Level Matching - are YOU DOING IT RIGHT??

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[ColtCapperrune]

I hope this helped someone, thanks for watching!

[nine]

The loudness wars are definitely not over and the facr is Spotify doesn’t matter anymore. Streaming as we know it is about to change completely. Direct to consumer will take over for everyone outside of the system and many within.
Great video. thanks fam..

[DomSigalas]

Finally! Thank you for posting this Colt! One of the most bizzare things is when people ask you to LUFS match compressors and saturator plugins or hardware- where they increase the LUFS level by design and is the asset you want to use in a mix in order to…mix. ❤

[aleksamrkela]

Couldn't agree more. Saturation used tastefully is king for achieving a mix that has the potential to become a loud master. :)

[niceghostofficial]

Thanks for doing this one dude! So many of the online explanations for peak/rms/LUFS are very convoluted (and often badly informed😮). But yours makes actual, logical sense of all of it! Thanks again, this rocks

[fytakytemusic]

All I can say is “Amen!” There is SO much misinformation and misunderstanding on this subject. “Level Match!” has become the tiresome catch cry of internet trolls and YouTube contrarians everywhere. Fantastically clear explanation!

[django]

The way you use saturation on the mixbus as mentioned around the 9 minute mark, it seems that it would make sense to mix into a clipper, and placing that clipper very early in the mixbus chain (if not flat out first in the chain), or at least before your bus comp. When set for the specific purpose of catching peaks, clippers will do exactly just that and have the potential to be FAR more transparent than anything else I've heard.

[gelderlandproduction]

This was a fantastic illustration. I'm forwarding this to many Well done Brutha!

[J_THOR]

I'm leaving two comments on this one - the saturation tip for less compression is SUCH A GOOD tip for beginners. Especially for drums

[jean-paulbuongiorno]

good to know. thx colt!
looking back to my favorite recordings, I dont think rudy van gelder stressed too much about peak metering. he just made shit sound good

[TheDryes]

Man, such a great and thorough explanation. Thank you!

[definfected]

Excellent topic!! Thanks for sharing!! Much ❤ Colt!!

[PaulEubanks]

4:00 - This brings up another avenue of discussion, what's the best way to level match your sub with your studio monitors?

[silverwings]

Thank you. When I was up to my neck in Electronic Engineering I was always searching for books that would disseminate technical info into comic book
terms I could understand rather than an author trying to impress you with his unworldly knowledge. You have that same ability. Which is true knowledge!!

[jmikesandthewell]

the new arturia tube culture, is great, and The Oven. Both are so good at doing what you're talking about with saturation.

[jorykevinberger]

Most AB comparisons are the clean signal to the processed. And that's why using lufs makes the most sense in that regard. Why? Because a clean signal may have a high peak and low loudness. The saturator will have more loudness and less peak. So knowing it has MORE loudness and then ALSO boosting to where the peak of the clean unprocessed signal is, is not allowing the ear to judge fairly. In this case, the MORE lufs would see the processed get turn down to match the clean signal lufs.
The way you compare 2 saturators via peak level, yes, then the clean signal is no longer in play, and you're comparing process to process to discern and it makes sense what you describe. And your experience and reasoning toward the end goal which is louder, makes sense as well.
But in the case of testing plugins against a clean signal, that's why lufs makes sense. Cheers.

[IronPig_]

This is a great explanation. Now - Try explaining LKFS to producers on a Film/TV mix stage 😂. I’m going to use the first part of this video as one way to quickly show them how their perception of loudness can be manipulated and why we have to be mix a certain way to be in spec for “broadcast”.

[djvoid]

Great point re loudness. A by-product of mixing a track to be full, dense, powerful is an LUFS value that's inevitably louder than -14 LUFS for nearly every genre out there that's not jazz, classical or other genres which actually utilise high dynamic range by design. However, pushing louder than -8 LUFS is nearly always going to be to the sonic detriment of the music in question and should only be done for reasons of genre appropriateness relative to the music platform (I.e because everyone else on Beatport is super loud and Beatport doesn't level match)

[jackmmarsden]

Thank you for the great explanation! It was always a grey area.

[michaelandrewnewell]

I have noticed this too with mastering tracks to -14 LUFS… I was always too concerned with making sure it won’t distort on Spotify (or any other platform for that matter). What should we master at if -14 LUFS seems more notional now?