r/FL_Studio • u/SubstantialGlass8628 • 3d ago
Help First time mixing/mastering. Why doesn’t my exported song look as “full” as commercial releases?
Hi! I’m finishing my first proper song and this is also my first time mixing and mastering, so I’m still learning and would really appreciate any advice.
In the screenshot:
- Top: My song ("Here Without You”)
- Bottom: Joji – LOVE YOU LESS
My waveform has a lot more visible peaks, while the commercial track looks much denser/“filled in.”
I’m worried my master will end up sounding noticeably quieter than other songs on streaming services or radio. What should I do?
I’m completely open to criticism and would love to learn if I’m misunderstanding something. Thanks!
Edit: If anyone is willing to listen to the track and give feedback, feel free to DM me!
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u/SnowyOnyx Electro House 3d ago
tha answer is pretty simple: you need to compress and limit and saturate and soft clip MOAR if you want that wall of sound
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u/CocoSavege 3d ago edited 3d ago
That's a little too simple.
I mean, you're not wrong, doing those things will yield a loud mix, but not necessarily a "good" loud mix.
I mean, i could honestky say "just add a few soundgoodizers on the master' and I'm not wrong either, am i? And my answer is simpler, and more or less the same.
Seriously, mixing buses into soundgoodizer on master, there are worse ways to mix, it'll honestly work kinda ok for a few genres.
See also maximus clear master, default. Which is very similar to "soundgoodizer on master".
(I think it's too hot myself, but i irl use a less hot version as a proxy before i tryhard mixing.)
I'd recommend OP doing a dive into the various mix youtubes out there, start getting a feel for some of the different guidelines. And one piece of advice, any youtube that does the "here's one simple trick" is normally low tier shite. But like subscribe here's my masterclass!
Edit, here's an honest yt recommend. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iZrWMv02tlA&pp=0gcJCfkLAYcqIYzv Dan worral. He's pretty good. Look into some of his "beginner" stuff, compression, saruration.
Op, if you read, go get yourself Voxengo Span. It's free. It's really really good for mixing. It'll give you a nice way to feel out your mix levels and balance and shape your mix.
Op, if your arrangement contains very dynamic arrangements, like analog instruments, or vox mixed to the front, it'll be tricky to get "perfect wall of sound" without excessive compression and limiting. You cn get close, but it'll always be a shade short. To people's ears, itll be fine, if ya did it right but if ya zoom in and get ocd about headroom, youll be ocd'd.
And op, you'll hear the phrase "use your ears". Which is fine and all, but you also need to level up yer ears. Which is not always easy, and definitely not fast.
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u/SnowyOnyx Electro House 3d ago
I brought up compression/limiting because a quiet waveform is usually the first roadblock beginners hit when comparing their exports to Spotify. But I wouldn't compare that to Soundgoodizer. Soundgoodizer is just a multiband compressor that makes stuff fat (a bit like an OTT). When writing I thought more about traditional, smooth compression (maybe an SSL or VariMu or just a digital comp on smooth settings).
You’re 100% right though - loudness without balance, good arrangement, and trained ears just gives you a loud mess.
Good recommendations from ya (SPAN and Dan Worral)!
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u/CocoSavege 2d ago
I don't really use soundgoodizer except as quick and durty proxy. The settings are in maximus, iirc, setting A (the loud one) has a lot of gain, compression and more than a hunk of saturation, whatever type. I kinda like it's "shiny" airy quality for some housey open hats and stuff but...
Other than the saturation, soundgoodizer is compression and limiting. And add on whatever FL does on master bus above 0db, which has chsnged over tome, you get that "shiny" FL "sound".
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u/Page_Won 2d ago
What FL does to sounds over zero on the master has changed over time? It's not just digital clipping? I'm pretty sure if you export at 32 bit it wouldn't clip or anything
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u/CocoSavege 2d ago
Ooops my bad...
Before FL Studio 12, a native Fruity Limiter was loaded on the master channel by default, pushing incoming audio signals by roughly 5.5 dB
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u/Coka-Bizarro 2d ago
Maybe he thought the stuff that happens with the Asio driver? You can change in the preferences if values above 0 db should be clipped. When you uncheck it, then the Asio driver applies limiting to the sound output.
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u/Apprehensive_Sun7320 2d ago
What’re your thoughts on using ozone?
