Mixing Loud with CTZ - Ep. 11 - Keeping your mastering engineer happy

[@Nova_Afterglow]

I like these more philosophical entries. It adds context to what is being taught. I honestly believe that CTZ sets up a mastering engineer to really go ham. For an independent engineer, CTZ implemented well and in tandem with a good set of references will rival professional engineering work. Working with CTZ from the very beginning of a track sets up the final result to have a tonal balance; loudness, and punchiness that will rival your reference tracks.

[@Baphometrix]

I've heard your work, done the CTZ way. You've definitely absorbed the concepts and techniques. That latest track you demoed was a straight banger and SO clean-sounding and punchy/dynamic despite being stupid loud! Your PSR was averaging around 8.5 even in the loudest sections, which is incredibly punchy/dynamic for a track that's hitting close to -4 LUFS integrated in those same loudest sections.

[@travonsinclair9135]

Nova Afterglow, what track is Baphometrix talking about? Do you have a concrete success in which your music sounds violently loud but also clear at the same time? Of course mixed with the CTZ technique. Could you tell us what track this is about?

[@scottydo62]

@@BaphometrixI’m still working thru this series, but this has filled most of the missing holes that were in my previous gain staging process. The first CTZ track I made was hitting around -3 LUFs fairly clean without too much mixing. I had to use the VCA trick (without reverse knob on master) to dial back some dbs. I can’t thank you enough for the this method and template, I’ve been scratching my head for YEARS about clean loudness on my tracks when comparing them to reference material. Clipping truly saves lives!

[@sawabhacks8050]

1st Comment :) For the past few years no one inspired me that much to ponder over the intricacies of music as much as you did sir despite i am very picky about who i listened to. I am really really happy that i found your channel. Thank You Thank You Thank You.

[@Xer0DJ]

My English is not good but I try to learn, I love your sincerity and your love for music. Thank you! greetings from Argentina

[@Bonn5656]

Thank you, sir! Trully inspirig to do the things in the right way!!

[@schepperz]

The more I watch this series the more addicting it gets :-) Working towards the "dream mix" for the mastering engineer - love it. Great stuff Baphy!

[@femiadeniran3692]

Never disappoint Thank king

[@MrGodpk3]

Man that plugin you shouted out is actually really useful and has alot of potential

[@femiadeniran3692]

I have move from novice to making pro sound since I discovered your channel thank you so much

[@paulluckey6997]

Really excited about the coming EQ decisions video:)

[@wintourmusic]

Nice Video yet again. Good context for the VCA approach.

[@lucanebiolo9518]

Wow this series is amazing! Thank you so much!!

[@purplepeople950]

Cheers dude another dope tutorial, you've been as influemcial as Mr Bill has to us, so hope you get on his podcast sometime!! 💜 Keep em coming ya hero 💜

[@UnCoded]

These videos are gold ❤️ love you for these videos

[@kiko8u]

WOOHOO! Hey Baph, i asked David Gnozzi during a mixbustv Q&A what his thoughts were on the CTZ method, it was a pretty big facepalm moment when he responded, he thought i was talking about clipping the DAW! I would love to see the both of you have a conversation about this method on a livestream or something. Thank you for your great work helping us in the box producers! Its much appreciated!

[@Baphometrix]

