Part 1 of this video focused on loudness matching your reference set by ear and without a meter. If you haven’t checked that out yet, then watch that video first.
In this video, I’m going to help you take your mixes that one step closer to the pros by getting the most accurate comparison between your reference material and your mix. I’ll be using a loudness meter to measure the perceived loudness of my references against each other and my mix.
Remember, we’re going through this process because even 0.5dB of a difference in perceived loudness can influence our decisions as to what sounds good. More often than not, our brains perceive louder as better, so we want to make sure we’re basing our creative decisions on accurate information.
Most importantly… accurately matching your reference tracks to each other and then your own mix will fast track your mixing progress and see you get even better results!
Part 2 of this video focuses on loudness matching with the help of a meter.
professional sounding mix every time...
Great video and really useful stuff. Thank you so much.
couple of things; why did you loudness match the first clip to the second despite the second one being noticeably louder? Would it not have been better to bring the first one up to the volume of the second? Or does it not matter?
Secondly, can you recommend a good loudnesss metering free plug in? As my DAW does not have one and I really want to make a start on this!
Thanks so much
Hey John,
Glad you liked it – thanks!
I could have brought the first one up to match the second or vice versa. I was moving in sequence and like the order of my references that way. It doesn’t really matter.
I don’t use any free loudness metering plugins myself. You could try the ‘MLoudnessAnalyzer’. I’ve heard good things about that but haven’t personally used it.
Hope that helps!
-S
Thank you Stephen!! This is great and I’m looking forward to using a mixing reference set in my mixing sessions. For all the reaper users, I recommend using the “SWS/BR: Normalize loudness of selected items to -23 LUFS” action to loudness match the tracks. It analyzes the audio file in 1-2 seconds and adjusts the clip gain to get a max of -23 LUFS, it’s a time saver! Cheers!