Ok. Hi.

[HomesickAlien]

I've poked around a bit and found it hard to find answers to the questions piled within the walls of my head.
I've been into home recording for about the past five years. Nothing fancy - just a firepod with cubase 5 and honestly I really haven't had any problems with making things sound decent. I've found that ultimately the talent that goes into the microphone obviously ends up impacting the song more than anything else and some of the shittiest quality recordings can still bear the emotional trademark of a good tune. That being said, I totally acknowledge the fact that processing can give a song the juice that is needed and over processing can take a shit on a perfectly good sandwich.

I have the privilege of having friends who are mostly professional jazz musicians that have boatloads of side projects without much funding. This is where I started, homegrown recording with basic mics, not much knowledge but confident ears.
Yes, I do have questions but being new here I thought I'd just throw in a background check...
Ok, so I recently finished helping record a tune that has the most sonic potential of anything I've ever worked with, in terms of number of tracks and the talent of musicians.
My mix sounds good through my monitors, my headphones, my computer speakers, my roommates stereo, the downstairs stereo, etc. I like to test.
All that I have done is made sure that when we recorded we got a great sound as well as ONLY eq'ing and panning tracks. The only compression I used was on the lead vocals.

If I were to send it out to get it mastered, what in gods name am I actually paying for? Oh yeah, to make it sound great. Thanks. I got that part.
Am I getting some guy with fancy equipment to slap a compressor, multi-band compressor, EQ it, add some low-cut, use a limiter and then dither on basically what would be my master bus in Cubase?
If so.. what order do these experienced individuals usually do it in.. Or is it track specific? If not, then enlighten me. It seems as though, and respectably so, that there are not too many insightful articles on mastering as the masters would like to remain uh, the masters...

Also, thanks to all the WONDERFUL amateur articles out there, I'm a bit confused on using compression before the mastering phase...
Obviously I wouldn't compress something that I wouldn't feel is necessary. But say I felt something like the vocals, or guitar should be compressed.. Some articles I've read say to never compress anything and let the master do his job, and some say to compress away.

If you're still reading this and are thinking about replying, thanks.

 

[RAMI]

Some articles I've read say to never compress anything and let the master do his job, and some say to compress away.

Hey Homesick.

I'll let some of the real Mastering Engineers answer most of your other questions. But I think I can handle the answer to what I quoted above.

When you're told not to compress anything and let the ME do his job, that's reffering to your master track. If you feel a vocal, or a guitar, etc...needs compression or EQ or anything else, then by all means do it. That's part of mixing. The ME wants a finished MIX, which might or might not include processing of individual tracks, based on how you want your finished mix to sound. Once you've done that, leave the master bus alone, so that the ME can do his job.

Hope this helps.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

If I were to send it out to get it mastered, what in gods name am I actually paying for? Oh yeah, to make it sound great. Thanks. I got that part.

Audio processing is only part of mastering. I tend to refer to the audio part of mastering as finalizing, or "mastering" with the quotes. There's all kinds of tedious technical stuff necessary for making a CD master. There's a whole other world of technical stuff necessary for vinyl. In theory there's no reason that any audio processing must be done in mastering, but it's the last chance to improve, so why not? Having an experienced and impartial ear with a different set of monitors in a different room, plus a bunch of gear you can't afford, can be critical in the final sound of the record.

Also, thanks to all the WONDERFUL amateur articles out there, I'm a bit confused on using compression before the mastering phase...
Obviously I wouldn't compress something that I wouldn't feel is necessary. But say I felt something like the vocals, or guitar should be compressed.. Some articles I've read say to never compress anything and let the master do his job, and some say to compress away.

What those articles are saying, hopefully, is not to compress or eq the whole mix at the master bus. The mastering engineer can do that better than you can unless there's some blatant audible effect you're going for (like "AM radio").

Compressing individual tracks is a whole different deal. That's an issue of relative dynamics between instruments, something that can't be effectively addressed after mixing. That's up to you, the mix engineer.

 

[Massive Master]

Am I getting some guy with fancy equipment to slap a compressor, multi-band compressor, EQ it, add some low-cut, use a limiter and then dither on basically what would be my master bus in Cubase?

Ideally, you're getting an objective and experienced ear using a top-quality monitoring chain in an acoustically accurate and consistent space (and hopefully, with the proper tools - But all that is secondary against the experience and monitoring chain).

If so.. what order do these experienced individuals usually do it in.. Or is it track specific?

Dithering would ideally be last - Otherwise, every track is basically a blank slate.

It seems as though, and respectably so, that there are not too many insightful articles on mastering as the masters would like to remain uh, the masters...

I don't really agree with that, but I think a lot of people are expecting to read "how to" articles on mastering when there really isn't a "how to" guide for it.

