🎧 Sonible true:level & true:balance - Deep Dive Mastering Tutorial for Electronic Music

[@machinemademan]

i have watched maybe 100 videos on mixing and mastering and like 75% of this info wasnt in them. i came here for a product review and walked away learning so much!

[@warpacademy]

Glad it was helpful! Cheers mate.

[@machinemademan]

@@warpacademy so helpful that i instantly let out a bittersweet sigh..knowing now i have exhaustively watch the rest of your videos. i dont see many experts talking about bass music its usually the guy making it having to figure it out themself like subtronics and being lucky enough to catch a livestream reupload or something. im late to the party but thank you.

[@warpacademy]

There's always lots of time. It is a complicated field to learn, but luckily it's never been easier to learn this stuff due to KZbin. There are many good people creating videos that are free. All you need to do is dedicate some time on the regular (each day recommended) to go through then, make notes, and practice. You'd be surprised by how quickly you'll improve.

[@DaveLopezMixing]

Incredible presentation! I came here for more information on Sonible tools, which you nailed. You also provided new Mastering details and techniques. I'm subscribed!

[@warpacademy]

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for subscribing Dave. Hope to see you around the channel.

[@louiewgroenewald]

It is true what you say. I've downloaded songs from KZbin and Spottify, played in my DAW and analyzed. Genre and style was mostly POP and Rock. And the songs was ranging between -6.7 and -9 integrated LUFS. And most of them went slightly over TP into red. I'm not and expert as you are and still learning. But for me it shows that -14 LuFS is not right as per most advice put out there. For me I just want the proper loudness for genre and style, to be able to compete with other songs loudness and most of all to not sound bad. My first try to make a song loud was not great. It sounded horrible. I guess too much limiting😂 It gets better but still struggle with certain songs to get the loudness up and still sound great. Thanks for your videos. You do know a lot about your craft.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for the comment and the kind words. Nice to hear your insights too. All the best with your music!

[@pulsarstar]

There is something I dont understand, your highs show higher that the balance target and references, but it still shows good. 42:09

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. It’s a range and there is a tolerance. So as long as you’re close (IE within the range + tolerance) then it will show as good. You’re not trying to force your mix to conform to an exact target. You’re looking to be “in the ballpark”.

[@bourianboubbov9937]

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your knowledge! I loved how you base your decisions exclusively on real-life scenarios and requirements rather than theoretical and possibly outdated principles. So many styles of music, especially underground ones are completely off the radar of mainstream education and industry... All the best

[@warpacademy]

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching and commenting Bourian.

[@ritec]

Picked up because of video! Amazing tools.

[@davidcamarda8723]

Masterclass. The plugins are awesome, the education you present, even more so. Thank you.

[@warpacademy]

My pleasure! This one was a long one, but I'm stoked you got a lot out of it.

[@hertzouttahell]

keep up the good work. i grabbed alot of new infos here. thx mate

[@warpacademy]

Glad to hear that. Thanks for watching.

[@domuniique207]

amazing video! loved the pro mb technique!! one note: I believe the delta button in your lets you hear what is being removed from the signal

[@warpacademy]

Do you mean the delta signal button in K Clip?

[@sivaramakrishnanmeenakshis167]

Excellent presentation!

[@warpacademy]

Thank you kindly!

[@tonye9045]

Some great stuff in here, thanks!

[@warpacademy]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@harryteunissen5332]

Great crash course. Thnx!

[@warpacademy]

You're very welcome.

[@rudothorne1]

We appreciate the informative lessons. It is a whole new world of comprehension. You are using a DAC with those headphones, I presume? What is the brand and specs. of the DAC? If you don't mind.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks very much. Stoked you enjoyed this! Yes definitely using a DAC. It’s an Apogee Groove portable bus powered headphone DAC with a current drive amp. Really amazing tech. I did a full review on it here: Apogee Groove Headphone DAC & Amp: First Impressions & Giveaway kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3jOc6OCprR9gKM

[@rudothorne1]

Thank you kindly. Again, your teachings are golden and unbiased.

[@warpacademy]

My pleasure!

[@sonictickle]

Sick Tutorial! I`m using true:balance and /:level since a while and this is by far the best tutorial on them i found! One question though: Can you explain one more time why you cut your reference tracks around the drop? Is the given meters useless when using complete tracks as a reference? It kinda makes sence for me but you are the only one using this technique i`ve seen..

[@warpacademy]

Hey Janosch. Sure thing. The reason I use just drops is because an Integrated LUFs calculation will be thrown off if your reference has longer intros, breakdowns or other quiet parts than your song. Drops compare to drops with much more cohesion in terms of loudness so I want to make sure I’m comparing apples to apples. Because I optimize my mastering settings for the loudest parts of the song, it makes sense.

[@vatswav6130]

Really awesome video with loads of useful info and tips!

