Mastering songs

[ernstinen]

Quote:Quote:Hey Matto,Since you're now the regional manager of Hertz , what is the fundamental of the Wagner Bass Drum in EWQLSO Gold?I have no idea, but that thing kick serious butt... LOL! That's for sure! I'm using it in a new symphonic piece, and I have to be VERY careful not to overdo it. I'd guess it's around 25Hz. HOW LOW CAN YOU GO!?Remember when they used to cut off all frequencies below about 60Hz because of stylus jumping? Now, with the rap stuff --- I'm not sure there IS any limit anymore. At least not in the cars in L.A. with their equalizers and subwoofers. Ern

[edteja]

Used to be stylus jump--now the car jumps. Or rattles.

[og]

I heard thumping the other day and looked in the rearview--this zipperhead's fuzzy dice were jumping! It's freakin' winter and I can't hear my radio over it. I did some stupid s**t when I was young--some suicidally so--but damn! "What do you want for your 25th birthday, Dear?" "Huh?" I'm guessin' hearing aids.

[brandont]

just to jump in here:if you are interested in mastering go to:www.digido.comthis is a site by mastering engineer bob katz - there's a lot of great FREE advice on mastering (and preparing for mastering sessions). search around.... pure gold! check out his "honor roll" (red button - top of page - far right). listen to these albums and read his articles. this guy makes total sense to me and my music sounds better than it did before. i work in audio-post - trust me - everything that gets broadcast has the living soulcompressed and limited out of it (the clients MAKE me do it). so make your stuff sound natural, not RED RED RED meter hot. here's the thing - the beatles don't have the loudest recordings in the world - but they sound amazing don't they? anywhere, they sound great - off vinyl, CD, on a TV show, in a feature film. don't compare your mixes to your friends or fellow engineers - compare yourself to the classic, great recordings. "the lunatic is on the grass" "war, children, its just a shot away, it's just a shot away""he blew his mind out in a car, he didn't notice that the lights had changed"

[hephaluemp]

Quote:I have heard a engineer say that cutting frequencies below 45hz is a good practice becausethere is not much musical stuff going on down there and by cutting those frequencies youtake out a lot of energy that can now be replaced by the more musical frequencies giving you that much more room to work with when it comes time to sum.Any thoughts on this practice? Hi Kouly,It's quite common to do so, especially in the pop-music style.That way it is possible to get the song a little louder, and also, when people press that MegaGigaExtraBass setting on their ghetto blasters, it will still sound good - and it's easy (!)That said, if you do a frequency analyzes of current music, you will find that released music in other styles, like the chillout-style from the European very popular Buddha Bar cd's, don't do this, this music do their rolloff from around 30Hz, with usually a peak around 29-31 Hz.Also, pop-music played on radio will go through the radio stations own compressors and limiters and rolloffs, like an Orban 5 band leveller, so it will be "remastered" on the radio station, which is understandable if you want to play a 20 years old song mastered to -18 RMS after a modern song mastered to -10 RMS.They probably don't play the deepest frequencies anyways, - they don't play the highest - FM goes just to about 15 kHz. So, my advice would be: If you have very decent monitoring and maybe also a frequency analyzer, roll off from about 30Hz, if you don't, or just wants to be on the safe side, roll of from about 40-45, like you mentioned. Small speakers - like small radios, will not care if there's anything below 80, you will not here the difference (almost not) on such speakers.I myself thinks it's a shame many roll off the music as high as 45-50 - because then the music will not connect to me physically in the same way, I don't feel it in the guts - and I like to feel music - although I never play loud, always under like 85dB, and most of the time way under. Remember, be nice to you ears! And in reply to the original poster, I would recommend watching your RMS levels, a -12 RMS level would probably be loud enough without squashing to music to death, and that's easily within reach for most limiters these days.Hepha Luemp

[horacejesse]

Why do the numbers on the decibal scales of my Masterlink and HD24 all begin with a minus sign, while the scale on my board has both negative and positive numbers?

[ernstinen]

Quote:Why do the numbers on the decibal scales of my Masterlink and HD24 all begin with a minus sign, while the scale on my board has both negative and positive numbers?When Ray Charles was asked how he mixed and mastered his hits, he replyed: "Man you gotta LISTEN! If you don't hear any distortion, then there is none. Use your ears, fool!"I use his advice whether it's analog or digital. Meters are a point of reference. If they're pegged in the red ALL THE TIME, you may have a problem. But I don't bother with LED meters in a Masterlink, ProTools etc. Learn how to shut off those damn peak meters! --- Why do radio studios still use VU meters!? Because they're more human. When things are slamming on VU's, be careful, but listen nevertheless. --- The answer is your ears.Ern

[andreh]

Quote:Quote:Why do the numbers on the decibal scales of my Masterlink and HD24 all begin with a minus sign, while the scale on my board has both negative and positive numbers?The answer is your ears.Ern I completely agree with Ern...it's easy to get all caught up in flashing lights and forget about how things actually sound.A quick note on levels - in the analog realm, it's still generally wise to push levels as hard as possible (without undesirable distortion occurring) to maximize signal-to-noise ratios. However, in the digital realm it's better to leave some headroom when tracking or mixing since the math used for signal processing and summing doesn't work as well near peaks, and with modern 24-bit systems noise isn't really an issue anymore.To answer your question, Horace, your digital devices only go up to "0" dB [dBfs, actually, or "decibels full-scale] because numbers are absolute...it's not possible to represent a higher signal level than "full scale," which equates to all 1's in binary. Your analog devices, however, have variable headroom and are based on a relative reference level (often determined by the user), and their markings are measuring voltage as opposed to a digital signal level. The "0" point on these devices is there for reference, but the headroom of each device varies so the maximum level cannot be standardized.Here's a link if you'd like more info about this:http://www.johnvestman.com/meter_madness.htmAndre

[horacejesse]

Thanks, gentlemen, for those replies. I read the link. Using my ears as the final judge is, in fact, what I have been doing. It is sort of a personality flaw that I also have to understand the analytical side of problems once I am aware of them, even if I have already succeeded in overcoming the mechanical aspects. My mixes are already clean with sufficient headroom--my ears tell me that--and now I am cleaning up, as it were, trying to learn the logic of decibel meters and readings.Sometimes if I add any comression at all on the masterlink during mixdown, I will notice some distortion here and there at peaks. I do not see what the reason for this could be except that I have not left enough headroom. Yet it seems obvious to the sense of sight that I have left an abundance of headroom, and nothing is distorted without the compression.

[andreh]

Quote:My mixes are already clean with sufficient headroom--my ears tell me that--and now I am cleaning up, as it were, trying to learn the logic of decibel meters and readings.If your individual tracks have lots of headroom (and you're recording digitally) then that's a good thing...but given that this is a mastering thread, it should also be mentioned that final, commercial mixes (in pop styles, anyway) actually have very little headroom. However, all that dynamic range was ideally sucked up as a final step in mastering via techniques that preserve as much of the "life" in a track as possible while still getting it close to [unfortunately] standard loudness levels. Quote:Sometimes if I add any comression at all on the masterlink during mixdown, I will notice some distortion here and there at peaks. I do not see what the reason for this could be except that I have not left enough headroom. Yet it seems obvious to the sense of sight that I have left an abundance of headroom, and nothing is distorted without the compression.Compression can cause distortion (and pumping, breathing, smearing, dullness, punchiness, vibrancy, clipping, etc.) in many ways depending how your attack/release/threshold/make-up gain, and other settings are configured vs. the material you're compressing.Can you post a before/after sample along with your compressor settings for us to listen to?Andre