Mastering Songs -6.6db LUFS & LUFS but 0.2db TP after Dither?

  • I've been mixing and mastering songs for awhile now and I've never ran into this.

    My limiter ceiling is set to -0.7db and my song is rms & lufs at -6.6db which is usually the target range I like for progressive deathcore.

    But when the Dither is engaged before I mix down it causes the song to hit 0.2db TP once in the song.

    Is there anyway to get it back to -0.7db without lowering the songs rms & lufs?

    Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks - Josh

  • Does your limiter measure inter sample peaks? And is dithering necessary? Have you played both the dithered and non dithered versions back to back?


    Dithering just adds noise to the audio to combat aliasing, but these days it’s rarely required, as the format will be converted to a lossy format in most cases anyway.

  • Have you tried rendering it again? Maybe it was a glitch, sounds odd. Unless this was a test render as mp3 instead of wav, I can't really figure how it would happen.


    Another option, rendering the master again with the peak limiter ceiling set to -0.7 and no gain reduction should remove the peak without affecting the sound.


    On a slightly unrelated note, check out ToneBoosters Barricade limiter. I like it way more than Ozone (or anything else for that matter, and I've gone through dozens).

  • Hey Sambrox, I did the non dithered version through all of my speakers and that 0.2db wasn't noticeable but on the other hand I think Nakedzen is right, I believe there's a problem with studio one rendering the song into the master project page because I did re-rendered one song and it turned out fine and ended up on -0.7db TP after dithering, must have been a glitch. My OCD is going to kill me if any of the tracks is above 0db. I'm going to re-render all of them and see how it turns out.


    Ps. I was thinking about getting Slates Master Limiter, I have Waves L316 and Ozones but now I might check out the ToneBoosters Limiter.


    Thanks - Josh