How to Get a Loud, Clean Master in Under 10 Minutes

[00:00] For some people, getting loud and clean

[00:01] music seem to be impossible. But there

[00:03] are five steps that I have never seen

[00:05] anybody talk about in a single video

[00:07] that will get your music to sound as

[00:08] loud as you wanted to while making it

[00:10] cleaner and crisper. My name is Max.

[00:12] Welcome to Mix Elite Academy. And how

[00:14] come this track here we get [music]

[00:19] about minus 10 LFS. We are even peing 1

[00:22] dB and I cannot push it harder [music]

[00:26] because it just start distoring. But the

[00:28] same track with different processing

[00:30] applied. I can push to plus 17.

[00:36] You're getting -5 - 6 LFS. [music] We

[00:39] are not picking

[00:42] and it sounds clean and crispy. Louder

[00:45] equals better. Like literally

[00:46] psychologically and physiologically.

[00:48] Docs hate it. We love it. But here is

[00:51] not just louder. It's crispier,

[00:52] punchier, and glued together. The very

[00:54] simple way to achieve this loudness is

[00:56] by playing our song through a limiter

[00:58] that doesn't allow the audio to get

[00:59] above zero dBFS threshold, which is the

[01:02] limit for your speaker to play music,

[01:04] and turning on the gain. So, we shave

[01:06] off the peaks of the sound, making the

[01:08] [music] louder parts quieter and the

[01:10] quieter parts sound louder.

[01:13] [music] And this is exactly what I've

[01:14] just done to this track. is a cardinal

[01:16] sin VDM right here

[01:17] >> that you should never ever do. So,

[01:19] what's going on and what should you do

[01:21] to get the crispy masters? First, let's

[01:23] clear up that the PQC on the meter

[01:25] inside your door has nothing to do with

[01:27] how loud your music is actually

[01:28] perceived. We measure this with LUFS

[01:31] instead. It's a separate metering plugin

[01:33] you have to use. If you don't have one,

[01:34] just click the link in the description

[01:35] below. As electronic music producers, we

[01:38] want this number to be as high as

[01:39] possible, ideally to at least minus 8 to

[01:42] -6 integrated LUFS. Scril X goes minus

[01:45] three. We'll get to how in a moment.

[01:47] Second, why did you just say louder

[01:49] equals battery max when Spotify tells me

[01:51] that recommended is minus4 LFS or they

[01:53] will lower it? Because people are

[01:55] confused between distribution target and

[01:57] playback threshold. Spotify uses minus14

[01:59] LUFS as playback settings. Is their

[02:02] target for average integrated LUFS of

[02:04] your entire song? If your drop is

[02:07] hitting minus1 LUFS and it still sounds

[02:09] great, that's amazing. No streaming

[02:11] platform is going to be applying limiter

[02:13] on your song. People will just turn up

[02:15] the volume as they want it on their

[02:17] studio Bluetooth speakers and Spotify

[02:19] might just change the volume. So, we

[02:20] always master our tracks as loud as

[02:22] possible without it starting to sound

[02:24] worse. Full stop. Next, before we start,

[02:26] fundamentally, your muscle will suck and

[02:29] not be crispy. Not because of what you

[02:31] do on the master mainly, but what you do

[02:33] while mixing. If you want a clean and

[02:35] loud mix before we get to mastering,

[02:37] your friends are right click delete

[02:39] button. You cannot make 50 misins loud

[02:41] because they're fighting for the same

[02:43] pixel of headroom. Selfish low end

[02:45] because low end is carrying the most

[02:46] energy but least loudness. That's why if

[02:48] you listen closely, protras actually

[02:50] don't have as much sub frequencies as

[02:53] you might think. Frequency masking, a

[02:55] lot of side chaining, not only from kick

[02:57] to bass, but to make space for whatever

[02:59] is the priority in your mix. Clipping

[03:01] individually and groups to control the

[03:03] peaks and everything below 100 htz is

[03:06] mono. These guys will give you 80% of a

[03:08] clean mix. that we now can get to making

[03:10] loud and crisp. So, let's start from the

[03:12] loudest part of our rendered mix.

[03:19] This applies to every genre, ADM, trap,

[03:22] hip-hop, etc. First, on your master,

[03:25] since low frequencies are the heaviest,

[03:27] we always apply a low cut to cut

[03:29] everything that's unnecessary. So, I'll

[03:31] apply Fruity Parametric EQ2. And

[03:33] unnecessary starts just under the lowest

[03:36] note that your song plays. that

[03:38] shouldn't be lower than 30 Hz. For

[03:40] example, D1 or D2 in FL

[03:43] place at 36 Hz. In FL, there's this

[03:47] preset you can apply. And I will take it

[03:49] a little bit higher because my track is

[03:51] in E. It hits at around 41 Hz. So, I'll

[03:54] just start rolling down after it. You

[03:56] should not turn on linear phase or

[03:58] oversampling. Linear phase and

[04:00] oversampling will leave for the final

[04:02] limiter.