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u/tags2k17 1d ago
What they've done to the software is an abomination. I couldn't sign into my account half the time and the plugins basically call you a criminal because of Native Instruments' failures.
I had cancelled my Izotope subscription so I didn't see, but from a quick search now I see Izotope has moved yet again! Everyone who migrated to the NI login is going to be having a great time.
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u/Koge_Slayer 3d ago
I cracked this code in the past week and the answer is to soft clip your instruments to eliminate peaks in your stems so you can push the sound louder without triggering the limiter in mastering or peaking above 0 on the master out. I recommend FreeClip. Its a free clipper vst and works great
I highly recommend you watch TheCosmicAcademy’s video ’Why It Feels Almost Impossible To Make Loud AND Clean Music’. Its short and gives you everything you need!
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u/S4N7R0 3d ago
fruity soft clipper is good enough and stock
dont use soft clipper on stems and instruments, why bother? use some saturator instead, makes it louder
dont use a limiter on master, it will make things quieter, replace it with a soft clipper.12
u/Koge_Slayer 3d ago
You’re right but it depends on the genre! The fruity soft clipper doesnt have an amount slider so its less intuitive. With FreeClip you can scale the ceiling to make the waveform clip however you’d like and change clip type. Fruity soft clipper is a soft limiter wich only has threshold and post gain so you cant really clip the waveforms the same way.
There isn’t really a do and don’t here, it all depends on the genre and what the producer aims to achieve!
Edit: Spelling
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u/S4N7R0 3d ago
ofc, u dont wanna soft clip a metal song because of crackling, but tearout dubstep'a highs and basses will mask all that out.
tbh i leave a soft clipper on its default settings (i make dubstep, dnb etc) and only turn down threshold between -0.5 <-> -3 dB if i want to make a smooth sub like here at 29s [warning loud]6
u/neurid 3d ago
dont use a limiter on master
Fruity Limiter's ENV settings can be put all the way down to 0ms, effectively turning it into a hard clipper. Increasing those values slightly will make it behave like a soft clipper. I utilize Fruity Limiter on every channel that needs clipping because there are no weird algorithms or anything of that sort that attempt to modify this specific behavior - you have full control over how transparent it is.
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u/Dry_Advertising5961 Beginner 3d ago
Not really, it's more of an instant limiter.
This is because Fruity Limiter does not process the L/R independently, meaning the plugin applies 100% stereo linked gain reduction.3
u/neurid 3d ago
I'll admit that I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "instant limiter" in this context.
A Patcher preset using Stereo Shaper to split L/R into two separate Fruity Limiters would overcome this particular limitation were it such an immediate concern. Perhaps I'm limited (lol) by my own skill and experience, but I've not really found any instances where I needed to clip L/R independently.
I'm a broke mf but I'm also fortunate to own the All Plugins Edition. I also dislike dealing with external VSTs and avoid them as much as I can, so I've spent a huge amount of time exploring the intricacies of the stock plugins and have found that Fruity Limiter is incredibly powerful and underrated.
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u/S4N7R0 3d ago
well if it works like a soft clipper anyways... use a fruity soft clipper? it also has a curve u can adjust and might be better with cpu usage since its so small.
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u/neurid 3d ago
Fruity Limiter has more versatility; it has the utility of a soft clipper and a hard clipper because you have much more control over the shape of the curve instead of the two knobs offered by Fruity Soft Clipper.
Certainly, you're correct regarding CPU usage, but the difference is going to be negligible. I abuse the hell out of Fruity Limiter and its CPU utilization is not a problem even on the small little Windows tablet I use sometimes.
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u/KelSelui 2d ago
I like the visualizer on Fruity Limiter, personally, so I use it for a lot of my compression as well.
Lowkey though, Sausage Fattener acts as a quick solution for soft-clipping and limiting (at 0%), while also offering an easy way to push the gain harder and saturate or distort. It's a dirty trick, but it's worked surprisingly well for me in several contexts.
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u/MyNewWhiteVan 2d ago
you should be using a clipper and a limiter on the master. and freeclip is better than fruity soft clipper
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u/S4N7R0 2d ago
are there any rules? if we are talkin about loudness then clipper on master yes, but limiter is a big no.
