Be careful, of course, because you can easily change the mix’s intention. Simply raise the frequencies you’d like to hear on the sides with broad, wide EQs to achieve a boost in width. Take stereo width adjustments: Any EQ with mid/side capabilities can help you widen or narrow your mix. Much fancy trickery can actually be accomplished with these three tools. Seriously, there’s a reason Master Assistant in Ozone doesn’t automatically slap stereo-width tools and spectral shaping on your master, and it’s because they are garnishes, not staples. Limit yourself to these, and you’re in far less danger of messing things up. Whether you put the EQ before the compression or after is up to you-I tend to go EQ before, but that’s me. Limit yourself (at first) to three toolsįor your purposes, start with these three tools: EQ, compression, and peak limiting at the end of the chain. I speak, of course, of Insight, which I use on every mix and master.
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Luckily iZotope makes a metering system that handles all of these-and in a customizable interface to boot. If you have a meter that gives you a pictorial view of your loudness over time (such as the one pictured below), this can give you an excellent readout of your dynamic range. If they have, that’s a clue that something is awry. I also tend to check my master in mono frequently, listening to whether important elements have disappeared. This tool gives you a good feeling for whether your master is as wide as your reference, or conversely, if it’s entering dangerous territory, which can happen if you’re employing widening trickery. For more of an explanation, check out the metering section of this article. They are a good objective check on your ears and can clue you into what your room might be obfuscating. These display the frequency content of your mix and can be useful in discerning where you need to add low end, take away from the upper mids, and more. Short term loudness is useful for checking the dynamic range between the loudest and quietest sections of your mix. Integrated loudness is typically used to ensure compliance with broadcast standards, but it is also useful for spot-checking the overall loudness level of your music tracks as well.
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LUFS metersĭisplaying information in LUs (loudness units), these meters can measure the short term (momentary) as well as integrated (average) level of your track. You’ll need an objective check on your choices. Used in conjunction with a reference track, meters can be an enlightening resource. Meters are critical in audio mastering because they give us visual context that can confirm what our ears are hearing.
AAMS MASTERING TOO QUIET HOW TO
We have many different guides on reference tracks, from tips on how to use them correctly, to genre specific primers with reference curves you can download and use yourself in Ozone’s Tonal Balance Control Pro. Think, “would this work on the same playlist?” Their overall level, frequency content, and dynamic heft must gel. It doesn’t need to match a reference perfectly, but the two must meet for a game in the same ballpark. The reason you want a reference track is because your master needs to compete on a commercial platform. Your own mixes also make great references, as you’re already familiar with the material. Try to avoid them unless it’s the only option. MP3 will give you a picture of how a song should sound, but once you’re getting granular, you’ll notice the draining quality of lossy codecs, and the comparison will be harder to achieve as a result.
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Try to obtain a lossless file if you can, such as.
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Your next move is to locate tunes similar in tempo, genre, and arrangement. There is also the context of your genre to keep in mind, which brings us to our next point.