All language subtitles for 1 Big Tip for Much Better Masters (...And Mixes!)

hi this is justin colletti of sonic

scoop thanks for joining me for this

week's episode of the sonic scoop

podcast

and today i'm going to give you one

quick tip

that is going to tremendously improve

your results at mastering

and if you apply this to mixing i think

it'll help you a lot in mixing as well

it comes down to how you use limiters

and compressors particularly in the

context of

on your main stereo bus

and this was a big insight and

breakthrough for me

and it's been a big one for a lot of my

clients and a lot of the learners people

have taken

the course mastering demystified and

like i said it applies

almost as well to mixing as it does to

mastering before i give you this one

quick tip that's going to change your

life

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right into it this one big tip in the

context of

mastering is to put your limiter on

first

don't put it on last and this came out

of a coaching call i was doing

with a coaching call client of me mine

just the other week

and she was asking me about you know one

of the problems she was having was

sometimes her masters sounding

kind of more squashed more flat more

small the more she limited them

the more she compressed them and when

she tried to get them up to a level

that was competitive with some of her

favorite tracks and some of her clients

favorite tracks

things just sounded little weak

small murky and

why this occurs quite a lot is that

people get

all of their eq dialed in they do all

the processing they want to do

and then they apply the limiter

afterwards

and that i'm going to suggest to you is

a big mistake

particularly if you want things to sound

loud clear

clean articulate make them sound full

and big as they get loud

instead of smaller and worse as they get

louder which is a very common thing

a big problem with limiters

is that just all else being equal if you

limit something

it will tend to sound a little more dark

and smushy and congested because you're

shaving off

transients and you also end up having

this problem

where if you have a lot of low end in

the track and this is very common in

mixes before they're mastered maybe

having

a little bit too much low frequency and

low mid

energy compared to favorite records that

as the limiter squishes down on things

these over abundant areas

will seemingly be even more over

abundant

than they were before so if you're going

to do

a lot of limiting a lot of compression a

lot of loudness

if you want to get things really

saturated and exciting sounding

you're often going to have to make them

a little bit brighter than you otherwise

would

so there's a problem if you eq things

first

get them sounding great and then apply

the limiter

that limiter is kind of changing the eq

profile and the tonal balance of

everything that you've already set up

but if you put that limiter on first

get your track to a roughly appropriate

loudness level

first now every eq move you make

every decision you make into the limiter

in mastering is informed by what the

limiter is doing

so you're going to be encouraged to

potentially

suck out more low mids and more subs if

that's what that

particular mix needs you'll also be

encouraged to add in

more lows and add in more low mids if

that's what it needs

because you're hearing the effect that

the limiter is having on the track

one way or another and you're making all

of your choices

based on what that limiter is doing and

it'll give you

some great ideas better insights into

how you should be eq'ing

because if you do it the other way

around you you practically have to eq

twice

you have to eq then you put the limiter

on if the limiter is doing something

significant if this is a genre that

needs significant limiting

to get it up to negative 9 left negative

10 left

negative six luff's an edm or something

like that if it's a genre that wants a

lot of compression and limiting

you've totally changed the sound and now

you have to eq everything

all over again so again

putting your limiter on first and then

mastering

into it and i recommend for a similar

set of reasons

putting your mix bus compressor on early

if you want to mix through one

during the mixing process if you like to

eq

your mix bus as some people do also

putting that on early

is a good idea because again

every single decision you make in the

mix

you're going to hear it through that end

processing so you push things further

when you should

you'll hold back on things more when you

should

you'll make better decisions when it

comes to balance setting

and automation setting because you're

hearing that

through your final bus processing rather

than spending

the whole half a day or a day doing a

full mix and then putting a compressor

or an eq on

to here that it just actually changes

your mix and changes decisions

that you had made and i would have made

different decisions now i'm going to go

back

and change things you know what i'll

just leave it for the mastering engineer

you're probably better off leaving

compression and eq'ing the mix bus to

the mastering engineer if you're going

to put it on near the end of your

process

but if you get it on early you can make

intelligent decisions

through your mixbus compressor or

through your mixbus eq if you use one or

whatever other

processing saturation that you might use

a tape simulator or something on your

mix bus

getting those on relatively early i

generally recommend maybe setting your

balances first in the mix rough balances

then put that stuff on then continue

setting your rough balances and then go

through the rest of the sweetening

once you get more advanced even having

them on from moment

one can be a good idea particularly if

you are

have a set process as far as gain

staging and things like that

we could get more advanced more detailed

in this i want to give you a quick tip

today so that's

it if you want to go even more in depth

my full-length course mixing

breakthroughs i mean goes

tremendously far into this idea of how

to treat

your buses in the mixing context or my

full-length course

mastering demystified goes into this

into some really great detail on the

mastering end

why i advocate for setting up that

limiter first

getting yourself to appropriate level

first and then mastering into that

limiter in the mastering context

i think if you start integrating this

into your work right away

you're going to get tremendous results

out of it especially on the mastering

side

hope this one has been useful for you if

you want to go deeper there is mixing

breakthroughs

mastering demystified the following

courses if you want something totally

for free

i can get you a free workshop called the

five habits of truly great mixers

you can get that at

sonexgroup.commixhabits.sonicscoop.commixhabits

and it really ties together the common

threads and the approach of all of the

best mixers out there

who i have studied worked alongside

scene work

interviewed all that stuff you get that

at sonic's group.com

mix habits if you want a primer on

mastering kind of the basics of

mastering

free workshop called mastering 101 you

can get sonicscoop.com

mastering 101 then sonicsgoop.com

mastering

101 big shout out again and thanks to

soundtoys for sponsoring this episode

been sponsoring the podcast since the

beginning

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this has been justin coletti of sonic

scoop thanks for hanging out with me

see you next time