 

[masteringhouse]

Ok, so I recently finished helping record a tune that has the most sonic potential of anything I've ever worked with

I found it interesting that you used the term "potential". It seems to suggest that you feel that there may be something that can be improved on, but aren't quite sure what that might be.

That's where an experienced, objective, and critical pair of ears (in a good acoustically controlled room with full range monitors as mentioned above) can be very useful.

This is the main benefit of mastering. There are no step by step procedures, presets, standard processing chain, etc. that can accomplish this. Years of practice and critical listening are required and so far they haven't figured out a way of putting that in a box yet.

May your potential be realized.

Best,
Tom

 

[cobaltaudio]

There are basically a few different things that you pay for when you get a track mastered professionally.

Firstly and most importantly is an highly experienced pair of ears in a neutral environment. It is of course possible that a mix is perfect as it comes in the door, but equally it is just as possible that a fresh pair of ears pick up something that you have become accustomed to through all the passes you hear in recording and mixing etc.

Secondly is master bus processing, this usually includes some amount of compression which is easy to get wrong and is actually crucial. The track needs to be made to have a similar listening 'volume' to other recordings in the same genre. Imagine for instance you flick through your mp3 library and your track comes on and is quieter than everything else you've heard. You have to turn up your monitoring, and remember to turn it back down after the track ends.

Finally is all the encoding that goes on to include CD info track titles, ISRCs and a factory-ready master. This is worth paying for as you get a trained professional to audition the master at the last possible stage before it goes to be pressed/replicated. They will ensure there are no glitches or errors on the final master. Big plus.

 

[RAMI]

It is of course possible that a mix is perfect as it comes in the door

In theory, your mix SHOULD be perfect when it comes through the door. It's not the Mastering Engineer's job to make your MIX better.

The track needs to be made to have a similar listening 'volume' to other recordings in the same genre. Imagine for instance you flick through your mp3 library and your track comes on and is quieter than everything else you've heard. You have to turn up your monitoring, and remember to turn it back down after the track ends.

Hehe.....here we go....I can see the worms just busting out of that can right now......I'm pretty sure you're going to have at least a few people "commenting" on this statement. Have fun.

 

[masteringhouse]

Hehe.....here we go....I can see the worms just busting out of that can right now......I'm pretty sure you're going to have at least a few people "commenting" on this statement. Have fun.

Which part of the statement, levels or "mp3 library"?

 

[RAMI]

Which part of the statement, levels or "mp3 library"?

Take your pick...I'm going out to buy some pop-corn.

 

[miroslav]

Imagine for instance you flick through your mp3 library and your track comes on and is quieter than everything else you've heard. You have to turn up your monitoring, and remember to turn it back down after the track ends.

OK...but then let's imagine that the quieter track is intentionally quiet to begin with, and it slowly builds up to a loud section, then back down again to a quiet section, then back up again to a loud section, and then it finishes off with another very quiet section....
...would you feel the need to constantly adjust your volume between the quiet and loud sections so that everything sounds the same level???

Those are AuDIo dyNAmiCS.

Maybe the cool thing is to intentionally make your CD quieter than everyone else's, that way people will actually take notice...and if they are compelled to reach for the volume knob on their stereo...so be it.

AFA radio play...no need to worry about that there, because radio stations take care of levels already for you. One thing some folks don't get, is that when you over do your CD loudness...the radio station equipment will STILL adjust it to THEIR reference level. It's a lot better to let them raise the level of your CD a bit than to have to squash it down even further to meet their station's signal level limits.

 

[kcearl]

not this shit again lol

obligatory: get it up to volume or folks will skip it, no one will reach for the volume knob, you will be doomed

 

[bouldersoundguy]

AFA radio play...no need to worry about that there, because radio stations take care of levels already for you. One thing some folks don't get, is that when you over do your CD loudness...the radio station equipment will STILL adjust it to THEIR reference level. It's a lot better to let them raise the level of your CD a bit than to have to squash it down even further to meet their station's signal level limits.

Except that if it's "quieter" it probably has more dynamics, and to raise the level to the same perceived level as songs with a less dynamics the station has to crush the dynamics. Do you want the radio station applying their generic compression or do you want to do it in mastering so it can be fine tuned to the particular song? At least that's been the rationale for many years.

 

[HomesickAlien]

Thanks for all the replies...
I love the ones about the ears and good sounding room.
I get that! That's the reply I was hoping not to get...
I do have a decent set of monitors and sit in what I believe is a sweet, if not semi-sweet spot and totally understand that part of the coin.
And I have heard plenty of before mastering and after mastering tracks from my friends, who not only got professionals to master but to mix as well...
So I understand how, sonically, they are different and can sort of amateurishly guess what had been done to them.
I guess I should have been more specific, I am interested in learning more about the "professional" process...

"I found it interesting that you used the term "potential". It seems to suggest that you feel that there may be something that can be improved on, but aren't quite sure what that might be."