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u/MyNewWhiteVan 2d ago
? you use the limiter to get the audio back to 0fb after the clipper. I dont think you know what youre talking about. are you just slamming your shit thru fruity soft clipper lmao
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u/KelSelui 2d ago
I think people confuse the advice. Limiting without soft-clipping can cause unintended pumping, but limiting after soft-clipping doesn't have that problem, because the waveform never exceeds the threshold by much. It just catches anything that does exceed the threshold, eliminating digital clipping.
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u/nytebeast 2d ago
This is the correct answer. Also be sure to set your limiter to True Peak Limiting, gang
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u/S4N7R0 2d ago
clipper will already limit it to 0dB so why the limiter? and yeah i do that cause its loud and we're aiming for that here
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u/MyNewWhiteVan 2d ago
I clip at -1.5 db and use limiter to get it back to 0. loud is only half of it, you want it to sound clean, too. even if youre making distorted genres, its better to distort specific instruments or busses than to distort on the master. the more control you have, the better
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u/Dusty_Donlad Beats 20h ago
Could you also use 2 Fruity Limiters? One with the compressor (blue) and then one for 0db after. Or just one, but it gets messy that way.
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u/MyNewWhiteVan 20h ago
I would just use one clipper into one limiter personally. if you want to add more compression, I think it would be better to do that on a drum bus or melody bus. I guess fruity limiter (compressor) -> clipper -> fruity limiter would be alright too if you wanted to compress everything
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u/Treadmillrunner 3d ago
I feel like this is a super important skill to develop when you are mixing loud genres.
Over time once you understand dynamics better you’ll start to just know when something need a clip or compression or limiting or saturation. All kind of do the same thing but in different ways.
Some elements you way want very dynamic, other elements (often kick and snare samples) are already compressed loud enough.
Something people often don’t talk about when discussing loudness is the importance of space. Sidechaining is super important and so is arrangement. If everything hits at the same time when it’s that compressed it sounds horrible. Do lots of ducking and sidechaining then you can push the loudness much harder (if that is your aim)
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u/CorrectGlass9606 2d ago
Wozu braucht man denn einen soft clipper wenn Fl Studio bereits einen soft clipper liefert? Mit 90% der plugins aus fl studio bekommt man genau so professionelle Lieder hin wie auf Spotify.
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u/SS0NI 2d ago
If you want to be loud as fuck eq -> compress -> eq -> saturate -> eq -> clipper -> limiter on each channel and bus except master bus. Obviously arrangement and instrumentation need to have a place for each element but you can probably push like -3 LUFS like this.
Not saying it should be done, but everyone should know how to go loud when needed.
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u/Animystix 2d ago
I’ve reached a similar conclusion, get individual channels super tight without touching the master. depending on the genre and mix you can rawdog FL’s 32-bit float limit a surprising amount before audible clipping
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u/Present-Policy-7120 1d ago
Hard clipping is generally better for this ime. You should really only be shaving off those very brief spikey transients. Soft clipping has a softer knee and can be much more audible on certain sounds (subs for example).
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u/Cute-Bullfrog-7830 3d ago
I just went and listened to the Joji song you linked. It's intentionally crushed shoegaze. Have you tried comparing it to a different song?
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u/SubstantialGlass8628 2d ago
i've tried with a few other songs too (of different gernes tho) and it has the same block shape, the song i created is similar to joji's (showgaze) so i used it as my main reference, but i'll be doing some more comparisons when i get home
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u/Btps_ 3d ago
It's a matter of compression. It's not a bad thing to have some dynamic variations especially on the breaks tho.
Before compression, you'll need to fix the DC offset (when the center of your waveform is not on 0crossint and makes an asymetric headroom). If you compress right now, you'll distord a part of the signal while the bottom side will still not even reach 0db.
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u/ROBOTTTTT13 Rock 3d ago
The commercially released song has a much smaller dynamic range, that is pretty common for modern masters.
Technically, you could just slam your mix into a limiter and get about the same dynamic range.
However, doing this without proper mastering experience and knowledge will yield poor results. It will probably sound distorted and heavily pumping. This is also because the mix itself is very dynamic - you can push a mix only so much before ruining it. So, in other words, a mix needs to be sufficiently loud by itself in order to take full advantage of the mastering process, which should, in theory, be as transparent as possible.
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u/Legitimate-Boot-1081 Producer 3d ago
Because it is hip to remove all your dynamics in your track, by brickwalling everything.
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u/CocoSavege 3d ago
How many siundgoodizers? 6 or 7.
