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Dithering mastering logic pro x free
Mastering is an essential step to make your music sound professional and ready to be shown to the world. This is the stage that comes after mixing and it is meant to enhance your song dynamically , make it brighter and set it up to the loudness standards of the industry.
During the mastering process, the producer or engineer may use different plugins and effects such as EQ , compression, and limiter to achieve a loud and shiny final result. If you want to learn how to master in Logic Pro X , keep reading, as we will break down every step needed for taking your music to the next level using only the Logic stock plugins ; But as well recommend you some free tools that you can download in to assist you even further in the process.
If you would like to learn more about Logic Pro X , please check out our Logic Pro X Review article, an up-to-date guide breaking down all the functionalities and aspects of the DAW that will help you decide if it is a good investment. Mixing and mastering go hand in hand.
There are tons of great videos and tutorials on the internet, as well as courses, but it may be difficult to know where to start. Here are a few important points to learn about to help you master the subject:.
We strongly recommend that you take a look at our Basic Mixing Techniques video as well. Tip: For tips on how to improve your workflow and get results faster, consider checking our Logic Pro X Shortcuts guide.
There are a few things you should note when you bounce your mixdown for the mastering process. The first is the amount of headroom that is present in your mix, that is, at what level it is peaking. You can easily notice this by looking at your master channel dB meter. We advise you to have your track peaking at about dB to -8dB. If your mix is too above or below that range, you can simply insert the gain plugin on your master channel and trim it. The next step is choosing the right audio format.
Now that you have your file bounced and ready , take a minute to search for one or two reference songs. You should pick something in the same style and genre as your music and, above all, that you like the sound of. This step is important and professional sound engineers do it all the time.
You can also take a moment to compare your reference with your own track, using tools such as the Multimeter to see how it performs on the technical side and to analyze the frequencies of each of the files. Once you have your track loaded up in Logic Pro, it is time to think about using a compressor to further control your dynamics and glue everything together.
The Vintage VCA is an emulation of the famous Solid State Logic compressor present in the SSL Series channel strip, and it is famous for its ability to glue everything together and give your music extra analog mojo. The standard Platinum Digital is an all-around workhorse, but if you feel like your track is sounding too digital or harsh , it may benefit from the subtle coloration of the Vintage VCA.
The Threshold will define when your compressor will start working. For example: at dB, it will only be engaged when your audio is above that level. Now it is time to set the Attack and the Release. For mastering purposes, try keeping the Attack anywhere from 30ms to ms depending on your song. Shorter settings will smack the transients harder but longer ones may give your mix a little extra impact.
The Release setting is gonna determine how early or late the compressor will stop working. Start with a setting of ms to ms and work your way up. A great tip is to pay attention to kick and the snare when setting the release since they are the instruments that will impact the transients the most.
It is worth noting that the most important thing when setting your master compressor is using your ears.
Here is a video from In The Mix to help you hear the subtle nuances of compression , both in mixing and mastering:. You can also use the Multipressor for even more control over your sound. The plugin allows you to use different settings of compression for different frequencies. The plugin is very simple to use.
It is divided into four sections and you can tune the frequency using the main upper panel. Below that, you will see the same controls that you would find in a standard compressor. Just as with the compressor, you should use the equalizer very subtly when mastering.
The Channel EQ is parametric and more surgical. It will give you more control over your frequencies. However, the added functionalities make overdoing it much easier so be careful. The Vintage EQ Collection semi-parametric plugins are modeled after famous real units.
The benefit of using them is that they add a little bit of analog color to your sound and the stripped-down style makes them less prone to exaggeration — perfect for mastering. Also, make the Q range as broad as possible so the result is smoother and more consistent. Compare your song to your reference and check for any frequencies that would benefit from an extra boost.
A slight boost at around 8kHz using a high-shelf setting should add a little bit of brightness to your master; As well as one using a low-shelf at kHz for bringing attention to your bass sound. Saturation is an optional step that can give your sound extra perceived loudness and analog mojo by distorting the sound very subtly. There are a few ways you can do this inside Logic. These are modeled after real analog units. There is also a feature in the Tape Delay plugin that will work. Under the Character section, note the Clip Threshold knob.
Dial it back very carefully to add some tape saturation to your sound, but keep it to a minimum. You may also download the free Saturation Knob plugin by Softube. This type of plugin can be used to enhance the overall stereo image of your audio.
You should go about stereo-widening very carefully as, if used incorrectly, it could throw your mix all over the place and make your bass sound weak , as well as cause phase issues.
If you still decide to use it, just as with most things in mastering, keep it to a minimum. Load the Stereo Spread plugin and set your Lower Freq. Keep the Lower Int. Set the stage to 4 or 5.
