Confused with Ouput cliping led behaviour ! Need help please.

  • I understand, thank you very much for the info and links ! 8o

    Anyway i still have a question, sorry to bother you, but if i lower all volumes so peaks are around -10db... My master will need even biggert amount of mix limiting to hit the actual loudness war standards. You see what i mean ?

  • Much level love to Sam and MonkeyMan - right on, guys! :)

    @J-War: As Sam says, forget the loudness wars until you are absolutely done with recording, and with mixing. It's a mastering thing.

    But really consider whether you need to "compete" (by the way, the competition is kind of stupid at this point, since a lot of streaming services loudness-normalize stuff, making the louder songs QUIETER and less impactful).

    Regarding the -10 dB guitar tracks in relation to other tracks, etc: Yeah, turn DOWN THE OTHER TRACKS to get the balance instead.
    And turn up your MONITORS (or headphones, whatever you use) on your audio interface instead - that's what the knob is for :)


  • But really consider whether you need to "compete" (by the way, the competition is kind of stupid at this point, since a lot of streaming services loudness-normalize stuff, making the louder songs QUIETER and less impactful)

    Yes! According to Hugh Robjohns of Sound On Sound, iTunes Music and Spotify level their tracks to between -14 and -16 LUFS (measured according to the R128 loudness specifications), so your regular "loudness wars" masters will indeed seem quieter, more squashed, lifeless and carry less impact compared to tracks mixed with a healthy dynamic range and headroom on those streaming platforms. Indeed, iTunes Plus and Mastered for iTunes require a headroom of at least 6 dB, if I recall correctly. Your typical Soundcloud and YouTube conversion will also suffer due to inter sample peaks that exceed 0 dBFS, as so many hard-clipped and normalised loudness wars masters do. The only way to be truly sure to keep the best quality throughout is to employ the use of a true peak meter and leave a healthy amount of headroom.

  • Yes! According to Hugh Robjohns of Sound On Sound, iTunes Music and Spotify level their tracks to between -14 and -16 LUFS (measured according to the R128 loudness specifications), so your regular "loudness wars" masters will indeed seem quieter, more squashed, lifeless and carry less impact compared to tracks mixed with a healthy dynamic range and headroom on those streaming platforms. Indeed, iTunes Plus and Mastered for iTunes require a headroom of at least 6 dB, if I recall correctly. Your typical Soundcloud and YouTube conversion will also suffer due to inter sample peaks that exceed 0 dBFS, as so many hard-clipped and normalised loudness wars masters do. The only way to be truly sure to keep the best quality throughout is to employ the use of a true peak meter and leave a healthy amount of headroom.


    Right on, Sammy!

    Funny that this has always been the case with FM radio where mixes that are allowed to breathe survive the (7-band?) slamming process only to come up trumps when compared to heavily-limited submissions.

    Now that Apple, Google et al appear to be setting a trend to further squash our beloved work, it could, IMHO, ironically be the best thing that's happened to mixing (the loudness war in particular) in ages. I mean, nobody seemed to "get it" when FM radio prevailed as the largest source of non-purchased listening, but now that the intra-webs are jumping onboard the compression train, I'm guessing the "masses" will finally choose the better mixes over the slammed ones, albeit without a clue as to why.