Should you mix at high volume?

The short answer is: NO, at least not at an early mixing stage. But we need to dig deeper into the details why mixing at high volume overall is really bad practise.

One of the most common mixing mistake you can do is to start a mixing session with the volume cranked up high. Of course we’re eager to hear our song blasting at full volume in all it’s glory. We’re so keen on what the final master will feel like when we play the track to our friends.

Why is mixing at high volume bad?

1. Ear fatigue due to listening at high volume output

The most obvious reason is that listening at high volumes for longer periods will cause ear fatigue / listening fatigue. When ear fatigue strikes you will not be able to make good mixing decisions. Your judgement will be gone and you will need to come back another day and continue the mixing session.

If you are listening to very high volume levels ear fatigue can strike pretty fast, so be aware and never start your mixing sessions at high volume levels.

2. Balancing track levels at high volumes is much harder

Trying to find the right balance / audio level between the tracks of your song will be much harder when listening at high volume. If you reduce the volume to a more quiet level your ears will not be stressed by the high volume and can focus more clearly and identify the track levels more accurately.

If your working on a new song mix, reduce the volume drastically. Now, did you notice that some sounds “poke out” (are too loud) in your mix.

OK, good!

Now you can clearly see (I mean hear) how much easier it is to identify audio level problems between tracks when mixing at low volume.

So is it all bad mixing at high volume?

Not at all, of course you will need to adjust the volume from time to time to get a good perception on how it will sound when it’s cranked. But overall it’s not good practise to mix with high volume throughout the whole mixing session, especially when setting the track levels (see above).

What is the industry standard mixing level?

85 dB SPL is an industry standard in calibrating professional studio monitor levels.

BUT, mixing at 85 dB in a small bedroom is ludicrous, at these levels you will be messing up the room acoustics and risk ear fatigue on top of that. A more realistic level in a home studios and small rooms is around 65 dB SPL – 79 dB SPL. This will reduce (but not eliminate) room interference, your ears will stay healthy and your neighbours might not come barking.

Continue and learn more about mixing and gain staging in this other article I did on mixing!

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Gain Staging means striving for a clean and unclipped signal flow in your DAW.

What is gain staging?

Gain Staging is the procedure of getting a clean and unclipped signal flow within your DAW. That means you want a healthy and clean signal from the initial audio track input (or virtual instrument output) to your final master output.

How to get a clean signal from start to finish

Begin by setting your recording level so you have plenty of headroom. I suggest preparing your microphone and recording source so that you have a maximum peak of around -10db.

If you are recording a human vocal I suggest having around 20cm (3 inch) from mouth to microphone.

If you have a microphone pre-amp, or audio interface gain knob, adjust the audio input so that you get around -10 dB peaks in the DAW when the vocalist is singing the loudest parts of the song. Same thing with guitars, percussion etc.

Do NOT go into the “red” or near 0dB, this will just make your audio distort and sound bad and unprofessional.

Having around 10dB of headroom means we will not clip or distort our audio signal. Time to hit record in your DAW!

What is headroom?

Headroom is the space (measured in decibels – dB) between your highest peaks (transients) and 0 dB. Leaving headroom is crucial. It helps to prevent your mix from clipping and distorting.

Headroom is NOT measured between the average level (RMS) of your track and 0 dB (that will still clip). Many people get the two “methods of measurement” confused!

Recording with a clean audio signal into your DAW

Our recording path is now setup so we have 10dB of headroom and we record our audio takes into the DAW of choice. I’m working in Bitwig Studio 3 and Logic Pro X out of convenience.

These two DAWs, Bitwig & Logic, complement each other very well.

• Bitwig is good for sound design, sample chopping. It’s also a very flexible DAW with its modulators. Furthermore it now ships with the Grid which is a powerful modular environment for creating your own synths, sound generators and effects processing devices with ease.
• Logic Pro X, comes with the best plugin suite and sound package on the market (personal opinion). And is suitable for composing to film, games and media as the video support is excellent. It also has one of the best score sheet tools, if you are that kind of guy.

