Mastering Essentials Part 3 - How loud should you master ?

How Loud Should You Master?

How loud is loud enough, and how loud is too loud ? In this third episode of his video series for Sound On Sound, mastering engineer Ian Shepherd describes his simple strategies to help you find the ideal balance of loudness and dynamics for your music, and why it's so important. Is louder always better ?

ABOUT THE SERIES
Mastering Essentials: The SOS Techniques Guide
In this six-part series, produced in association with Steinberg, well-known mastering engineer Ian Shepherd takes us through his approach to mastering. Whether you’re polishing individual tracks or assembling EPs or albums, Ian will explore the tools, skills and decisions that can help you achieve great-sounding results.

1. What Is Mastering?

2. The Three Ms of Mastering

3. How Loud Should You Master?

4. Mastering EQ: Balance, Don’t Match

5. Compression & Limiting In Mastering

6. Final Delivery: Requirements & Specs

More parts coming soon, make sure you subscribe to the SOS channel to be notified.

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Follow Sound On Sound on Instagram: @soundonsoundmag

[OdinOfficialEmcee]

I do a lot of Hip Hop and Dr. Dre is often lauded as having the best mixes in the business so I checked the loudness he has outputing on his CD's and I was shocked seeing his most recent release pegging at -3db RMS and just utterly squashed. So I mimicked it just to see if I liked it vs how I would have normally mastered and I *hated* the overly loud, limited, squashed sound. My -10 RMS master sounded way punchier, bassier, and clearer.

Right then and there I gave up on reference tracks and loudness worries. I just master as loud as I can get something with the least amount of limiting and gain reduction possible (typically 3db max GR on the final limiter). Sometimes that means -10 or -12, sometimes it is as loud as -5 at points. Depends on a variety of factors but at the end of the day as long as it sounds good and when you play it in between other contemporary masters it holds up then you did your job. Imho

[stevelabrecque]

Learning so much from this series! Cracking the loudness "mystery" has been the toughest part of mastering for me. Just ordered the VU meter. Thanks for all your work on this series!

[david_a_uno]

This is such an excellent series, great thanks!

[projectffo]

Great stuff, i am loving this mastering series 👌

[MikeHeebz]

Another gem by Ian, thank you sir! =)

[nathanieldahman]

Great series... thank you for doing this!

[indyartmusic]

I have downloaded the trial version of Wavelab Elements, i have been trying to see if you can do the automation you do on Another Day Calling in this video? Can Wavelab Elements do this? Would be nice to know and see how you actually did it, like how you opened the automation part in the first place etc? Thanks!! These are great videos, and i have learned something major from being that i have been mastering all my previous work You have put me on the right path to better masters, so a big thank you for Best Regards!

[joost]

Hey Ian - Really interesting to see how you used the VU for mastering! I have one question though - What is your opinion on using filter curves with the VU to get closer to the audio actually perceived? And which Weighing do you prefer / or maybe why you prefer no weighing at all? Thanks ;)

[lzk]

Brilliant! I think this can also be applied when i digitise my record collection. when i record straight from turntable to digital interface> Pro Tools the recording is always at a low db so i use a limiter to boost the overall volume before exporting as a master wave file.

[amrbm]

I'm on elements and thinking is it worth purchasing pro? This series is pushing me towards getting pro💯

[mago]

Got a question here, i used many limiters to stay at -1dbfs .

While these limiters seem to do the job, i saw with a " true peak viewer" that my songs went higher than that value .

Sometimes, it shows that i'm hitting at -0.5dbfs even if i set up my limiters to not go beyond -1dbfs . It's crazy .

Could you explain here please?

[bradleypower]

I think the klanhhelm has gain knob built in?!

[Aviorrok]

Hi Ian, First of all, thank you for this video series, I'm a producer and mixer and now I finally found the best beginner tutorials for mastering. I have a little question If my song recorded and mixed at 96Khz what is the best way to dithering to 44.1Khz or I don't need to dithering?

[Beatledave]

Thanks Ian, great tutorial. Do you still master a CD at -1db tp the same as streaming? I understand -1db tp for streaming allows for whatever conversions may take place to guard against overs, but is that also valid for CD?

[filipjonathan]

I'm a bit confused after I've watched this. Ian, you're saying we need to start by just pushing the gain of the song up to match the reference track? But aren't we supposed to get there with the use of all the different plugins and stages, not merely turning the volume fader up?

[j.dietrich]

How loud should you master? -14 LUFS, with peaks below -1dBTP. Mastering any hotter will just reduce perceived loudness because of downward normalisation. The loudness war is dead and dynamic range is back.

[warthogstudios]

This is great information!! But this maybe a dumb question but where do you get all the wav files of these commercial tracks? I have tracks I would love to have but not sure where to get? Artist website? HD tracks? Love to know. .... oh wait found Itunes downloads. Somedays its a brain freeze

[selfreakwild]

I need to know what the song at 16:12 is. Please, can someone tell me the name and artist?

[Paul_Hinton]

Thank you Ian. Question about monitor levels; Is there a sweet spot for full range near fields that is different depending on room size? I struggle with harsh mixes and wonder if it’s partly because I am not listening loud enough so I am not hearing the highs and lows as flat as I should. Does room size also dictate how loud we can listen? My room is about the same size as yours, can you say what spl reading you get with pink noise at your listening position? Again thank you. 🙏

[sergenity]

homemastering
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