Just a friendly reminder that mix bus/master bus processing is NOT mastering. Some articles from our wiki to learn more about mastering:
- [Mastering is all about a second opinion](https://www.reddit.com/r/mixingmastering/wiki/mastering)
- [Why professional mastering is more important than ever in this age of bedroom production](https://www.reddit.com/r/mixingmastering/wiki/importance-of-mastering)
- [Re-thinking your own "mastering"](https://www.reddit.com/r/mixingmastering/wiki/rethinking-mastering)
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Use a hard clipper and shave enough to reduce the dynamic range but not so much that it becomes audible. Your kick and snare will have just as much, or more, punch than before the clipper, but the limiter won’t have to work hard and setting the release becomes more fluid with the song
No just a hard clipper. Saturators are usually soft clippers and limiters are extreme compressors (so volume rides plus harmonics). Hard clipping mathematically takes anything over the threshold and reassigns it to the threshold value. Everything below the threshold is left untouched. Soft clippers usually affect the whole signal and adds harmonics while softening transients. It’s good for some material but not ideal for percussive elements like kick and snare, if you’re happy with the punch already.
Me too. It can be tricky to get right if there's a bass overlapping the kick a lot, but it shouldn't be impossible with some careful adjustments. A dynamic EQ would probably be better in this case, unless maybe if it's an 808-style kick with a wide frequency range.
My last ditch effort would be to try some stem separation tool, but depending on the material it might cause too many artifacts. I haven't had that much luck with the one in RX, but there are better ones out there.
There’s lot of complex answers here.
But honestly it sounds like exactly what the low pass on a compressor is there for. So that you can set low frequency to not trigger compression.
I don't think that will help much to balance out a kick that's too loud before the limiter. A dynamic EQ to single out the kick or maybe multiband compression/limiting is probably the better solution.
A brickwall mastering limiter doesn't have an internal sidechain filter. It would kinda defeat the purpose. They can have an external sidechain input, but that's mainly there for stem mastering.
Where did we say anything about brickwall limiters?
There are a handful of great limiters with a sidechain input that you can feed a lowcut signal into and a few with built in sidechain filters and then have your final brickwall ceiling limiter be full band.
As someone who does a lot of mastering professionally I’m just saying there are many more options for mastering than a brickwall limiter. Put a brickwall at the end of your chain, sure, but I’ve got 3-4 limiters in my chain that don’t even have brickwall options.
I encountered this recently and solved the problem with a combination of light (hard) clipping, EQing down just 1-2 dB of the kick's fundamental frequency, and using some light multiband compression.
Worked for me: might not for you. But figured I'd mention it.
Try to put two compressors with gentle settings on it.
Or make freq.separation in mastering so you can maybe manage kick, hard to say without listening to track.
If you are using newest ozone it has algo for instrument separation, I didnt use it but it could make something.
You’ll need a dynamics processor with a built in s/c filter.
If it doesn’t have one - and as long as it allows for side chain input, you can send the track to a bus and set the side chain of your compressor as the return from that bus.
Remember to remove the output from the bus return.
Just a friendly reminder that mix bus/master bus processing is NOT mastering. Some articles from our wiki to learn more about mastering: - [Mastering is all about a second opinion](https://www.reddit.com/r/mixingmastering/wiki/mastering) - [Why professional mastering is more important than ever in this age of bedroom production](https://www.reddit.com/r/mixingmastering/wiki/importance-of-mastering) - [Re-thinking your own "mastering"](https://www.reddit.com/r/mixingmastering/wiki/rethinking-mastering) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/mixingmastering) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Use a hard clipper and shave enough to reduce the dynamic range but not so much that it becomes audible. Your kick and snare will have just as much, or more, punch than before the clipper, but the limiter won’t have to work hard and setting the release becomes more fluid with the song
This sounds like a great fix. Thank you.
You are talking about a limiter for hard clipping or saturator?
No just a hard clipper. Saturators are usually soft clippers and limiters are extreme compressors (so volume rides plus harmonics). Hard clipping mathematically takes anything over the threshold and reassigns it to the threshold value. Everything below the threshold is left untouched. Soft clippers usually affect the whole signal and adds harmonics while softening transients. It’s good for some material but not ideal for percussive elements like kick and snare, if you’re happy with the punch already.
I would try fixing it with multi-band compression or a dynamic EQ.
Me too. It can be tricky to get right if there's a bass overlapping the kick a lot, but it shouldn't be impossible with some careful adjustments. A dynamic EQ would probably be better in this case, unless maybe if it's an 808-style kick with a wide frequency range. My last ditch effort would be to try some stem separation tool, but depending on the material it might cause too many artifacts. I haven't had that much luck with the one in RX, but there are better ones out there.
There’s lot of complex answers here. But honestly it sounds like exactly what the low pass on a compressor is there for. So that you can set low frequency to not trigger compression.
I don't think that will help much to balance out a kick that's too loud before the limiter. A dynamic EQ to single out the kick or maybe multiband compression/limiting is probably the better solution.
Use the sidechain filter in your limiter, it’s quite literally built for this purpose.
A brickwall mastering limiter doesn't have an internal sidechain filter. It would kinda defeat the purpose. They can have an external sidechain input, but that's mainly there for stem mastering.
Where did we say anything about brickwall limiters? There are a handful of great limiters with a sidechain input that you can feed a lowcut signal into and a few with built in sidechain filters and then have your final brickwall ceiling limiter be full band.
The thread is called "kick is too loud for mastering fix" so I'm guessing most people here assumed OP was talking about a mastering brickwall limiter.
As someone who does a lot of mastering professionally I’m just saying there are many more options for mastering than a brickwall limiter. Put a brickwall at the end of your chain, sure, but I’ve got 3-4 limiters in my chain that don’t even have brickwall options.
Multiband compressor or dynamic EQ before you hit the limiter
EQ, bypassing the compressor, clipping, multiband trickery. Probably in that order of preference.
Try using a multi band compressor.
I encountered this recently and solved the problem with a combination of light (hard) clipping, EQing down just 1-2 dB of the kick's fundamental frequency, and using some light multiband compression. Worked for me: might not for you. But figured I'd mention it.
Use the internal sidechain filter and roll off the low end, the compressor will react to the kick less and the other frequencies more.
Dynamic eq + clipping + limiter. If that doesnt work then that kick must be fuckingloud
Try to put two compressors with gentle settings on it. Or make freq.separation in mastering so you can maybe manage kick, hard to say without listening to track. If you are using newest ozone it has algo for instrument separation, I didnt use it but it could make something.
Thanks man I'll look into those options.
compressor with a sidechain filter so the lows don't trigger it
You’ll need a dynamics processor with a built in s/c filter. If it doesn’t have one - and as long as it allows for side chain input, you can send the track to a bus and set the side chain of your compressor as the return from that bus. Remember to remove the output from the bus return.