How to Master a Song Start to Finish: Every Effect Explained

[@warpacademy]

If you missed part 1, check it out here: Mastering Prep: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rqvYm3SeebuabNk Here are the videos I recommend watching next: ✅ Mastering Sessions Playlist: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o33Zn4WIpbamhJo&pp=gAQBiAQB ✅ Our Full Mixing & Mastering Playlist ➤ kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y6uqh5Zufqtgndk&pp=gAQBiAQB ✅ Review of Neumann KH420 Monitors: kzbin.info/www/bejne/anu1cpVohLydhsk ✅ My Studio Design - Acoustics Deep Dive: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a4fVeGWBlKpqp6s ✅ My Mastering Sessions Playlist: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o33Zn4WIpbamhJo&pp=gAQBiAQB ✅ My Full Mixing & Mastering Playlist ➤ kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y6uqh5Zufqtgndk&pp=gAQBiAQB ✅ David Gnozzi @MixbuTV video on intermodulation: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Zqu3eZypbJadkKs ✅ Nicholas Di Lorenzo @Panorama_Mastering Tone Projects Unisum video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jZLXiqKniraCas0& ✅ The Science of Clipping: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a6SknmqDmNeed5I ✅ Improve Your Mix Visually with Voxengo SPAN: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rYTMq3usr6hnj8k

[@theglitch2024mv]

Great video on mastering! cant believe these lessons are free. On your channel alone ive learned alot as a beginner. Thanks Verspers

[@warpacademy]

Appreciate you watching!

[@jakeusta]

Honestly ! The best tutorial I’ve seen so far on Mastering ! I literally mastered a song just by following these explanations!🙏🙏🙏 thank you very much !!!! Please do one video like this explaining the process on the mix bus

[@warpacademy]

I’m stoked to hear that! And yes I’ll be doing a video soon on my whole mixing process.

[@We_Run_Up_Hills]

Could we get an with an edm song?? Like something in the -3lufs range? Curious how the technique would change

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. For sure. I mainly master loud electronic bass music. Everything changes. The techniques are quite different, at least in the mixing. Here's a video you can watch: kzbin.info/www/bejne/j6HFh2N_g9V7ncU

[@reflexsoundz]

I thought I was the only one who did that...the power broke for the lights ..I tape them to the pole stand . By the way you have a lovely home. Love the nature infused minimalist style..it's classic.. your control room is 🔥🔥🔥

[@warpacademy]

Thanks very much! I’m so grateful to live here and work from home with the studio on site. Cheers!

[@D16-i5n]

هذا الرجل له فضل كبير فى تعليمى بالتوزيع الموسيقى من أول تنصيب الstudio monitors وهذه القناة كانت ملجأى الوحيد فى كل شئ يتعلق بالموسيقى ببساطة اذا كان ناشر الفيديو هى قناة warp academy فاعلم انك فى المكان الذى لن يجعلك تائه أو تحتاج إلى شئ بعده شكرا لهذه القناة وشكرا لهذا الرجل الفاضل الذى أتابعه من سنوات ❤

[@warpacademy]

Thanks very much for the kind words.

[@kwameeyiah]

Ah another mastering video, let me click through timestamps and get over it quickly. Ends up watching the entire 45min video. Amazing work Drew. You bring very unique and fresh perspectives to mastering and audio in general. Keep up the great work!👍🏿.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks very much! Yeah there are a ton of mastering videos out there, and I definitely want to be covering new ground, or at least offering some insights that people haven't necessarily heard before. Each master is different too, requiring you to adapt to the song. Thanks for watching!

[@fftunes]

holy ... i wouldn't even have realized it was that long if you hadn't mentioned it 😂

[@warpacademy]

I'm stoked that people have the attention span to stay focused and interested for deep dive videos like this. There are so many people only into Reels and Shorts now and I just can't get myself to convey useful information in that limited timeframe. I'm a deep dive guy. Thanks for watching and seeing it through!

[@softworkz1]

I think for whoever made it beyond 20 minutes, it doesn't matter whether the remainder is 5, 10 or 30 minutes. Same like above, it felt much shorter to me anyway.

[@adieproduction]

GEEZ!! You really know what you talking about, i've never seen anybody explain this stuff in this way, thats absolutely gold!!! Thank You!! ...BTW first time that i see a mastering engineer using Ableton....great !!!!

[@warpacademy]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@dougleydorite]

The tour is a huge bonus. That room is spectacular

[@warpacademy]

Thanks!

