Something that's been bothering me: Harderstyles mastering.

[Nitrax]

This has been on my mind for a good while now: the way tracks are mastered the last few years. Or maybe it's always been like this in the hard music scene, anyways. I know it's probably already been discussed, but my main point/question here is: WHY?

Why is there so much shit going on in pretty much every track that's released nowadays? Why does it need to be so fucking loud that I can't make out details anymore? The waveforms don't make sense, the bass is pretty much gone. Sure, to let more mids and highs into the mix, but that also where "hard" goes out of the window. I like how producers are going for a brighter mix, and a crispy sound, but why does the end result have to be so fucking ridiculous?

The point where this question hit me the hardest was when I started listening to techno, and compared the waveforms of techno tracks to the waveforms of hardstyle and hardcore tracks. Insane difference. Now of course techno doesn't have as much crazy sounds in it, but the way it's mastered is perfect. Clean, loud, and with a shit ton of bass. Why can't hardstyle have that?

Maybe I'm exaggerating this post, but I just wanna know

TL;DR: Why can't hardstyle have proper clean mastering? Why is the bass gone?

[Echidna]

This has been on my mind for a good while now: the way tracks are mastered the last few years. Or maybe it's always been like this in the hard music scene, anyways. I know it's probably already been discussed, but my main point/question here is: WHY?

Why is there so much shit going on in pretty much every track that's released nowadays? Why does it need to be so fucking loud that I can't make out details anymore? The waveforms don't make sense, the bass is pretty much gone. Sure, to let more mids and highs into the mix, but that also where "hard" goes out of the window. I like how producers are going for a brighter mix, and a crispy sound, but why does the end result have to be so fucking ridiculous?

The point where this question hit me the hardest was when I started listening to techno, and compared the waveforms of techno tracks to the waveforms of hardstyle and hardcore tracks. Insane difference. Now of course techno doesn't have as much crazy sounds in it, but the way it's mastered is perfect. Clean, loud, and with a shit ton of bass. Why can't hardstyle have that?

Maybe I'm exaggerating this post, but I just wanna know

TL;DR: Why can't hardstyle have proper clean mastering? Why is the bass gone?

the bass is lower for the reason you stated ... more headroom for loud mixes. To be honest, any masters I do are usually a bit quieter than the normal level but have more dynamic range and not losing the special details etc in the tracks. Dynamics over loudness any day ... if you want it louder ... turn up the gain on your mixer!

[Legacy]

Less bass? Say what now? I challange you to listen to the low ends of an unmastered track (for example with a multiband compresser or just an EQ with a lowpass) and compare that with the low end of a mastered track. I would not expect you to say the bass is less hard after the master.

Also, listen to a HS track without any bass (highpass eq for example) and you'll (I hope) probably notice quite the difference, depending on the system your listening on. There isn't 'less' bass. There's just a lot more going on stealing your attention in Hardstyle/hardcore

Also, what kind of speakers do you use nitrax, since you can't make out the detail anymore? Besides that, it depends on the mixdown of the track. The result of mastering is a optimalization of your mixdown eventually. So if you provide your mixdown with tons of bass, but the rest at low volume, then yes after mastering it may seem the bass is less loud since the mixdown wasn't proper.

The masters we get back are usally a bit louder then the original and are generally better to listen to.

[Soundphase]

I don't think the reduction of bass in a mix is to do with mastering, I think that has to do with producers cutting out too much lows for the actual mixdown

[Nitrax]

Less bass? Say what now?

Compared to other types of music. Not compared to pre-masters. There's some tracks where the mid/high peaks are as high or higher than the bass waves while kicks are rolling, while the tops of the tracks are being crushed at the same time. That's rape when you want your music to pack a punch, it'll just sound like noise then.

Also, what kind of speakers do you use nitrax, since you can't make out the detail anymore? Besides that, it depends on the mixdown of the track. The result of mastering is a optimalization of your mixdown eventually. So if you provide your mixdown with tons of bass, but the rest at low volume, then yes after mastering it may seem the bass is less loud since the mixdown wasn't proper.

KRK RP6G2s, but that's not really the point, the same thing happens through my AKG studio headphones. The point is that my most recent production, and I'm still quite amateur-ish, shows more clarity and detail than nearly every hardstyle/core track I have in my collection. Those pro tracks are louder, but at the same time noisier. I don't want the noise, that's all.

Though you could argue that I've heard my production so often now that I know where every sound is. Also, it's not hardstyle, I gave that up :')

Dynamics over loudness any day ... if you want it louder ... turn up the gain on your mixer!

Thank you!

[Legacy]

Ahh indeed, compared with other music. With that I agree.

I do think the sound you mention is the typical hardstyle sound. Like classical, techno, whatever genre you're aiming for, all have their own specific sound.

