> Message posted by Benjamin Dreessen <bjdreessen@...>: > I guess the big question is where I, as a recording musician > interested primarily in the songs themselves, not aspiring to > be an audio engineer of any kind, should draw the line, in > terms of trying to persue perfection from an engineering > standpoint. I also favour the dynamics side in the loudness war, yet even as I say this I'm aware of the struggle and simple urge I've had to try to achieve 'respectable' average loudness. I think basically I was at the same point you are, questioning what I was doing or why in the engineering/mastering department. The mental resting place I found may sound a bit simple, but it just grew out of making the distinction that in the case of any professional or album release, I don't wish to master my own stuff. But I am content to do it when putting my tracks online, on garageband, etc. In any track, I concentrate very carefully on making the best pre-master mix I can. For mastering purposes, I then try to do very little to it and simply increase the average loudness a bit. I seem to have no skill in using bus compression without colouring the sound too much. So typically I would just ease my mix into Finis or the Ad-Limiter, adjusting settings to taste. This gave me a louder mix - not as loud as the average commercial CD, but quite obviously not as 'quiet'(!) to random listeners as a track that apparently hadn't passed beyond a straight mix stage. Then I noticed a great tip from Maurits here in LUG, which is to use the regular Logic soft limiter across the mix before easing into your brickwall limiter of choice. In this way, I found I could get another db or two without further colouring the sound. And I'm fairly happy with this as a method to louden - but not crazily so - the mixes I slave over. In summary, the answer to your initial dilemma in my case was to give maximum attention and effort to the mix, and just use a few broad and conservative strokes to louden a track up some without damaging the dynamics if I will distribute it for free. If it's for commercial release, then I know I'll get someone else with different ears and more tools to master it.