[@SI3GEL]

Thanks twice. First for demos. Twice i have learnt about the slick EQ, black box and unisum i already love them. Shukran.

[@warpacademy]

My pleasure. Glad you enjoyed that one. Cheers!

[@eurometrixproductions7]

Wow that room is something else! Amazing! Great tutorial also!

[@warpacademy]

Thanks so much! 😊

[@jamesglewmusic]

Just listening on laptop speakers it sounded like Limitless did a better job on the lower mids, particularly on the guitar where it just sounded perfectly placed (frequency-wise) in the mix with less harmonics clouding other things in the frequencies above. Seriously got me looking at it now.

[@warpacademy]

Right on. Thanks for the insights. Cheers!

[@gigilagardere]

very nice video, I liked the way how you explained every step. Like Monk says, here is the thing; I have a bunch of limiters...Pro L2, Oxford, WEISS, from Plugin Alliance, from iZotope, from Waves a few, Newflanged, SSL X-Limit, Chandler Zener Limiter, TC Electronic (wow, now I realize how many I have)...and I had my eyes on the DMG one too, for the last year. Now, if I'm going to buy it, it will be all thanks to you...and I'ma gonna "hate" you for this...haha. Keep doing these awesome videos, you just won another subscriber.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for subscribing. Yeah it’s easy to accumulate a bunch of limiters (or plugins in general) and if they don’t add something unique to the tool set then what’s the point? I think the DMG really does offer something other limiters don’t. Cheers!

[@XKEEN]

Learned a lot as usual. Been a fan for long time. New to limitless plugin. Its Great🔥

[@warpacademy]

Appreciate it! Thanks for following and supporting the channel. Limitless is an amazing limiter for sure. All the best!

[@machinemademan]

something about how you teach doesnt make me feel so anxious and overwhelmed

[@warpacademy]

Glad to hear that. I’ve certainly struggled lots with feeling overwhelmed with all there is to learn at times so I can understand. I try to break things down into smaller and simpler steps and really explain why I’m doing things. Thanks for the visit and the comment.

[@HeartMere]

Thanks for your masterclass! Nice video :)

[@warpacademy]

Glad you liked it!

[@ryancole3462]

Thanks for this mate! Really intricate, detailed and explained very well, really enjoyed and found very helpful. Its amazing how such tiny moves add up to huge differences

[@warpacademy]

Hey Ryan. This was a fun video to make. I love the deep dive stuff. And yes, many small moves add up to a bigger end result improvement. It’s called “the aggregation of marginal gains”. Look that up if you’re interested. There’s a great James Clear blog post about that from his book Atomic Habits.

[@ryancole3462]

@@warpacademy Crazy i got recommended this book twice in one day. Thanks a lot Vespers

[@warpacademy]

It's an amazing book. It has a big impact on my work and personal life.

[@lacrymoboy]

Pfff, I'm sorry to write that but… you are definitively the best! I wrote that in the past and I think I'll write this in the futur. Great job again. I'm scared to be used too😁. And yes: a video about oversampling/"quality" should be great 🙏🏼

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for kind words. All the best with your music! And stay tuned on the channel.

[@grandphenally3928]

I’m gonna go with the Pro-L2 limiter. The first limiter gave it some grit while lifting the track, but the Pro-L2 limiter seemed cleaner, I guess.

[@warpacademy]

It's nice to hear the difference and evaluate which one you like better hey? Glad you found something you like. All the best!

[@johnheuer6540]

I just found this channel. Amazing walkthrough! You work with great precision, very solid.

[@warpacademy]

Glad you enjoy it! Thanks for the visit and the comment. Cheers!

[@gomahome]

Thanks a lot. This is another level. Really helps to understand mastering.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks very much! Glad you enjoyed this one.

[@baakjinhan]

There is something distinct and unique, in a wonderful way, about the style and method of your teaching. Precise, insightful, and simple yet technically masterful. I watch tons of KZbin tutorials, plus paid online lessons, to improve my production skills, but by far, your contents rank the highest in my book. Thank you so much for all of your efforts and time!! - I've also signed on to your Warp Academy subscribtion so I can watch more of you. BTW, it would be extremely helpful, if you could do a mastering (and a mixing) session just like this one, with a Melodic Techno/Techno/House music genre. Thanks again!

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for taking the time to write those kind words. I’m happy to hear you’ve been enjoying the videos. And welcome to Warp Academy. I’ve noted the request and I’ll keep that in mind. Cheers!

