Clipping

[Sunshaft]

Lets say, I produce a tune, mix it, master it, etc... but what if I boost it about 3 dB, it sounds louder, but still distortion is not that noticeable. what do you think about this?

[JBE]

Why would you boost an already mastered track? Unless you're mastering it yourself and don't have a clue what you're doing to begin with. If you mastered it and still feel the need to boost it then you're not doing it right and should just pay someone who does know what they are doing.

[laurend]

I don't understand the question. You want a louder track? You want more distortion?

[elyhess]

i still wouldn't do that... this is kind of a stupid question. if you did it correctly your tune should be quite loud after "mastering" it, or whatever your doin

[madmeesh]

Chill y'all. I bet he understands now that boosting post-master is not a good idea...

Clipping in the mixing stage is alright if the distortion isn't too noticeable. I remember Icicle (boss producer) saying he has a healthy amount of clipping on his mixes, and never gives a track to an ME without it being pretty much to 0db already. Not to say this is the "right way", just one approach.

[Instep]

well all of you guys pretty didn't answer his question

you just stated that it is improper to boost the track after mastering without even stating any reason as to why... as if its just 2+2 when its not! theres a lot of assumptions going around without people explaining themselves at all

maybe i'm wrong but it seems that he meant, when he has mastered his track himself (using ozone5 or w/e) and its peaking at -3db. He wants to use simple boosting (say a utility in ableton) to just pump out another 3 db out of the mix/master if he doesn't notice that it degrades the sound quality or leads to clipping the master bus/.. was that not your intent, OP?

now, I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to mixing/mastering. would boosting the track more simply be considered part of the mastering process and therefore it wouldn't make sense to say "after mastering" since mastering is esssentially making your final touches? or would mastering itself lead to the loudest sound without the need to boost if done properly?? but explain properly then.. if hes using ozone and hes boosted as much gain out of it as possible and its still a few db shy of clipping and he can make it louder than why not??? is the master fader simply supposed to be set at one level and left there do to noise to sound ratio or something?


i think both myself and the OP are lay men when it comes to mastering so please explain your responses in more detail guys?

[madmeesh]

now, I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to mixing/mastering.

Hmm.. well alls I knows is mastering a piece of electronic dance music usually means that the tune is brought up to 0db to sound as impactful as possible. If the OP is "mastering" a dance track, there shouldn't be -3db of headroom. -3db is a good level to MIX to. It's all a bit of a semantic jumble, because there is no REQUIREMENT to master to 0db.

The crux of the "moneyshot" mixing/mastering thread is: Mix your tune leaving a couple db at least of headroom for the mastering engineer to apply his tools and hardware to bring the mix up to a crackin' 0db final mix.

Clear enough?

[Instep]

Mix your tune leaving a couple db at least of headroom for the mastering engineer to apply his tools and hardware to bring the mix up to a crackin' 0db final mix.

Clear enough?

I understand all that. But the OP is mastering his mix himself. So I think hes asking whether there is a drawback to pushing as much gain possible out of the mix if he doesn't notice any distortion.

Could'nt you theoretically go above 0 db if it sounded alright?

[Hircine]

softclipping is a great technique for acoustic / rock music masters and mixes, but it does not translates well into the edm world, slightly distortion in your hifi = huge distortion inna system

[baddaBOOM]

Theres books on mastering , recomend you get one. I got mines off amazon and it has good information about all that stuff man

[Artie_Fufkin]

softclipping is a great technique for acoustic / rock music masters and mixes, but it does not translates well into the edm world, slightly distortion in your hifi = huge distortion inna system

Are you talking mixing or mastering?
Acoustic?