[04:13] You can hear it's getting worse within

[04:15] our face and over something applied.

[04:17] Some people like to also use shelf

[04:19] instead. That would look something like

[04:21] this. You use this shelf if you feel

[04:23] like after the low cut your track became

[04:26] boommy, right? There are some phasing

[04:28] issues. Then we don't need any lows from

[04:30] the side channels because side channel

[04:32] is everything that's different between

[04:34] left and right ear. Side is what creates

[04:37] stereo width effect. And serial width in

[04:40] low frequencies is bad. Very bad. Want

[04:42] to know why? Right? Because they

[04:44] oscillate in lower frequency. And if two

[04:46] play the exact opposite signal, you'll

[04:48] hear silence. Not in your headphones,

[04:51] but when you listen back to it on mono

[04:53] speakers or there will be blind spots in

[04:56] clubs with no bass audible at all. I

[04:58] will use a free midside EQ preset for

[05:01] Patcher that you can download for free

[05:02] below and just start increasing the side

[05:04] low cut.

[05:18] So this is how it looks like from two to

[05:20] 300 Hz. We're starting to roll off

[05:23] everything so that at 120 Hz everything

[05:26] down is only mono. There's no side

[05:28] signal and this is what we are cutting.

[05:30] Take a listen and notice how the phase

[05:32] shifts. So the bass is inaudible every

[05:35] couple of seconds.

[05:43] So it's also really inconsistent and it

[05:45] will screw up our face a lot. That's why

[05:47] we do it like this. And if you worry

[05:48] that we are losing a little bit of this

[05:50] punch and bass, we'll be adding the good

[05:52] one back in a moment after we would get

[05:55] into dynamics. take a look at our

[05:57] waveform, how many weird little peaks we

[06:00] have. That's why we would usually apply

[06:03] a clipper just after the EQ. If we

[06:06] wanted to really push the loudness, I

[06:08] really like this small plugin, literally

[06:10] very small, called the G-Clip, you push

[06:13] it until you just barely hear it change

[06:15] the knock of your drums, then back it

[06:18] off 10%.

[06:33] And now we also turn on the over sample.

[06:40] We do not turn on softness. We keep it

[06:42] at 0%.

[06:48] So I had it started to distort and then

[06:50] I backed it off. So I don't hear it no

[06:52] more. Take a look at what waveform looks

[06:54] like with and without it.

[07:05] >> We're cutting the unnecessary peaks that

[07:07] don't really make it sound different,

[07:09] but we'll screw up our limiter in a

[07:11] minute. Technically, even better way

[07:13] would be if we applied multiband

[07:14] clipping. So you would not be limited by

[07:16] the whole waveform and you'll find a

[07:18] whole niche for multiband clipping on

[07:21] YouTube. But ideally instead you don't

[07:23] do multiband clipping on your master

[07:25] when mastering but do it on individual

[07:27] groups of instruments when mixing. This

[07:29] is what for example Skrillex does to

[07:31] achieve this minus 3 LFS. That's why

[07:33] some mastering engineers will want you

[07:35] to send stems of your track for

[07:37] mastering so that they can do stuff like

[07:39] this. But this is basically mixing

[07:40] already. We are not doing that today.

[07:42] Now, why did we use hard clipping before

[07:44] compressors or a limiter? Because our

[07:46] limiters are trying to be smart. Their

[07:49] goal is to be as transparent as possible

[07:51] without adding distortion. If you have a

[07:53] huge snare hit like that upcoming, this

[07:55] smart brain of this thing will soften

[07:58] the hit to fit the snare under the

[08:00] ceiling we set over here. On the other

[08:03] hand, clipper is damp and that's why we

[08:04] love it. It just chops all the waveform.

[08:07] That's why the next step after we got

[08:08] our signal clear from this weird harsh

[08:11] peaks is multiband compression. You can

[08:13] do this in Maximus or something like Fap

[08:16] Filter Promb MB. Inside Maximus, I think

[08:18] it's pretty easy to see. I like to set

[08:19] the preggain of each band by like 7 to

[08:22] 10 dB so we have more [music] room to

[08:25] work with.

[08:35] Our goal here is just to lower the

[08:37] dynamic range of every single band

[08:39] individually instead of at once. And at

[08:41] the same time, very important, make up

[08:43] for that. So if we are going down from

[08:45] plus 8 dB to around five, we would add

[08:49] about 3 dB of gain to the lows like

[08:52] that. Then do the same for mids

[08:59] [music] and highs.

[09:08] And now we can get to limiting and

[09:10] maximizing. This is the most important

[09:12] part. If you were to watch just one

[09:13] minute of this whole video, this is the

[09:15] one. I really like to use this one from

[09:16] Ozone because it has all the features we

[09:18] really need. First, before we even tweak

[09:20] anything, we turn on always true peak

[09:23] and set the output level to start at

[09:26] minus0.3

[09:27] dB ceiling. Why this is important?

