Author Topic: Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?  (Read 14230 times)

ZAU

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Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?
« on: February 16, 2016, 05:42:00 am »
Specifically, how did he get the track to be so darn loud? Care to share any tips?

Axis

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Re: Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?
« Reply #1 on: February 16, 2016, 06:44:04 pm »
He clips his masters like crazy:



Mixing is important though - if your mix is bad, clipping the master will sound awful.

P.S. This could also be the Invisible Limiter pushed really hard.

Midge

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Re: Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?
« Reply #2 on: February 16, 2016, 11:31:53 pm »
just turn ya volume faders up mate ;)

haven't heard the track but to get things 'loud' people just heavily compress and probably brick wall limit. Just slam it right up there. personally I don't like this approach but it does seem to be the science behind some genres of music.

ZAU

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Re: Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?
« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2016, 01:10:10 am »
He clips his masters like crazy.

Mixing is important though - if your mix is bad, clipping the master will sound awful.

P.S. This could also be the Invisible Limiter pushed really hard.

Yes, I came across some threads about Soft Clipping on reddit but I didn't quite understand what was being said, do you have any more details on this?

I've heard very good things about the Invisble Limiter too, might just pick it up. Thanks  :)

just turn ya volume faders up mate ;)
haven't heard the track but to get things 'loud' people just heavily compress and probably brick wall limit. Just slam it right up there.

If only it were that easy!
Yeah, this track is about the loudest track I've heard so far.. I can't imagine there to be anything louder than this.

Axis

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Re: Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?
« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2016, 06:18:57 am »
The Invisible Limiter is THAT good.  Any other limiter I've tested starts choking way before Invisible Limiter gives you any audible distortion.  However, it's not a magic wand - if your mix is awful, it won't help.  Zomboy's mixes don't have too many overlapping sounds - you pretty much hear a single main sound at any given moment, which allows you to push it to the max.

ZAU

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Re: Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?
« Reply #5 on: February 19, 2016, 01:32:33 am »
Zomboy's mixes don't have too many overlapping sounds - you pretty much hear a single main sound at any given moment, which allows you to push it to the max.

Could you please elaborate on this? I've heard this being mentioned before but I've never fully understood it... :-[

oliverseuk

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Re: Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?
« Reply #6 on: February 19, 2016, 01:08:33 pm »
This has been my go-to reference track since it came out in February 2014, it's a near perfect mixdown.

My friend and I have a theory that he has 2 mastering chains working together. One for just the kick and snare and one for the rest of the track. He'll completely sausage the entire track (like all the synths, basses, sub and effects) and then  master the kick and snare separately.

Then it's just a matter of sidechaining the kick and snare to everything else in the track or cutting small gaps in the track so he can slot the kick and snare in and have absolute silence to minimise clipping, allowing him to push his master even further whilst retaining those solid transients. Then he might add an extra limiter or maximiser to bring it up a little further if he left a few db of headroom after he individually mastered the drums and the rest of the track separately.

I'm not sure if that's what he does, but it makes sense and in theory should work, it's just very long winded lol.

ZAU

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Re: Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?
« Reply #7 on: February 20, 2016, 03:51:53 am »
My friend and I have a theory that he has 2 mastering chains working together. One for just the kick and snare and one for the rest of the track. He'll completely sausage the entire track (like all the synths, basses, sub and effects) and then master the kick and snare separately.
Interesting theory, thanks for sharing it!

Then it's just a matter of sidechaining the kick and snare to everything else in the track or cutting small gaps in the track so he can slot the kick and snare in and have absolute silence to minimise clipping
I've read and re-read this sentence a dozen times but I don't quite understand it... can you please eli5?


wolv

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Re: Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?
« Reply #8 on: February 20, 2016, 06:16:20 am »
This has been my go-to reference track since it came out in February 2014, it's a near perfect mixdown.

My friend and I have a theory that he has 2 mastering chains working together. One for just the kick and snare and one for the rest of the track. He'll completely sausage the entire track (like all the synths, basses, sub and effects) and then  master the kick and snare separately.

Then it's just a matter of sidechaining the kick and snare to everything else in the track or cutting small gaps in the track so he can slot the kick and snare in and have absolute silence to minimise clipping, allowing him to push his master even further whilst retaining those solid transients. Then he might add an extra limiter or maximiser to bring it up a little further if he left a few db of headroom after he individually mastered the drums and the rest of the track separately.

I'm not sure if that's what he does, but it makes sense and in theory should work, it's just very long winded lol.

