The mastering process!

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Liquid EDGE
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Re: The mastering process!

Post by Liquid EDGE »

fidox wrote: Wed Jan 10, 2018 9:34 am what should be soft compression in optimaster, or something like "safe" ?
some mention 4:1, but i think that's quite a lot, if using that much on low-mid-high.
or 1:3 too little ?

i'm hearing from some artist, they don't use compressors at all, and it sounds nice,
some say compression is a must on other side, compress or not compress, that is a question :D
Whatever sounds good. :D
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garyb
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Re: The mastering process!

Post by garyb »

well, studio monitors will reproduce something like 110db of dynamic range, the difference between loud and soft sounds. live sound is something like 140db dynamic range and most systems for listening are about 90db dynamic range, at best. this scale is logarithmic which means that each step on the scale is some 10 times the step before it in difference between loud and soft sounds. unless you want the loud sections to distort or the quiet sections to be buried in noise, it's a must to limit dynamics. it's not a choice.

of course, if you only use samples to make the composition, then they are already compressed, at least a bit and probably a lot, so the final mix might be ok without limiting.

basically, you need several layers of compression to get a good mix that allows everything to be heard. that means compressors on every track, or at least the ones that are live instruments and voices, compression on the mix, and hard limiting on the master.

if compressors are used correctly, they don't sound squished, but instead, full and fat and rich.

compressors make the loud sounds quieter and the quiet sounds louder, to even out the difference between loud and soft.
fidox
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Re: The mastering process!

Post by fidox »

Thanks Garyb, very good answer.

Yea, i use mostly vst instruments and then record them into wav and then mixing wav and few vst instruments together.
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