I'll try to make my question as short as possible, since there's a lot to be discussed on this topic and I don't want to focus your answers in anything specific, but I just want to read what everyone thinks it's important about this issue.
So, I have this song that I think has an almost perfect mix, but it's still left to be mastered. Having said that, I'm really happy about how it sounds, as I listen to this song on my studio headphones and it sounds amazing, to the point that I'll take it as a reference when mixing my whole album.
The thing is, today I was listening to "My Feeling" by Devi on my phone and shitty ass sony earbuds and it sounds amazingly clear AND loud, but my song sounds clear but NOT loud. Even tho the mix sounds clear and satisfying (i.e. sounds BIG and clear even on lower levels and isn't muddy), which is already a great achievement, it sounds really quiet in comparison to some other songs, even tho I used a "limiter gain" on my master chain (so I could do a mixdown easily if I wanted to), and the volume is hitting as high as I could without the actual limiter started to take effect (this as no automation, so it has the same value for the whole song).
I want to know every issue that could be causing this problem and read your experiences, beause I know this is a common issue for a lot of producers. My master bus has zero plugins and I'm not using any return tracks for now as I want to leave them for the mastering stage. I think it probably has something to do with RMS and analysing levels but I really don't know where to start.
Submitted April 05, 2017 at 11:31AM by lovesteppingout https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/63lved/talking_about_mastering_and_ab/?utm_source=ifttt