EDIT - seems you meant gain reduction - is that the meter I shown in the image?
Nope, sorry if my wording was unclear. I was talking about LUFS, which is a type of loudness measurement separate from db. It doesnt go by the peak loudness which in any mastered track should be close to 0 db, it’s a type of averaged loudness over the whole track. It isn’t related to how you set your faders. Basically if you run your mastered track through a plugin that has LUFS measurement it will tell you how comparatively loud it is, overall, which you can compare to other tracks.
There should be plenty of tutorials on more about LUFS and how to measure it on Youtube, this is a free plugin that you can use to measure it:
https://www.meldaproduction.com/MLoudnessAnalyzer
P.S. Think it’s been posted in the free stuff thread, but if anyone doesnt have their (MeldaProduction) free plugins bundle, grab it. There’s a bunch of good stuff in there
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big up for all the info.
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+1 on melda plugins, i kinda hate that they’re bundled into the installer, but well worth putting up with that.
love the ring mod
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The comb filter is sick too
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Ableton 8 compressor doens’t have a soft clip function but the saturator does so I’ve enabled that.
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To reiterate, do not turn down your master fader. Keep it at unity gain.
If there are volume issues, it should be gain staged and dealt with nearest to the source.
I try to mixdown at -6 db so there is plenty of headroom for mastering.
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Also, you really shouldn’t be trying to make a master during your mixdown.
Those should be separate stages. You need to leave enough headroom for the mastering engineer to do their thing.
If you do it yourself, then you have plenty of headroom to work with.
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Yes important to reiterate these. Although admittedly I start my mastering process late into mixing generally but that’s cause I’m comfortable knowing when I’m far enough in to start limiting the whole thing and stuff like that. It’s not really the correct way and definitely not before your overall balance of how you’re mixing the track is pretty much set.
Tl;dr: Do what MKS says here 
EDIT: Also should probably mention, might go without saying but all the stuff I’m talking about is only if you’re self mastering. If you’re planning on possibly having it mastered by a label/engineer then just have your mix peaking around -6 on the meter and be done with it. I’m only discussing home mastering which imo is a legit practice but I also have pretty nice plugins (FabFilter stuff is great for that) which will have better results than trying to master with standard plugs
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it’s not about the plugins but knowing what you’re doing for the most part
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Meh somewhat but theres also exceptions to that I would argue. Not saying paid plugins are necessarily better than free cause there’s plenty of great free ones. But for example the limiter I mentioned (FabFilter Pro L2) does give you much more control and some options that are simply unavailable on the Ableton stock limiter. There are plenty of other great limiters out there though, doesnt have to be that in particular.
Same thing with distortion and saturation plugins like Saturn which gives you 8x oversampling. A distortion without oversampling is just not going to give you as clean a sound because of foldover frequencies as one with it, and especially when you’re running your entire track through it. That doesnt mean you can’t get good results with stock ones though depending. EQ as well, if you listen to the difference between a high shelf boost on Pro Q3 vs the exact same settings on the Ableton stock EQ it is very audible. Not to sound like a walking FabFilter ad, just using those examples cause I’ve used them enough to be familiar. Theres plenty of other good stuff available.
Also I would argue it makes a little more difference in mastering just because a better or worse master determines the whole track. A kind of shrill boost or a cut which adds a few db of gain to your signal due to phase rotation can hurt your ability to get it as loud as you want or even make the mix sound worse. Mastering engineer’s job is to know how to avoid that and make the best possible master, and they definitely are not using stock DAW plugins to do that.
That said, as far as general production and actually making music goes I generally agree. It’s better to know the gear you have well and make the most out of it than constantly be stuck looking for the magic plugin or whatever that’s going to make your stuff dope. If you’re mastering with Ableton stock plugins, do some research on them and find out how to get the most out of them before you invest a bunch of money into expensive plugs. Just saying that investment may be worth it if you have the experience to know why you need them
FabFilter also killed it with the linear phase implementation.
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Ppl should just start posting their weed stuff in here
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Yeah I just didnt want to sound like too much of a fanboy but Fabfilter stuff is reaalllyy nice. Highly recommended
Been in Vietnam for a week and a half and the main thing I’m missing about home is the loud
suggestions for solutions to snare/clap transients? (I think that’s the term)
I use a basic limiter on my snare(s), but inadvertantly I notice some spiking in the master volume when the snare hits, but not every time
it seems like it happens during the “busiest” parts of the song
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soft clipping/saturation in general works for me
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What?
Checkit - this gal managed to get her track so loud you can’t hear it lol
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That’s not surprising, the volume of the snare is essentially adding onto the volume of everything else so it will peak the highest on the master when the busiest part is happening. You can crush it more in the limiter to bring the transient down and the body up. Like syrup said soft clipping is great as well, same idea. If you’re unsure how far to go, with either I would play with gradually increasing until you can hear its definitely too much, then bring it back to where seems safe. That said loud percussive elements like kicks and snares will always hit the master harder than the rest of the track. Only other way to mitigate that more is to start sidechaining your kicks and snares to the rest of the track and get real EDM-y.
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