[@Dj_Leoguerrero]

I've always felt that black box was extremly hard on any material but now that i understand the density parameter everything make sense. Thanks man !!

[@warpacademy]

Hey Leo. For sure. When I first got it, I tended to push things too hard myself. Then I learned it at a deeper level and started being more gentle (at least on masters) and I really dig it now. That density control is a genius feature.

[@GooZe...]

What a chill video. Learned quite lot. thank you so much :)

[@warpacademy]

Thanks! My pleasure. Subscribe and stay in touch!

[@namedisclosed]

Thanks for the video! Would love to see the long format in a dance floor cantered production

[@warpacademy]

You got it! Coming soon.

[@kevinkearney3836]

Limitless for the win. Would love to see a detailed breakdown on that one, it’s a beast but you need to understand it.

[@warpacademy]

Ah yes. It's a big one to wrap your head around. I've got a pretty good handle on the advanced parameters at this point, but it took me quite a while. I'll note down your idea to do a dedicated Limitless video. Cheers and thanks for being a subscriber.

[@kevinkearney3836]

@@warpacademy thanks, there’s really no great deep dive videos on Limitless!

[@warpacademy]

Okay, good to know. I'd be happy to do one sometime.

[@bright___clouds]

great video!! question: don’tyou export the master with Dither? or is it already in the limiter?

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. I finalize my masters in iZotope RX Audio Editor, where I check waveform stats, do loudness optimization, add fades etc. There I will do dithering, if it's applicable. Some masters I don't add any dither for various reasons. Dither is not always necessary.

[@MrMatheus933]

This was a great informative video! Thanks! I would love to watch your process with a EDM song aiming to get a louder master

[@warpacademy]

For sure. Look at the mastering sessions playlist on my channel. You’ll see one there. Cheers!

[@goodvibesvince]

I can’t imagine making this video and using this track as the reference.

[@warpacademy]

Really? Why is that?

[@cook-music]

On phone limitless felt sharp, it was a good first pick

[@emmanuelyambayamba8513]

wow this is excellent work

[@warpacademy]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@Stu.6]

Great work How come the alt tube switches aren’t on?

[@warpacademy]

The Alt Tube switch engages a much more aggressive form of saturation. That's often way too heavy handed for a master, and oversaturates it. I would use that more if I was using this plugin on drums or bass for example. Cheers!

[@StereotacticMusic]

I do like DMG on this track better, there is a clarity in the mid range + more depth and side. Very nice song and a very good tutorial about mastering, specially the Black Box, very nice, thanks.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for sharing that. I agree the DMG sounds more open on the side channel. In the final version we went with the DMG. Glad you enjoyed this one and thanks for the kind words.

[@softworkz1]

Very interesting insights, a great video! I have one question: Do you apply any audio processing during video production that gets applied on top of the signal you are hearing locally? It's sometimes difficult to hear the differences, especially when it's about dynamics, I suspect it might be due to the video delivery chain (rather than my ears), am I right? For the most perfect AB comparison, you might consider playing a section of the track as a loop while toggling the effect for each iteration and showing those active/inactive labels like you sometimes did. Oh - and you forgot your finale, comparing unmastered vs. mastered 🙂

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Thanks for the visit and questions. Did I not compare mastered vs unmastered right up front at the beginning of the video? I don’t make people wait to hear the difference so I do that first not last. Maybe I should redo it again at the end tho? These videos get long so I try not to cover the same ground twice. Regarding processing, there is a ton of processing on my voice but I leave the DAW audio totally clean aside from level matching. As you know, mastering changes loudness substantially so in post I’ll use clip gain to loudness match the various examples to my voice level and KZbin’s overall -14 LUFS standard. This is to ensure a good listening experience as massive level jumps are a real turn off. There is a single limiter on the video delivery master but it’s not getting touched by any of the DAW audio. You’re hearing things as they are. But I will say that some of these effects are very subtle. Thanks for watching and commenting. Hope to see you round the channel.

