how to make it LOUDER
Posted on | August 17, 2008 |
This isn’t going to be a holier-than-thou rant by a mastering engineer about people who always want their music louder. It’s a realistic reply for people who do want louder mixes: make your recordings clean and good.
Now, by “clean and good” I mean two things. First, make sure that you recording/tracking is clean. Is it distorting from processing too much…or by YOU trying to make it loud? (Remember…that’s the last thing someone does in mastering: after eq-ing and compressing.)
Once you have that, make the mixes good. This means understanding a good mix and having a good set of monitors (and/or headphones) so you can create a solid mix that stands up in headphones, cars and — yes — even in MONO! (i.e. Do the drums collapse into the center channel when put in mono?)
I’ll give you a tip from the mastering perspective: M.E.’s can make just about anything loud as hell…if it’s clean and well recorded. If those two things are done right they can push the mix to the brink of destruction…and it will still sound good.
The other little secret is that — even in heavy/loud music — a bit of dynamics (say, micro-dynamics) is necessary. Did any word stick out to you in the title of this post? Probably because I set it off from the other words with visual dynamics.
So, go forth and make your recordings as quiet or loud as you want. If they’re clean and well mixed, you can take them anywhere.
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From Ohm to Om reflects the opinions of mastering engineer Paul Abbott, owner of San Diego's ZenMastering.
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