Updated mastering techniques 20 May 2024

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Hello, I'm Nicholas Di Lorenzo, Studio Owner, Mixing and Mastering engineer at Panorama Studios.

I'm an Italian-Australian born and raised in Melbourne. I've been a creative professional for 10 years managing some pretty awesome projects for artists, labels and producers all around the globe.

What motivates and drives me?

My family,
Good food,
Great coffee.

You can find me on many platforms:

[stokeydandan]

Great video, I just replicated the test using Flatline 2 clipper/limiter and Voxengo Span but hi passing up at 1k. Then repeated test once again with Pro L2. It's the channels being linked is what's keeping the low end centred. Unlinking pulls the mono'd low end into the hi-passed sides as the limiter ducks the left and right independently.

What's interesting is unlinking the "transients" is what's causing this low end drift in Flatline 2 and Pro L2 as expected, however fully unlinking the "sustain" though is actually keeping the sides hi-passed correctly.

I also found to completely eliminate the drifting, link transients fully but also add a few milliseconds of lookahead. Adding the lookahead with unlinked transients though, had the opposite effect and really exacerbated the low end in the sides in my test. I read in the fabfilter manual that the attack on the Pro L2 actually controls the speed of the release stage setting in after the transient, and the lookahead acts closer to what we know as an attack knob which might explain this behaviour.

[rowandegeus]

Thanks, your videos are very informative and easy to follow!

[notyetart]

It's quite a bit obvious tho: stereo is anything not mono i. e. if the limiter squashing some frequency on first channel of the stereo and not the second one — there you have that skew even if the initial signal were completely mono one... Because after the processing your left channel differs from the right one and because of it now you've got some stereo there. At the end of the day that's a normal thing in music and not the thing you should worry about that much while you don't hear any problem with it.

[PrincipalAudio]

When I started watching the video, I paused and read the email. My immediate thought was channels being unlinked. It's the only thing that makes sense. I couldn't think of anything else, except that the Attack and Release time will also alter the way in which the "drift" would exhibit itself. i.e. Longer release time would cause more low frequencies to be exhibited, and shorter attack times higher frequencies. Just makes sense.

[chris_share]

Great topic! A couple of comments - SSL's X-Limit has a steering function that shows the L/R shift. Also, for a while I've been mixing into an SSL Bus Compressor but I was really surprised recently when I switched it off and found that the stereo field widened noticeably. And that's because it's linked. Cheers!

[RecordingStudio]

Though I knew why linking L+R channels with Comp/Limiter on a mix bus caused a balance shift, I always unlinked if I heard it, and now I know the technical reason. Thanks mate.

[fen]

I'm a complete mixing newb and come here to learn about mastering. Looking at what the plugins were showing I thought it was a phase issue :( lol

[Limit]

Negligible. Also Negligible for vinyl as well.

[producermathew]

Sounds weird, I can always almost hear it whenever using any sort of channel linking. I ALWAYS prefer the sound of channel linking being as minimum as possible. Everything ends up sounding wider and less 'drifty'. It's a bizarre thing. And maybe a gap in the market for a Pro L 3 with some sort of advanced channel linking which mitigates this artefact?

[notmisa]

A good idea to implement into the PRO L3 would be to bypass certain frequencies like a compressor. It could remain unlinked until a certain frequency and then make sure that the lower ones are being limited “linked” to avoid this issue. Overall, if it’s not causing phase problems, I don’t think it’s a big deal.

[TWEAKER]

and masters destined for vinyl shouldn't need peak limiting anyway. Keep bass parts panned center. Keep the level lower. (hint: it's an analog cutting process – it will be cut at optimum level anyway but for long sides or excessive bass. The cutting level has *zero* bearing on the digital audio level.
In fact, smashed / limited / clipped audio means more HF distortion and is *more difficult* to cut than audio kept clean and more conservative in level).

[necroticpoison]

Maybe the clipper in Pro-L2 ("attack" not being as fast as possible) creates subharmonics?

[stelthtenau]

I noticed this a while back. I only tested proL2 and from memory the modern setting was the worst

[cryptoparking]

Hello! quick question! On the youtube option "stats for nerds' (when you right click on the video). I see you have the volume of your video normalize by youtube up to -7.0db. In my understanding you master your youtube videos up to -21Lufs, if am not wrong? I would like to hear your take on why not mastering youtube voice-over or podcast type of videos to the -14Lufs Youtube standard.

btw! You make great content!

[AuteriaWWinzerJr]

As a rule, never use channel linking when limiting. The release has nothing to do with the issue. Any limiter with channel linking enabled will process both sides equally, resulting in stereo processing and removing the low-end mono compatibility instead of limiting both sides separately.

[DaftyBoi]

Only at the start and my guess is it's something to do with how the side chain is summed, or not in this case I am guessing. So if the side chain is dealt with as dual mono for each channel, what's happening igher up in the spectrum, could cause some diferances lower down if each side chain signal is seperate and the limiter is being triggered slightly diferantly and it is hitting the low end.

That's my guess, but I'm well interested in what else could cause something like this, as that's the only thing I can think of that may have an effect.

[boomcrayon]

Love this blokes vids bc its so distictly melburnian mixtube

[Gino_]

Haaa guessed it. :D
Curious, why didn't the submitter put a utility after the limiter and convert back to mono instead of adding another limiter. That's what I would have done.

[kloundv]

I read an article about this, dont remember what is it call but when a signal is being distord, It create high frequency and when high frequency get distorted and create a high freq that computer cant emulate, the computer read the signal as a low frequency, to fix the problem (not 100% but reduce the problem) we should use oversample while distortion or clipping or limiter in masterchain

[voinrima]

Haven't watched the solution yet, my guess: zero or too little lookahead limiter distorts the wave when attacking and this is how the fundamental appears