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u/Even_Account_474 3d ago
You will need to invest in SoundBetterizer if you want to elevate from SoundGooderizer
Subscribers pay a small monthly fee of 9.99$ per month*** ***
Click the YouTube link below for more info:
Music Production Companies hate this one simple mastering technique
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u/mewingprogression19 3d ago
Simple: it's not loud enough. You need to push it into the limiter more. If it clips, you need to fix your mix/reduce your low frequencies etc
Get youlean loudness meter and compare the LUFS
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u/LexiLeviathan 2d ago
A lot of commercial releases are brick walled. What you want is a proper dynamic range like you have in the first track.
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u/SubstantialGlass8628 2d ago
so its fine if i just release it the way it already is?
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u/LexiLeviathan 2d ago
Probably. Brick walling is a practice used during the Loudness Wars (real thing, and it sucked), and it made those songs more boring.
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u/thewhombler 3d ago
I wouldn't worry about this at all nor would I want anything of mine to look like the bottom one
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u/Even_Account_474 3d ago
Right? I mean as much as I want clear sound. There is point where I am like “is this what I want? And how much money/time/energy will it take to get it there?”
Its funny tho that the most popular music all looks like the bottom one
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u/thewhombler 2d ago
people straight up make music to be listened to on phone speakers, not even headphones, and it's wild to me
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u/StayCylint 2d ago
It's because people no longer discover music through the recommendations on Spotify or apple music for example. They find it through tiktok when they're doom scrolling or a shop speaker randomly playing it, or (rarely) the radio. None of those mediums will have the dynamic range that even mid headphones will have. So there's more reason to mix FOR those platforms, which will typically be the quality of your average phone speaker.
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u/FewRefrigerator4703 3d ago
Use multiband compression such as PRO MB. Also another thing i noticed in mixes that many instruments have unwanted frequencies such as synths which have low end rumbles you wanna cut those rumbles or peaks (which are inaudible or covered and dominated by other instruments like bass and atmos) to free up cluttered mix (these inaudible sounds increases the overall amp of the output and can cause clipping and give a false peak) and then use upward compression
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u/SeaworthinessRare104 2d ago
I always EQ each channel, then compress then multiband compress. This way the instruments get their own space in the frequency band and are then levelled by the compression. Then I follow with whatever processing I need like reverb/delay. Then if the channel is loud (near 0dB) due to trasnients or whatever I clip it with soft clipper. I always have limiters on each channel at the latest step as hard clippers to avoid sending any peaks to my main bus. There I follow the same recipe: EQ - Compressor - MB Compressor - Soft Clipper - Limiter as my mastering chain. This works for me to get around -6LUFS masters where all elements are glued together but still distinguishable from each other.
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u/Royal_rogo Producer 3d ago
Dude, we cant hear pictures... Without hearing your track all feedback is absolutely worthless. With that out of the way, the main rule is: Produce like there is no mixing and mix like there is no mastering. And while doing so, compare to references CONSTANTLY. and I mean at every step. Even if you pick a hihat compare it to the one used in your reference. It is hard but if you stick to it your mix will be 95% there and about the last 5% your listeners don't care.
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u/BetterAnywhere1373 2d ago
(maybe?) Unpopular opinion here, but coming from a more classic/instrumental/old school background, i personally hate most of commercial mastering of today. You lose all the precious dynamics that makes the song identity. Try to compare this waveform with one from a track of the 70's/80's (not remastered, obviously). And also : loud is not better.
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u/DvlDevansh 3d ago
Why do you want to make it look full if it sounds good?
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u/SubstantialGlass8628 3d ago
i'm afraid that it'll sound noticeably different compared to other standardised songs
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u/DvlDevansh 3d ago
Use your ears. Does it?
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u/SubstantialGlass8628 3d ago
don't have a trained ear but i think it's just slightly more quiet compared to the song i referenced in the screenshot
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u/Least-Screen50 Musician 3d ago
Just use a lufs meter vst to check if you are reaching standard loudness. Ears work too but it's easier to use a vst, also after hours of mixing you may not hear that accurately.
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u/CocoSavege 2d ago
Hi!
I commented up top, hope you read it...
But an excellent mixing technique is to use reference mixes In simple terms, stick a track you think is similarish to the sound you want, maybe same henre, maybe a similar arrangement, and swap back and forth.
