Hey guys, finally closing my first full home recording production ever, basically a whole big pilot test. I'll probably let you hear the final product, it's a cover.
On to the meat: I made a quick essential mastering phase (eq, comp, multicomp, limiter). All ok up to limiting.
I had a -1db ceiling just for safety, threshold was about -8.9. The track is very dynamic (minimal vocal and guitar ballad, plus backing vocals). GR never went more than 2.5/3db on the loudest peaks. So up to there, I thought I was safe.
Then I exported mp3, 320 CBR, and the export slightly brickwalled the loudest peaks resulting in sensible clipping. Note I still dind't try a wav export.
Re-importing the track back in reaper, I noticed dbfs peaks are logically at max -1db, but the RMS fader goes positive, up to +6 in the clipping parts, and also slightly less in other slightly less loud sections when the clipping isn't perceivable but it seems like it still did happen.
So I'm asking myself, open-ended questions here:
1. what's happening and where am I wrong?
2. was it just the mp3's own compression to frak up my headroom, so should I set an even lower ceiling while rendering to mp3?
3. or did I squash the threshold too much on the -1 ceiling? so in that case, should I lower the ceiling, or set the threshold higher, or both, or what?
4. if nothing will clip while exporting to wav on the same settings, does it mean it's all the mp3's fault?
Up to you, any advice is welcome. Thanks
On to the meat: I made a quick essential mastering phase (eq, comp, multicomp, limiter). All ok up to limiting.
I had a -1db ceiling just for safety, threshold was about -8.9. The track is very dynamic (minimal vocal and guitar ballad, plus backing vocals). GR never went more than 2.5/3db on the loudest peaks. So up to there, I thought I was safe.
Then I exported mp3, 320 CBR, and the export slightly brickwalled the loudest peaks resulting in sensible clipping. Note I still dind't try a wav export.
Re-importing the track back in reaper, I noticed dbfs peaks are logically at max -1db, but the RMS fader goes positive, up to +6 in the clipping parts, and also slightly less in other slightly less loud sections when the clipping isn't perceivable but it seems like it still did happen.
So I'm asking myself, open-ended questions here:
1. what's happening and where am I wrong?
2. was it just the mp3's own compression to frak up my headroom, so should I set an even lower ceiling while rendering to mp3?
3. or did I squash the threshold too much on the -1 ceiling? so in that case, should I lower the ceiling, or set the threshold higher, or both, or what?
4. if nothing will clip while exporting to wav on the same settings, does it mean it's all the mp3's fault?
Up to you, any advice is welcome. Thanks