I respect David and subscribe to his channel. He's definitely one of the few mix/mastering engineers on KZbin who clearly understands the realities of mixing and mastering in loud genres. Of course, he's a pro with excellent outboard gear, so he's used to working at a lower gainstaging level when it comes to mixing, because he routinely ships signal out of ProTools, into his various analog gear, and then (probably?) captures the analog output from his gear back at 96000 Hz for finalizing in ProTools. That said, he's one of the few pros out there who regularly talks about clipping and clippers and how they can be used transparently to reduce crest factor, if they're used right. I guess long story short, he already has a hybrid studio workflow and long years of experience, so him actually **using** the CTZ approach himself would be.... irrelevant? He's already got full access to a bag of tricks that is much larger than any of us home producers working entirely in-the-box have access to. That said, I think if he were to truly **understand** the CTZ workflow--AND ESPECIALLY the message and content of this particular episode 11--he'd have no problem with it, and would agree that it can be a useful way for fully ITB producers to mix in a way that makes his job easier. (Because it helps you be aware of--and control--your mix's crest factor every step of the way, and also helps you hear instantly when some sound choice, mixing decision, or arrangement choice isn't sounding good in the small dynamic range required for the loudness target you're trying to hit.) But would he have any time or desire to sit through 10-15 hours of my videos to **truly understand** the CTZ process and workflow that I've been demonstrating in this series? Doubtful, lol. He's a busy guy, and he's already got experience, concepts, tools, and an approach that works well for him.

[@kiko8u]

@@Baphometrix I totally agree! Thanks Baph!

[@Baphometrix]

@@kiko8u For example, here's an older live Q&A of his where he talks about controlling the total crest factor in an incremental way "little bit by little bit" (paraphrasing), by both saturating to increase density (from the bottom) and also to "shave" (clip) transients (from the top). Sound familiar? kzbin.info/www/bejne/mqiynHiZrpyZirM As I've pointed out in previous episodes, Luca Pretolesi (another very good engineer versed in loud genres) also talks here and there about "doing lots of small clips all over your project, instead of one big clip at the end" (paraphrasing). Nothing that I advocate in the CTZ approach goes against what these two engineers are saying. The CTZ approach isn't about "clipping the DAW". It's about working right up against 0 dBFS by using saturation and clipping to tightly control (and understand) your dynamic range, so that you can put those peaks right up against 0 dBFS and know every step of the way how your mix is behaving in that tight dynamic range. If your sound design choices and mixing decisions and arrangement decisions are NOT working well in that tight dynamic range, you'll know it instantly, instead of being confronted with an ugly surprise when you overwork a mastering limiter to try and finally push your track up to some competitive loudness target at the end. (Which, as David Gnozzi says, is "how amateurs try to do it".)

[@SoonersPwn]

Love all the content!!

[@leonfriedemann9151]

I am very excited to try this method 😁

[@sarpozdemiroglu]

great series. need some clearance here. Just a bit confused about; what is the point of CTZ when you take the gain down -9db of all tracks before the clipper those sounds might not reach the threshold of the clippers so all my 20 or 30 clippers just sitting there doing nothing?

[@jyro5924]

I'm guessing: the fact that your mix framework (kick, snare, sub) are still peaking at 0 or close to 0 when you take them out of a clipper, the mix is still louder than when setting your kick to hit -10db, for example (traditional mixdown advice).

[@Reggi_Sample]

In this example the clipping stages in the box are replaced by the clipping of driving analog gear on the master. But he is explaining the CTZ method isn’t just about those clippers at the end! It’s about sound choice and decisions as you still have been demoing and making your mix decisions based off already knowing how things sound when stacked and when pushed to the limit. Using already clipped sounds from the first instance of mixing and frequently referencing with scopes and metering at what each process in the mix does to that final sound. It’s like previewing what the master will sound like while still early in mixing. But if your not sending out to a mastering engineer (with a very good analog chain) keep everything on!

[@GetSongsDone]

Just, thanks again. 😊

[@marudelel]

Can you PLEASE make a deep dive into mastering?

[@marceloribeirosimoes8959]

So, at the end of the day, we should avoid the CTZ process to its limit if we need to pass thru a professional mastering process. But we can, even then, benefit from CTZ processing among all sounds and tracks happening anyway. And, at the same time, let the mastering professional be happy. Ok, nice!

[@Baphometrix]

Yep! CTZ will help you make mixing and arrangement and sound design decisions that result in a mix that can hit your target loudness **better**, regardless of whether YOU are doing all the clipping or a mastering engineer is doing all the clipping in a slightly different way. And with the VCA trick, it's easy to "back off" the clipping as far as your mastering engineer might want you to.