Mixing pre-recorded samples and VST instruments

Ok, but how do we handle mix levels for the samples and VST instruments in the DAW? Samples often come maximized and VST instruments output good healthy amplitude signal. How do we treat them in the mix?

Let’s begin by talking about samples from your regular sample packs.

How to gain stage sample pack content

Sample pack audio files are mixed and maximized

Yes, if you buy a sample pack in 99% of the cases the audio files in that pack are gonna be shipped as mixed and maximized files. The peaks will probably be hot around -0.3dB and the audio is considered production ready.

Now this also means that if you drag a kick sample from a sample pack into your DAW arrangement. That kick will be hitting 0.3dB if you don’t do anything about the track volume fader. It will be totally fine on its own, but as soon as you start adding in other samples / instruments and audio recordings, the master volume meter will soon start to blow (shine “red” light a diamond…or ruby) high above the 0dB limit.

Two simple ways to mix sample pack audio file volume levels

There are two simple ways to solve this early on in your project. To get that 10dB of headroom we talked about earlier in the article.

1. Either set your DAW to reduce all track volume faders to -10dB.
   Note: Bitwig Studio DAW has the option to set all faders to a certain dB by default. Use it to your advantage!
2. Add a gain- / tool- or utility-plugin as the first insert effect on your tracks.
   
3. Oh, yes there is actually a third option but it’s not as convenient. And that option is to just reduce the volume / gain of the actual audio clip within the DAW. But that means you have to do that on every single audio file you drag into the DAW…not that convenient. So let’s go for any of the two options above shall we… ;D

How to gain stage VST instruments

VST instruments often output high amplitude volume. We all want to demo punchy, high volume and powerful audio when playing those monster synths like Serum, Falcon, Omnisphere 2 or Diva.
Some plugins like Omnisphere 2 can really eat up a whole mix in both amplitude and stereo width. The sounds are designed to be super huge themselves, but in a mix they really need to step back a notch. But let’s talk about stereo spread in another article.

So the same thing goes for VST instruments. Give them a flick on the mixer fader, set it at around -10dB. Or add a gain- / tool- / utility-plugin as the first insert effect to reduce the volume to -10dB.

How to setup volume on a side-chained track

Firstly, you want to set a volume “ceiling” reference-point for the track. That is the highest volume level that specific track will reach at any one given time… even during breakdown sections etc. It’s the track volume peak level. As we talked about earlier this could (should) be around -10dB so we have plenty of headroom.

Now when the max volume is set, we can start adding a side-chain compressor or similar plugin on this track knowing that the volume should never go above our max peak point. Work with short release times on the side-chain compressors. Release times between 50 – 130ms should be fine in most cases.

I recently made a review of Dodge Pro which is an excellent plugin to automatically duck / envelope shape your audio without the need for a side-chain setup! Try it out!

Volume problems on side-chained tracks!

It can be tempting to start fiddling with the track volume fader after you side-chain a track, but keep in mind that this can cause unbalanced results if you are not careful about the release time of your side-chain compressors.

In this video, I show a scenario where you set the release time to around 400ms which will cause the track to never reach it’s max peak volume level, at least as long as something is triggering the side-chain…like a kick. Then when a breakdown section comes, and the side-chain trig is removed you might get volume swells. The volume can easily go out of hand and cause audio distortion and levels above 0dB.

Rule of thumb, work with short release times when side-chaining!

I hope you found this gain staging article useful. If you follow these simple principles you should have a clean, unclipped signal in your DAW.

Please write any comments or feedback to this article/video in the video comments. Thanks!

The post Gain Staging & Sidechain Mixing Masterclass appeared first on Morningdew Media.

We will go through some of my best tips to enhance and bring out the character from the recorded voice.

How to process vocals in a mix

I always begin my vocal processing chain with an equalizer (EQ) to balance the sound. We want to get rid of the low-end rumble often present in many audio recordings.

It can be rumble from microphone stands, fans and many other sound sources. You really don’t want to have this low-end fighting against you later in a compressor, reverb etc. So it’s highly recommended to do this low-cut at the first stage of your vocal processing chain.