[@warpacademy]

Cheers mate. Thanks for watching. Subscribe and keep in touch!

[@umuttemelli7006]

Thank you so much for this tutorial. I learned a lot of things, cheers!

[@warpacademy]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Shimmernut]

Really cool, thank you!

[@warpacademy]

Glad you liked it!

[@DariuszBlasi]

Wow. What a great tutorial. thank you!

[@warpacademy]

Cheers Blasi. Glad you liked that one.

[@cryptout]

What a great video, thank you 🙏

[@warpacademy]

My pleasure!

[@joeyf808]

Great Video, Thanks!

[@warpacademy]

Glad you liked it!

[@8BarLoops]

This is incredible. Thank you

[@warpacademy]

Cheers! Thanks for watching.

[@Atem_S.]

track is sick! can't wait for it to come out!

[@warpacademy]

Cheers mate. This was one of the songs created using our Darkside Funk xFer Serum sound bank and sample pack: warpacademy.com/shop/darkside-funk/ warpacademy.com/shop/darkside-funk-bundle/

[@mischamim744]

Hi and thank you, very interesting. I have a question. To make the low frequencies match the reference frequencies, wouldn't it be better to raise the level on a track with bass or kick? You boosted the low frequencies in the master. Or does it depend on the track itself? And one more question. In true:balance at the bottom there is correlation for three groups of frequencies, is there any standard on what level it should be at ?

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Thanks for the comment. This is a mastering tutorial, so yes I made the frequency adjustments on the master. If you have control over the mix, it would definitely be better to simply increase the level of the bass or kick or both. Whatever it needs. It's always better to make changes in the mix, but you don't have that option as a mastering engineer ;) In terms of correlation, you are looking for values further towards 1 in the lowest band for sure. In the upper bands you can have a bit of wandering, but you typically will want to see only positive values, and values closer to 1 have more correlation. You can't rely just on meters. You need to listen. Sum the master to mono, and listen to see what suffers or disappears. Cheers!

[@mischamim744]

@@warpacademy Thank you.

[@warpacademy]

You're welcome!

[@diamonddistrictstudios]

Great video as always. What Dac or amp are you using with your Audeze?

[@warpacademy]

I use Apogee products for DAC. When on the road, I use the very compact and bus powered Apogee Groove. When in studio, I use the Apogee Element 24. I have full reviews on both of them on our channel if you search our video library :). Cheers!

[@PatrickObiang]

BRAVO!

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for watching!

[@symm286]

Hi i learned alot from your vespers content, is there a way to repurchase those old ableton lessons?

[@warpacademy]

Glad to hear that! We have a bunch of my Vespers stuff plus tons of new courses all available at the Warp site: warpacademy.com/courses/ Cheers!

[@1minutejazzguitarhacks39]

What a great and informative tutorial. Thank you

[@warpacademy]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@dddocmusic]

Hi. Would you use both ballance and level during the recording and mixing of music or just on the final stereo track.. thanks

[@warpacademy]

Hey mate. I wouldn't really use them in recording, but most certainly in mixing. My general workflow is to mix into my mastering chain anyways, so there's not much difference between mixing and mastering for my workflow. I just consider myself an "audio engineer" not a mix OR mastering engineer. I just make music sound good, no matter what that takes. And I don't delineate between mixing and mastering. They're both highly inter-related processes in making music sound pro.

[@Musictron]

Do you have a review anywhere on the LCD 5 and the interface or DAC that you use with it?

[@warpacademy]

Hey mate. Yes I do. I use the Apogee Groove headphone DAC and here's my review of it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3jOc6OCprR9gKM I don't yet have a review of the LCD-5s, but I do have a review of the LCD-X and LCD-XC headphones coming up as one of my next videos. I'll likely review the LCD-5s soon too, but in short, they're my absolute favourite headphones I've ever used and I use them day in and day out as my main engineering cans. It's also worthwhile to check out the new MM-500s from Audeze. They're the same chassis as the LCD-5 and are also very flat. They were designed with Manny Marroquin.

[@Musictron]

@@warpacademy Thanks for the response! I’ve had the LCD-X… the new and older version but they were just too heavy for me! I’m currently using the HD 600… in a short summary what do you feel the LCD-5 gives over the 600? I’m also using a Rupert Neve amp connected to an Apollo twin.

[@warpacademy]

@@Musictron I also have the HD-600 and have used them long-term so I'm able to comment on that. The LCD-5 and HD-600 are not even in the same ball park. The HD-600s sound prosumer in comparison. Due to their dynamic driver design, not planar, they have a substantial rolloff below 100 Hz. The sub frequency performance is terrible. I also can't hear anywhere close to the instrument separation in the HD-600s. There are some situations with products where it's not much of a difference, but not this case. It's night and day. Of course, the LCD-5 costs 5 times as much. So factor that in.

[@Musictron]

Thanks!!!

[@warpacademy]

You're welcome.