[@marceloribeirosimoes8959]

@@Baphometrix That's really cool. Thank you!

[@LifeSurf123]

So do I put the blue cat gain on every track, bus, just busses, or just tracks?

[@david87trs]

Just tracks. Check the video about the VCA trick.

[@PhilemonMortimer-q6o]

Martin Thomas Garcia Edward Rodriguez Joseph

[@UTOBY]

Hey Bapho, this is jet another interesting video! Thank you. But now I'm a bit puzzled and I can't get my head arround that, maybe, if you have the time, you can help me with that. With CTZ we are clipping any sharp transients (ore more) to minimize peak levels to achieve more loudness, right? By doing so we introduce only a small ammount of distortion to the mix, since we clip every transient slightly at the right place in the mix. And as we all know, a lot of small clips are less conceivable than one big clip of many cummulated transients (harmonic distortion). Now, when you use the VCA to turn down the volume BEFORE your clipper, the transient isn't clipped so much or at all. Basically the clipper has nothing to clip, and in conjunction the clipper cascade has nothing to do. Hence the transients of kick, snare, hats and whatnot can cummulate again and the mastering engeneer has to clip one 'huge' transient which introduces more distortion to the whole track and the whole ctz is 'pointless' and we could mix the oldshool way with a -6dB headroom... Am I missing something? Or maybe I tend to use clippers more in a sound design way as CTZ is intented to ... do you see why I'm puzzled? Best Tobias

[@Baphometrix]

Ultimately, a CTZ mix is designed to hit a certain loudness target. ANY loudness target, if you use the VCA trick I explained in episode 8. So as the producer and mixer, you have a general idea of how loud you want/need your track to be and you're choosing sounds, making arrangement decisions, and making mixing decisions all along the journey from beginning to the end of your mixdown. The small dynamic range that you're working in from the very beginning, and the clipper cascade itself (especially the bus clippers) are **guiding** you and instantly pointing out decisions that won't work well in a loud mix that needs to live inside of a smaller dynamic range. And finally, the VCA trick enables you at any time to globally **relax** or **tighten** the amount of clipping with just one knob, so that you can make subjective decisions at the end about **exactly** how much dynamics vs loudness serves the song best. Okay, so at the end of it all, you have a mix you're happy with, that's running at a given loudness. And there is probably clipping happening on many tracks, and probably at EVERY bus in the project. Now, if at this point you need to hand that mix off to a mastering engineer, the **goal** is to have them hand you back a master that's the SAME loudness, because that's your vision as the artist and as the client. Good mastering engineers will usually give you "mix notes", where they suggest things you should change about your mix to help them do the best job possible. For example, it's somewhat common for a mastering engineer to ask you to take down the energy of your low end just a little bit, because they often have analog gear that can put a really sweet and tight sounding low end back into the mix. Point being, a good mastering engineer will ask you to change your mix in small ways. So ONE of the ways they're likely to ask you to change your mix is by saying, "Well, this sounds really good and loud for a mix, but if you relax all that clipping for me, I can do a better job of getting you up to that same loudness, but I think I can make the final result "better" in various ways. When the ME does this, yes, they are going to have to re-squeeze that mix back into the same small dynamic range that you did, but they're going to use a different process and different tools to get there. For example, they're likely to use analog compressors and analog EQs in some very creative ways, and then they're going to do a stage of clipping through an expensive analog-to-digital (ADC) converter. They're going to probably record everything coming back from analog at a 96000 or even 192000 sample rate for very high resolution and to move Nyquist way up high into the ultrasonic part of the spectrum. They're probably going to then run more clipping and saturation at that very high sample rate, which keeps most of the aliasing foldback (the source of intermodulation distortion) sitting way up in the ultrasonic range. And then they'll probably use high-quality downsampling to finally print your master back at 44100 sample rate. In short, they're going to clip everything again, just like you did, but **in a different way, with different tools and processes** . And if they're a **good** mastering engineer, the end result should sound slightly **better** than what we're able to achieve fully in-the-box with the kinds of clippers available to us mere mortals in our DAW projects running only at 44100 or 48000, where Nyquist sits really low in the spectrum and all our saturation and clipping tends to produce slightly more intermodulation distortion (because of aliasing foldback from a Nyquist point that's sitting just above the top end of the audible spectrum). And.... okay I'll say it out loud, down here in a comment. 😉 They're going to have to be a REALLY GOOD mastering engineer to come up with a better sounding result than you got yourself through the CTZ approach. You're absolutely right in that we are doing a "lot more little clips" inside our original mix, and the ME is doing fewer, larger clips. The results you get with CTZ are **really** competively good. BUT!!!! There's a middle ground here. A really good mastering engineer **might** tell you "Don't relax ALL the clipping. Try giving me something that is just 3 dB more dynamic and let me see what I can do with that." In other words, they might ask you to give them something that isn't completely unclipped. It's all going to depend on the skills and knowledge and preferences of the mastering engineer. Regardless of what they ask you to do, it's up to YOU as a consumer to decide for yourself whether the ME was able to achieve a better end result that you were able to make yourself. As I said, they're going to need to be a VERY GOOD mastering engineer. 😉

