Updated mastering techniques 20 May 2024

⭐ STEM MASTERING MASTERCLASS - www.panoramamastering.com.au/...
📧 The BEST newsletter for working audio professionals who strive for more! Subscribe here - www.panoramamastering.com.au/...
🎹 Proud of your mix? AWESOME! Get a fresh set of ears on board for mastering and let’s work together! - panoramamastering.com.au
🛠️ Mastering Template for ProTools, Logic and Ableton- www.panoramamastering.com.au/...
--
Hello, I'm Nicholas Di Lorenzo, Studio Owner, Mixing and Mastering engineer at Panorama Studios.
I'm an Italian-Australian born and raised in Melbourne. I've been a creative professional for 10 years managing some pretty awesome projects for artists, labels and producers all around the globe.
What motivates and drives me?
My family,
Good food,
Great coffee.
You can find me on many platforms:
Instagram: / panorama_mastering
Facebook: / panoramamastering
Twitter: / panoramamasters
Kit: kit.co/Panorama_Mastering

[@stokeydandan]

Great video, I just replicated the test using Flatline 2 clipper/limiter and Voxengo Span but hi passing up at 1k. Then repeated test once again with Pro L2. It's the channels being linked is what's keeping the low end centred. Unlinking pulls the mono'd low end into the hi-passed sides as the limiter ducks the left and right independently. What's interesting is unlinking the "transients" is what's causing this low end drift in Flatline 2 and Pro L2 as expected, however fully unlinking the "sustain" though is actually keeping the sides hi-passed correctly. I also found to completely eliminate the drifting, link transients fully but also add a few milliseconds of lookahead. Adding the lookahead with unlinked transients though, had the opposite effect and really exacerbated the low end in the sides in my test. I read in the fabfilter manual that the attack on the Pro L2 actually controls the speed of the release stage setting in after the transient, and the lookahead acts closer to what we know as an attack knob which might explain this behaviour.

[@PrincipalAudio]

When I started watching the video, I paused and read the email. My immediate thought was channels being unlinked. It's the only thing that makes sense. I couldn't think of anything else, except that the Attack and Release time will also alter the way in which the "drift" would exhibit itself. i.e. Longer release time would cause more low frequencies to be exhibited, and shorter attack times higher frequencies. Just makes sense.

[@panorama_mastering]

Spot on. Sometimes because we’re looking so closely at the problem we forget the macro of what causes the symptoms to present like this

[@incidence.studio]

likewise! except one detail due to pro-L2 complex clipper/limiter topology... seems the channel unlink is only for the limiter not the clipper so longer attack times will let more of the clipper do the work (and keep proper stereo balance)

[@fen3184]

I'm a complete mixing newb and come here to learn about mastering. Looking at what the plugins were showing I thought it was a phase issue :( lol

[@RecordingStudio9]

Though I knew why linking L+R channels with Comp/Limiter on a mix bus caused a balance shift, I always unlinked if I heard it, and now I know the technical reason. Thanks mate.

[@panorama_mastering]

Glad to help!

[@Limit5482]

Try using a dual mono compressor on your mix buss. That will blow your mind 😂

[@PierceFierce]

Great video!

[@MR_Cellarpop]

Thanks. Best/Mathias

[@iosonoio2493]

Your videos are very intresting 😎👌

[@notyetart]

It's quite a bit obvious tho: stereo is anything not mono i. e. if the limiter squashing some frequency on first channel of the stereo and not the second one - there you have that skew even if the initial signal were completely mono one... Because after the processing your left channel differs from the right one and because of it now you've got some stereo there. At the end of the day that's a normal thing in music and not the thing you should worry about that much while you don't hear any problem with it.

[@panorama_mastering]

You’re spot on. It’s less about “worrying” about it, more so about having it in the vocabulary of cause and effect to better understand and impliment interactions with out processors

[@chris_share]

Great topic! A couple of comments - SSL's X-Limit has a steering function that shows the L/R shift. Also, for a while I've been mixing into an SSL Bus Compressor but I was really surprised recently when I switched it off and found that the stereo field widened noticeably. And that's because it's linked. Cheers!

[@panorama_mastering]

Thanks for sharing!

[@cryptoparking]

Hello! quick question! On the youtube option "stats for nerds' (when you right click on the video). I see you have the volume of your video normalize by youtube up to -7.0db. In my understanding you master your youtube videos up to -21Lufs, if am not wrong? I would like to hear your take on why not mastering youtube voice-over or podcast type of videos to the -14Lufs KZbin standard. btw! You make great content!

[@Limit5482]

Negligible. Also Negligible for vinyl as well.

[@panorama_mastering]

Yes, negligble in 99% of applications; but important practical information to understand the ballistics of limiters.

[@Limit5482]

@@panorama_mastering side note. The hardware waves L2 was used almost exclusively in unlinked mode. The new El Jaun plugin does it as well and the same …waves does not. There is also a few extra tid bits under the hood which you might like I use it from time to time on some rock tracks that come in where the clients Refenece is a 2000’s Refenece

[@producermathew]

Sounds weird, I can always almost hear it whenever using any sort of channel linking. I ALWAYS prefer the sound of channel linking being as minimum as possible. Everything ends up sounding wider and less 'drifty'. It's a bizarre thing. And maybe a gap in the market for a Pro L 3 with some sort of advanced channel linking which mitigates this artefact?

