How to Get Loud Without Turning Cymbals Into White Noise

THE PROBLEM You push the limiter harder. The mix gets louder. The cymbals fall apart. Hi-hats turn fizzy. Crashes smear. Shakers hiss instead of speak. This usually shows up late. Often at the mastering stage. By then, people blame the limiter. The limiter isn’t the root problem. It’s just revealing one. THE PRINCIPLE High-frequency distortion is cumulative, not sudden. Cymbals don’t explode because of one bad move. They collapse because several small choices stack in the same range. EQ lift. Fast compression. Wideband saturation. Final limiting. Each one seems harmless alone. Together, they shred transients. THE PROCESS Fix the top... More.

A Mastering Limiter With Color

The Problem I loved the sound I was getting from the Neve RND542 Tape Emulators, a pair of which I had strapped across the outboard mastering chain. But the units had to have the silk unit reset each time they were turned on- not a big deal, but what was a big deal is that there was no way to truly recall the settings flawlessly, as they were pure analog knob-controlled. What I Did Tried out the harmonics section of the Bettermaker Mastering Limiter, and matched each of them them as closely as I could to the RNDs’ Silk Red... More.

What ‘Radio-Ready’ Actually Means for Hip-Hop in 2026

“Radio-ready” used to mean you could survive FM. It meant your record could take station processing and still hit. It meant the vocal stayed pinned to the beat even after the broadcast chain squeezed everything. It meant the car test was the test. That target is not gone, but it is not the center. In 2026, the new music stations are streamers. Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube decide what gets surfaced. Their playlists are the new rotations. Their autoplay is the new DJ. That shift changes what “ready” means. The Problem With Using The Old Definition A lot of hip-hop... More.