[@UTOBY]

@@Baphometrix That is an amazingly precise answer, and I now understand why we would 'relax' the clipping for the ME. Nyquist was the key for depuzzeling me! Thanks again :-) increedible Have a nice day!

[@MatamiMusician]

Hi, Baphometrix! Thank you for your tutorials!!! I have a question, Is it possible to use VCA trick, if i have any glue compressors, or saturators ( SSL Comp, Vintage Tape Saturators, etc) on my summing busses such as "Drums", "Basses", "Vocals" etc ? Is usage of "VCA trick" will become much more difficult?

[@Baphometrix]

It depends on how the saturators are set up. If they depend on how much signal is being pushed into their input, then yes, because the VCA controls pull down the level of every individual source track, you might need to walk through your busses and manually adjust those other compressors, saturators, etc. to push up by the same amount you've brought your VCA knob down.

[@MatamiMusician]

@@Baphometrix Thank you! i've got it!🙂

[@a.t.onthebeat2016]

@@Baphometrix I JUST commented on this specific question so please ignore it. lol

[@douglaspodmore7731]

Loving all the videos Baph! Finally got me around to getting motivated to make music again. Wanted to ask if you will eventually go through your whole bitwig template at the end? Or would it be possible to send some money for it? :)

[@Baphometrix]

I've already recorded episode 13, where I'll take you on a walkthru of my personal project template and explain how it relates to a few universal bussing strategies that I think complement/help the CTZ approach to things. Just a couple more days and that episode will be out.

[@809rdl]

Hi Bapho; a CTZ deep diver here! In Ep 7 you mentioned we wanna have our master peaking at -0 ir -0.1 ; long question short: *Is there any benefit of peaking at -1 or -2 , while still having a low crest factor clipped song?* My ''observation'' is that many people, when they gathered or while driving, listen to music in their systems *at its maximum level*; which means they will listen to an already ''clipped''/(distorted) music WITH AN ADITTION of analog distortion because of their system conversion . (¿Is my analysis right at this point??) So, my HYPOTHESIS is that decreasing our peaks in final mastering stage, after ALL CTZ, would give us the benefit of let people hear music with overall less analog distortion *WHEN HEARING OUR TRACKS AT THE MAXIMUM LEVEL OF THEIR SYSTEM* (crappy system already) My EXPERIMENT was this ; I took a The Weeknd´s song; ``Sacrifice´´, put it on rx and rendered an 32 bit float version of the song , decreased by 4 dB, having it now peaking at -3, and then I compared this version with the original in a big bluetooth stereo speaker. Sincerely, I think that the general public WONT NOTICE ANY DIFFERENCE. My observations were : - Its easier to perceive their difference in loudness when you play and compare both at low level. -At the playback maximum level, the ''louder in peak one'' its clearly distorting more; transients are brighter. I would like to hear your opinion in this. Im neutral. To judge in terms of better or worse is always subjective; I am more interested in the objective facts I could learn from your opinion on this.

