It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
I've now done this.
You ideally want a loudness penalty not over -2.0.
These values tell me that the track has been mastered a tad too hot for streaming- but that is an opinion, nothing more. I'd have a chat with the mastering engineer.
Incidentally, I shoot for -0.6 for my mixes before it gets sent to mastering.
VisLM is an industry standard loudness metering tool but it is probably more popular in audio post than audio mixing.
https://nugenaudio.com/vislm
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
This includes individual master WAVS (iTunes/Spotify approved) plus high resolution MP3's for social media and radio.
Should we only be using the Mp3 version for radio ?
https://www.studiowear.co.uk/ -
https://twitter.com/spark240
Facebook - m.me/studiowear.co.uk
Reddit r/newmusicreview
It might be.
The results from the loudness penalty website (I used https://www.loudnesspenalty.com btw) indicates that all the major streaming sites would normalise the loudness down by an average of -3.8dB.
Once it is sent to the streaming sites it is out of your hands.
This is all to be discussed with the mastering engineer though.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
So this is an analogue signal- and an unbalanced one?
Or is it a virtual channel from the audio interface mixer?
The signal was recorded quite low into Studio One- it was clipped before it hit that, I think.
It is pretty difficult to know exactly what has happened at the streaming stations to have it distort like that and Pete is certainly more of an expert about streaming formats than I am.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
It is possible that you should have provided mp3 version to the radio, as the WAV version will be slightly more dynamic, and will therefore hit the radio's compressor / limiters in a different way, this is all a learning experience, and there are standards which change over time.
Digital streams, whether it is from radio, or streaming services depend on the source material, your own download speed is no longer a concern, but what radio stations use for their own sources is a mystery to me.
I could imagine a station building its playlist from links to streams these days, so the format is pretty irrelevant when it's released to the world, we are at the mercy of the supplier.
According to the Loudness penalty website, not all streaming services use LUFS, although I suspect they will all do by now.
LUFS, are simply figures arrived at over the entire length of a track, simply put, it is RMS averaged over the track, so the quieter sections of audio count towards the overall score by offsetting the louder sections, it is a way to compare different genres of music fairly, and is used to determine how much loud stuff gets turned down ( by limiting), which can make louder intended mixes actually sound quieter on the service-when played back to back with other material.
It is a concern in mixing, and mastering engineers have to take it into account, everyone wants to hear stuff as loud as it can be, but that is counter productive when the streaming sites get to send it out.
Mastering is expected to be the final few percent to get the track sounding as good as it ca across many sources, and they now have to provide for various standards-more so than they used to.
This could lead to some conservative settings, but it looks like your engineer has gone for a competitive volume, there isn't really a consensus on this-it is a personal thing and we have to bow to greater experience.
In your soundcloud radio example, I heard quite a bit of distortion from just the announcer, so I wouldn't honestly judge anything on that broadcast.
The best you can do, is listen to your mix, on your system compared to other similar mixes on your system.
The more detailed your system, the more detail you will pick up, but what matters is how it compares to other similar mixes, from similar sources.
At the end of the day they will all be treated the same by the radio stations and streamers, and they will all suffer the same defects.
As long as you are getting a final mix that is what you want, all is good.
https://www.studiowear.co.uk/ -
https://twitter.com/spark240
Facebook - m.me/studiowear.co.uk
Reddit r/newmusicreview
https://www.studiowear.co.uk/ -
https://twitter.com/spark240
Facebook - m.me/studiowear.co.uk
Reddit r/newmusicreview
As our stuff isn't mastered that hot it actually survived pretty well on the radio even when compared to the mainstream chart stuff. So if I learned anything it was don't attempt a too hot master unless your process is stella all the way through. As ours wasn't due to budget and time constraints the broadband compression used on Solent actually helped it a bit rather than distorted it.
All in all though yours is a decent song, that's all that matters. We notice a bit of clipping but the audio has to be pretty bad for the average non muso / engineer to notice so don't worry about it