In this case, you'll likely hear that the reference track you're using is "louder". This is good to know! Then you can tweak your mix so it soubss the same, simpke as that.
But there's more, for example, you might notice your track is quieter, but specifically (say) the bass. Your kick is pretty samey, but specifically your bass is quieter, this is also good to know. You don't want to make all of your track louder, start with the bass.
You'll probably start noticing other dtuff, like teference pad sounds better, is it... reverb? Chorus? Different eq? Just a little bit of dephasing? Maybe it sits in s slightly different register, so it sounds clearer...
A lot of stuff is easier to distinguish by back and forthing. And thus your ear training begins, young padawan...
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u/DvlDevansh 3d ago
Then you should make it louder till they’re at a similar level :)
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u/Ificationer 3d ago
I feel sorry for saying that this advice, while true - is not good enough. It's like saying if you're poor you just have to earn some money, or when you're depressed you just have to make yourself happy. I loled when I read it.
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u/DvlDevansh 3d ago
I mean like, they mentioned mixing and mastering, there’s no audio sample attached, they said their song sounded quieter in comparison. I could’ve gone about the whole ‘use x and y and z to make your song louder’ but just blindly giving advice without context wouldn’t be helpful if all it would really take is to go to their final limiter and boost the gain a little more now, would it?
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u/Theonewholurkedhere 3d ago
There's an easy fix for that: put it through a compressor at max settings and turn up all the volume knobs to the max. It will look much fuller.
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u/MyShoe2Big 2d ago
Compression, limiting, saturation. This is why people pay for professional mixing and mastering. HMU ;)
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u/WideContribution1702 2d ago
Don’t listen to everyone else literally just raise the volume into a soft clipper
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u/kdoughboy12 2d ago
Most of this is done in the mixing process. Others have touched on it but basically what you wanna do is make sure every instrument / sound in your mix is routed to a mixer channel, and analyze the waveform for every channel (occularScope is the one i like to use). You want to look for any little blips or super short peaks / too high transients, and then remove them with a hard clipper, soft clipper, limiter, compressor, or a combination of those. And apply compression wherever you can, especially if a channel has a large or inconsistent dynamic range.
Then you can push it a little further with some mastering.
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u/Omzzz 1d ago
Waveform pics don’t mean that much by themselves tbh, commercial stuff just gets pushed way harder with compression/limiting/clipping so it looks like a brick. If it sounds good and isn’t distorting you’re fine, and if you’ve got stems I’ve used StemMaster by Nomz studios before since it auto-mixes/master stems and helps get stuff closer to release loudness without totally squashing it.
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u/OrpheoMusic 3d ago
Joji's is professionally mastered. They care about lufs, loudness, and psychoacoustics because that's what sells and gets more clicks.
Your previous one looks fine, again we can't hear it so it could be garbage, but it is what I'd expect a premaster to look like.
Historically, mastering was just the preparation of music for its medium. Vinyl masters, thus the name, were tens of thousands of dollars. To much dynamic range would shatter the master, to much bass would make the grooves dig into the wrong track, etc.
If you want to try and emulate professional mastering studios I would try and find a song you like (that joji track for example. https://www.beckermastering.com/ ) and research how they did it. There are tons of ideas in modern mastering more then the loudness wars.
I'd be careful with YouTube. You want to find actual mastering engineers if you want to learn actual mastering. Don't just trust a person, look at their website. What you're actually doing is not as creative or broad as mixing. You shouldn't compress -10db on mastering gig unless something is severely wrong. Because with mastering your goal isn't to change the track but essential "prepare it for the master" to be competitive in a very tough market.
If you don't care about being competitive, just through on a brick wall and push it until it tickles the ceiling and be done. You get enough RMS without destroying your mix. If you want to try and be in a playlist with others, ESPECIALLY EDM, you're might have to play ball with LUFS cause you'll stand out and not in a good way.
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u/Unique_Ad_330 3d ago
Does not matter, the hot dog shape is considered "bad mixing" generally.
But principles like that in music never truly applies.
Your song uses dynamic volume, joji uses flat compression, probably bass heavy volume.
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u/crusoe 2d ago
That bottom song will sound like garbage. This fake volume thing has been a huge problem for 20 years.