[@softworkz1]

Thanks a lot for getting back! It's very clear that those changes are often pretty subtle and I don't have Neumanns (only Neumann product I ever owned was a VMS-70), just HS-7's at the moment, but I do hear changes to frequencies, stereo field and others - just not that much when it comes to dynamics. I noticed similar on some other YT videos before (regarding dynamics), but you're kind of the first one I came across who appears to be at a sufficient nerd-level (your term 🙂) to even talk about it. Yet, I don't want to bother or steal your time, so I thought about how to burn it down to a single question/example, and that would be this one: When you are playing this video on your Neumanns (not the version you uploaded, but playing it directly from your browser like everybody else) and you skip to the A/B/Off comparisons with the Black Valve saturator. Do those comparison/differences equal up with what you are hearing when actually doing the mastering in your DAW? Thanks so much again

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for the kind words. To answer your question, yes. KZbin is pretty transparent with what it does to audio as long as you’re on a high bandwidth connection. It does compress (data rate compression not dynamic range compression) the audio into a slightly lossy format but it’s quite good. The only difference between my DAW version and the YT version is a tiny bit of compression noise from the encoding. But that doesn’t have a significant masking effect on the saturation AB.

[@softworkz1]

Thanks again for your reply. To be honest, I was expecting you to confirm this and got a little shocked since you didn't. I had noticed this problem before on other mastering videos, one for example, where the presenter made changes to a compressor which I know quite well. He switched it on and started smiling happily - and I heard almost no difference... At least far away from what I knew that the compressor would sound like with those settings. It made me wonder whether there's something wrong with my hearing - and if not: why isn't anybody else talking/commenting about it? I came to the theory that all others might be too afraid of embarrassing themselves by admitting that they are unable to hear any significant difference in dynamics. So, the reason why I was shocked from your reply, is that it meant that I might have more than just hearing problems (making up weird theories..) Yet, I wasn't ready to accept that. I used some download service to get a local copy the video. And (surprise!) - in this video I could hear the dynamics changes. It was an mp4 file with H264 video and AAC audio (90kbps). Then I checked media-internals in Chrome and I saw it used VP9 video and Opus audio when playing this video.in Chrome. Could it be a codec issue? I thought it's unlikely, but I wanted to have a look. Since the online downloaders don't support Opus, I checked out one of the command line downloaders. When listing all the available streams for this video, I noticed that there is an additional version of most audio streams (for aac and opus) - marked with DRC. Quickly found out what it means: DYNAMIC RANGE COMPRESSION In the YT settings, this is called "Stable Volume" and it was ON in my case. Don't remember having ever switched it on - found some posts stating that it would be default-on for everybody since some time. Aftermath 1. Notihing wrong with my hearing (you cannot imagine how glad I am about this) 2. Might be worth checking out, whether it's posible for content creators to disable the creation of those DRC streams for their videos 3. To everybody reading this: What's the state of this "Stable Audio" setting on your side? On or Off?

[@warpacademy]

Wow. Good find man! That would make a huge difference. I had not heard of KZbin rolling this out. But yeah it makes complete sense to have that off for audio videos. Of course KZbin does full length loudness normalization but DRC is very different. I mean I can see why they’d do it. Most creators have sloppy audio that’s all over the place. For me, my audio is very tightly controlled throughout the video. Good catch! I’ll look into it. It’s not a feature I have in the KZbin Studio back end so it must be on an end user setting.

[@withinthevoid]

are you using natural phase with pro q becuase they are dynamic bells? wouldnt Linear phase be better for the mid and side eq?

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Good question. I use natural phase for mild EQ adjustments using bells and shelves. There is super minimal phase shift, and the human ear is not very sensitive to phase shifts. The only case where I use linear phase is when I'm using parallel EQ or when I'm using MSEQ with a cut filter on the side channel (which I don't recommend doing anyways). Check this out: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bpmxpauOqpWlhbs&

[@flyoverfredusa]

yes Vespers, top shizzle again man

[@warpacademy]

Thanks! I appreciate you being a subscriber. Stay in touch.

[@bighousemusic628]

YES BREDD THANKS A LOT IVE USE SATURATION IN MY MIX AND MASTERING ASWELL BUT IN MY MASTERING ITS SOO SUBTLE THAT YOU CAN HARDLY NOTICE IT MY MAIN PLUGINS IS FROM ACOUSTICA AUDIO MY SATURATOR IS ACOUSTICA AUDIO JAM MY COMPRESSOR ACOUSTICA AUDIO TIGER SINCE THOSE IS HARDWARE CLONE MY LIMITER OZONE MAXIMIZER

[@warpacademy]

Those are some good tools to work with. All the best.

