Re: hardware mastering processor
Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2024 8:24 pm
Well that’s a relief, because the whole thing was very confusing to me!
With what i do I’m never happy with masters over -10LUFS, generally-12 seems pretty good. Which is several LUFS above the targets, and well hotter than pre-1990 CD’s. It’ll be turned down by the delivery service. Lots of stuff does live in that -8 to -9 range now though. Which you can’t tell after it’s been turned down.
I did a bunch of mp3 conversion experiments on tracks conforming to the MFIT standard of peak no higher than -1dBFS, and I still agree with the recommendation after seeing the results. Some mp3 conversions will raise peak levels by +1.5dB (+0.5dBFS), others hardly at all. You get to hear that result only after release! That may be fine for some genre, but you’ll regret the clipping artifacts with acoustic music, and a piano can become unlistenable.