[@Baphometrix]

It doesn't work the way you think... People turn up the volume to hear the "average" density (and lower detail sounds) clearly over the road noise from their tires, the wind, the engine, etc. If you essentially turn down a -10 LUFS master by 4 dB, people will just crank the signal that much harder into their weak car audio head unit's amplifier. All you'll be doing is adding in more floor noise from the amplifier.

[@809rdl]

@@Baphometrix Got it; now I understand this much better! ok Im ready for next episodes now

[@djse]

Is there a future episode where you give a list of mastering engineer that are good for loud genre ? I had some good experience with mastering engineer with nu-disco/hip hop/pop/house stuff, but they didn't gave me great result with electro/drum'n'bass/dubstep stuff, it sounded good but always miss that little something compare to stuff from Never Say Die, Hospital rec or Circus

[@a.t.onthebeat2016]

Hey teach. I'm officially ready to start releasing my beats but there's only one problem keeping me from doing so. When I use Blue Cat on my source tracks to pull them down from the clipper, the sends I have set up no longer hit the threshold of a compressor for example. What should I do during this instance? Should I simply lower the thresholds so the compressors get back to doing their job or is there an easier way to accomplish this?

[@Baphometrix]

That's a good question. I don't normally use sends and aux tracks to run a bunch of different signals into the same compressor, but if you're going to do that, then yes, the simplest thing to do is to lower the threshold on those compressors (or whatever) by the same amount you lowered the gain across your VCA group. For example, If you turn the VCA knob down by -2.3 dB, then dropping the threshold on a compressor sitting on an Aux track by -2.3 dB should put you in the same general ballpark as before.

[@alinenunez4270]

Mastering Engineers are so many out there. the ones that charge you over 100 bucks are the ones to invest. I know so many Engineers that just make your track loads. but they don't touch eq or help your tracks to pop out. anyways Bapho knows what he is talking about.

[@johnghadimi]

Will you be showing how to use Streamliner in this series? There is a great sale on, and I wanted to grab it. Also, curious if you think Metric is necessary if you just pick up Streamliner? It already has the A/B functionality built into it, so I wonder if Metric is even necessary if you have Streamliner.

[@Baphometrix]

IMO both Streamliner and MetricAB are very worthwhile. And they're not expensive. It's worth having both. Streamliner isn't really a replacement for MetricAB, IMO. Two different tools for two different jobs.

[@JaraMoni-q6l]

Gonzalez Christopher Clark Sharon Hernandez George

[@cristianoalveirinho5303]

hey there man!!! really nice content u put out in here, ive been recently interested in this series cause i always feel the need to get a louder mix ! but i still couldnt understand how to create a CTZ for BUSSES , would you mind making a dedicated video on how to create the track CTZ and the BUS one? Despite ive created the track one im having doubts on the bus one ahaha. bUT overall your content is just GREAT ^^ pEACE!"!!

[@Baphometrix]

So the difference between a Track CTZ rack and a Bus CTZ rack is that for tracks where sounds originate, you want a rack that has dpMeter5, followed by Blue Cat's Gain Suite (for the VCA trick), followed by a clipper/limiter. I show this rack in Episode 8 here at this timestamp: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eZbVn36Gfql4frs Now for busses, it's the same rack, but minus the dPMeter 5 and the Blue Cat's Gain Suite. All you need on a bus is the clipper/limiter. You never normalize the peaks on a bus first, and you never adjust a bus's gain up or down as part of "the VCA trick". A Bus CTZ rack is just a clipper/limiter sitting there at the end of the processing chain on that bus, passively clipping any peaks on that bus that go over 0 dBFS.