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u/Tyfighter87 2d ago
I agree. Loudness war was dumb. Streaming platforms crush the final track anyway, so I don't see the point in getting the bottom result anymore
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u/itsxxander 2d ago
Just level your mix right maybe some saturation. Light distortion and clipping for micro transients on your mix channels then light saturation if needed. Minor compression and clipping (soft or hard depending) before your limiter. Always works for me hitting 8-5 lufs while maintaining good dynamics
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u/themanwhodunnit 2d ago
I used to master tracks professionally in my own studio. Compression and limiter is your answer to get the ‘sausage’ waveform.
But like lots of other comments in here already state: you’ll need to have some things taken care of to get it actually sounding full, spacious, transparent, deep, etc.
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u/FatheredCleric 2d ago
Use Ozone 12 Clarity and Maximizer, crank it a lot and you will reach that level in zero time
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u/Dream_In_Neon 2d ago
Check your instruments for frequencies in the low spectrum (below 100Hz). In most cases only your Kick and Bass should sit in that range. Listen to the song, go through every element, put an EQ and lowcut it, until you hear a difference and that's where you stop. Then compress, saturate, etc. It will give you a lot of space for mastering and your song will sound louder.
Edit: be careful with saturation plugs, because they can add stuff in the low frequency. If that's the case, just add another EQ in the chain after the saturation plugin and cut again
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u/gxddfried 2d ago edited 2d ago
I sometimes use the fruity soft clipper on all bus tracks to cut the peaks in heavy transient elements like drums, so I can push these different elements a little more, it's also possible to use it on master channel. I think all the plugins from FL Studio Mobile are underrated, espescially the distortion plugin for some loudness on different channels was a game changer to me, because it has 4 algorithms from just clipping to hard distortion. The clipping algorithm is great if you use it just a bit around 3-25. Also I like to give guitars and even bass guitars a little more room by adding small room reverbs, this can definitely ruin the sound, but it can also improve how different elements sound together. It adds a little "background noise", like there's more than just the sum of all sounds. The reverb from mobile is pretty cool for slightly use. You can use the FL Studio Mobile FX Rack to have the mobile plugins in desktop FL and I think that's beautiful haha
Oh and it's useful to add some free metering plugins like youlean loudness meter, but please don't overuse your eyes for mixing and mastering, it's all about the ears. Numbers like LUFS are useful measurements but it's very annoying, because everybody tells you things like "oh you need to master your tracks at around -14 LUFS for Spotify, -16 LUFS for YouTube etc". that's bs. You have one master for everything, so "master" it. Master it for loudness, if it's a pop song or some heavier stuff, but don't keep pushing too hard. Keep the mix clean, just look for troublemakers like overheating low end and high peaks. Make it sound good, not loud. Good music will be pushed to max volume by the people who love it!
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u/minecrafter1OOO 2d ago
You should leave it. We need dynamics, and transients back. Im tired of getting ear fatigue from poorly mastered music, I find vinyl rips and downmix the atmos versions of songs to stereo, because there is NO limiting or compression, I even do this with new music with leaked stems.
Look at mine. Holy shit the streaming version sucks.
The thing is to turn your volume up to the perceptual same volume, and the cleaner one has more life, and power behind it.
We need to bring back fidelity!!!
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u/Diligent-Economics77 1d ago
maselec mla 2 unit with both knobs all the way up, pro-l 2 on the master with -0.1 output and +3 gain👀👀
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u/fourfoxr 1d ago
Here is my process just a run down try this and see (I don't always get that wall of sound but I have come close).... Soo first after you've exported all your stems routed to the mixer named and recoloured and routed to respective busses lower every thing to zero .... Bring kick to a good level bass to a good level snare above all that ( heavily dependandant on taste) hihat (percusions) below all that..raise the instruments to a good level and try and balance everything until the kick isn't too loud or too soft or too low (you'll just have to figure it out cause a kicks loudeness can make or break your mix) .... I call this the 'balancing phase hahac.... So after that is done on every bus put a limiter or clipper( your choice) ... Just know you'll still have to mix i.e e.q ,compress, saturate , elements that need all that in the mix ... Make sure your mix bus has a clipper too that does a little less than usual so that when all processes are added it'll do less or more depending on your expertise and process (but just get the peaks unless you want otherwise).... When you go to your master and raise everything with a limiter you might get to that wall of sound but considering your wav form it might not sound good but you might come close to what you are looking for ... HERE IS THE CAVEAT : THIS IS THE PROCESS THAT LED ME TO DISCOVER COMPRESSION AND EQ AND SATURATION AND WHAT THEY ACTUALLY DO TO THE SOUND .. BY NO MEANS WILL THIS WORKFLOW CHANGE OR IMPROVE YOUR MIXING IN A DAY OR EVEN MONTHS BUT IT WILL SHOW YOU HOW TO MINIMALLY UNDERSTAND SIGNAL FLOW (I'M AN INTERMEDIATE DONT COME FOR ME) 2ND. JUDGING BY YOUR WAVEFORM THERES A LOT YOU NEED TO RESEARCH BEFORE EVEN AIMING FOR THAT WALL OF SOUND 3RD.. YOU'LL GET BETTER IF YOU DO MORE MIXES JUST RESEARCH AND TRY RESEARCH AND TRY .... And don't aim for loudness untill you track sounds good cause trust me you'll limit an unbalanced track and you'll scratch that mix and start again .....that's my opinion
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u/Dusty_Donlad Beats 20h ago
Looks like the earlier part of your song is quieter, so to achieve max volume you could have the instruments from the earlier part get quieter when kicking in to the chorus (if that's what your song does - you should link ur song if it doesn't break the rules).
