Clipping when in Mono

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Daniel36
Posts: 84
Joined: 02 Feb 2017

26 Apr 2017

Disclaimer: I am a noob - I may have a lot of things wrong, but I am very eager and willing to learn! + Reason Essentials 8 user

Hey everyone!

So, today I was "mastering" my track... I know, I should leave that in the hands of a pro, but I have no cash for that, so I will just settle with making it sound good enough for a free to download track (once I release it). I learned a few tricks on the way, and try to apply them as I learn (and sometimes re-learn) them. So today, I was trying some things to get a good sound.

I recently learned from the excellent Props youtube vids to check my mixes in mono, to make sure I hear everything even then. I managed to make my track sound good in mono, better in stereo. I had the entire track at around -10db before applying my favourite lazy-man preset, but then something odd happened.

I applied the "Dance" mastering preset, which basically throws my track right up to the wall, and (please don't hit me! I told you I am a noob! I am just a hapless victim of the loudness war (and also lazy))...

Ahem... Anyways, after some readjusting made it all sound very nice (to me anyways), but then I checked my track in mono again, and the red led lights up top on my mixer went red, meaning it clipped.

So I guess my question is... Should I do something about that? Should I tweak the dance mastering preset so that nothing clips in mono? Anything you might want to teach me that I am completely doing wrong here? Sorry if this is all very little info, but thanks for all the help!

Best wishes,
Daniel

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Loque
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Posts: 11176
Joined: 28 Dec 2015

26 Apr 2017

Interesting point...I think, you have something, that if it adds to mono now produces peaks, that will produce a peak or distorted sound, when played back on mono in any case. Not sure how this can be avoided in any case. But did you enabled the limiter and maybe you lower the output a bit. Some of my maximizer RE have a default output at -0.3dB and after reading some stuff about it, i found out, that on analogue sound you may get clipping if you have digital limit on 0dB. So may advice would be, output to -0.3dB, enable limiter and add some low soft clipping. If it still happens on mono playback, no idea tbh - even separated left/right mastering wont help here...Hopefully someone hops in, with another good advice.
Reason12, Win10

aRiver
Posts: 90
Joined: 25 Mar 2016

27 Apr 2017

My guess would be it you have some processing going on after your mono flip (channel eq/comp?), but before your master chain. I wouldn't worry about it. But to make sure just bounce your stereo mix to wav and listen it in mono after.

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Benedict
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Joined: 16 Jan 2015
Location: Gold Coast, Australia
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27 Apr 2017

The question is how you summed to Mono?

If you just pull both Pans to the center then you have added about 6db so if already at the pin, you will cross into splattsville pretty heavily.

Simple check is to turn off that Limiter and then press Mono to see if the track gets louder. If so then either get a better Mono-izer or realize that really better to check on Mono before mastering. So long as you aren't getting carried away with Stereo-Widening or Mid-Side stuff there should be no real difference pre-post Master.

:)
Benedict Roff-Marsh
Completely burned and gone

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