I also agree hardstyle isn't the cleanest genre (however I feel hardcore is even dirtyer), but this also means it something else then what's allready out there which can be a good thing . The part about your productions being cleaner then the 'general' HS track also sounds familiar. However, In my opinion, if you want to get bigger in a scene you should make stuff which comes close to the real thing. If you're playing a set with general HS mixed with your 'clean' tracks, there would be much of a difference between the two.
In a nutshell, I think there are a lot of reasons why it sounds as it does

The figure of speach, you can try your luck with 'clean produced' Hardstyle. If you do tho, you're tracks are going to sound alot different then the general HS sound. One could do it on purpose, but it depends on what your goal is.

[Dj Reaper]

I don't find Hardstyle mastering that bad, there is a lot going on and it is very difficult to bring out shiny leads with lots of reverb and a fat kick occupying te whole frequency spectrum and many other sounds well and IMO productions like frontliners stuff for example sound very clean tough having much detail.
Techno, for example, has a kick that needs much less space and has more headroom fora bassy thump and in most forms I heard (I don't listen a lot so correct me if I am saying bullshit) there is not that much going on.
However a genere I find has terrible mastering is bigroom house.I haven't looked at tje waveforms now but lets take tsunami, the kick is just like "flosh flosh" in the background and the highs in the lead do like "DENG-DENG-DENG-DENG-DEDENG etc" and that's with most tracks I heard, it sounds dirty and squeezed out.

[Nitrax]

I don't find Hardstyle mastering that bad, there is a lot going on and it is very difficult to bring out shiny leads with lots of reverb and a fat kick occupying te whole frequency spectrum and many other sounds well and IMO productions like frontliners stuff for example sound very clean tough having much detail.

I do have to say not everything's all bad though, but a big part of what's being released at the moment. Well, not bad, but totally not my idea of what they should do. And that's what I don't get: It is possible to get a mix clean like that but still maintain that reverb and a sharp kick, but it happens so rarely that I hear tracks in that quality.

Techno, for example, has a kick that needs much less space and has more headroom fora bassy thump and in most forms I heard (I don't listen a lot so correct me if I am saying bullshit) there is not that much going on.

It's not until you really dive into techno and find the complex and immensely well crafted tracks that you start wishing for that kind of detail in hardstyle, believe me. But hardstyle is more about energy, so I do understand why there's less of that. I just don't get why it needs to be exaggerated so much that the sound actually starts getting noisy.

The - in my opinion - painful difference when comparing hardstyle with techno is that techno fits more sounds into less space/volume than a single hardstyle lead...

However a genere I find has terrible mastering is bigroom house.I haven't looked at tje waveforms now but lets take tsunami, the kick is just like "flosh flosh" in the background and the highs in the lead do like "DENG-DENG-DENG-DENG-DEDENG etc" and that's with most tracks I heard, it sounds dirty and squeezed out.

Sausage mastering! I despise commercial house.


Also, wow, a decent discussion on harderstate

[Legacy]

It's not until you really dive into techno and find the complex and immensely well crafted tracks that you start wishing for that kind of detail in hardstyle, believe me. But hardstyle is more about energy, so I do understand why there's less of that. I just don't get why it needs to be exaggerated so much that the sound actually starts getting noisy.

Replace the word techno for hardstyle. I think (sorry from being harsh maybe) its ignorant to say that Techno is complex and wellcrafted, while hardstyle isn't. I think you should think of the complexity you'll start to hear when you 'dive' in Hardstyle. For example look at a hardstylekick. Saying kicks aren't complex / wellcrafted is kind a lack of depth and understanding imo. Once you zoom in on anything, you'll find out there's a lot more going on.

It's fine if you prefer sounds which aren't noisy. Other people may not notice the noisy sounds and like the overal vibe the music brings. Luckely people prefer different things.

[Nitrax]

Replace the word techno for hardstyle. I think (sorry from being harsh maybe) its ignorant to say that Techno is complex and wellcrafted, while hardstyle isn't. I think you should think of the complexity you'll start to hear when you 'dive' in Hardstyle. For example look at a hardstylekick. Saying kicks aren't complex / wellcrafted is kind a lack of depth and understanding imo. Once you zoom in on anything, you'll find out there's a lot more going on.

I shouldn't just have said complex, because hardstyle obviously isn't easy to make and has quite some intricate sound design. Not sure how I'd describe what I mean with it, but the way some producers make sounds in techno and combine that with a bunch of other sounds into a perfect rhythmical mixture is what you would call inspiring, I can link you to a forum if you're interested. It's the difference where a hardstyle drop has a kick, a bunch of layered leads/pads, sometimes a vocal, and later on some cymbals, where as techno might also have a hand full of stabs and different synthesized sounds, tons of percussion, and a lot of automation to bring the track to life.

It's fine if you prefer sounds which aren't noisy. Other people may not notice the noisy sounds and like the overal vibe the music brings. Luckely people prefer different things.

It's not the individual sounds, I love noisy sounds. But I dislike it when a clean sound turns noisy because of the mix/mastering. That's what the topic was about I would describe it as sacrificing beauty for power. You can have all the power you want when a track is played live, but when you listen to it at home and it's just too saturated to hear what's really going on, I think that's just a waste.

I think this paragraph best summarizes what I'm about here haha. Took a while.