[@jamespingel8730]

Great video. I liked the Limitless more for limiting, I listened with my eyes closed when you started a/b ing the limiters and every time the guitar dug in with Pro L2 there was a noticeable grab by the limiter that I thought was a glitch as you were transitioning between limiters, but it was just Pro L2 squashing that in a way I didn't like. Limitless was more open and transparent in this case. Also listening on Audeze LCD-X's here, so maybe something about the Audeze drivers is just picking up something Pro L2 always does that doesn't show up on other systems.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for the insights James. Yeah, I agree with you and noticed that on multiple headphones and speakers. It's not just you. Pro-L2 grabs stuff that Limitless doesn't fuss with. Partially because it's a single band limiter. Sometimes I like what it does. Always good to AB. Cheers!

[@TheDudeTD]

Kinda surprised you don’t low cut your masters (around the 30 Hz range). I’ve seen other producers and mastering engineers on KZbin recommend doing so since it’s not that audible and by taming it a little bit you can get more out of your limiter. Would you say they’re wrong in that regard? Or does the clipper do most of the job for you? Most of them are using Fabfilter Pro Q with Linear Phase

[@warpacademy]

That is a big topic of debate. Cutting the lows IMO is actually a huge mistake. It can take all the jam out of the low end of a song. The idea is that you free up headroom but that’s actually usually the opposite of what happens. When you use an HPF you phase shift the low end making it higher in level than before, unless you use a linear phase filter. Cutting the super low material on a song that has way too much can work. It can speed up the bass and make it feel a little less sluggish. But only if the song has too much in that low range. Rather than using an HPF, I would first try out a low shelf and be more gentle to just roll out a bit and have a listen. Many people recommend the HPF approach because they don’t have proper full range monitoring systems and they can’t even hear what it’s doing to the low end. I used to incorrectly recommend that to people myself before I got a monitoring system capable of 25 hz and I learned from my mistakes.

[@TheDudeTD]

@@warpacademy Cool! Nice to see your take on the matter. Thanks for the response :)

[@warpacademy]

Cheers!

[@Mishael_Agyei-Boamah]

Phenomenal video

[@warpacademy]

Thanks mate!

[@hakangurdol]

Thank you for the knowledge, is the zoom is your main sound interface?

[@warpacademy]

My pleasure. My audio interface is an Apogee Element 24. Cheers!

[@hakangurdol]

@@warpacademy Thank you and Cheers🙏🏽

[@warpacademy]

The Element is discontinued now, unfortunately. The factory in China that made the chips burned down or something. But in general I really like Apogee interfaces.

[@hakangurdol]

@@warpacademy Yes i searched it for the second hand here in Turkey it's about 450💰.

[@kenclarke5966]

That Peele plugin is so sick. Can you bounce out what you hear in Peele as a track?

[@warpacademy]

Hey Ken. Yeah Peel is a sweet tool. And yes you can bounce audio with it active. All the best!

[@dylanjackson1054]

question about the saturation issue? you said the issue was mainly with low end. would using fab filter saturns multiband saturation be a better plugin to saturate on a master and avoid nasty intermodulation or would you still advise against it?

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Good question. Did you end up watching the MixbusTV video on intermodulation I linked in the description? Definitely watch that. It does produce muck in the low end but that’s not all it affects. It will affect the whole frequency range on complex material like a master. And no I’m not a fan of Saturn on a master in multiband. It can work in mid side as well but I don’t like multiband saturation on a master. Higher tones can create much lower intermodulation. I may be more inclined to use Wavesfactory Spectre. But in general I much prefer the Black Box or maybe the Acustica Diamond Dynamic Saturator although it has a coding error with Ableton Live that I’m waiting for them to fix.

[@dylanjackson1054]

@@warpacademy fantastic! Thank you for your time explaining that. I’ll watch David’s video right now!

[@warpacademy]

Sounds good. Enjoy!

[@Georgetoro]

You make an amazing job. Υou are very meticulous with everything you do and that is very good. Every video you provide to us is very informative. (Details make the difference) I really appreciate what you are doing. Thanks, my repsect

[@warpacademy]

Thank you very much!

[@beavertown666]

Nice room! Do you plan on adding outboard gear?

[@warpacademy]

Thanks. And no I don’t plan to use any outboard gear. I work on primarily electronic music and it doesn’t benefit IMO from analog processing. I keep it all ITB.

[@beavertown666]

@@warpacademy Ah ok that makes sense

[@philiphjelmstedt1860]

Do you have a video on Lufs?