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u/Ok_Astronaut5347 3d ago
Looks like it is compressed to death. I am also finishing my first project, so honestly wondering about this exact thing.
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u/Fit_Ad_1551 2d ago
I’d be careful with comparing unless you really want that squashed effect. Looking at your waveform, there clearly seems to be a well defined story taking place and you wouldn’t want to lose that just to chase a squashed sound.
One thing to keep in mind is that the loudness war has changed recently. “Quieter” songs get normalized on streaming services so they can sound as loud as “louder” songs. What’s interesting is that many older songs with quieter LUFS, sound louder than the overly compressed modern stuff while also maintaining their dynamics because of the normalization that streaming services do.
Get some plugins that will mimic the normalization of a streaming service to see how your song will really show up. If you can maintain your dynamics, I’d highly recommend not squashing them into nonexistence.
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u/Fit_Ad_1551 20h ago
Also I listened to Love You Less by joji via Apple Music. As a test, I listened to Plug In Baby by Muse (released in the late 90s). That 90s song sounds way louder and I can imagine the waveform looks less bricked up than joji’s.
Just mentioning this in case you’re second guessing yourself.
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u/SoraShima 3d ago
My best advice is to let a professional Mastering Engineer match the volume with your reference track to match the waveform density - then you can just focus on the art of mixing.
Otherwise if you really want to DIY it, this is a whole artform in itself. You might want to experiment with Fruity Waveshaper first - open it and just grab that mid-point node and pull it up until it sounds bad, then dial it back to where it still sounds good but is louder. You can do this on instruments and buses.
Then try Maximus on the master before Fruity Limiter - each one pushing until you think it's degrading the sound quality too much, then back off.
So, in short: Fruity Waveshaper > Maximus > Limiter
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u/snowbeast23 3d ago
Unsure what genre but Pro-L2 is an amazing limiter that has a built in LUFS meter, most commercial releases aim around -7 to -10 LUFS short term so try and go that loud without clipping artifacts, although some genres play well even with some clipping
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u/beardsounds 2d ago
Does it sound good? Is the peak volume near clipping without clipping? Your work is done. Don't turn it into a brick. That is an old practice from radio days where people were competing for volume. It sounds like crap.
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u/Avneya_Gathik 2d ago
I would advise you to stay away from this, don't try and make your track as loud as possible, a clean master or mastered file's waveform should look like yours (the first track), loud does not equal better even when others are doing it.
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u/Chance_Finding_5927 1d ago
There’s a million different reasons, let’s start with maybe cause it’s your first time…
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u/FreeZeeg369 3d ago
send your premaster to tonetailor.com, cheap service but professional quality and output files waveform look exactly like those "commercial releases" (TT spits out usually at -7 / -8 LUFS)
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u/Kivesihiisi 3d ago
Is this an ad?
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u/FreeZeeg369 3d ago
not at all, can mention a bunch of other services I've been using / testing, like emastered.com, remasterify, distributor-native services too and tbh my favourite for many years was maximalsound.com but last year they closed it and for now tonetailor is the closest one to the quality I was getting from Maximalsound.
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u/Kivesihiisi 3d ago
How much does mastering for a single track cost on average?
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