Mixing the low-end of the vocal – <100Hz

In a sparse mix with few instruments you can leave more of the low-end in there. Try a high-pass around 80Hz. But for more dense mixes (read: EDM, metal etc.) you really can go higher without anyone noticing.

For a dense mix I tend to high-pass at around 140Hz.

Process the vocal low-midrange – 250-500Hz

Furthermore, the next frequency band to look at is the low-mids. We are talking the 200-500Hz range. Many of your instruments will probably have their body, or fundamental around this range. We tend to see a lot of build-up in this area, which can cause all kinds of trouble with the mix.

I sweep this range with a medium broad Q-point. The Q-point, is the width of the filter. It is the ratio of center frequency to bandwidth. How “wide “frequency-area” of the sound spectrum the EQ-peak will effect.

Try sweeping with a quite high resonating peak to hear where your sound is “odd” or where you have annoying sounds. Then reduce a few db in that area to smoothen your sound.

I find 250Hz is a good starting-point for this low-mids reduction area, and reduce about 2-5 db. If your singer is really up-close to the microphone the proximity effect will boost this area plenty so you will probably have to make a great cut to balance the sound.

Prevent overpowering sibiliance in the recorded voice

We want the vocals to be a pleasant listening experience. Smooth as butter, without poking sibiliant peaks.

Sibilance is the recurrence of a hissing ‘s’ sound. It’s a very strong and sometimes harsh sound. You want some of the sibiliance, because it makes our voice recognisable. But you don’t want too much.

So after the initial EQ to balance the sound we add a de-esser plugin.

What is a DeEsser?

De-Esser plugins are typically used in a mix to attenuation sibilant sounding consonants in recorded vocal tracks.

DeEsser vst plugins are basically multi-band compressors where you work with a single-band area to find the sibiliant sweet-spot…or should I say; harsh spot. The de-esser then have a threshold and reduction knob so we can adjust the plugin to reduce maybe -8db from the harsh frequency area.

This is a quite subtle effect, but in the long term it will be more pleasant to listen to the vocals.

Many DAWs comes with a native de-esser plugin. But if you can’t find one there are great free alternatives. Like this SpitFish De-Esser plugin. Or Antress which also contains a DeEsser.

What gear I use in the studio? Check out the Resources Page.

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How to properly record vocals into the DAW

I know the struggle to get the vocals to sit just right in a music mix!

Many producers reach out to me and ask about some tips and tricks to record vocals. If you follow these tips you can instantly improve the vocal recording and save you headache at the mixing stage.

Selecting the proper microphone for your voice

There are as many voices as there are people in the world. Seriously we all have a certain sound and with the right microphone you can carefully capture the essence of the voice.

Some mics will work against your voice. While another microphone can help to bring out the vocal character. I suggest you try out a few microphones. Borrow some microphones from a friend, or from the local music store if it’s possible.

Microphone types

Condenser microphones

When I record vocals in the studio I typically go for a large-diaphragm condenser microphone. Something like the Neumann TLM 102. It’s a mid-budget mic (around €700) with a broad sound range. There are several reasons why I think the TLM 102 is such a great mic for vocals (and many other instruments).

The Neumann TLM 102 is capable of tolerating SPLs up to 144dB!

Neumann TLM 102

Firstly the TLM 102 has a very tight grill which incorporates a built in pop screen which reduces poppings from plosives. For my voice it’s a perfect match, but some singers might still need a regular pop-screen to get rid of the plosives.

While some condenser microphones tend to be very sensitive to SPL (Sound Pressure Level). The Neumann TLM 102 is capable of tolerating SPLs up to 144dB (0.5 percent distortion). That makes the TLM102 also suitable for use with loud instruments such as drums, brass instruments and guitar amplifiers!

The TLM 102 condenser microphone requires +48 V phantom power to operate.

The frequency range of the TLM102 extends from 20Hz to 20kHz (‑3dB) and is nominally flat up to 6kHz. After 6kHz you start to hear a gentle presence rise in the higher frequency range. It’s an overall good starting point for a great sound.

Dynamic microphones

Another great microphone for vocals is the Shure SM58. It’s a professional cardoid dynamic microphone. If you ever done a live gig you have probably used this microphone on stage. It’s probably the most common microphone for live vocals.

