Optical compression has a unique timbre to it and can add a lot of character to your master. The reason being, it typically holds onto the signal for longer than regular compression and releases it in stages depending on the incoming signal’s amplitude and other factors.
Maag EQ - Plugin Alliance Oxford Inflator - Sonnox MV2 - Waves Audio L1 Limiter - Waves Audio Fresh Air - Slate Digital Dyna-Mu - IK Multimedia
Your vocal’s low frequencies are really important - they have the potential to both drastically augment your vocal, and hinder it. Whereas frequencies around 100Hz will provide body and power to your vocal, ones lower than that will most likely be plosives and microphone rumble.
When mastering for streaming, it's best to make your master between -14 LUFS and -8LUFS, as well as leave 2dBTP for gain changes made during the encoding process. Additionally, don’t make your master both dynamic and quiet, since this can result in distortion after normalization.
If you’re mastering with a stereo compressor, you’re affecting all aspects of the track; but if you’re mastering pop or hip-hop, you may not want to compress the low-frequencies. Use an internal side chain to determine which frequencies get compressed, and let the low-end pass through unaffected.
If you want a more impressive sub-bass you can amplify the frequencies with an EQ, distort and saturate them with a frequency specific saturator, use a sub-harmonic generator, and make sub frequencies mono. Additionally, your limiter's release time will affect your master's sub-frequencies.
FabFilter Pro-Q3 FabFilter Saturn 2 U-he Satin Tape NewFangled Elevate TRackS One
When you’re mastering it’s important to have roughly 3 to 6dB of headroom. In other words, the maximum peak of your signal in a digital system should be somewhere between -3dB and -6dB.
T-RackS is an often overlooked and underappreciated software. It provides a lot of flexibility while still keeping things simple.
When including vocal effects it’s best to break down the processing into 3 types: spectral, dynamics, and temporal. Spectral processing like equalization and distortion should come first, then you should introduce dynamics processing like compression, and lastly, you should use temporal processing like reverb.
Today we’ll cover 3 plugins that our subscribers seem to recommend a lot. We’ll cover the functionality of each one of these plugins, and listen to them on some various genres to hear how they sound.
Today we’ll look at what might be the most advanced limiter plugin on the market. Whereas other limiters focus on the aesthetics or the design, this one focuses primarily on functionality and giving engineers the most freedom as possible.
Subtractive EQ - Weiss EQ1: $549 De-essing - Weiss De-Ess: $199 Subtractive EQ - Oeksound Soothe 2: $219 Tape Emulation - u-he Satin Tape: $129
Some of the plugins on this list have been around for a while, but a couple are new - so even if you’ve been following free plugins for a while, there’s bound to be one here that you haven’t looked into yet.
Using saturation is easier than it might seem at first. Introducing the effect and determining when enough is enough, can be challenging at first.
