EP-related work: Mastering 'Under The Glass Sky'

My experience with mastering is limited; even though I had done it in the past, I seldom managed to to achieve the loudness of commercially released recordings. In fact, the only time I managed to do it was recently, with 'Lotus Flower' (I wrote about it here).

As I have been posting earlier, I recently started working on a database of Youtube and SoundCloud channels to which I will submit tracks for reposting, for promotional purposes. One of these channels is Mr Suicide Sheep, a channel that publishes a variety of electronic music, with a preference for slower genres. When I wrote 'Under The Glass Sky', I wrote it with the thought in the back of my mind that it would be a suitable track to submit to Mr Suicide Sheep for consideration.

However, comparing to other tracks on the aforementioned channel, I realised that, in terms of loudness, my track was much inferior to everything else published there. Therefore, I spent my weekend trying to remaster it and make it as loud as possible, without clipping.

This first version was mastered with outboard effects, using a Lexicon 300 Digital Effect Processor and the T.C. Electronics Finalizer, on PMC LB1 Passive Studio Monitors at the Royal College of Music, London:
Now, the issue I have is that I am unable to access the original mix, so I am trying to increase the loudness of a track that has already been mastered! This, of course, is a practice which is not recommended, but I particularly like the warmth of the Finalizer and the EQ-ing I did with outboard, and I have no means of going back to the College and re-use the equipment anytime soon.

After the success with 'Lotus Flower', I thought I could use the same processes and plugins to achieve similar results. But, as Glenn Meadows said, I found out that:

“There is no magic silver bullet. There is no one magic anything that will be the ‘best’ in all situations. The ability of the operator to determine what it is that needs to be done and pick the best combination of tools is more important than what tools are used.” (Meadows, quoted in Fenn, 2014)

The most notable change I made with mastering 'Glass Sky' was to introduce two new plugins that I've never used before: IK Multimedia's T-Racks (soft clipper) and DUY Wide (stereo imager). Both plugins were recommended in a Youtube tutorial that I watched and I decided to download the demos and try them for myself.

I am absolutely blown away by both of them. Unfortunately at the moment I don't have the money to purchase them after the demos expire, but they're definitely on the bucket list.

DUY Wide is the best stereo imager I have ever tried - I am comparing it to Waves S1, with the stereo imagers included with Logic or Pro Tools and with the imager function in Izotope Ozone. DUY Wide seems to widen the stereo field without losing the center and creates the illusion of the sound being pushed to the left and right beyond the speakers!

T-Racks is a soft clipper. Clipping is a form of distortion which appears as a result of attempting to raise the level of the audio over 0dB. The sound becomes squashed as the waveform turns into a square waves, leading to distortion. What a soft clipper does is cut momentary peaks out of the waveform, so the overall level can be raised. I found it very useful when mastering 'Glass Sky', because it meant I could push up the level a bit more without clipping.

Another new technique that I used was a light side-chain compression to tighten the low-end, with the settings as shown in the picture:

I tried different plugins with different settings and ended up with 11 different masters! 

Below is my final version of the track, however, I am still not happy with it! I finally managed to reach the loudness of the tracks I was comparing with, but

I am aware of the fact that it sounds over-compressed, with no dynamic and (for me, at least!) it is fatiguing to the ears.
 

I have given up for the moment and try again later. I am considering completely remixing the track and start a fresh master. I will also search the online library for Bob Katz's 'The Art of Mastering', which was recommended by Bruce Aisher in one of our lectures and see if I can find some helpful advice in there.


References

Fenn Audio Mastering, (2014). Mastering Process Technical Essay. [online] Available at: http://www.fennaudio.com/news-reviews/2014/12/29/mastering-process-technical-essay [Accessed 18 Dec. 2015].