Shure SM58

Compared to the condenser microphones the Shure SM58 dynamic microphone is less sensitive to SPL. Thus it makes the Shure SM58 a great mic for recording percussion, drums and guitar amplifiers too.

I still recommend this microphone for voice over and lead vocal recording in the studio. Especially if you are working in a noisy environment.

Like all directional microphones, the SM58 is subject to proximity effect, a low-frequency boost when used close to the source. The cardioid response reduces pickup from the side and rear prevents feedback onstage. There are wired (with and without on/off switch) and wireless versions of this microphone.

Cloudlifter CL-1 Mic Activator is an easy to use, compact solution for common audio problems faced in the field and in the studio. Designed for all passive microphones – including ribbons- the CL-1 safely uses any standard phantom powered microphone input device to provide up to +25db of ultra- clean, transparent gain.

Boost the gain of a dynamic microphone

If the signal is a bit weak from your dynamic microphone you can introduce the Cloudlifter.

Cloudlifters dramatically improve the performance of passive microphone signals by driving stronger, cleaner signals over longer XLR cable runs, making them ideal for broadcast, live, and studio applications.

Microphone Techniques

There are several microphone techniques you can use to get the best out of a vocal performance.

Microphone Distance

The distance to the mic is very important when recording any instrument, including the human voice. As you get closer to the microphone you also get more bass frequency content, ie. proximity effect. I recommend a distance of about 20cm / 7 inches between the microphone pickup and the mouth.

If you are recording a very quiet voice a closer distance might work better. And some artists even get up really close because they prefer the upfront sound.

When recording too close to the microphone it’s impossible to remove that low-end in the mix-stage without loosing the natural voice character.

My advice is always to fix the sound at recording stage, rather than trying to solve a bad recording in the post-processing stage.

While backing off the microphone from the singer you will also notice that you will pickup more of the room ambience. So it can be a good advice to experiment with larger distance when recording backing vocals, ad-libs etc.

In conclusion, and after experimenting for many years I believe that a 15-20 cm distance is optimal for lead vocals. The vocal tracks will sound natural and require less post-processing.

Vocal pre-amps

While a vocal pre-amp might not always be necessary, it can tremendously help your vocal signal. Today, many audio interfaces comes with built in pre-amp / gain stage with enough juice to give your microphone signal life.

How much amplification you need really depends on your microphone and on the singer. Dynamic microphones tend to need more gain boost than the large-capsule condenser microphones.

Pre-amp compressor

Sometimes you might need a pre-amp to boost the signal to a proper level. The vocal pre-amp can also include additional sweet features, like a compressor and gate. The pre-amp might also include a tube amplifier stage. A tube can give your sound some sweet saturation and character.

Balancing the tracking signal

A compressor can also be helpful if you want to have a balanced signal already at the tracking stage. Keep in mind though that this compressor effect is not possible to change later.

Vocal compression settings

I love to have a small amount of compression with a ratio of 2/1 or 3/1 at tracking stage for vocals. Just to give the vocals a little bit of dynamic glue.

Set the attack to about 10-25ms and about 50ms release. Furthermore, we adjust the threshold to get about 2-3db of gain reduction from the compressor. Finally, add 3db of make-up gain.

This will give our vocal audio recording a smooth compression at the recording stage.

If you are recording voice over for You Tube videos a gate, compressor and some tube amplification in the audio pre-amp can really be a time-saver at the tracking stage.

What gear I use in the studio? Check out the Resources Page.

Join my exclusive community: https://www.patreon.com/gelhein

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How can you prepare your song masters for streaming platforms like Spotify, You Tube, Tidal and Apple Music? What LUFS to master to? I will try  to answer some of those questions in this mastering article.

Measure and master your tracks with integrated -14 LUFS and keep the peak max -1.0 db at the loudest, and you are good to go for most digital distribution platforms!

I’ve collected some information that might be helpful and prepare you before mastering your track for release on digital streaming platforms.