[@terrymerrick5617]

This is an amazing tutorial thank you

[@basscontrollismrecords]

Thanks man love the content you create limitless is so powerful with sonible its like heaven in mastering

[@warpacademy]

Cheers mate. Glad you liked this one.

[@vinyaye6431]

🔥

[@jordansarkisian]

Kinda random question but rebuilding my crates after a few years off so thought I'd as where you fall on the lossless/HQ lossy debate for DJing? Decent advantage for bigger stuff like festivals, or only when remixing does it really help, or does it help just due to the sound guy running it thru some more before it hits the live system? Or is 320 MP3/256 AAC (or even 320 AAC) really just enough? I've heard you can "feel" a difference but maybe just someone was feeding me bull and most systems/speakers big or small can't express the slight edge anyways, or perhaps the loudness wars just smash the need for the extra range anyways.

[@warpacademy]

Hey Jordan. To answer that question you need to stay away from people's opinions and go to hard scientific data. You can't trust the opinions of people, even in studies, who know what they're listening to. They must be blind listening studies. Those are rare. But they do exist. From my understanding, people cannot reliably differentiate between lossless and 320 kbps mp3 even. I may be wrong. mp4 / AAC encoding is much better. mp3s were obsolete a long time ago. Now, that said, I don't know what listening conditions were used in the studies. They were probably on home style HIFI systems in a living room or something. Not likely on big PA systems. Personally, I never use mp3s for DJing. I do, however, use 256 kbps AACs sometimes where a wav is not available. And my qualitative, subjective opinion, is that I cannot hear a significant difference on any system I've tested. Purists and audiophiles may tell you differently, but, again, they KNOW what they are listening to when they make those comments and studies from the AES (Floyd Toole for example) have proven that when people know what they are listening to, it changes their opinions and reported data in surveys. So it's not as useful.

[@badinibeats5939]

is the tune at 2:20 mins released thats a banger lol

[@warpacademy]

No not yet. But it is out on our Soundcloud account for Warp: soundcloud.com/warpacademy/darkside-funk-glitch-hop-001

[@awedee.0]

2:45 i know a set thats even flatter 🤫

[@warpacademy]

Yeah? And.......care to share? Also it’s not just about being flat. I mean Sennheiser HD600s are also very flat, except for the subs. But I wouldn’t use them for engineering over these. They’re no where near as detailed. Also VSX are very flat. But they’re closed back and that always results in a narrow and unnatural sound stage.

[@winnieelward992]

p̾r̾o̾m̾o̾s̾m̾ ✨

[@commitdubs]

bought the bundle but it basically renders Ableton Live's Undo/Redo function useless as it is somehow adding a bunch of commands non-stop in the background. Waste of $100.

[@warpacademy]

That’s interesting as I haven’t experienced that. Although I think I know what it may be. Some plugins very usefully have their own undo and redo function which only works when the plugin is in focus. Try closing the plugin and then issuing the key commands. LMK if that works. Otherwise contact them and I’m sure their excellent support can help.

[@DJJuxtapose]

oh wow let me look up the price of those headphoHOLY SH**************T

[@DJJuxtapose]

real talk, amazing session though!

[@warpacademy]

Yeah, sticker shock on them for sure. Did you see the MM-500s? They're similar in design and less of an investment: www.audeze.com/en-ca/products/mm-500 A couple things from my perspective to consider. 1) When you're turning pro, you need to understand that you're going to need to invest in your equipment. Your "tools of the trade". For me, when I began as an acoustic musician way back, a semi-pro saxophone was like $4,500. It's your table stakes. It's not for everyone, but if you want to be a pro you need to set some money aside for investment into serious equipment. 2) When I built my studio, my studio monitors were $3,500 and that didn't even cover an audio interface, cables, stands, or any acoustic treatment. My current studio was over $20,000 to build, in terms of acoustic treatment and design alone. And these headphones sound equally as good, if not better, than my custom studio. I'm able to get just as clear a picture of the sound and turn in mixes and masters that my clients are approving. So, if you compare a $30,000 plus investment to get a really flat custom studio, with $4,500 for the "studio on your head" approach, it's not that bad. Plus you can now mix anywhere ;) All food for thought. Glad you liked the video. Cheers!

[@jamodrama]

The plugins are very well explained here. But the sound examples in this video are useless because these are not music. These are just some horrible boring sounds. As a professional (as you state) you should be able to use real music played by real musicians with real instruments.

[@warpacademy]

As I clearly stated in the beginning of the video, I'm an engineer that works in electronic genres. The title of the video is also focused on mastering for electronic music. That's my niche. If you simply don't like the genre of music in the example, you can go and watch one of the other videos on how to use these plugins. What's not welcome on this channel is your bad attitude and condescending judgment about electronic music in general.

[@Narz3000]

I've learned so much from you. Very much appreciated thank you!

[@warpacademy]

You are so welcome!