Thanks for stating the obvious! No offensive - but obviously that's what I was getting at. Just trying to learn how to do it on my own, everyone has to start somewhere.

 

[moresound]

OK HI ... back at cha!

 

[miroslav]

Do you want the radio station applying their generic compression or do you want to do it in mastering so it can be fine tuned to the particular song?

It's not about "want" or "not want"...radio stations (on air) always apply some form of compression/AGC control so that their signal is constant. Point being, if you "nuke" your CD, they will still compress it again....and there's nothing worse than re-compressing an over-compressed track.
However, if your track happens to be a touch quieter...their system will raise it *to the same level* as the other tracks, but since it was not "nuked" to begin with, it maintains more sonic quality than the stuff that's been double-dipped.

Check out the Bob Katz book on Mastering...he has an entire section toward the back where he describes what goes on with radio play.

It's not about intentionally mastering *quiet* CDs...rather that you don't need to go overboard to make it loud at the absolute outer limits of digital audio capability. Not to mention, most home-rec people just go and "nuke" stuff because they think it's always better that way, without realizing that the more you compress, the more you change the EQ/balance of the mix that you worked on. Heck, you would have to work with a limiter/comporessor on the stereo bus AS YOU MIX to somehow counteract that...rather than mix, and then take the stereo tracks and nuke them.

I make my stuff loud...but I don't do it by applying heavy compression mercilessly. I like to master to tape and then manually adjust only the random high peaks, over a few passes...which has little effect on the dynamics, balance and EQ, but systematically raises the overall level of the song.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

Just saying that's how people seemed to think a while back, before the internet and iPods began displacing radio. I don't "master" terribly loud, and I have no problem with a radio station compressing a little more. I do ensure fairly good mono compatibility, which I suspect helps in fringe FM reception and mp3 encoding.

 

[miroslav]

I think most of us ARE on the same page.
We certainly do want to be "competitive" when it comes to play lists, I just think some folks (mostly the recording newbs) overuse the "nuke" functions because they have a misconception about compression.
Some almost seem to think that compression is a process that just always makes things sound better...and that more compression should = more better.

Another thing I fear is that many tend to monitor way loud...so when they do "nuke" a track, they are not hearing the negative affects it has on the balance and EQ, because everything is so hyped at loud monitoring levels and your ears start to "flatten" things out.

 

[Bubba po]

I think most of us ARE on the same page.
We certainly do want to be "competitive" when it comes to play lists, I just think some folks (mostly the recording newbs) overuse the "nuke" functions because they have a misconception about compression.
Some almost seem to think that compression is a process that just always makes things sound better...and that more compression should = more better.

Another thing I fear is that many tend to monitor way loud...so when they do "nuke" a track, they are not hearing the negative affects it has on the balance and EQ, because everything is so hyped at loud monitoring levels and your ears start to "flatten" things out.

I wholeheartedly agree. Ears get tired in the same way that tastebuds and smell receptors in the nose do. Monitor too loud and for too long without a break and your ears will cease to hear frequencies that are out of balance. I think it's part of the reason that live bands seem to sound better and better as the evening wears on.

Although it's probably the beer.


P.S. How's it going with the "like" notifications?

 

[masteringhouse]

"I found it interesting that you used the term "potential". It seems to suggest that you feel that there may be something that can be improved on, but aren't quite sure what that might be."

Thanks for stating the obvious! No offensive - but obviously that's what I was getting at. Just trying to learn how to do it on my own, everyone has to start somewhere.

No offensive taken, but I think that you're missing my point. If you don't know what a mix needs in order to sound "finished" or don't know where it can go, how can you determine the processing required (or not required) to get there?

The first thing that you need is critical listening skills. You need to listen to a lot of music, know what distortion sounds like in all of it's forms (harmonic, phase, clipping, to name a few) know what a balanced mix sounds like versus one that's out-of-whack, know the best ways to achieve space in a mix, know how to control the elements of a mix so that focus is brought to the important elements versus the supporting ones, be able to identify frequencies without a spectrum analyzer, etc..

Then there's objectivity, if you've been working on a mix for too long you may not be the best person to judge what can be done with the mix to bring out it's full potential even if you have these skills.

As mentioned Bob Katz book will allow you to be better informed about the process, but this doesn't make a mastering engineer since it doesn't really address the development of critical listening skills. I would recommend the Golden Ears CDs as a good source, and there are a few books on critical listening like the Alton Everest book Amazon.com: Critical Listening Skills for Audio Professionals Book/CD (9781598630237): F. Alton Everest: Books

That and lots of practice ...

 

[HomesickAlien]

Thanks Tom,
I'll definitely check out that book.. And when I'm done with a track perhaps I'll post it so all you pro's can laugh at me and criticize it.