New video on mastering for Spotify

You can watch this video about mastering a puzzle game music track in Bitwig Studio:

Mastering tips for Spotify

• Target the loudness level of your master at -14 dB integrated LUFS and keep it below -1 dB TP (True Peak) max. This is best for the lossy formats we use (Ogg/Vorbis and AAC) and will ensure no extra distortion is introduced in the transcoding process.
• If your master is louder than -14 dB integrated LUFS, make sure it stays below -2 dB TP (True Peak) max to avoid extra distortion. This is because louder tracks are more susceptible to extra distortion in the transcoding process.

How does Spotify calculate loudness

Spotify currently use ReplayGain, which was the most recognized standard for calculating loudness when Spotify first started.

In the future, Spotify plan to use a new standard for calculating loudness, called ITU 1770 (from the International Telecommunication Union). This defines the integrated LUFS (Loudness Units Full Scale) measure, and it’s what we recommend you use to measure the loudness of your tracks.

ReplayGain doesn’t specify a measurement unit for loudness, so we’re unable to give an exact measure in LUFS used by ITTU 1770. However, we adjust tracks to 3 dB higher than ReplayGain algorithm specifies, which is roughly equivalent to -14 dB LUFS, according to the ITU 1770 standard.

Read more about Spotify normalization here.

The final step before publishing a song on a streaming service

You just finished mixing your latest EP and everything just sounds great and you are ready to get those songs published to the world. But there is one crucial step before you can publish the EP… The mastering stage!

It is important to have great balanced audio with correct loudness before uploading your master to the streaming service.

The streaming services measure the loudness differently but -14 LUFS is a very good starting point. At least we need some kind of reference point to set our levels, or else we are left in the dark void of space.

Read more below if you want to learn more about the mastering process for digital streaming platforms.

Distribute your music to the Spotify streaming service without third party involvement.

Before we dig into the details of how you prepare you master for digital distribution there is a very relevant news to discuss regarding Spotif and how you get your music up and running on the service.

Spotify finally open the gates to indie artists!

September 20, 2018 Spotify revealed a new beta feature for Spotify Artists. The new feature makes it possible for indie musicians to upload and release their music with their service. Removing the need for the gatekeepers or middle-man, the labels eager to take a large bite of your hard earned cash.

The upload feature currently launched in beta state on Spotify for artists, the online dashboard that arrived last year. This dashboard allows artists to track their fan base demographics and metrics surrounding song streams.

The beta is available by invitation to a few hundred US-based independent artists, but will soon be available to more artists, labels and teams.

That means it will be easier than ever for indie artists to get their music on the renowned platform.

Great, finally!

Ok, let’s talk about the art of mastering!

Do you need to hire an expensive mastering studio to prepare your songs for the digital streaming platforms?

This really depends on how serious you are about your craft.

Remember that these tracks, when published, will probably live quite a few years on those streaming services. Yes, you can always go back and do a remix. Nonetheless it’s a good idea to make it sound right in the first place.

Scout and see if you have the budget to either master the tracks via any online service (yeah, you can leave the mastering to the AI of tomorrow). Or hire a mastering studio with proper monitoring setup to do the heavy lifting.

My advice though is that you do hire a mastering studio engineer.

It’s always good with another set of ears to scan the songs before they are officially released. The mastering studio monitor setup is probably a notch more expensive and has better room acoustics than your bedroom.

Boost Your Productions – Pristine Sound Packs

On the other hand you can always do it yourself. Get some mastering tools and learn the basics of the craft (there’s a YouTube video for that)!

The days of demos (or promos) are kinda gone. Most music today when uploaded to the internet is considered – final product. Whether the artist knows it or not. Even if the artist calls the track “demo”…

There are many great freeware audio tools today to get your music master in a great state for digital distribution.

The days of demo is over!

If someone finds your unmastered song and listens to it, they will instantly compare it to all the other music they hear on the web and if your loudness and balancing is not in par with the other tracks out there, they might turn to some other track (there are quite a few songs out there to choose from).

Why is that? 

Easy peasy, there are so many great tools to maximize the life out of music that people are very used to overly compressed and über limited audio. We had a loudness war going on for quite some years when even professional studios had to go with the flow and brick limit the music into square waves.

