Almost nobody actually masters at the stated -14 and go far higher than that. Some providers normalize down or say they do, but nevertheless the song is mastered/limited at considerably higher than -14 and the "standard" is completely ignored. Normalizing is not the same as compression/limiting. A while back I spent a bit of time analyzing loads of different tracks on YT and very very few were anywhere near -14. Even sparse-ish pop tunes that you wouldn't think needed squashing that much were mastered very hot. I had some Adele songs sitting at -9 or so. Just ignore -14 like everyone else. Unless your track sounds good, which is what matters. I'd say if you make anything at all with drumbeats, then you're going to have to disregard a -14 target if you don't want your track to sound weedy compared to almost everything else out there. Sad but true
Well, not sad really. It's just the way it is, things change. Dynamics has an awful lot of crap spouted about it. Having -100s of headroom is actually pretty irrelevant if you're making electronic doof doof music that probably doesn't even use velocity on synth notes. Not denigrating, cos I often make that kind of music too. I often don't need expression of any kind on in-yer-face fat synth hooks.![:shrug:]( "Shrug")
. Not just electronic either...what use is dynamics on a metal guitar riff that's been crunched up with distortion so it's flat-lined?
Well, not sad really. It's just the way it is, things change. Dynamics has an awful lot of crap spouted about it. Having -100s of headroom is actually pretty irrelevant if you're making electronic doof doof music that probably doesn't even use velocity on synth notes. Not denigrating, cos I often make that kind of music too. I often don't need expression of any kind on in-yer-face fat synth hooks.
. Not just electronic either...what use is dynamics on a metal guitar riff that's been crunched up with distortion so it's flat-lined?Statistics: Posted by kritikon — Thu Jan 16, 2025 8:16 pm