Fancy seeing you here Oliverse ;)
Stop overdoing shit. Stop downloading new plugins for the sake of it. Your fancy stereo enhancer won't make you any better musically, your hard work will.


oliverseuk

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Re: Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?
« Reply #9 on: February 20, 2016, 07:08:32 pm »
Then it's just a matter of sidechaining the kick and snare to everything else in the track or cutting small gaps in the track so he can slot the kick and snare in and have absolute silence to minimise clipping
I've read and re-read this sentence a dozen times but I don't quite understand it... can you please eli5?
[/quote]

For sure! So once he's made his two mastering chains, he'll have a track of all his synths, basses, sub fx, and percussion (i'll just refer to this as the 'track') and then he'll have a second track with just his kick and snare on.

Just to make this easier to explain, let's say he's bounced these two tracks to audio and put them into a fresh project in Logic.

So he's got 2 audio tracks in his project, his kick and snare and 'track'. Everytime a kick and snare plays, he'll cut a tiny section out of the 'track' so that he has complete silence on the initial hit of the kick or snare, kind of like an extreme sidechain. If he were to cut this extremely accurately so that his kick or snare aren't playing at the same time as the 'track' or overlapping, this would result in the master not clipping, in theory. (And because these two tracks have already been mastered, the waveform would still look totally brick walled because nothing is overlapping, he's just slotting the drums into the silence that he's cut out of the 'track')

Since the snare has a fairly long tail on it, if he were to cut out a gap in the track for as long as the snare tail decays, it would sound awful and the 'track' would suddenly jump in volume when the tail has decayed completely. He's probably cut a tiny bit out for a few milliseconds where the snare transient hits leaving the tail of the snare overlapping with the 'track'. By doing this, his limiter doesn't have to work as hard, it only has to limit where the tail of the snare overlaps with the 'track' as opposed to having a huge transient to deal with.

Hope this clears it up, I'm really bad with explaining things haha

ZAU

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Re: Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?
« Reply #10 on: February 22, 2016, 03:21:55 am »
So once he's made his two mastering chains, he'll have a track of all his synths, basses, sub fx, and percussion (i'll just refer to this as the 'track') and then he'll have a second track with just his kick and snare on.

Just to make this easier to explain, let's say he's bounced these two tracks to audio and put them into a fresh project in Logic.

So he's got 2 audio tracks in his project, his kick and snare and 'track'. Everytime a kick and snare plays, he'll cut a tiny section out of the 'track' so that he has complete silence on the initial hit of the kick or snare, kind of like an extreme sidechain. If he were to cut this extremely accurately so that his kick or snare aren't playing at the same time as the 'track' or overlapping, this would result in the master not clipping, in theory. (And because these two tracks have already been mastered, the waveform would still look totally brick walled because nothing is overlapping, he's just slotting the drums into the silence that he's cut out of the 'track')

Since the snare has a fairly long tail on it, if he were to cut out a gap in the track for as long as the snare tail decays, it would sound awful and the 'track' would suddenly jump in volume when the tail has decayed completely. He's probably cut a tiny bit out for a few milliseconds where the snare transient hits leaving the tail of the snare overlapping with the 'track'. By doing this, his limiter doesn't have to work as hard, it only has to limit where the tail of the snare overlaps with the 'track' as opposed to having a huge transient to deal with.

wow, thanks oliverseuk for this extremely detailed response! I'm going to give this a go, I would have never been able to figure this out by myself! ;D


ZAU

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Re: Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?
« Reply #11 on: February 22, 2016, 03:23:48 am »
The Invisible Limiter is THAT good. Any other limiter I've tested starts choking way before Invisible Limiter gives you any audible distortion.

Just purchased it! 8) It was between Invisible Limiter and FabFilter Pro-L and I finally went with Invisible Limiter. 8)

Midge

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Re: Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?
« Reply #12 on: February 22, 2016, 02:08:20 pm »
The Invisible Limiter is THAT good. Any other limiter I've tested starts choking way before Invisible Limiter gives you any audible distortion.

Just purchased it! 8) It was between Invisible Limiter and FabFilter Pro-L and I finally went with Invisible Limiter. 8)

I also enjoy the oxford limiter because it has an 'enhance' function which raises the perceived volume and you can literally dial in 18db of gain with no distortion. might be worth a look as well :)

but if u have the invisible limiter then probably no need I guess!!

ZAU

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Re: Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix), how did he do it?
« Reply #13 on: February 22, 2016, 02:54:11 pm »
I also enjoy the oxford limiter because it has an 'enhance' function which raises the perceived volume and you can literally dial in 18db of gain with no distortion. might be worth a look as well :)

but if u have the invisible limiter then probably no need I guess!!

Ever since I started this production thing I've heard about the Oxford Limiter but all the Sonnox stuff are expensive as balls. At least the Invisible Limiter costed me only $30 for the 1 year deal. Next year I'll upgrade to the lifetime license.. I'll definitely have $89 to spare by next year! But it's really nice that they let you use it for a year, I think it's a really smart approach to selling the plugin.