Professional Mixing and Mastering
  • Mastering
  • Mixing
  • Pricing
  • Blog
  • Clients
  • Samples
  • Beats
  • Contact us
  • Videos & Pics
  • About us

Leave room for the mastering....

5/19/2011

0 Comments

 
Last month we talked about the 2track instrumental and the mixing of that instrumental. Now we will talk about proper mix levels for the best possible master. I know that most everybody nowadays wants their song to be loud and proud! I feel that but, there is a proper way to achieve that as well as a wrong way to achieve that. Let me explain.

Do not normalize or place a limiter on your mixes in an attempt to make your song loud before mastering. This severely derails the mastering engineer's ability to give you a quality sound. You should leave your mixes in their raw form, ideally -1db to -2db below zero; this gives the mastering engineer "room" to increase the overall volume before distortion is introduced to the signal.

The goal here is to have the loudest possible volume without distortion. If you hear distortion, you have gone to far. In my personal opinion I believe quality should win out over top volume any-day. A lot of today's songs are loud but they lack the clarity, quality and warmth of the recordings of yesterday.  Take Ice Cube's "amerikkka's most wanted" CD or Blackstreet's self titled debut CD, both of these Cd's may not have been very loud, compared to today's standards but they sounded great! I would gladly turn up the volume myself on the CD player any day to get a better sounding product! But that is just me. Lol
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Author

    I am a total music fan and enjoy working in the studio. To know me is to know music.

    Archives

    May 2017
    August 2015
    January 2014
    July 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    October 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010

    Categories

    All
    Crazy C.
    Daw
    Digital Audio Workstation
    Digital Performer
    Dynamics
    Hot Mixes
    How To's
    Loud Masters
    Loudness Wars
    Mastering A Song
    Mixing And Mastering
    Mixing A Song
    Music
    New Year
    Online Mastering
    Producing
    Same Old
    Song Mastering
    Success Tips
    There

  • Mastering
  • Mixing
  • Pricing
  • Blog
  • Clients
  • Samples
  • Beats
  • Contact us
  • Videos & Pics
  • About us