[@panorama_mastering]

Yes! Good observation! Got some tests and something new to report on in the coming weeks

[@kloundv]

I read an article about this, dont remember what is it call but when a signal is being distord, It create high frequency and when high frequency get distorted and create a high freq that computer cant emulate, the computer read the signal as a low frequency, to fix the problem (not 100% but reduce the problem) we should use oversample while distortion or clipping or limiter in masterchain

[@necroticpoison]

Maybe the clipper in Pro-L2 ("attack" not being as fast as possible) creates subharmonics?

[@panorama_mastering]

Someone else in the comments made a good point which COULD be true, and that is the stereo linking is only linked to the release stage not the attack.

[@stelthtenau]

I noticed this a while back. I only tested proL2 and from memory the modern setting was the worst

[@panorama_mastering]

I have a some more tests to do, a follow up coming soon!

[@TWEAKER01]

and masters destined for vinyl shouldn't need peak limiting anyway. Keep bass parts panned center. Keep the level lower. (hint: it's an analog cutting process - it will be cut at optimum level anyway but for long sides or excessive bass. The cutting level has *zero* bearing on the digital audio level. In fact, smashed / limited / clipped audio means more HF distortion and is *more difficult* to cut than audio kept clean and more conservative in level).

[@DaftyBoi412]

Only at the start and my guess is it's something to do with how the side chain is summed, or not in this case I am guessing. So if the side chain is dealt with as dual mono for each channel, what's happening igher up in the spectrum, could cause some diferances lower down if each side chain signal is seperate and the limiter is being triggered slightly diferantly and it is hitting the low end. That's my guess, but I'm well interested in what else could cause something like this, as that's the only thing I can think of that may have an effect.

[@DaftyBoi412]

It sounds like I might be correct, although still havn't got the the reveal, however if this is the case then M/S processing may do wonders in this situation if you didn't wanna link the channels fully (not sure if that's the answer you came up with as there's several possible solutions you could go with, OFC linking the channels being the most obvious of, although this may effect the stereo field of the rest of the track higher up in ways you do not want, and M/S limiting is perfect for that scenario I think).

[@DaftyBoi412]

Multiband limiting is another possible option too thinking about it.

[@panorama_mastering]

Mid side! Interesting

[@boomcrayon]

Love this blokes vids bc its so distictly melburnian mixtube

[@panorama_mastering]

Haha cheers

[@notmisa]

A good idea to implement into the PRO L3 would be to bypass certain frequencies like a compressor. It could remain unlinked until a certain frequency and then make sure that the lower ones are being limited “linked” to avoid this issue. Overall, if it’s not causing phase problems, I don’t think it’s a big deal.

[@eyeiaye]

Hm what you've described is a multiband limiter though, right? Not to say that that's inherently a problem, but you'd essentially be replacing the channel linking issue with phase issues at the crossover frequencies

[@panorama_mastering]

Possibly! Good ideas.

[@Gino_567]

Haaa guessed it. :D Curious, why didn't the submitter put a utility after the limiter and convert back to mono instead of adding another limiter. That's what I would have done.

[@voinrima]

Haven't watched the solution yet, my guess: zero or too little lookahead limiter distorts the wave when attacking and this is how the fundamental appears

[@voinrima]

Huh, channel linking was too simple😂

[@panorama_mastering]

yeah a real "aha" moment for me.

[@AuteriaWWinzerJr]

As a rule, never use channel linking when limiting. The release has nothing to do with the issue. Any limiter with channel linking enabled will process both sides equally, resulting in stereo processing and removing the low-end mono compatibility instead of limiting both sides separately.

[@justinhoffman1111]

my guess - channel link??

[@justinhoffman1111]

finished watching! I knew it! I actually run them at zero, i think unlinked sounds better in most cases , feel you can get a little more openess while limiting but never noticed any issue in the lowend before, great video!

[@DaftyBoi412]

@@justinhoffman1111 You can use M/S processing to avoid this and keep the channels unlinked if I'm not mistaken. Split the signal into M/S, hit both with a limiter independantly, then convert them back to stereo. ;) I agree unlinked generally will give you a wider sound, as it emphasises the L/R diferances, where as fully linked can sound a lot narrower as it makes both sides have the same shaped gain reduction, regardless of how far the quieter side is crossing the threshold of the limiter. Sometimes linked is better for things that have a lot of varying panning and the stereo field doesn't appear to morph from left to right like it can in some more extreame cases, however for somethings unlinked just sounds better. I've been aware of this from using compressors, but never really thought about it in limiting till this vid! It's something I've come across on the master bus compressor I use before, but OFC a limiter would exibit the exact same behaviour.

[@justinhoffman1111]

​@@DaftyBoi412 yeah I agree. I do my mid/side clipping, etc before hand so I've already built the sound stage I want. I use my final limiter as a lil kiss dB or 2 and unlinked always sounds best for a loud open master at least for my workflow using prol2

[@DaftyBoi412]

@@justinhoffman1111 Yeah, if you're only skimming the top slightly then you're not gonna get any wild swinging in the stereo field using unlinked, it's mostly problematic when pushing more than a few DB of GR. 👍

[@panorama_mastering]

Bangon