Mastering Is No Good ...

[Matthew Walsh]

Okay, guys, once again, I'm coming to you with a problem:

I have an iMac DV 400 mHz Special Ed. with 385 MBs of RAM. Right now, I'm only using that horrible miniplug input and output that comes with the machine. However, I don't know if that is particularly the problem. For audio/MIDI, I'm using Opcode's Vision DSP running the Acadias ASIO system through Sound Manager.

So, I'm recording tracks, making sure the levels are optimum. I Q things to get the sound I want, A-B rolling my mix with a "commercial" mix to make sure I'm not doing something I shouldn't. I even did the "shelve everything below 80 Hz that doesn't need it" trick. I even mix to an occiloscope to make sure the levels aren't more or less than they're supposed to be.

So far, we would assume, so good. The mix is well-below digital zero. Sounds pretty good in Vision. Stuff sounds like it's panned where it's supposed to be. The levels are all right. So I'm ready to master. Of course, like a commercial mix, you want to slam it to zero. I make sure my peaks and averages are comperable to a commerical mix with a limiter. Sounds good.

I mix something out from Vision to an AIFF file. I review it in QuickTime. Sounds good. Then, I burn a test CD, with the commercial track along with it, just so I can compare the two mixes. This is where everything goes wrong.

For some reason, the mix is distorted. Everything is too loud. In fact, on the Apple CD player, if you turn the volume down about halfway, it sounds right. But compared to the commercial mix, it's TOO LOUD.

To resolve this, I purchased Prosoniq's Dynasone, which makes the mixes sound even BETTER. However, they also make my stuff sound even LOUDER. I don't get it! Everything seems right until I burn a CD! What the heck am I doing wrong?!?

[Hard2Hear]

What is your monitoring system. If you're using headphones, or any PC Speaker system, your first big problem is there. IF you ARE using monitors you should burn a CD of your mixed tracks before final mixdown (you're not really mastering, you're mixing down a final copy) and see how that sounds. Normalize a stereo mix, but don't do anything else...see how that sounds first.

H2H

[elbenj]

Make sure that you have dithered down to 44.1k 16 bit audio when you burn to CD. I have found that if I take a 48k 24 bit audio and burn a CD while shooting for close to digital zero, it will actually be about 6 db hotter.

[sjoko2]

sounds like you have an incompettibility problem somewhere towards the end of your recording chain.
What happens if you dump the mix on a cassette?