Finally, a limiter will catch the loudest transients in your song while increasing its loudness to standard levels. Limiting is somewhat similar to compressing, but in a much more aggressive way: these plugins will squash any sound that exceeds the threshold , enabling you to have more perceived loudness without clipping. There are two plugins for this job inside Logic: the Limiter and the Adaptive. With the first one, you will have to dial the release by yourself, as opposed to with the latter, which will automatically adapt the value based on your audio signal.
Both can do a pretty good job but the Adaptive one will sound more natural on most applications so we recommend going with it.
After you load the Limiter plugin into your project, insert the Loudness Meter afterward so you can see your audio volume in Lufs. Basically speaking, it is the kind of metering used by streaming services and audio platforms to standardize levels. What each platform does is automatically turn down the gain of any song that is louder than a certain value , so as to create a better experience for the listener.
This value will vary depending on the service. Spotify , for example, normalizes everything to Lufs. The first thing to do after you load the plugin is to set the Out Ceiling value to -1dB. This is a safety measure to ensure better playback of your song through different systems without clipping. Now, put the Loudness Meter side-to-side with your Limiter window and adjust the Gain knob until your audio is at to Lufs. What dithering does is apply low-level noise to your sound, avoiding any data or quality loss.
This is a tip that will also apply for mixing. Be sure to bounce different versions of your track and test how they sound across different listening systems. For example headphones , earbuds , small speakers , and the car stereo.
One of the major goals in mastering and mixing is to make sure your track sounds good across a wide variety of equipment and environments. Sure, it is impossible to achieve a perfect result, but if you feel like your master is not sounding as impactful in your car stereo as it is in the studio , take a moment to adjust your parameters until you find a common ground.
Even though Logic Pro will offer you a complete set of plugins , you can find some great additional free ones to aid you both in the production process and to take your masters to the next level. Here is our selection:. Channel-strip plugin with built-in equalizer, compressor, tape saturation, and limiter sections.
An all-in-one solution. A simple monitor speaker simulation tool. Great especially for those mastering with headphones. Isol8 gives you a wide range of monitoring options. You can, for example, solo or mute a group of frequencies or see how your songs are sounding in mono. These were our tips on how to master in Logic Pro X. Since each track is a different case, producers should train their ears and skills extensively to achieve a professional final result on their masters: it is all about how many hours you put into the practice.
Soundtrap by Spotify, is hands down the best online daw with built in autotune. Sign up for free, and make music faster. What is Logic Pro X? Typical Mastering Chain in Logic. Tape Delay — The Character section can add tape saturation to your sound. Stereo Spreader.
Adaptive Limiter. Loudness Meter. Sign Up Free.
Logic’s Dither Questions – Logic Pro – Logic Pro Help
Simply use the Bounce command in Logic Pro X and select the appropriate formats for where you want to submit your music. Tip: Dither your master.
Any dither is better than truncation distortion! Unlock a bundle of free resources to help you create and release your music. Mastering in Logic Pro X is absolutely possible, even with just stock plugins! Many get lost though. Perhaps you can relate! Table of Contents 1. How To Prepare Your Mix es 2. Calibrate Your Mastering Level 3. Gain Stage Your Reference Track s 4. Set The Ceiling 5. Find Loudness 6. Problem Solving 7. How To Prepare Your Mix es There are many articles and cheat sheets out there that tell you things in absolutes like needing 6 dB of headroom and such.
Thanks for the excellent education. I had wondering about how to best apply dither also. Posted October 24, Very informative. Posted January 16, Just to update this 5 year old thread, since I’ve received a couple of emails on the subject: I believe Logic self-dithers with TPDF from floating point to 24 bit anyway. Thank you lagerfeldt for testing and clarifying that LPX does not dither the float to fixed conversion, I was wondering about that.
Eric Cardenas Posted January 16, Thanks from me too! I’ve wondered about this many times myself and had not found a way to confirm it. Apostolos Posted January 31, Posted January 31, Eric Cardenas Posted January 31, Apostolos Posted February 1, Posted February 1, Apostolos Posted February 6, Posted February 6, Eric Cardenas Posted February 6, My very personal opinion: I can see myself using TPDF dither when bouncing the whole project for mastering.
There are other aspects that require my attention. If you are truncating from bit to bit then, Yes. If you are truncating to 24 and then decide to go to bit then, No. Archived This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.
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Is there another word for gong? If you are confident in the sound of the mix then just bounce it down to a 24 bit wav file. Then master the wav mix in a brand new session another day with fresh ears. Give your brain time to forget about it for a bit! Just make sure there is an appropriate amount of dynamics in the music. Calibrate Your Mastering Level This bit is huge. Gain Stage Your Reference Track s Now that you have set up your monitoring level , you may also choose to use a reference track in the mastering session.
