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Sonic Academy proudly welcomes back Psy-Trance heavyweight Nate Raubenheimer aka Protoculture and this week he’s checking out how to use ADPTR’s Metric AB from Plugin Alliance.
This comprehensive solution for referencing mixes and masters is Nate’s ‘go-to’ plugin and over these two videos we get to see why.
Firstly we check out how to set up our references with the track we’re working on and use its vital ‘one button’ loudness matching facility to match the level of your reference material to your DAW playback and also the comprehensive playback controls allowing playback to be synced to the DAW timeline or playback from cue points or loops.
In the second video we take an in-depth look at the analysis options available which include Spectrum, Correlation, Stereo Image, Dynamics, and Loudness.
With it’s clear user interface and various options in how you wish to view the two or more tracks you’re referencing, it’s easy to see why this plugin can prove invaluable in getting your tracks up to a professional standard before they’re released to the world.
A very handy tool and definitely one to add to your arsenal!
Excellent tutorial by Nate again & right on time here on Sonic Academy !
This plugin is just out since last week, you guys rock ! This is true prime content. I really do think that this plugin is gonna be “the reference” in referencing tools…LOL So much full featured and well thought by the developers. You’ve got it all in one very handy & well design plugin where before you needed more than one to get the same analysis tools.
Thanks to Nate & S.A for this fresh & very informative course.
Pleased you enjoyed it… its a bit of a steep entry price point but honestly, its been a while since I was as impressed with a plugin as I was with this. It’s really a massive confidence boost when mixing projects and a ridiculously good tool for learning as well. Highly recommended.
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Totally agree and experienced the same thing while demoing it, definitely gonna break the bank to get my copy, it’s worth mentioning that anyone can demo the plugin for 14 days ( just need to register a free account with Plugin Alliance ) and that Metric AB is actually on intro-price sale until the 31th of October.
Thanks again for the tuts & your feedback, much appreciated !
Great tutorial! Everything Ive been looking for in reference software. Hoping it will go on sale soon. Black Friday?
Awesome! For anyone else checking this out, there’s also some demonstration of it in Nate’s Kick & Bass tutorial.
I had to run out and grab this plugin after. It’s on sale at Plugin Alliance right now, so bit the bullet. Works flawlessly on the control room like it’s setup here. Real nice!
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The nice thing ive found with this is when i thought my tracks were not great mix wise when i compared to the artist i respect & look up to my mixes were not actually far off. Just a few tweaks here & there
Its amazing how ones perception can differ after spending too long in the studio… thats were metric really shines in that it just sets your ears straight again and puts everything in context.
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It’s great that Metric AB has the loudness levels for each of the streaming services but I can’t see Soundcloud there. Does anyone know what the target LUFS is for Soundcloud? The closest advice I can find on their website is this but it says nothing about loudness: https://help.soundcloud.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003452847-Uploading-requirements
HI there @disqus_2rNV8csdth-di
Soundcloud is different when it comes to loudness. Soundcloud doesn’t normalize the volume playback on their tracks. But it’s worth noting that they transcode all their audio to 128kbps MP3 for streaming. When the track is transcoded, some clipping and distortion can take place.
Louder tracks with higher peaks suffer the worst from the encoding and end up sounding crunchy and lacking clarity. Leave at least -1dBTP of headroom when mastering for Soundcloud and try not to go louder than -7 LUFS short-term.
Check this blog article from Mastering The Mix from which the above is quoted 
Awesome, thanks for the advice and link to the article.
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Thanks for the helpful information!
Thanks, these videos helped explain all the functions. I think it would have been helpful to also have a practical example of referencing a track using this plugin.
+1 : Should be a topic on it’s own IMHO, a complete course starting from where to get & which audio format can be considered as a reliable Reference Track, examples of good & bad ref. tracks in terms of levels for example, to things like what to aim at in terms of listening & getting the most of the visual information in the plugin. AB Metric is definitely the one tool to use for this and @Protoculture is the man to do that kind of course.
Yes definitely would love to see that course!!
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Not bad for a quick overview, but it would be better if you gave a practical mixing demonstration, highlighting how and when to apply specific processing based off the plugin.
Had Metric AB for a while, now I can finally understand the full feature set, thanks!
I’ve got a full track walkthrough coming soon and I use metric extensively in the mixing and mastering process… TBH I don’t delve into the filters etc. all that often with metric though. I use it mostly for the visual feedback and just ABing tracks but you’ll be able to see how it gets used in my workflow at least.
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