Yeah, I have to admit I was there too… Squashing my tracks into oblivion. (Lovely game by the way – Oblivion!

Therefore it is quite important to have your track mastered to the LUFS standard of today. You want your tracks to sound dynamic and vibrant!

We are mastering for Spotify LUFS recommendation!

Mastering for Spotify LUFS

Let’s talk about the actual mastering process and the steps we should follow to reach a great result and a dynamic / vibrant musical outcome.

We want to make sure our audio master sound as good as possible on Spotify, You tube and the other services.

What is LUFS?

LUFS is the internationally recognised method of measuring loudness.

LUFS stands for ‘loudness units relative to full scale‘. Its the most accurate way to to measure loudness of audio. I think of it as a more precise RMS value. Importantly LUFS is more truthful to what we actually hear in terms of loudness, compared to RMS (root mean square) which will tell you the average power of the signal. 

LUFS is more truthful to what we actually hear in terms of loudness.

You can find a superb free audio plugin for measuring LUFS in YouLean Loudness Meter 2. I just love this plugin, it has the most accurate LUFS meter I have seen. You can read more about YouLean in the article I wrote about my top 5 free vst plugins 2018.

Just fire YouLean up and let it run for at least 10 seconds in a few places of your track (loud parts, and quiet into loud parts) and see what the integrated measurement loudness reads. Adjust your mastering (or mix) accordingly to keep the loudness in check with the reference integrated -14 LUFS.

Is there any good free mastering plugins?

Absolutely, there are many great audio plugins to get your mastering to a professional level. I wrote an article going through some great free plugins for mixing and mastering.

• Firstly you will need to add an EQ to filter out the absolute lows. This is usually around 30hz depending on what music you are mastering.
• Then you will need some stereo processing device to control the width of you mix in the separate frequency areas to make your lows solid mono and maybe add some spread to the high mids and highs.
• In the last step you will add the limiting device to gain stage your audio to the reference integrated loudness (which will probably be around -14 LUFS).

Gain staging is the final part of your mastering session

One particular good free compressor / limiting plugin that you will add as the final device in your mastering chain is the Limiter No6. It is a fully featured limiter vst plugin with 5 separate gain stage sections to make the mastering a breeze.

Go from left to right in the plugin and make your compression and peak limiting up to the levels and specifications you are targeting.

Always listen to reference music that you like and feel has a good balance in the bass, mid and highs. A/B listen and compare your own master while adjusting. It is easy to go blind and only use your eyes and not your ears with all the nice designs and knobs to turn.

Close your eyes from time to time and just listen. It will make all the difference, trust me!

I will publish a video soon with details on mastering with the Limiter No6 and some other great free plugins.

What Lufs to master to?

What is the reference loudness in LUFS that we should aim for?

If you aim for -14 LUFS you should be safe for the common streaming services like Spotify and YouTube.

Here is a chart for some streaming services.

We are mastering for Spotify LUFS and the recommendation from the service is to target around -14 LUFS as integrated value.

I found some useful guidelines provided by Apple for measuring and preparing your masters for their platform. Check out the “Mastered for iTunes” guide here.

Spotify Normalization

According to the Spotify FAQ we can read:

When a user plays your album, we normalize the loudness level of that album at the same time. The entire album will play back at -14 dB LUFS from start to finish, and the gain compensation applied by Spotify won’t change between tracks. This means the softer tracks will be just as soft as you intend them to be.

Spotify FAQ

Mastering for Spotify LUFS Conclusion

In conclusion if you master your songs on a new album with different LUFS and peak volumes. Some tracks more silent than others. Your album will play back accordingly. The more silent tracks will be more silent, and those loud tracks will be louder. Spotify will only normalize, on playback, at a target -14db LUFS for the whole album.

Spotify will not magically increase the volume of your more silent tracks

So keep in mind that Spotify will not magically increase the volume of your more silent tracks. Make sure your mix is mastered properly to target the digital streaming platforms according to the chart above.

Final words

I hope you found this article useful, and please check our other articles on music production, sound design and graphics design.

