I know there’s a similar thread from 2014, but trying those tips did not work out, and when I was using Reason 5 I didnt have these issues, only since I changed to Ableton.
After I’ve mastered one of my tracks I hear random crackling noise on the kick drums, but not every time it hits. But this crackling sound cannot be heard during playback in the DAW. Basically it comes when I choose “rock” eq setup on my phone, but I tried several different headphones-speakers etc and it is there all the time.
I already tried some techiques I know to get rid of it without any luck.
I changed midi track to audio for the kick drums in case I messed up the attack-release times, I tried not to use limiter at the end of the master chain, I set the soft clipper and limiter in a way where there’s no gain reduction at all, I tried not to master in ableton, but in a different software and ofcourse I played a bit with the sidechain compressor but none of them worked. I could only reduce the amount of kicks to have this glitch.
I’d like to emphasize that there’s no problem with the premastered “dry” mix and that I’m not the kinda guy who pushes everything to the limit I only use a slight compression/softclipper/limiter to get higher volume levels.
Could anyone give me advice on working this out?
My master chain consists of the following VSTs:
iZotope Ozone 5 EQ (Mid/side)
REQ2
iZotope Ozone 5 Exciter
iZotope Ozone 5 Reverb
SSL Comp (only to remove peaks)
iZotope Ozone 5 Imager
LinMB (Multiband compressor)
T-Racks CS Classic clipper
L3 Multimaximizer
Well that could be a solution but I was wondering if there could be something else, since I’m listening every single music I have with that EQ option and my one is the only to have this clipping. But I believe you!
Sounds like you’ll need to narrow it down to one/some of your dynamics plugins if the dry master is ok. You say you’ve tried various headphones/speakers, but is it always playing from your phone with that eq setting when you hear the problem?
Well, when I’m listening to it on my PC with my usual headphones I hear no problem at all.
I basically use a cheap earphone so I always use the rock EQ to have some low-end and that is where I realized that issue.
I started to check more headphones and speakers always from my phone, and when I was playing with eq settings there you know cuz my Hi-Fi has it’s own equalizer I didn’t want to mess it up the problem was gone.
And I mean on every single eq preset (even on bass boost etc) except for “rock”. This is valid for every single device I used for playback.
I personally think it might increase a frequency where the crackling is more pronounced otherwise it is “masked”. Or maybe as syrup said it is the issue of my phone but then I don’t know why I dont have any issues with any other tracks. But I’m not sure if I’m right.
I made some other masters with similar chains with no problem at all (well they do not sound like a professional master but you know, just to make them sound good for playback, they arent pushed over the limit to have high volume levels).
EDIT:
I was curious so I downloaded ther music player for my phone and there’s no crackling at all, but it has considerably different presets than samsung’s music player.
sounds like intersample peaks that the phone eq is making worse and causing a crackling sound. In your mastering chain I see 3 elements that rely on taking the signal, splitting it into different streams to be processed and then recombined, which often leads to ISP’s that are well above the peak level of the signal being sent into them. Try turning the L3 down (so that the metering is saying it peaks around -0.5dB). The half dB loudness difference will be imperceptible and should avoid ISP’s which will cause any digital post processing to clip and sound nasty. Or maybe try putting the clipper or a single band limiter as the last element in the chain. find a free metering plugin that will show true ISP levels, I think the free sonalksis one does this. Good luck tracking down the problem
Do what @knobgoblin said. You could also try the classic sine-wave test. Send a dry sine wave through your master FX chain, on a reasonably high-level (so the effects actually affect it) and listen/see what happens to it. If there’s crackling/popping, try bypassing each effect one at the time and see if crackling is caused by some specific plugin.