[@warpacademy]

I sure do. Loudness Trumps EVERYTHING! kzbin.info/www/bejne/i3nbfIRpnq6Dr6M

[@macmoll]

Limitless felt just a bit more open but Pro L2 felt just slightly heftier and more focused in the bass. I’m listening on a pair of Soundcore Library 3 Pro Bluetooth headphones. The Pro L2 sounding less “open” may be related to your Channel Linking settings.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for sharing! And Id say I agree with you. If I opt to use Pro-L2 it’s usually because I prefer the sound of the low end. Regarding channel linking I always test different settings and compare. Les’s channel linking will mean a wider sound as I’m sure you know. When I test the limiters I sent them identically as much as possible (IE Limitless is multiband and you cannot simulate that setting in Pro-L2). Cheers!

[@Rolanoid]

What's your view on dither? I only used to dither when down sampling but recently read that you should dither even when staying at the same sample rate because if there is processing then there is truncation.

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Sampling rate and dither actually have nothing to do with each other. Dither is used when changing bit depth. I treat this kind of thing the same way I treat aliasing. If I don't hear it, I don't try and "fix" it. Also, you should never dither more than once. You would only ever apply in the final stage of mastering. This is not the final stage in mastering. It's just prep. To hear it from the mouths of the experts, I will quote a section about dithering called "Myths and Facts" from the FabFilter Pro-L2 manual: "Myths and facts Theoretically, dithering the best way to retain as much resolution as possible when quantizing your audio. However, in the real world, dithering often has little to no audible effect. Here are a few things to keep in mind: Although loudness normalization is becoming more and more common, much of today's music is still mastered at quite loud (if not ridiculously loud) average levels, leaving very little dynamics in the final result. This already masks the small level of distortion due to quantization, so dithering probably won't have any audible effect. A lot of audio recordings already have a relatively high noise floor, due to the use of microphones, amplifiers, analog outboard, mixing consoles etc. In that case, dithering will have no beneficial effect at all; it will just increase the existing noise floor. Dithering should only be used as the final stage of audio processing/mastering. With any further processing, like gain changes, applying effects, or converting to yet another bit depth, the effects of dithering will be lost. If your host offers a post-gain effect insert slot on the master channel, use this slot for FabFilter Pro-L 2 when dithering is enabled. Dithering more than once doesn't make any sense. It will just increase the overall noise level in your audio. When mastering for lossy formats as AAC/MP3, dithering doesn't make much sense."

[@Rolanoid]

@@warpacademy Thanks for the detailed reply and info. Interesting to hear FabFilter's take on it. I hadn't used dither for years since the 16bit CD days and only ever did apply it last but recently looked into again after coming across the comment I mentioned. Thanks for the great videos and for sharing your knowledge and expertise so patiently.

[@warpacademy]

My pleasure. Happy to help. Cheers!

[@cook-music]

Thoughts on standard clip?

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. A lot of people like it. It's certainly a pro-spec clipper. I own it, and I'll be honest, I don't like it and have never gotten on with it. Not because it doesn't sound good; it's the interface and workflow in it. To me, it's not well thought out and I feel like it gets in my way. Ryan Schwabe, who makes Gold Clip, is a mix and mastering engineer. He's also a genius when it comes to interface design and workflow. Once I started using Gold Clip, I never looked back. It's such a joy to use, it's immediate, and is best in class IMO. I still have Standard Clip in my plugin library, but I can't really see myself using it for anything other than testing and demos for KZbin. Cheers!

[@Nikogigineishvili]

Great video! Love when you are nerd level 10 😂 please more

[@warpacademy]

That's the plan! Thanks.

[@ahmadkhalid7382]

Awesome video

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for the visit

[@GetSongsDone]

great workflow. as someone who publishes tracks and mixes that are not perfect on a regular basis, I feel like the track itself could have used a little more work. again, speaking from experience mastering plenty of "unfinished" tracks.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for listening. IMO there is no such thing as a perfect mix. We have to decide when to abandon it due to the law of diminishing returns and move on to the next project. It's important to build the skill of completion, and being okay releasing work that you know is not the best you can do. Because you're always improving and reaching further towards your potential as an artist. That's my take on it. Cheers!

[@GetSongsDone]

@@warpacademy yeah, i agree. just a little more verb or something on everything to give it some space. but like i said, i do the same thing. so, i get it.

[@warpacademy]

Cheers!

[@zoltanshrimp]

Why do you need a clipper if you already shaved off the transients with RX10?

[@warpacademy]

Good question. I was shaving off micro overs in RX. Which is also completely transparent. Just the odd little spike here and there. The clipper is for larger micro transients or transients and it will create a little bit of audible distortion, but in a good way that enhances perceived loudness.