[09:30] Because when audio leaves your computer,

[09:32] it goes through digital to audio

[09:34] converter DAC from PC to speakers. It

[09:37] basically takes the dots and draws a

[09:39] smooth curved line between them to send

[09:41] to your speakers. If two dots are too

[09:43] high, the curve can get about zero dB

[09:46] causing distortions. So speakers try to

[09:49] play signal that's technically

[09:50] impossible for them to play and it's

[09:52] called inter sample peing because the

[09:54] signal is peing between the samples.

[09:57] When you turn on true peak, it over

[10:00] samples the audio to create more dots to

[10:02] make sure they won't go above the

[10:04] thresholds you've set after converting

[10:06] to the signal that speakers can read.

[10:08] You will not hear these issues inside

[10:10] your DA because your D works in 32-bit

[10:13] float at least. But this all only

[10:15] applies to lossless file, meaning a wave

[10:18] file that nobody will be listening to.

[10:20] Actually, everybody will be listening to

[10:22] something like MP3 versions of your

[10:24] file. Like maybe DJs on festivals play

[10:26] wave files, but usually this would be

[10:28] Spotify converting your file to MP3. And

[10:31] this settings don't fix this. Your

[10:33] limiter even in true peak mode doesn't

[10:35] care about MP3 or any other codec.

[10:37] That's why inside of ozone you have this

[10:39] codec so that we can preview how it will

[10:42] sound and what will be the true peak

[10:44] after converting to MP3. And this is

[10:47] key. Okay, we don't even start turning

[10:49] on the gain before [music] we do that.

[10:51] So we have true peak minus 0.3 is a good

[10:54] starting point. And now I'll start with

[10:55] the chaotic off so we can hear the

[10:57] difference. And we'll start turning on

[10:59] the gain up until I hear audible

[11:02] distortion. No LFS [music] matters for

[11:04] now.

[11:13] All right.

[11:17] So [music] you can see we are under

[11:20] minus 6 LUFS. This is crazy. And we are

[11:23] picking at minus0.1

[11:25] even if you have output level set to

[11:27] minus0.3 with crooic on. Okay. And now

[11:30] let's turn on codec. go to for example

[11:33] AAC because that's what Spotify for

[11:35] example uses for their web player and

[11:37] set it to 256 and we'll be looking at

[11:39] this peak to see if we are clipping

[11:44] [music] and immediately we're clipping

[11:52] even though with no [music] codec light

[11:55] we are pretty much at the true peak Go.

[12:02] Now this plus one shouldn't be outable

[12:04] at all. But if we go lower in codec,

[12:12] it's getting much worse. That's why so

[12:14] many people will tell you to go lower in

[12:17] the true peak ceiling. Spotify tells you

[12:20] to go minus 2 dB true peak ceiling just

[12:23] because of this codec. If we go minus 2

[12:26] dB,

[12:30] we only have half a dB of headroom after

[12:33] converting it to AAC 128 kilob. I would

[12:37] personally before limiting apply some

[12:39] kind of imager to make the stereo width

[12:43] of our track a bit more rich. I would do

[12:46] something sort of like that where we

[12:48] have lows fully in mono and mids to

[12:51] highs a bit more stereo. This will also

[12:54] increase a little bit of our headroom.

[13:02] The problem I see here is that our

[13:05] [music] peaks are still a little bit too

[13:08] high even though we've applied clipper

[13:10] already. If you seen something like

[13:11] this, what I would do after our

[13:13] multiband dynamics, I would apply

[13:15] another G clip just to make sure we are

[13:18] controlling those tiny little peaks that

[13:21] don't really bring anything. But

[13:23] unnecessary volume peaks.

[13:36] As you can see, now [music] we are much

[13:37] more in control environment. Now, if I

[13:40] just apply a limiter and apply the same

[13:42] amount of gain we've added, this is how

[13:43] it would sound.

[13:49] And this is after everything we've done

[13:51] today.

[14:02] >> [music]

[14:02] >> Even though I'm trying to give you my

[14:04] best here on YouTube, there's just so

[14:05] much that I can cover. That's why inside

[14:07] our Mix Elite Academy, you get lifetime

[14:09] access to all of our premium courses,

[14:11] all of our samples, presets, song

[14:13] templates, including this one, and

[14:15] weekly live group coaching, unlimited

[14:17] one-on-one feedback on your music,

[14:19] discounts on thousands of plugins. So,

[14:21] if you want a foolproof way to start

[14:23] making professional sounding music,

[14:24] check the first link in the description.

[14:26] And remember that the best way to get a

[14:28] loud master is to make music that people

[14:30] want to turn up. Quality is the best

[14:32] volume booster. That's why in this video

[14:34] you can see here, I'll take you through

[14:36] the start to finish process of mixing

[14:38] your track. So click over and I see you