compression – the mastering engineer’s secret weapon ?

Kazrog KClip

LVC Audio ClipShifter

Toneboosters Reelbus

Ian’s Home Mastering EQ Course

Eventide EQuivocate

Many of you will already know Jonathan from iZotope’s excellent educational videos on mastering – he’s also an experienced producer and recording engineer, head engineer at M-Works mastering, a lecturer at Berklee and has written a book on mastering. In this interview we talk about many different aspects of his career, including:
* The delights (and perils) of analogue tape
* Re-mastering David Bowie
* Digital mastering tools – and the risk of over-using them
* Humans versus machines in mastering (again) and
* Getting the best of both worlds

Links

M-Works Mastering

How to load a pancake on a reel

Loudness war myths – do some genres NEED to be crushed ?

Ozone master assistant

You Are Not So Smart podcast – Connections

iZotope Spire

 

LUFS… WTF ?!?

(And why aiming for -14 isn’t the right answer for online loudness)

We talk about loudness all the time on this show, but how do you actually measure it ? How big is a “loudness unit”, and why are there three different kinds ? What does LUFS stand for, anyway ? How do you loudness match two files using LUFS measurements, and what free software can you use to get started ?

In this show we answer all these questions and more – plus Ian explains the simple technique he uses to optimise loudness for all the online streaming platforms, and why it isn’t about aiming for -14 LUFS.

If you find the show helpful, please share it with your friends, and leave us a rating and review : http://www.themasteringshow.com/review

Notes

The modern remaster of Stairway to Heaven starts @ -24 LUFS (short-term) and reaches as high as -8 LUFS by the end. The integrated loudness is -14 LUFS

Whereas Back In Black starts @ -12 LUFS (short-term) and reaches -6 LUFS within the first chorus. The integrated loudness is -9 LUFS

These measurements both apply to recent re-mastered versions – the original releases will have been at lower levels. But even so, when I set the playback level of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ by ear, ‘Back In Black’ needs to be turned down by 2dB to sound right. Whereas if we were setting loudness by integrated LUFS value, we’d have to turn ‘Back in Black’ down by 5 dB to get it to -14 LUFS ! This would sound much too quiet in comparison to “Stairway to Heaven”, in musical terms.

Matching the short-term loudness at the loudest point however, suggests… 2 dB.

QED !

Links

TMS #31 – What IS loudness ?

TMS #6 – Loudness: What, Why and How

Measure integrated loudness for free on Mac: r128x-gui (Scroll down to the “Binaries” section to download)

SWS extension for Reaper, including loudness measurement

iZotope RX (Use Window > Waveform Statistics)

How loud ? The simple solution to optimizing playback volume online – and everywhere else

Klanghelm VUMT VU Meter plugin