[Vast_Grid]

[Reprobate]

It might be worth reading a relevant post at gearslutz on a related matter...
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/masterin ... dness.html

I will state my own experiences on this matter; please keep in mind this is just my opinion.
Many professional tracks, when they are mastered, are given an extra bit of loudness by first sending the track to something like a mastering quality stereo compressor (e.g. manley varimu, roll music comp) and then sending it back through a very high quality analog to digital converter. It is at this point that the M.E. will sometimes purposefully clip the ADC by 1 or 2 db (sometimes more!), which gives a loudness enhancement with a much different quality than if you were to use a limiter.
Unfortunately, if you try to emulate this by just cranking the output in the ozone plugin on your master bus by 2 or 3 db, you will probably be very disappointed. I know icicle said in his production masterclass that he will push his master output by a db or two in logic pro before exporting, but take this with a grain of salt. For me, I notice an unpleasant digital crunch when I try doing this, and I can almost guarantee that it will be an inferior result compared to just leaving your mixdown at around -3db and giving it to a professional M.E., who can then properly boost the volume of your tune. Professional M.E.'s spend thousands of dollars on high quality converters for a reason; a lavry gold is going to give a much more transparent boost of volume than clipping your daw.

If you want to see evidence of this practice, just import any lossless audio file from knife party or subfocus or whomever you fancy, and take a look at the waveform of the tune during a busy part in the song. You will typically see a small amount of clipping during the transients. This clipping is very brief (only around 5 samples in length, very short duration!) so the ear doesn't necessarily perceive it as distortion, but nevertheless it contributes to the tracks average volume quite a bit.

Again, just my take on things. Sorry for the longwinded post, please correct any inaccuracies.

[DubMikey]

Elaborate in order to make yourself more clear. I simply do not understand the question.

You say you want to boost your track 3dB, but it is already mastered. Am I missing something here?

[Amphix]

Theres books on mastering , recomend you get one. I got mines off amazon and it has good information about all that stuff man

Would you mind telling me/us the name of this book?

[madmeesh]

It might be worth reading a relevant post at gearslutz on a related matter...
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/masterin ... dness.html

I will state my own experiences on this matter; please keep in mind this is just my opinion.
Many professional tracks, when they are mastered, are given an extra bit of loudness by first sending the track to something like a mastering quality stereo compressor (e.g. manley varimu, roll music comp) and then sending it back through a very high quality analog to digital converter. It is at this point that the M.E. will sometimes purposefully clip the ADC by 1 or 2 db (sometimes more!), which gives a loudness enhancement with a much different quality than if you were to use a limiter.
Unfortunately, if you try to emulate this by just cranking the output in the ozone plugin on your master bus by 2 or 3 db, you will probably be very disappointed. I know icicle said in his production masterclass that he will push his master output by a db or two in logic pro before exporting, but take this with a grain of salt. For me, I notice an unpleasant digital crunch when I try doing this, and I can almost guarantee that it will be an inferior result compared to just leaving your mixdown at around -3db and giving it to a professional M.E., who can then properly boost the volume of your tune. Professional M.E.'s spend thousands of dollars on high quality converters for a reason; a lavry gold is going to give a much more transparent boost of volume than clipping your daw.

If you want to see evidence of this practice, just import any lossless audio file from knife party or subfocus or whomever you fancy, and take a look at the waveform of the tune during a busy part in the song. You will typically see a small amount of clipping during the transients. This clipping is very brief (only around 5 samples in length, very short duration!) so the ear doesn't necessarily perceive it as distortion, but nevertheless it contributes to the tracks average volume quite a bit.

Again, just my take on things. Sorry for the longwinded post, please correct any inaccuracies.

I'm down with all of this. In my experience, I've had pleasing results with pushing the master beyond 0db, but only with certain styles, where it's actually complimentary.
True story that most of the big guys will have only tiny amounts of clipping BUT there is a school of production, on the hip-hop side, that favors quite a lot of distortion as an aesthetic choice.

[safeandsound]

From a technical perspective according to the generally accepted norms of digital audio theory to accurately represent signals in 'fixed point maths' you should remain below 0dBFS.To go above it opens the signal to the vagaries of the reproduction characteristics of myriad devices of which may respond in a severe manner or not as the case may be. As part of mastering relates to best sound across a wide range of systems it is best avoided.

Ultimately there are rules and if you know the side effects of breaking them then you do so with knowledge about a set of compromises.

You can do what you want but know when you break a technical rule and why you do it and what the detrimental side effects could be.

cheers