[@cristianoalveirinho5303]

@@Baphometrix thanks a lot man! i suck at making mixes without them to sound dull, so im making effort to learn more about values, dbs, lufs , rms, all this stuff still caUSES confusion in my head! but i think ur content is really good, and hey ; hats off for that !!

[@f_stop]

If your mastering engineer asked for file that has -6db headroom would it just be ok to just turn your mix down by -6db. Any knock-on efffect to the end signal in doing this?

[@Baphometrix]

I'll be honest. There's absolutely zero point in asking for 6 dB of headroom in a pre-master (peaks hitting no higher than -6 dBFS). No point whatsoever. And any mastering engineer worth their salt should know that, and won't ask you for that. What they *should* be saying is "be sure you give me a 32-bit float version of your premaster". Why? Because they know that you cannot apply dithering to a 32-bit float export, and they don't WANT dithering, **nor** do they want truncation distortion. (Which is what they'd get if you give them a 24-bit or 16-bit pre-master without any dithering.) And another reason why is because they know that even if you clipped the master bus (peaks going over 0 dBFS on the master), if you export a 32-bit float version of that master, they can simply pull the gain down and the clipped peaks hiding above 0 dBFS will just magically reappear! Bottom line, in today's world, IMO, if an ME tells you to give them something with at least 6 dB of headroom, it's a sign they might not be very competent.

[@f_stop]

@@Baphometrix Thanks :)

[@godfreyjaja8494]

Good day Sir, I really appreciate your efforts in putting up these lectures. I just finished a mix using your CTZ method and I was amazed that I was hitting -6 LUFS at the mixing stage for the first time ever. The question I have is this, can’t I just use one blue cat’s gain plugin at the mix bus to turn down the volume before sending it for mastering instead of following the steps in the video?

[@Baphometrix]

If I understand your question correctly, the answer would be "no". If you simply reduce the gain at the mix bus (or "master" track as it's called in some DAWs), you're giving the mastering engineer something that still has all the original amount of internal clipping at every track and bus inside your project. The idea is to use "the VCA trick" that I explain in episode 8 to actually pull all of your source tracks down out of the entire clipper cascade, so that you are handing off something that has LESS internal clipping at every track and bus in your project. To put it another way, you are using "the VCA trick" to increase the dynamic range of your pre-master. This enables the mastering engineer to use their own preferred process and gear to push everything back into a small dynamic range again. But their result will sound/be different than your result, because they're using an entirely different bag of tricks to do the work.

[@godfreyjaja8494]

@@Baphometrix Thanks a lot for the quick response I would use your method. Please what value of LUFS would you recommend for sending out a mix for mastering loud as you didn’t mention it in your video?

[@Baphometrix]

@@godfreyjaja8494 It doesn't matter what the specific LUFS measurement might be. You start with your own best mix, right? And that mix is hitting some loudness target you're happy with, right? That could be ANY LUFS value, depending on the song's genre and your goals. So now you decide to see if a mastering engineer can give you a better-sounding result that you can get to yourself, right? Chances are good that some of your busses (most likely your drums bus) are clipped to some degree in your own mix. That's part of how you got your own mix loud enough in the first place, right? But your mastering engineer might tell you "give me a version that isn't clipping so much, because I'll get you to that same loudness a slightly different way, and it helps if there's no clipping on the premaster that I start with". Staying with me so far? So, in this scenario, your goal is simply to pull your entire mix down out of the clipper cascade until there's nothing being clipped any more. It doesn't matter what LUFS that might be at. Just look at the most clipped parts of your mix and pull the entire set of tracks down with that "VCA Trick" knob until you don't any clipped peaks. That's the pre-master you'd give to your mastering engineer. They'll squash everything right back up and ultimately those same peaks will get clipped yet again in their output. But it will **hopefully** sound better than your original mix because a good mastering engineer has some expensive equipment and processes they can use that **should** sound slightly better when they push your dynamic pre-master back up to the target loudness that you two negotiate together.

