Watching this show again today is to see the fears of the past made real in our present today.
As demonstrates Max Headroom, the visionary 1987-1988 ABC science fiction series now finally available on Region 1 DVD thanks to Shout! Factory. Sometimes, though, those fears end up being legitimate. In short, using limiting during the mixing stage should be avoided.Despite the common misconception, science fiction has never been about predicting the future: when it appears to, it’s really just reflecting the fears of the moment it’s created in. Additionally, limiting can cause a tonality that isn’t beneficial for the tonality of a master. Never use brick wall limiting, as it truncates dynamics and can cause unwanted distortion. Leave at least 3 to 6dB of headroom – in other words, have your signal’s max peak be between -6dBTP to -3dBTP.Įnsure that you have a significant dynamic range if you intend to have a quieter master, or a moderate dynamic range if you intend to have a louder master. If you’d prefer not to consider all of these aspects, it’s still best to follow some simple guidelines for ensuring your mix has enough headroom for a master.
We’ll master it for you and send you a free sample for you to review. When it comes to the medium your track will be mastered for, the technical limitations of that medium will affect both the maximum overall loudness and the dynamic range – which in turn affects the max peak value (more on this in the section titled ‘How Do Dynamics Relate to Headroom?’). What about the Medium a Track is being mastered for? When this is the case, give a mastering engineer more room to work by lowering the max peak to roughly -6dB is a good idea. If you want your master to be quieter, odds are it will have a greater dynamic range due to less overall compression. Perhaps a better way to think about this is that the less dynamic a mix is, the higher it’s max peak can be without hindering a mastering engineer in some way. This means that the additional processing a mastering engineer will add to a mix is less likely to push the peaks into clipping.
This will, in turn, reduce the dynamic range of a mix.Īs a result, the peak of a mix can be higher (roughly -3dB) since the dynamic range will be more controlled. If you want to have a louder master, odds are more compression will be needed to achieve higher levels of loudness. What Medium Your Track is Being Mastered For.When determining how much headroom to leave for a mastering engineer, it’s best to consider a couple of factors: Use 3dB to 6dB of headroom, measured in dBTP.
There are definitely a lot of numbers floating around when it comes to ‘How much headroom should I leave for mastering,” with some engineer’s claiming that no headroom is needed, so long as the track isn’t clipping however, there is definitely a need to explore this topic further, and to better understand mastering in general. But, this knowledge is needed to create mixes and masters in the correct way.
how it relates to dynamics, the different measurement types, how dynamics and headroom relate to the medium a track is released on, etc.) makes for a bit of a boring read. I’ll be the first to admit, headroom, and the technical aspects associated with it (i.e. That said, understanding what it means as well as some of the different measurements associated with it is helpful for any engineer. What is Headroom for Mastering in DetailĪlthough headroom isn’t the most exciting aspect of tracking, mixing, or mastering, it is an important part of the audio production process. Typically, leaving 3 – 6dB of headroom will be enough room for a mastering engineer to master a track. Headroom for Mastering is the amount of space (in dB) a mixing engineer will leave for a mastering engineer to properly process and alter an audio signal.