There is only one tip you need to know about using reference tracks… Turn them down or up to your mastering level! That way, there is no loudness bias between your master and the reference track. Set The Ceiling As you probably know, a limiter is very much a usual suspect in your mastering chain. Find Loudness This where we start to work backwards, at least as far as the order of plugins in your chain is concerned.
Problem Solving Now that you are close to the goal, any issues with regard to dynamics and EQ will start to make themselves apparent.
Happy mastering! Unlock Your Sound Ltd uses cookies to improve the experience and the content of this website. Functional cookies Functional cookies Always active The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
In the most basic systems, any amplitude values that cannot be replicated are simply cut off, or truncated, causing unwanted distortion. Rounding errors also result in unwanted distortion. Say there’s an amplitude value that needs to be rounded, but it’s directly in the middle of the closest available values.
Instead of simply guessing, like a human would, it always makes the same decision—either up, or down. Dither plug-ins add noise to the signal, which essentially randomizes your computer’s decision to round up or down. Dither plug-ins prevent truncating and rounding errors and minimize unwanted distortion when lowering the bit-depth of a track. I remember when I first started mixing, I used to put a dither plug-in on the mix bus because I could swear that I heard it making a difference.
Spoiler alert—it did not. Dither only needs to be applied when reducing the bit depth of a file. Typically, this occurs during the mastering stage, when bouncing files from a bit or bit session down to bits or lower, if that’s your thing, but most streaming services require at least bits. This is the only time you should apply dither.
Any time you change the sample rate or bit depth of a recording, you run the risk of introducing distortion, which is why it’s recommended that you only do so when absolutely necessary. Generally speaking, you’ll only need to apply dither when bouncing a file outside of your DAW, which is why most DAWs offer a few different built-in options more on that later. However, it’s important to note, if you’re bouncing a mix to send in for mastering, you should send a full bit file.
The mastering engineer will apply dither upon bouncing the final mastered track. Sending your mastering engineer a bit file limits their abilities when trying to fine-tune the dynamics, and can cause unwanted distortion when working with bit plug-ins. Dither plug-ins exist for those who like to bounce and store files within a session, and offer additional flexibility over built-in dither options. If you are using a dither plug-in, it should always be the very last plug-in in your signal chain, which is why many limiters feature built-in dithering capabilities.
Remember, dither technically adds noise to your signal, so you should avoid using it unless absolutely necessary. You only need to use dither when bouncing a file at a lower bit-depth than it was recorded. You should always apply dither when bouncing a bit file from a 24 or bit mix.
Technically, you do not need to apply dither when bouncing a bit file from a bit float session, as it has the same bit depth. However, you should apply dither when bouncing a bit file from a bit fixed point mix. Having said that, you probably won’t run across this situation very frequently, as most streaming services and CD manufacturers require bit files.
Dithering mastering logic pro x free. Mastering with Logic Pro X: Improve your Sound with Step-by-step Guide
By gritzildino October 22, in Logic Pro. This is a 2 part, or even 3 part question. What dither settings do you use on your final finished mix for A. Last week I finished a project then bounced it just so I can do the mastering separately.
I bounced it to. I use Waves. They are always asking about dither. Should I use their dither? Is logics dither different? I agree with Kent. If you can’t hear the differences, don’t spend too much time agonizing over which algo you should choose or whether you should choose one at all.
However if you pick one you should only dither ONCE. So ONE wave plug-in, or Logic’s dither, but don’t dither several times. Wave and Aiff sound exactly the same, dithering mastering logic pro x free it’s for you it doesn’t matter, if it’s for someone else, ask them what they prefer – but both should work exactly the same. As already mentioned, the type of dither you choose will rarely be audible.
So this is an academic discussion. Dithering mastering logic pro x free reason you’re using dither is to avoid the quantization noise that happens during straight truncation simply throwing away bits when going from a high bit depth to a lower one.
Most people won’t be able to hear the noise under normal listening conditions. It sounds like digital distortion on low level signals. These artifacts can make the whole master sound a slightly more midrangy due to the psychoacoustics of distortion. Audible noise from truncation in a 24 bit file isn’t an issue so I’m talking about straight truncation to 16 bits. I often use POW-r 1 colored dither for most kinds of modern music.
It’s slighty noisy compared to POW-r 3 – but again, this is well below the normal hearing threshold at normal playback volume. POW-r 1 isn’t flat dither which is called TPDF but it sounds fairly close to the pleasant hiss you get from analog gear. Please understand that dithering is a special process that reduces the bit depth while optimizing the sound. Having or adding white noise or hiss to a signal and then truncating won’t work.
