Don't clip unintentionally; bounce to floating point. That's the only thing that matters. When I get tracks to master, just about the first thing I'm going to do is gain it up or down to hit my gear correctly. The chance that it'll go /into/ my chain at exactly the level you exported is pretty much zero. The "-6 dB for mastering" was a guideline that came from the days when Pro Tools used a fixed point mix bus. That's really all there is to it.

Another angle: mix with VU meters on the output buss. Set it so 0VU = -18dBFS and it can help tighten up your mixes (responding closer to how our ears work). It's not a crutch, it's not too much bling, AND you can go "into the red" and not be close to clipping. Bearing in mind: the sonic sweet spot for analogue emulated/modeled plugins is ~0VU / +4dBm (ie -20 to -14dBFS, *not* close to digital full scale).

I master my own mixes and this is exactly what I've concluded after many many many mixes, trying and failing. Thanks for this video 🙌

Love this! Thanks, mate!

been saying this for years to clients, Im so glad you have done this video :)

Mindblowing concept: Mastering enginners have this cutting edge sci-fi technology that allows them to turn volume up and down.🤯 I don't understand how this -6db myth has existed for the past decade or two among tons of musicians who try to sound smart, but can't come up with an answer when I ask "why?"

THANK YOU!! I always thought it was soo stupid when a mastering house demanded the wav file didn't peak above say -6dbfs...and i'm thinking to myself "...dude... just use your volume fader on the channel you stick the wave on... like jesus christ man!!" 🤣

Great stuff as usual! I always suggest clients send 32-bit float pre-masters, then nobody has to worry about clipping! Sure, I might use a clipper to take the head off millisecond transients, but it's better for to make a decision about that in mastering and maybe use a soft-clipper than have them squared off at 0dBFS before you even start :)

Although I agree 32bit float is flexible and not a problem to turn down my experience with mixing on digital consoles and inside daw it's a good practice to stay in the green makes more sense and has quite a few advantages. Like you said keep an eye on gain staging for the sake of plugins I add to that for the sake of keeping an eye on levels on both tracks and busses not for clipping or anything close to a problem but for the convenience of mixing keeping an eye on levels is a good thing because it simply helps getting the mix going faster and more confident. From my Yamaha O2R days I kept all tracks at -15dbfs and the faders around 0 having the best part of the scale to fine tune balance (exponential scale) Having a S3 Avid which I like for balancing levels kept me doing this inside the daw as well and it just works and is a common practice for many years. I would not see any reason to advantage working with normalized stems and mix in the red it just doesn't make any sense at all. So my view is it's not only about the plugins.

it's when they send you a brickwalled waveform, but even then it's possible to help, just sounds squishy.

Nice one! I've been planning to make a very similar video, since I'm constantly telling students and clients the exact points you made - but using Live to demo instead of Pro Tools. The topic must be in the aether.

I always thought this was intuitive, I just gain it up or down in a mastering session after the fact... no hard clipping on the 32-bit export and plenty of headroom. Cheers!

So the mixer shouldn't crush the transients, makes a lot of sense.

unless you do not clip (go over 0db) your Mixdown, the mastering engineer can adjust the level of your mixdown to -6 ...-20...-0.01 whatever hahaha

Okay this is probably the most succinct videos I've heard on the topic and I'm probably going to use it anytime people bring up the -6 DB myth and I'm going to be using this video to kill that meth

amazing

I guess nowadays the -6/-3dB rule is just to avoid clipping to begin with

Ableton's metering is abysmal, which is why most ppl are clipping everything. I can literally tell which stems come from Ableton when I get stuff sent to me, aside from the fact that every track will be stereo.

This and the famous "master at -14dBFS" are the most BS on the net....just have a good crest factor and sent it for mastering without clipping

This discussion is more about bad limiting not internal calculation

There is a reason for the -0.6db, it comes from the analog days... it still has a place today, as most producers slam everything with limiters and compressors before its a 'pre master... This 'you can go over' not for me... oohhh let the audio engine do it, digital distortion don't exist... Red lights are for whores...

God I'm getting sick of this. I Just pulled 54 of my Trax off of KZfaq to remaster them after watching you lot go on & on. I have 1 Trax released by a label. I'm officially an artist now. Nothing more will come of it. Back in the day when I only had a Yamaha A3000 sampler and Cubase on atari I knew my stuff. After four weeks of watching these videos my mastering is much better and 2 trax are back up on KZfaq so far. What a struggle it's been. But now this to add to it. Truth is , a mastering engineer could do with a potato what I could do in a £ 2 million studio. I'm not playing no more. I might have to block you 😂