Consecutive vs. Concurrent track listening?

[Moseph]

I'm not exactly sure how to search for this, so sorry if it's been covered before. I was doing some "meta-thinking" (i.e., thinking about how I think about things) about the Mastering process and it occurs to me that I have always lined up tracks first, and then worried about cohesion/consistency between adjacent tracks.

This is intuitive to me, because that's normally how one would listen to an album (i.e., in the order of the track listing). But it also occurs to me that there are some potential flaws in this approach.

For one, this process basically helps foster consistency between a track and it's adjacent tracks, but not necessarily the entire album. So maybe a stretch of 3 songs is relatively consistent (at least at the end points), but the next stretch of 3 might not jive that well. Note that because of overlaps, this might mean 2/3 of those blocks are the same: Tracks 1-3 work well together, and tracks 2-4 work well together, but because of discontinuities in volume/frequency content that gradually change from song-to-song, tracks 1-4 might not work as a whole as well.

There's also the assumption of a "normal" listening procedure. My standard way of thinking about this might be way off base for anybody who doesn't listen to albums-at-once, or even listens to them out of their intended order.

So an alternative to my usual work flow might be to line up all the tracks at once, and mute/solo between them to see how they all sound compared to every other track, rather than just the consecutive tracks. After that, then maybe get the time alignments figured out.

I'm just curious as to what others think of this way of looking at it, and if they've tried it before what they liked/didn't like about it. Maybe I'm over-thinking this, or maybe I'm way off-base.

 

[Washburn100]

Well, you got me to thinking - oh look shiny

 

[gecko zzed]

For the mastering process, I load up all the songs together.

I pick one to be the 'benchmark', and work on that until I'm happy.

Then I compare every other track to that benchmark track, adjusting accordingly.

 

[mixsit]

... This is intuitive to me, because that's normally how one would listen to an album (i.e., in the order of the track listing). But it also occurs to me that there are some potential flaws in this approach.

For one, this process basically helps foster consistency between a track and it's adjacent tracks, but not necessarily the entire album. ...

Even taken out of 'the album' order, mastered random out context' I think you'd still treat them to have a pretty fair amount of consistancy.
Come to think of it I can't recall not jumping around from song to song as if I've been deep into them indiviually for a while I'd want that to see if I haven't 'driffted.
In the album' context opens up and adds some points for fine tuning to that end, but I'm guessing that the album context stuff ends up more along the lines of additional 'bonus refinements than being much of a down side.
..My first five minute impression.. After bouncing it around some.

 

[Moseph]

I pick one to be the 'benchmark', and work on that until I'm happy.

Then I compare every other track to that benchmark track, adjusting accordingly.

If you're at the mastering phase, what exactly are you doing for your benchmark track? Other than making sure its peak volume isn't too far below 0dB, my "benchmarks" go almost completely untouched (I might tweak them down the road compared to other track).

In other words: how are you thinking about your benchmark out of the context of the other tracks?

Even taken out of 'the album' order, mastered random out context' I think you'd still treat them to have a pretty fair amount of consistancy.
Come to think of it I can't recall not jumping around from song to song as if I've been deep into them indiviually for a while I'd want that to see if I haven't 'driffted.

Just as an experiment, went ahead and set up a couple of playlists on things I've self-mastered over the years and set them to random. I think you're on to something here, as I've generally done "okay" in this regard. Sometimes it's obvious that the tracks are bit different, but it's normally from stuff that would be different anyway ("loud and fast" compared to "quiet and slow" type stuff). I think a big part of it is that I generally shoot for everything to be within +/- 3dB RMS of the surrounding tracks in my usual workflow.

 

[Waltz Mastering]

I'm not exactly sure how to search for this, so sorry if it's been covered before. I was doing some "meta-thinking" (i.e., thinking about how I think about things) about the Mastering process and it occurs to me that I have always lined up tracks first, and then worried about cohesion/consistency between adjacent tracks.

This is intuitive to me, because that's normally how one would listen to an album (i.e., in the order of the track listing). But it also occurs to me that there are some potential flaws in this approach.

<snip>

I'm just curious as to what others think of this way of looking at it, and if they've tried it before what they liked/didn't like about it. Maybe I'm over-thinking this, or maybe I'm way off-base.

I rarely compare the songs with in an album to each other until all the songs are processed. I'll go through the mixes before any processing, spot check them and make mental notes as I get an idea how I want the to approach things sonically.

Once the songs are processed I'll listen to them as a group ...not any any particular order and if anything sounds out of sorts touch them up, and then put the songs in order for another listen. I guess I don't want one song to influence the sound of another.. I figure if they all can stand on their own 97% percent of the time they will work together.

 

[gecko zzed]

If you're at the mastering phase, what exactly are you doing for your benchmark track?

When I am mixing a track, I rarely pay much attention to its overall level. Instead I am making sure that I am happy with quality of the mix.

That means that by the time I have a suite of songs mixed and rendered, there could be a significant differences in level between them. Importantly, there can be inconsistencies in dynamics; a song that's supposed to be quieter may be actually louder than a song that's supposed to be in your face.

So I go through and find the song that I reckon should be the loudest, then make sure it is. I apply a limiter (usually set to -0.1db), then progressively apply compression until I am happy with its level.

Having done this, I use this to determine how much to add to other songs by comparing each with this one. In particular, I listen for vocal levels and kit levels, flicking from one to the other, making adjustments until there is no discernible level change from one to the other (assuming that that is what I want).

Some judgement is required: a discernible level is sometimes important if the character of the song is different (e.g. a ballad compared to a rock track). When there needs to be a difference in, say, vocal level, then I look for something else that will provide the basis for comparison (e.g. level of piano, guitar or bass).

Once I've done this for each track, I play them in shuffle a number of times, so that I get them appearing in different orders, and listen for changes that still disturb me. Then it's a matter of going back and making further adjustments.

However, apart from top and tailing the songs (making sure the entries and exits are fine . . . I do all fades at this stage), and adjusting levels, I don't do anything else . . .I don't do any EQ adjustments, for example. That's not to say that they might not benefit from EQ adjustments, but it is pointless me doing it, because I'm listening with my ears on my system to stuff I've done . . . it would need someone else to do that.