The Struggle Is Real

[tonedef71]

"Every struggle is an opportunity to thrive..."

https://soundcloud.com/tonedef71/the-struggle-is-real

[Wilfredis86]

That’s sounds awesome. I am new at producing and I would like to get some feedback on my first beat.
https://on.soundcloud.com/3yzjyAxYRVMKPiG37

[tonedef71]

That’s sounds awesome.

Thank you for the listen.

I am new at producing and I would like to get some feedback on my first beat.
https://on.soundcloud.com/3yzjyAxYRVMKPiG37

I like it! And if that is truly your first-ever beat, then I'm a bit jealous at how good it sounds. I suggest you just rename the track in Soundcloud to remove the ".wav" from the title and also change the track's URL to just be ".../wilfredis-manuel/y-tu" instead of .../wilfredis-manuel/y-tu-wav".

[Uncle E]

That was awesome.

[tonedef71]

That was awesome.

Thank you for the listen, Uncle E!

By the way, much of my gear which I still use today was originally purchased from JRR Shop! Thank you for supporting us bedroom producers all throughout the years.

[Uncle E]

That's why it sounds so good.

Kidding!

[ecamburn]

Shredwave, eh? Learn something new every day.

Dug the rhythms and the back and forth between the bass and drums.

To my ears, it sounds like there are some compression artifacts (at least that's what it sounds like to me). The effect is most pronounced in phrases where the bass or guitar are playing 16th notes. The section that begins around :39 is an example.

[tonedef71]

Shredwave, eh?

Pinning down a genre for my musical works is something I find rather challenging, especially since I am not trying to emulate any one particular genre. I suppose I could have just labeled this one as "instrumental pop" and called it a day. The struggle is real.

Learn something new every day.

Today I learned how good a track made with Apple GarageBand can sound. I'm thinking Microsoft missed an opportunity to compete with Apple by purchasing Cakewalk from Gibson and including the artist version of the DAW for free with Windows.

Dug the rhythms and the back and forth between the bass and drums.

Thank you for the listen.

To my ears, it sounds like there are some compression artifacts (at least that's what it sounds like to me). The effect is most pronounced in phrases where the bass or guitar are playing 16th notes. The section that begins around :39 is an example.

Thank you for the feedback. I wonder if you are referring to the sound of the muted alternate picking of the rhythm guitar against the bass guitar; those two instruments may not be playing entirely in lock step with one another. Or perhaps you are referring to those moments when a section transition occurs?

[kvruser1000]

Man, are you loud! Nice track by the way.

[tonedef71]

Man, are you loud!

Yeah, I thought the track sounded rather loud after I re-rendered it to SoundCloud last night, but I just chalked it up to ear fatigue setting in. Anyway, after your comment, I decided to use the Youlean Loudness Meter to measure the perceived loudness of the track. Crikey! It was registering at -5.2 LUFS. Not wanting to fight in the loudness war, I made some gain adjustments which managed to bring the LUFS down to a more respectable reading of -8.2.
 

Nice track by the way.

Thank you for the listen.

[kvruser1000]

That's fine. A LUFS of -8.2 dB is rather well chosen. This is the range my tracks play, too. Before it was way too loud.

[burkek]

-8.2 is still too loud. Ozone defaults to -11. Mastering the Mix's Expose suggests -12 for general mastering. And streaming services are -14/-16 or there about:

Spotify: -14 LUFS (integrated)
Apple Music: -16 LUFS (integrated)
YouTube: -14 LUFS (integrated)
Tidal: -14 LUFS (integrated)
Amazon Music: -14 LUFS (integrated)
Deezer: -15 LUFS (integrated)

[tonedef71]

It sounds like the topic of loudness is up for debate.

In support of louder targets, Reagan Ramm makes the following recommendation in his blog:

...
For mastering, -8 LUFS is the best, as that's what most of top charting songs average. Many will say -14db as it will fit the loudness targets for the majority of streaming sources, but it's okay to go louder (-7 to -10) so that your music stacks up well on other mediums.
...
Therefore, if you only pick one loudness target, you should aim for roughly -8db LUFS.
...

[burkek]

Reagan Ramm is a newbie. Only finished his audio training 5 years ago. One can certainly master for other mediums, but the most prevalent is streaming, so master for your destination.

[tonedef71]

Reagan Ramm is a newbie. Only finished his audio training 5 years ago. One can certainly master for other mediums, but the most prevalent is streaming, so master for your destination.

I believe that the LUFS audio measurement standard is only 13 years old. It is feasible that an audio engineer just five years out of audio engineering school could still recommend a suitable target loudness level based on the average LUFS level of the leading music tracks that people are most actively listening to.

As for me, the primary destination for my tracks is SoundCloud (although I have been considering YouTube). With SoundCloud, there does not seem to be an absolute loudness level to be adhered to. When mastering music for SoundCloud, the guideline seems to be to aim for a loudness range of approximately -18 LUFS to -10 LUFS; the reason being that this range provides a good balance between maintaining dynamics and ensuring the track sounds consistent with other content on the platform. While I could further adjust the gain to tamp the loudness level to -10 LUFS, I am apprehensive about the track sounding too "nerfed" when compared to other tracks streaming from there. SoundCloud supposedly normalizes a track to around -14 LUFS during playback, but if that holds true, then why was my track still sounding so darn loud?