[@NINETYSIXMUSIC]

I am wondering what you think about the use of analog emulations during mastering, and IDM because of the non-linearities and harmonics they create. Learning about intermodulation distortion and with even a sine wave, it seems very drastic to say the least, so the advice to combat this is to process everything individually as much as possible, but this is not possible during mastering.. So that means, using ANY non-linear EQ or compressor or tape saturation emulator, you are going to get IDM if I understand correctly? Why do companies who's products I really like, for instance; tone projects, Softtube, or UAD implement these non-linearities into their MASTERING plugins? (Hygge in unisum, Michelangelo EQ, Chandler Curve Bender) Do they do anything different to make the intermodulation distortion less worry-some? Because I feel like understanding what you are explaining here, those subtle harmonics get smeared all over the place and are more of a problem then enhancement to the signal going through? I need you help haha!

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. You do what you must in mastering, and if you only are working at the master level then you are more limited in what you can do for sure. I prefer to be the mixer, and then do the master from that. You can do many things in the mix much cleaner, like you alluded to, and that results in a better final master. It doesn't really make much of a difference whether something is purely digital from the start or an analog emulation trying to sound like hardware. You still can destroy a good mix with plugins (analog emulated or not) and you still need to process things in groups. Bus processing and master processing aren't something to avoid or be afraid of; just be more gentle and make smaller moves that generate less artifacts. You can get more heavy-handed in the mix. Cheers!

[@NINETYSIXMUSIC]

@@warpacademy thanks for the in depth response! I think I have found an answer I am okay with that doesn't prohibit my way of working too much.. The more you know, the more you realize how little you know and how many things you should take into account haha!

[@warpacademy]

Well said! I still have much to learn myself. You have to keep a beginners mind. Cheers!

[@hexpro112]

I'm also using a clipper at the beginning, but a lot of people were upset that it's not good to put it at the beginning in the chain :)

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Putting a clipper first in chain makes complete sense and it’s something I do too. But only after I run this RX manual gaining process to take care of stray peaks in RX. See my last video on that. It’s linked in the description.

[@warpacademy]

Also, when you say “people say it’s not good to put a clipper first” I would ask you what people? Are they engineers? Do they have any legit professional experience? And do they back up their comments with any facts or research? Usually comments like that are from novices who don’t actually do this type of work and their comments are based on faulty logic or assumptions that are incorrect.

[@MohammedMehdiTBER]

I just wonder why some songs on Deezer are extremely loud yet still without distortion nor clipping nor red signal on volume meter that I had to turn down the volume on it to 30% or loudness normalized it, such as: Ketchup ｍａｎｉａ - Your World. The first time I listened to it, I was about to lose my ears, even though I have AutoEq set up systemwide and replay gain on the music player. I feel like It is a mystery. I also I would like as a Metal songs producer if you can teach me how to emulate Sascha Paeth's mastering on Masters Of Ceremony - Signs of Wings. It is obviously huge and impressive in both dynamic range and loudness, and you can easily see that by just looking at the waveform of the track: “Masters Of Ceremony - Signs of Wings”

[@warpacademy]

Good observations. It's no mystery. Loudness metering systems like LUFS or RMS are imperfect and error prone approximations of how humans perceive loudness. They are far from perfect, and they are quite easily fooled actually. When you engineer a mix in a certain way, you can have the perception of loudness that exceeds what a LUFS meter will read. It's not trickery, it's just physics, and a lot of people don't know the techniques to achieve clean loudness. Thanks for the references. I'll take a look at those songs when I have a sec. Cheers!

[@MohammedMehdiTBER]

@@warpacademy yeah, I had closely the same idea as those metering systems can be easily hacked at the level of software, and they are quite useless in the case of crazy songs. Maybe we need some kind of hardware enforcement standard, because this can be quite dangerous on flat song such as the one I talked about earlier.

[@77channel90]

awesome

[@warpacademy]

Cheers!

[@puresquared]

Do you like to drive sound? Turn the drive down on your vocals. Just a tad. Add a little distortion once your done setting the correct drive and saturation. End song sounds a little too overdriven.

[@warpacademy]

I'm not quite sure what you're talking about, but I think you're mentioning what's happening in the Black Box plugin? I am saturating the mid channel a little more, yes, and I like it. So did the artist, so that's my benchmark. It does make the vocal pop, but in a nice way for my ears.

[@puresquared]

@@warpacademy I was just referring to the overall sound. Including your vocals in the video. It sounds clean and great do not get me wrong brother. Just what my ears hear is all. By a tiny smidgeon. Most people would not be perceive it.

