the knowledge we're getting from this channel is unbelievable. thank you so much for all your efforts this year Nicholas, this is some next level education

I started mastering full-time two years ago and I've always put the clipper (when required) first in the chain. I've felt uneasy about it because that's 'not how it's done', but it seemed the right way to my thinking. It's nice to get some vindication!

Soo helpful! Thanks Nick for continuing to put these vids out !

Master limiter to -14LUFS and following streaming platform specs to the letter

Loveeee your videos. I'm a video editor and I constantly reference your videos when I'm working on a project that needs some audio work. Thanks for sharing!

Wow! Some really solid info in this video. I need to try that clipping first approach.

I'm sorry but that drummer's dynamic range is freaking excellent !

Some more good (bad) ones I’ve heard! • Always HP filter master to “gain headroom” • Master limiter to -14LUFS • Always have 6db of headroom for engineer • Always cut never boost (eq)

Learnt so much from you this year! Thank you!

Top quality advice, as always!

Nicholas you’re by far the best channel on here. You make my audio engineer’s heart flourish ♥️

this is one of the best mixing/mastering videos i've ever seen you're an awesome person thank you

This killing all resonance thing harmed so many of my mixes - just because i followed the blind. Sure it has its place, but ironing out all resonances is not a good idea, i had to learn the hard way. You really have solid advice here.

Crap in, crap out. Best rule of all.

subscribed right away

The one channel that I actually can learn useful and applicable knowledge from. Thank you

Sweeping with an EQ blindly to find resonant frequencies which leads to lots of little tight Q reductions of frequencies that ends up looking like a comb filter. I see this taught in lots of KZfaq videos on how to EQ vocals like a Pro, the end result always sounds brittle and not natural like comb filtering.

Furthermore to the dynamic range is king, I think the impression is that you can't be loud and sound dynamic, confusing macro and micro dynamics. As always, what serves the song best

The worst one I'm noticing regularly has become a "rule" by stealth, perpetuated by GUIs and an abundance of meters. It's basically: "look how this sounds". Never before in the entire history of sound engineering have so many people been listening with their eyes.

Awesome

Great points throughout. So many riules are debunked today. Its actually become a bigger challenge to ignore "false" rules. Some very agressivly ignorant "producers" think they know best. The loudness thing really confuses listeners. Sorry but many punters love to think they get it, but they don't understand technically. Loud can be good, really loud is when it gets bad, when you cannot crush a mix without killing it. Its got a sound. It like Digital is "best" because its "clean" arguement. Then we wondered why it sounded lifeless and shit, then had to rough it up to get it to sound fun again. Learn to drive the shit out of stuff, - nothing is "Dangerous" as its said to be, its just fun, and a learning experience. If you artistically create something fantsastic because you go wild, well done you! If you dont I bet you learnt a lot! The creativity will always win, when someone just does something different that standas out, it affects everything about the success of a production.

Hello, would you summarize your video "there is only one rule , if it sounds better ...do it"?

Is there some weird clicking in your audio examples or is it just me? Feels like it's not meant to be there

I gotta say though I love the sound of pre-ringing. I often even add a bunch of allpass filters to all my tracks on purpose to induce more of it, especially MFreeformphase, because it's also linear phase, so it makes the ringing float into the dry sound. It's a great way to add more smoothness to an impact that is just unreasonably direct. Maybe that's more of a sounddesign- or mixing thing, typically, but since mastering uses filters way more subtly it might also be a consideration there PS: you got a bunch of sections in the video with heavy audio dropouts from the DAW. Not sure if you are aware of that. I mean, you should, because you edited it, but I know things can sometimes be left unnoticed

All rules are stupid rules. I say - Learn your tools, fuck the rules 😂

The v3 mono maker does not remove low end . It makes it mono …..

Cool video! I wouldn’t conflate dynamic range day with people who target -14lufs as an output level (does anyone actually do that?!). DRD is just about optimised dynamics or not pushing past the point of losing musicality.

That take on dynamic range illustrates why mastering " engineers " are becoming more and more irrelevant and obsolete .