If you have any further questions on mixing or mastering, feel free to contact us via the contact page.

Best Delay Plugin for vocals

I recently did a video and article on a really smooth BBD delay called Colour Copy from u-he. It’s really a wonderful delay plug-in that will give you a analogue sound. A perfect match for vocals, guitars and leads.

What gear I use in the studio? Check out the Resources Page.

Join my exclusive community: https://www.patreon.com/gelhein

Be sure to sign up to our newsletter for new exciting articles in design, music production and sound design.

The post Mastering for Spotify LUFS – How to prepare a master for Spotify? appeared first on Morningdew Media.

Here is my selection of top 5 free plugins that I use on a daily basis to help me render quality mixes in games, film, media and the EDM genre.

1. YOULEAN – Monitor your levels accurately

The loudness war is over! Are you with me on this one? I hope so!  

In order to mix and master your music and prevent it from sounding crushed and unprofessional You Lean is your top choice monitoring plugin.

This is the first plugin I add to my master buss before I begin any kind of audio project. I know I will be in safe hands throughout the session.

I was happily surprised to see that they released an updated version of YouLean in 2018 with a improved interface and additional features. The GUI can now be resized and scaled to fit your personal monitoring preferences. Time to get some use out of that 4K display!

Most importantly it gives you accurate loudness meter with all the necessary metering standards for professional music and broadcasting.

Just select the standard of your choice, like the ITU-R BS.1770-4 standard and let the plugin work for at least 10 seconds to measure the LUFS (More on metering in another article). You will get the useful metering information in short term, momentary and true peak max loudness.

The plugin is the perfect monitoring tool to get the correct loudness levels for upload to Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music and Tidal.

-16 LUFS for the win! Still with me? =)

Get the free You Lean Loudness Meter 2 plugin here.

2. Limiter No.6 – gain stage mastering

Limiter No.6 is a real great mastering plugin with plenty of features to get your song mixes to a really professional mastering level. Especially if you combine it with the You Lean Metering Plugin (above).

The limiter plugin has 5 separate sections / devices, commonly called gain stages. First hand to the left is a fully featured Compressor, followed by a Peak Limiter. After the PL you have a nifty HF limiter (High Frequency limiter) where you can control any limiting on peaking high frequency content.

The fourth device in the chain is the Clipper where you can really squash the signal and prepare the signal for the final gain stage device.

The last device is the Protection where you control the ceiling and output of the limited signal. You can of course turn on and off each individual section and find your perfect mix & mastering match.

The plugin has a certain character and nuance when pushed hard. Nonetheless I think it produces a very warm and pleasant output that many music styles will benefit. This should be a no brainer in your vst plugin collection.

There is also a updated version available called TDR Limiter 6 GE. But the more recent version is unfortunately not free. 

Get the free Limiter 6 plugin here.

Boost Your Productions – Pristine Sound Packs

3. TDR Nova EQ – dynamic eq & compressor

Nova is a swiss army knife when it comes to fixing problematic frequencies and balancing in your individual sounds or complete mix. It is a very capable parallel dynamic equalizer.

Visually you feel comfortable in the layout of a parametric equalizer, each band also includes a full featured dynamics section allowing the processor to cover a wide range of applications. The sound is transparent and the dynamic functions works great for compressing the low, mid and high bands separately.

In practise you can use TDR Nova EQ to do:

• Parametric equalization
• Dynamic equalization
• Multi-band compression
• Wideband compression
• Frequency selective compression
  

Get the free TDR NOVA EQ plugin here.

4. Span – Free Spectrum Analyzer

If you are serious about your audio and mixing quality you do need a spectrum analyzer. It helps you make important decisions in everything from sound selection, sound design to mixing and mastering.

Importantly find annoying frequencies and balance your mix. I usually add it to almost every track before I start designing my sounds so I can visually see the sound as it develops.

This plugin will show you a deeper and more detailed view than most of the  native Spectrum Analyzer plugins of your DAW.

The design is a bit outdated, but it does look much better than many other free plugins so just grab it! We’re here to mix… not to look at nice pictures.

