Hey everyone, we made a new Mid/Side mastering chain in collaboration with EARTHBOUND Mastering. I made a video where I show how easy it is to get to -5dB LUFS (IF needed but I prefer -8!) using just 8 macro controls.
Daniel @ Earthbound Mastering has been so kind to share his experience and approach in Mid/Side in this new mastering chain, check out the demo video here:
In what way is it insane?
The need for -5dB LUFS is rather insane.
Unfortunately lots of people want their tracks that loud. 90% of the revisions I do are because the client wants it louder. I always want them to hear what I believe fits the music/genre/mix best (usually -14 to -10) before going for weapon grade loudness, but in the end it’s their music and you gotta give them what they want if you want to keep working with them.
-5 ? Not for me thanks. Thats just irritating radio music loud. No space left at all.
i find it kinda funny that there’s pops and clicks in the audio of the video.
I thought loudness wars are over…
so basically dual comp + dual limiter squashing to get to the numbers right? yeah that might work for some styles but it’s also very mix dependent, if I come with a stereo recording from my hardware device it probably won’t sound good at all, tried these types of hyper compression, you really need to have cleaner mix for that to work…
eh it’s mostly dependent on genre and how mainstream/pop culture the music is
It’s a free for all now. So loudness wars are back.
But yea, heavily genre specific.
The war has been over for some time now
It’s rather nonsensical to want things louder. Certainly now with how streaming services normalize things. Mastering should be about enhancing a good mix and in service of a mix, not to hit a specific number. But unfortunately this is still a thing
I really don’t get the point of that, so if you’re releasing music to the streaming platforms they all normalize to -14 anyway, if you release vinyl/physical media you also can’t do that with that loud for most of them, so the only “need” for that loud is probably playing live somewhere uncompressed loud stuff, but honestly for that I would rather give it to someone who knows what he’s doing based on track-by-track revision rather having single “magic” chain…
my favorite video on the internet 
btw I listened to his track in full volume without normalization and holy moly I had to lower my audio level half to not go deaf
I think that this video derived from the “DJs are idiots” video which is also nicely explains why you don’t need the crazy lufs
and btw there’s a louder track now
Parallel Deserts by Five Star Hotel is louder. It’s +2.8 LUFS.
My favorite quote about the loudness war is “The loudness war is over. We lost.” I’ve been mastering other people’s music for 7 years now, and I have 2 clients that inherently trust whatever level I hit as the “right” level for the track. The rest expect it to sound better AND be significantly louder than whatever they brought me. Very rarely do I get to just stop where I think the track actually sounds best.
There is a case to be made for some compression in many cases, IMO. I listen to jazz/classical in the car, and on the freeway you have to ride the radio volume because the dynamic range is so large that the quiet parts of the music are lost in the noise floor of the freeway (seriously, there are classical pieces where if I don’t touch them I won’t hear anything for over a minute!). It’s clearly not an ideal situation to consume music, but that is how a lot of people (and many artists) are listening - in the background out in the real world. So if I have to give up a bit of dynamics to get some more intelligibility in the real world, then OK.
Speaking as someone whose main output these days is incredibly loud harsh noise with little to no dynamic range, I struggle to understand why people think they need plugins like this.
If I don’t need it, who the fuck needs it?
Another reason why cars have wrecked everything.
He may have lost.
I don’t get the extreme negativity, honestly. Do I think -5 LUFS is a bad target? Yes. But then the creator says as much in the first minute of the video. Driving the track to hit -5 is more an example of how lively the song can still sound even taken to such an extreme.
And the premise is you don’t need some sort of black box or “pro level” plugin to do it. The stock utilities of any DAW will do. The trick is in the macros that tie them together, and the innovation to keep it sounding good is in processing dynamics M/S instead of L/R. And rather than put this in a “god particle” they’ve made some presets and are selling them for $20.
None of my stuff will ever benefit from -5 LUFS, but do I ever need to make my tracks louder? Obviously, yes. Have I ever paid any attention to M/S while doing so? With the exception of a low cut on my sides, no. So did I learn a bunch looking at these macros? Yup.
Where’s the crime?
Maybe it’s criminally INSANE…
not being negative at all, I honestly was interested in the “how” and it’s layed out in the video too, and I did try very very similar approach for my recordings recently, running Shadow Hills > bx_masterdesk > Elysia Alpha > Pro L2, squashing more and more in different stages and indeed achieved some crazy lufs targets but the outcome was weird to say the least, well at least not good enough to justify this ultra compression, so replacing the plugins with stock plugins doesn’t change the “how” for me it’s basically the same process with different plugins…
and it for sure might work for many genres/styles with clean mix.
I guess I don’t get the “it let me hit crazy LUFS target, but…” bit? If a particular mastering chain lets you hit -5 LUFS, it’ll also let you hit -14, but with a much lighter touch. Mastering with a lighter touch is something I’d have thought most people would be into regardless of genre. Pays to have lots of different arrows in the quiver and all that.
Just seems like a dude trying to share some knowledge and a lot of folks piling on because he said “-5”.
Not gonna say anyone’s post here isn’t valid, including yours.
The original post doesn’t provide any context other than a “hey look what we did” vibe. Plus that title….
The topic is a “hot topic” because many of us have learned to make dynamic mixes, while I’ve seen recently more discussion on matching the squashed mixes and masters. One topic (not posted here) was about matching DnB tracks and what the user showed was -5/-6 DnB tracks.
Even the the new Death Cab for Cutie goes into squashed territory, especially as they get louder towards the end of the tracks.
Anyway, seems like a healthy topic that centers around production technique and modern application of being competive.
And if it were my video, I’d be very happy to see a discussion building even if it were just half the people watching it. Breaking into any scene can’t be easy, which is why the (in my opinion) titles can be a bit ridiculous, but I do get it.