Hey guys, Eric Tarr here for theproaudiofiles.com. In this video, I’ll be discussing how to
use the maximizer to bring up a mix to mastered level. So far I’ve been using the iZotope
Ozone 5 plugin to get my mix exactly how I want it prior to using a limiter. Here’s
what I’ve got so far.
[mix being mastered]
In this video I’ll be demonstrating the maximizer section of the plugin, and discussing
some of the basics of loudness. I’ll go ahead and switch on the module here. To begin
with I’ll be focusing on the limiter section of the module and then in my next video I’ll
move on to discuss dithering.
Now one of the most well known aspects of mastering is that it’s used to bring up
the overall level or loudness of a track so that it can be played side by side with another
song you might hear on the radio, or on CD, or even downloaded to your computer. This
is done primarily by controlling the dynamics of your track. Now I’ve already done some
of this kind of processing using a compressor earlier on in my signal chain. Now here at
the end of my mastering signal chain I’m gonna be using a limiter to really bring up
the level but make sure I’m never clipping the signal at any point in time.
The limiter inside of Ozone is one of the best that’s out there. Has manyd afferent
advanced algorithms to pick and choose from, and also lot of different controls to make
it very versatile. However one of the things to know about it is this module in particular
can be very CPU intensive. So if you’ve got a session like mine where you’re mixing
with all these different kinds of plugins going into Ozone with all these other modules
going, it can actually cause problems for your CPU and playback to stop inside of your
DAW. Now you can check this, at least in Pro Tools, by going up here to your system usage
tab and seeing how your CPU is doing. Right now I’m running at basically 80% of my maximum
CPU processing power. This can be an issue as I start adding in more of these advanced
algorithms and doing things like adding in transient recovery and that kind of stuff.
Now what you can do to get around this is actually to print your audio tracks and then
make all these other ones inactive. And that’s what I’ve done to save time. I’ve already
got it set up and printed it for you. But what I’ve done here is basically gone in
to these tracks, selected them, instead of going to my main output here, I’m gonna
bus them over to something I call ‘mix’. Alright, send them over to ‘mix’ and I’ve
got the printed mix track right here. If I switch over to my timeline all you have to
do is basically make it record on, and then print all of these tracks with all the processing,
including what’s taking place on this master fader here with Ozone, all the modules up
to the maximizer. I’ve printed all of this processing and all the audio onto these two
tracks right here. Then it’s just a matter of going in, selecting all these right here,
shift-option-clicking, making them all inactive, and watch what happens to my CPU. Now it goes
down to close to 0%, alright.
Next, once I’ve already got the audio printed for you, you can see right here I’m just
gonna go in and turn on my Ozone plugin here. Just the maximizer on my audio track. Now
all my CPU can be devoted to processing the audio using the limiter in the master — at
the maximizer stage here.
Let’s get into some of the controls now of the plugin. To begin with, how you control
the main output level is gonna be set by the margin here. Right now it’s at 0, that means
0 dB full scale. That it means it’s basically the loudest possible signal is what you’re
saying your limiter is possibly gonna go up to. The loudest possible signal that can go
through your digital to audio converter. Now one of the things you have to worry about
is what’s called inter-sample detection. Where it might cause the samples inside of
your DAW to not go above particular level. But then your digital to audio converter might
actually try and create an analog signal that goes above that level, which can be a problem.
So what I usually like to do is bring it down a little bit. You might be thinking “oh,
you’re actually bringing down the output level of the signal.” But you can always
make this up by using the threshold of the limiter to make sure that the overall signal
is loud or perceived to be loud, but the peak is low enough so that it doesn’t cause any
digital to audio, digital to analog clipping, alright. So let’s play it back and get into
some of this.
[mix being mastered]
Now looking over here at the meters you can see that there are two things that you’re
watching. The peak level and that’s the level that’s gonna either cause clipping
or not clipping at your digital to analog converter. And then the RMS level — that’s
what’s gonna be more of the perceived level of loudness by the listener. So what you want
is you peak level to be low enough that it’s not causing any clipping, but your RMS level
to be loud enough that it’s right at the level of other comparable kinds of songs in
this style of music. So for pop/rock, this country style, I’m gonna be shooting for
somewhere between -10 RMS up to about -8 for the loudest parts. Some people will go even
beyond that — when you’re really squashing the track — bringing it up, but you know,
I want my track to breathe a little bit so somewhere between around -9 is basically what
I’m shooting for. The way that you can do that is by varying the threshold right here,
alright. I’ll bring it down and then show you how you can bring it up. Bring up the
level of the track by bringing the threshold.
[mix being mastered: adjusting limiter threshold]
So now the difference of my output is I’ve already brought the RMS by about 5 dB. It
was hovering around -15 here and input was at -20. So, I’m actually gonna switch over
to the most advanced algorithm in here, the ISRC 3. I think this one is one of the best
sounding, the most advanced one that they’ve got in their plugin. And I’m gonna bring
it up — the level of my signal — so it’s somewhere around -9.
[mix being mastered: adjusting the limiter]
Now you’re gonna have to watch because my voice isn’t actually going through the maximizer,
so the levels are gonna be a lot different now between the maximizer and what you’re
hearing in my voice. So another thing I’m gonna play around with is how fast the limiter
is gonna respond. I actually want it to be a little bit faster because I want to make
sure that there’s no clipping that ever takes place. The slower I make it, it’s
gonna bring up the level more and have more of a potential for clipping, but it might
sound smoother. What I’m gonna do, I know I’m using a fast limiter, is I’m gonna
use some of this transient recovery. I’ll play around with this and you can hear what
it’s doing. It’s making sure that the things like the kick drum, the snare drum,
and those hits aren’t being completely destroyed by the limiter. Sounds like this.
[mastering with Ozone 5 limiter transient recovery]
Now to my ears 75 sounded just about right for this transient recovery, meant that everything
still sounded natural but made sure that my drums and everything were still very punchy.
Last thing to add in here is a stereo link. That’s to make sure that my stereo field
doesn’t get thrown off by using the limiter where one side gets compressed independent
of the other one. And that’s all there really is to it. As I’ve shown you in other videos,
you can do things like automate some of these parameters to make it fit better with the
different parts of the song. So if you’re gonna be very detailed you could do that for
different parts of the things like the verse and the chorus. So that your RMS level is
still somewhere hovering around -10 to -8 and that’s right the level you want to watch
for your track to be comparable to other songs you might here on the radio. And that’s
all there really is to using the maximizer, at least the limiter section of the maximizer.
In my next video I’m gonna move on to dithering. I’ll discuss how you can use it to prepare
your mix for 16-bit for CD masters. So stay tuned for that.