I mastered a podcast and applied limiter and match loudness at the end and it went from sounding really good, smooth, subtle transitions, to sounding a little horrible, loud, abrupt loudness, not leveled with the rest of the podcast. For example, it made some of the music clips way louder than the VO.
The analysis said it was at -23 LUFS, then I applied it to take it to -16 LUFS. Can you give me some help on how to get it back to sounding better? If I go back to the session file before I applied the match loudness, can I increase the gain to get it closer to -16 LUFS so that when I apply the match loudness again, it won’t have so far to go and maybe it won’t make some of the clips so loud.
Or should I try to fix the wav that I applied the ML to?
Lastly, in the next few episodes, what is a better order of applying effects so that the match loudness does not alter the sound of the podcast so badly?
Thanks for any advice or help.