The Span plugin from Voxengo comes with plenty of features:

• Stereo, mid-side, surround spectrum analyzer
• Stereo correlation meter
• K level meter
• RMS, peak level and clipping detector

Get the free Voxengo Span plugin here.

5. Bitter Sweet – get control over your transients

Are you recording acoustic guitars? Then Bitter Sweet is an excellent plugin to begin your signal chain with to really focus the tone of your guitar. Make it bite like a crocodile or make it soft like silk.

The giant knob Sweet / Bitter is easy to work with and makes it easy to find a great setting for your different tracks. Squash the sounds from the guitar pick and make your guitar performance smooth by turning Flux towards the Sweet spot.

Or turn it to the Bitter side and make the transients bolder.

The plugin auto compensates the gain, but there is an additional Output Gain knob if you need to adjust it further. Maybe you have a drum section that lacks definition and just lacks 

Get the free Bitter Sweet plugin here.

Top 5 free vst plugins for mixing 2018 – Summary

Lastly, there are many great free plugins on the market. These plug-ins are the ones that I can stand behind and truly support. Even though I have plenty of higher priced AAA plug-ins, these free plug-ins tend to creep into my mixing workflow.

Importantly, these plugins can be a great starting point to give your music a professional polish and edge.

Do you want to learn more about how to create interesting transitions in your music? I recently did a video and article on transitional techniques in music production.

Bonus audio plugins that I feel we should mention today!

4. HEAD CRUSHER – high octane saturation

This is a beast of analog saturation vst plugin. Use it to beef up your drums or percussion section. Apply a small portion of saturation to your vocals or completely destroy your mixes. The power and control of distortion is in your hands.

Obviously you control the amount of drive with the DRIVE knob. Remember that just a little saturation goes a long way. It’s very easy to make your sounds fit the mix with Head Crusher.

Remember that just a little saturation goes a long way.

In the sleek interface there are also controls for lowpass and highpass filter. Finally in the centre of the GUI we have a TONE knob which can weight / balance the saturation effect in the frequency spectrum.

Get the free Head Crusher plugin here

Another great effect to add to your vocals is the Colour Copy delay from u-he. I recently did a video and wrote an article on the delay, read more about it here.

PanCake – moving in the stereo field

Get control over your panning and pan automation. Make your sounds more interesting by modulating them in the stereo field with a very profound and capable LFO.

You can construct your own modulation curves. These curves can easily be  drawn using soft or hard control points, thus producing gentle transitions or sharp bends in the waveform.

Beat-sync the PanCake LFO to your DAW, from a fast 1/128 note modulation up to 32 bars. It can also be set free-running from 0.02 Hz to 5.24 kHz. There is also the option to trigger the LFO via MIDI.

A precise display of channel left/right volume provides helpful visual control.

Get the free PanCake from Cableguys plugin here.

Camelcrusher – more tube distortion to the people!

This audio plugin is a sort of “oldie but goldie”, say hi to the mighty Camelcrusher. Your DAW probably already offer some sort of distortion or overdrive effect. But when you compare them to the alternatives on the market they can often fall flat.

Camelcrusher is a great all round Tube overdrive that you can hot up any kind of signal you are working with. Adjust the Filter knob to taste to balance out any annoying overtone frequencies in the higher range after the distortion is applied.

I used Camelcrusher on many individual tracks in the past, though nowadays I rely on Trash 2 for most of my distortion / saturation audio jobs.

But for a free tube distortion plugin you can’t go wrong with Camelcrusher so go grab your copy today!

Grab the free CamelCrusher plugin here

Last words

I spend a few hours every year looking through the new free plugins on the market to see if there are any new exciting stuff to try out. A little now and then you stumble upon some really good plugins that blows your mind and will ease up your workflow in a heartbeat. 

I hope you will find joy in any of the suggested top 5 free vst plugins, and that they will help YOU in your musical mixing and mastering endeavours. 

Thanks for reading,

Mattias Holmgren / Creative Director
@ Morningdew Media

Want to learn how pro-producers make solid drum kits?

Then continue reading this article I created on creating professional sounding kits for your beats.

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