It’s one of the more effective bit depth reduction optimization algorithms out there, and very quiet. So there’s very little hiss but instead you could detect a very low level high pitched sound. This is only audible during quiet passages and only if you turn up the volume a lot. A whole lot. Unlike TPDF, noise shaping should never be applied several times as the high pitched sound will increase in volume.
Same goes for colored dither 1 but dithering mastering logic pro x free less of a problem than noise shaping. Every time you go from a higher bit depth to a lower bit depth, dithering should be applied.
However, applying multiple rounds of shaped dither and especially noise shaping like some Waves IDR algorithms should be avoided. Waves are different from most other plug-ins since they output a 24 bit fixed signal instead of a 32 bit floating point signal at least last I checked.
I would simply go with the 24 bit output and dithering mastering logic pro x free use the IDR option. So: don’t activate the dither option in your plug-ins if you’re using them as part of a chain but make sure the plug-ins are set to output 24 bits or higher some plug-ins offer you a choice in a preference menu or directly on the interface.
If you plan to get your mix mastered somewhere else or do the mastering yourself in a separate project then I recommend that you bounce to 24 bits Dithering mastering logic pro x free without any extra dithering. Once you’ve dithered to 16 bits you should not process the file again in any way. Any kind of processing will ruin the point of dithering.
You can chop off the start and end points destructively in the Sample Editor but that’s it, no fades or anything else. I also compared the spectral analysis in Izotope RX Advanced of dithered and non-dithered bounces, which shows no sign of automatic or hidden dither being applied to 24 bit bounces in LPX. All I see is truncation in both 24 bit and 16 bit bounces when no dither is applied. We earlier concluded that Logic originally back in version 8, I think was applying auto dither.
This was dithering mastering logic pro x free on tests that showed an unexpected but small increase in peak level and spectral analysis that showed information which ought to have been truncated. However, I now believe that we drew a hasty conclusion. The weird level change was real, but it was likely some kind of low order bit error in Logic Pro. I believe we saw the same behavior in Pro Tools at the time. Forgive me if the answer is already written, suggested or in between the lines, I’m relatively new to dithering.
Since Logic doesn’t add dither from 32 bit float to 24 bit then you could choose to add dither. Pitching or reprocessing the bounce file not only destroy the dither but in the case of pitching could in theory make the dither audible, especially if you apply several dithering mastering logic pro x free of dither down the line. I have no problem bouncing to 24 bit without dither, but in theory it’s a good idea to at least apply TPDF when reducing wordlength.
Yeah, personally I haven’t had any issues so far not dithering from 32 to Thanks for the plugin tip Eric. Would a 32 to 24 TPDF be in the way of a 24 dithering mastering logic pro x free a 16 dither? I can see myself using TPDF dither when bouncing the whole project for mastering. I wouldn’t bother with 2 versions. Either with or without, not a biggie. Where it all falls apart is dithering mastering logic pro x free you want to BiP within the project.
It’s so counter productive to always insert a dithering plug-in on every track that I need to bounce. The positive aspects are here far, far to small to compensate for the loss in creative workflow. So a dither from bit to bit is not ruining it for the master engineer’s use of dither when he’s going from bit to bit after mastering, right? Thank you Eric.! Have a good one! By Windows 64 bit microsoft3 hours ago in Logic Pro. Logic’s Dither Questions.
Start new topic. Recommended Posts. Posted October 22, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options Any one??? Scott Jackson Posted October 22, Check out these two threads. Perhaps they will help you. Kent Sandvik Posted October 22, You really need highly dynamic music, style a symphony orchestra, to /13608.txt hear differences in the three different dithering algorithms, IMHO.
David Nahmani Posted October 22, Posted October 23, Thanks for the excellent education. I had wondering about how to best apply dither also. Posted October 24, Very informative. Posted January 16, Just to update this 5 year посмотреть больше thread, since I’ve received a couple of emails on the subject: I believe Logic self-dithers with TPDF from floating point to 24 bit anyway.
Thank нажмите для продолжения lagerfeldt for testing and clarifying that LPX does not dither the float to fixed conversion, I was wondering about that. Eric Cardenas Posted January 16, Thanks from me too! I’ve wondered about this many times myself and had not found a way to confirm it.
Apostolos Posted January 31, dithering mastering logic pro x free Posted January 31, Eric Cardenas Posted January 31, Apostolos Posted February 1, Posted February 1, Apostolos Posted February 6, Posted February 6, dithering mastering logic pro x free Eric Cardenas Posted February 6, My very personal opinion: I can see myself using TPDF dither when bouncing the whole project for mastering.
There are other aspects that require my attention. If you are truncating from bit to bit then, Yes.