[@warpacademy]

Gotcha. I suppose it’s a matter of taste and preference. It’s easy to overcook things with master saturation. This is why I worked in mid side, parallel and used the density param to reduce the saturation. It was more consistent with the references this way.

[@thegrays3660]

If I wanted to have you master one of my songs where is the info for that? Price, process etc?

[@warpacademy]

Sure thing. You can check out my services page here and send me your deets on the form: vespers.ca/services/audio-engineering/?v=3e8d115eb4b3 I’ll reply with rates.

[@nathanielbrown8718]

lol so you have ozone and dont even use it thats crazy. I feel you though. I always felt like it was overkill. If I like my mix, I don't want to have al this extra stuff on top. I just want it louder and maybe more clear hi fi sounding.

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Yeah, I mean, I do use it sometimes, but it's not been one of my go to tools for a minute. I work a little differently than a lot of people. I do a ton of work on my Sub-Mixes rather than on the master. If you're controlling peaks, adding saturation, clipping, limiting, EQing on your Sub-Mixes (busses) then it dramatically reduces the need to do much on the master. I mostly master songs where I'm the mixer, so I have that type of control to "master" the stems. I do mastering where I'm not in control of the mix as well, and that's where I will use more tools and processing. Cheers!

[@tommasostoppani51202]

is this daw ableton?

[@warpacademy]

Yep

[@vinylmastersgr1036]

Waveform is perfect, however I think it's not the final. All commercial songs have big waveform that exactly has no waves but it's flat and cut peaks and extreme loudness. All new songs are mastered about -7LUFS.

[@warpacademy]

I think you didn't catch that I tuned the master file down a lot in level to loudness match it with the pre-master. The master file itself is way up closer to the top. In terms of loudness for a master, I would encourage you to go and analyze more music in this and related genres. To say a blanket statement like “all new songs are mastered to -7 LUFS” is just not true, and it'll immediately become apparent when you run a series of songs through loudness analysis. Loudness levels are all over the place. Some songs are mastered to -14 LUFS and others to -4 or beyond. -8 is actually typical of pop songs, but even in that genre you see variation. To say that a master is not a final unless it has a big waveform - by which I assume you mean super loud - again is something I would refute. The master is done when it sounds good, regardless of loudness level. This is not a genre where loudness maters anywhere near as much as with other styles of music, like EDM, pop, hip hop etc. As you can see from my other videos I’m able to push my mixes super loud if I want to but you have to ask yourself if that serves the song. -7 LUFS is completely unnecessary for a gentle song like this. It would ruin it.

[@vinylmastersgr1036]

@@warpacademy I mean I have checked commercial music new like Taylor Swift BillIe Eilish etc. Older songs were far better.

[@warpacademy]

Right. Those artists are in a very different genre from this. Those are heavily produced pop songs where it's common to have much louder masters. Also, Taylor Swift's song Vigilante Sh!t is mastered to -10 LUFS integrated in the loudest section, not -7. Billie Eilish LUNCH (the single most streamed song) is mastered to -10.7 LUFS in the loudest sections. That's the trouble with making generalizations.

[@AndyParka]

Yeah, couldn't tell a difference between the limiters at all, maybe a youtube limitation. I don' think there should be a difference given how limiters work in the back end, as in the same settings should yield the same results.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for the insight. In a perfect world, all limiters would work the same. But in reality they are coded vry differently. As someone who works with these tools day in and day out, there are sometimes huge audible differences. I can hear the difference between them listening on KZbin, but it is a subtle nuance given that I'm not pushing the limiter very hard.

[@coreybramwell3859]

for this track Pro L2

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for sharing your opinion!

[@sigurtsigurt549]

limitless sounds much better

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for sharing your opinion! Yes, Angus and I agreed and we went with Limitless for the final master.

[@j-station]

Transparent on ProL2 probably would have won the day

[@warpacademy]

I don't like the release profile on Transparent much personally. I use it on dialogue editing more. But maybe I should experiment with it more? What type of music are you using it on?

[@j-station]

@@warpacademy So I do like to use delta to hone it in, but I am working on stuff with more low end content to maybe that’s why I have been hearing it as preferred.

[@warpacademy]

A yes. Low end sub content is the very first thing that will crap out a limiter. Especially a fast one. I make sure I have just the right amount with no excess and I shift the energy in the bass a little further up using saturation and harmonics from sound design. So I don’t end up smashing limiter or clipper much with the sub.

[@ma3boch]