[@godfreyjaja8494]

@@Baphometrix Thanks a lot Sir for these valuable discoveries you are giving out for free may God bless you mightily. Please I have studied your videos very hard for days now and I observed that you have not apply your new CTZ methods to vocal tracks. Please do a video concerning vocal tracks and CTZ technique because I, and I am sure a lot of people still don’t know how to apply the CTZ method to vocal tracks.

[@WarerBrow]

there was a song called "trust me, I'm an engineer!"

[@josiahmora6460]

Thanks so much for this video series! They has been so incredibly helpful. One quick question, what about sending the mix to someone who's going to MIX the project further? Can I use this method and just reduce the gains so I'm at -6? I have a mix and master guy who does amazing work with Dolby Atmos mixing, (folding to stereo binaural) but asks for -6 to -3 db of headroom. I would like my stems to be optimized for max loudness but also so that the engineer doesn't have any issues when running through his equipment or complaining that the stems are too loud to process further. The problem I'm seeing is that that would require a whole lot of gain reduction with the VCA. And if my engineer wants it slightly clipped then would I have to do something like export the stems to a new project and pull all the faders down to -6?

[@Baphometrix]

The video I did about not driving your mastering engineer crazy is the answer you seek. it's one of the earlier episodes.

[@josiahmora6460]

@@Baphometrix thank you!

[@josiahmora6460]

@@Baphometrix hey do you by chance know that episode name? I don't see any either that title and I watched all the videos this week and don't recall hearing hat information! Thanks Baphy :)

[@Baphometrix]

@@josiahmora6460 Episode 11 in this playlist: kzbin.info/aero/PLxik-POfUXY6i_fP0f4qXNwdMxh3PXxJx . Bottom line is that you can control how much dynamics you want with "The VCA Trick". Then (for a different mix engineer) you'll want to export all track stems post-fader. Now you have a bunch of stems with the desired dynamic range, and **some** of them will have peaks hitting 0 (and being clipped/limited slightly). So then either you or the other Mix Engineer can simply "prep" those stems by using some tool like iZotope RX to batch-process the gain lower on each stem to have as much headroom as they desire.

[@OrenK266]

If anybody knows a way to do the VCA trick on Logic and Au plugins that would be highly appreciated.

[@Baphometrix]

Doesn't the "Mac" download for Blue Cat's Gain Suite work in Logic (as an Au plugin)? It's up at the top in the download format list.

[@OrenK266]

@@Baphometrix yes it does! thanks , and thanks for sharing the knowledge, I've been implementing CTZ on rock material to great results.

[@user-ws9rw7rz4p]

whats best for mastering myself? -6db headroom on a ctz mix or can I do it from 0. Its just if im mastering and adding EQ etc that adds gain before hitting the limiter etc. Do I just need to gain stage each plugin each time to make sure it doesnt add any DB's? Bit confused sorry,

[@49Xofficial]

you've clearly not watched any of the vids properly, probably skipped to this one

[@user-ws9rw7rz4p]

@@49Xofficialwhats 8+ hours of videos, no ive not. i did the first 4 then started skipping around. if your not gunna offer any usefull advice, piss off

[@49Xofficial]

@@user-ws9rw7rz4p you watched 4 out of 20+ vids and now u complaining u don’t get it 🤣 also the answer to ur question is within the first 4 ight so pay attention son

[@user-ws9rw7rz4p]

@49Xofficial looks like you have a fair bit of time on your hands though. Wanker

[@user-ws9rw7rz4p]

@@49Xofficialget a life you melt

[@sword-and-shield]

"Control every aspect of MY art"...nobody adds brush strokes when I call it finished..even if they claim it better. But your CTZ and VCA method at least limits their brush strokes if someone decides to hand it off for other artistic influence.