Mastering is simple. Not easy, but simple.
That's the message behind this series of 6 video tutorials I made recently for Sound On Sound magazine.
In them, I walk you through my entire mastering process from beginning to end, explaining how and why I work the way that I do at every stage.
(more…)I'm excited to announce the release of Version 2 of my Loudness Penalty plugin.
It was never meant to be a plugin – we originally made the website to help answer the most frequent question people kept asking: "how loud will my music be played by online streaming services?", and you can still use it today, for free.
But we kept getting requests to release a plugin, so in the end we did – and it turned out the be the most popular thing we've ever made !
The site and plugin have always been about clarity and simplicity, and Version 2 is no exception – we've worked hard to add as much extra feedback as possible while keeping everything clean and intuitive.
You can see a walkthrough of all the new features in the video above, but here's a quick summary:
And yes, you read that last one right - Spotify does use a limiter, but only when subscribers choose the “Loud” setting in the preferences, for listening in noisy environments. And only if the loudness is below -11 LUFS.
It’s a small percentage of listeners, but the effect can be dramatic, and the Loudness Penalty plugin is the only way to Preview it accurately - in realtime, and in your DAW.
Existing users can upgrade for 50% off during the launch, and we’re offering a 30% off introductory discount for new users. For more information, click here:
Foo Fighters just released their new album "Your Favourite Toy", and right away I started seeing loads of people talking about how distorted it sounds. I even saw people saying it sounded more distorted than Death Magnetic.
I took a listen and asked if people would like me to make a video, and they said "Yes", so here it is - take a listen for yourself and make your own mind up !
Is the album too distorted ? Or is the distortion appropriate to convey the intensity and emotion of the material ?
Leave a comment on YouTube and let me know what you think !
It's not every day you get to make a new master of an album you've already worked on – especially not from a completely new mix !
But that's exactly what happened for me recently.
Dan from Ember Rev had never been happy with the guitar parts on their 2019 album "From The Country To The City To The Sea" and recently decided to re-record them. At the same time he used the opportunity to make some changes to the arrangements and song structures that more closely match the way the band perform them live.
The album was originally mixed by Simone Silvestri, but for this new version Simone wasn't available and Dan asked Sam Inglis from Sound On Sound to handle the re-mix. Sam took quite a different approach, which he's written about in detail for a fantastic new article in the latest issue of the magazine. He also asked me to contribute a short segment talking about the differences I heard from a mastering perspective, and the different approaches I took when mastering each version.
You can read the full article here, (or sign up here to read the whole "Replica" issue for free !) and in the video above I demonstrate how all this sounds in practise, using the song "Ultramarine" as an example. You can download and compare the files for yourself, plus many other examples, here.
How much difference does mastering really make ? And perhaps more importantly, how much difference should it make ?
Take a listen and decide for yourself !
PS. You might also like to take a listen to Ember Rev's latest album, also mixed by Sam and mastered by me, here
I get quite a bit of push-back about the Loudness Penalty idea – and I think some of it is a simple misunderstanding.
In a nutshell, the "penalty" isn't about the numbers, it's about how the music sounds because of those numbers.
It's easier to hear (and see) than explain in words, which is why I made the video above, using example songs from this week's UK Top 20, including "Golden" from the K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack.
It's a great tune, but like most K-Pop the loudness has been pushed really hard, so I couldn't help asking - how would it sound with better dynamics ?
And in fact we don't have to wonder - I can demonstrate it to you.
Which is exactly what I do, along with two other examples.
Take a listen – can you hear the difference ?
