Due to finance and location, I have to do my own mastering for my uplifting Trance tracks.
The problem I’m facing is after limiting for maximizing loudness, my high frequencies end up sounding much harsher. My careful mastering EQ’ing is basically ruined by maximizing. (I have tried placing the EQs after maximizing, but I don’t like the clippings from random peaks.)
I have noticed this with my last 3-4 masters. Any suggestions, tips or enlightenments given would be much appreciated.
Hey There !
This can be hard to tell you what you could improve if you don’t tell more about it :
And I could go on… Mastering is very complex, but at least it will help to know your DAW and the Limiter you’re using.
There are so many different ways to approach and deal with Mastering and a “Default” Mastering Chain would not be like making the magic happen all the time, because that will depends of the mix.
Before thinking about mastering & loudness gain, you have to take care of Gain Staging & EQuing in order to have a well balanced mix in terms of levels and frequencies, so you have to filter, EQ & fine tune each individual track and be happy with how it sounds when reaching a “Vanilla” Master Channel ( no audio processing at all ) with it’s level set at 0 Dbfs and peaking your Master Fader at around -6 Db / -4Db (max) in order to have enough room to push your limiter.
Your master EQ should be used to fine tune your mix only, not to correct, that has to be done before at the mixing stage. Also, you would like to check your mix in Mono and check those high frequencies in terms of Mid/Sides levels.
But again, hard to guide you without at least knowing the DAW and Mastering Chain, and even how, there’s no magic receipt that you can just apply all the time, it’s mix & audio material depending.
I should try your basic suggestion for a start. Thanks so much!
Hi again,
Yes, it could help to filter those highs and try to see if the problem is not already happening before your Mix Bus or your Master Channel. Again levels are very important, some plugins like the Waves and many others gives you best results when your audio material hit them around - 20 / -15 Dbfs because they are modeled after analog gears or because they try to replicate that behavior anyway. Bear in mind that in the ANALOG world your maximum DIGITAL 0 Dbfs correspond around -18 / -21 Dbfs on an analog console !!
Meaning that if you hit your limiter with not enough headroom you will take a chance to ruin your mix, so check those highs levels as well as their mid/sides weight & influence in your mix. You can also try to use a de-esser but really watch out for levels and finally, don’t be afraid to get rid of unwanted frequencies using Low Cut & High Pass filters with a linear EQ that you trust. It’s common behavior for many to cut around 150 / 170 KHz in the lows and around 11 200 even 9500 MHz in the highs using 18 / 24 db filter curves,some times even 48. That is something you could try to set on your Mix Bus or Master Channel, when you’re happy with the mix, it can be good to get rid of unwanted frequencies for even more clarity, so it’s worth trying to filter lows & highs before using a compressor or limiter ( or both ) and you can also use a fine tune EQ after those but it has to be a trustfull EQ that you know won’t colored your sound, unless that’s the desire effect.
Hope that can help further, Cheers !