Afternoon at Massive Mastering

  • Thread starter Thread starter chazba
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chazba

terminally hip
I spent yesterday afternoon with John Scrip watching and listening while he applied his magic touch to my recording project. I'm one of those guys who , a few years ago, was questioning the whole idea of having someone who you don't know and who is not familiar with your music get in there and muckabout. John's response was informative and concise without a trace of attitude. After reading everything available on the net and finishing my mixes I decided to turn over the project to John. His suite is only a couple of hours away and I would have the opportunity for a great learning experience. All I'm gonna say is that it was the best move I coulda made! I had the good sense to follow the recommendations as best I could , about levels etc. The result was gratifying and at times stunning. Thanks John for a great job. I will post some samples as soon as I figure out how to save mp3's from the server.Now if I can just figure out how to get the artwork ready for the mfr......

chazba
 
:blush:

Thanks - It was a pleasure having you here. :cool: Glad you made it back home through the traffic...
 
i'd like to hear more of what you enjoyed learning... being a first timer.

sounds like a bit of free schooling in addition to the mastering job.
 
ER....sorry John...didn't mean to embarass you. Yeah it was quite an education. Lots of "gee-wizz" factor goin' on. Only problem was that the de-crapulator control wasn't working so there was nothing he could do about my crappy singing.
Specifics?....the application of subtractive EQ to the tracks, surgically applied to areas where the upper harmonics of two (or more) tracks were mixing to produce some really harsh overtones. This is a very subtle process and I honestly wouldn't have noticed them but the tracks sound WAY better . I still have to do some research on " Mid-side " treatment. I'm not sure what it means, but the stereo imaging opened up and the spatial definition between instruments and between background voices panned in an array popped right out there.
To sum up....I'm a happy customer and convinced that it is way worth it to have any project that you are serious about professionally mastered.


chazba
 
interesting,

terminology's I've never heard either.

it sounds like an entirely separate process than the Tracking and Mixing.

thats the messed up thing, or too much work in that doing a HR project you wind up trying to do everything with average equipment, and average knowledge and the product winds up average.

my brother was just not technically inclined, yet he's very musically inclined. but listening to him for weeks going into, Engineering issues.....its frkn exhausting.

Its like trying to teach a cow to swim? or a fish to fly....

I can comprehend enough technical jargon to understand a guitar luthier, but the skill ain't there.

so what I'm really saying is I need to get off my ass and go do something because I've been sitting on the internet for hours...damn:p

but seriously,

look forward to a pre and post, or a snippet of what the hell...mid side treatment means?:confused:
 
The neat thing to me about the mastering process is, the better the engineer explains what and why he is doing, the MORE I realize this is something I'd never want to do myself but always to take it to a mastering lab.

Conversely in the studio, most knuckleheads think "hey, hyuk, I can do this!"
 
or a snippet of what the hell...mid side treatment means?
Click to expand...
Instead of the "left & right" think of it as the "mono (mid) & the stereo (side)" information.
 
OK..now I'm curious...and dredging for a free lesson:

How does Master John discern the parts that interfere with each other?

I imagine it might be a matter of soloing pairs of tracks...listening to the combination, and detecting wave interference among close frequencies in the fundamentals or harmonics?? Can the Master detect those blemishes in a mix of 20 or 30 tracks, without soloing pairs? Seeking guidance on ear training...and what I should expect of myself. TX.
I haven't tried it yet......gonna do that this afternoon, though, on the project du jur.
 
jeffmaher said:
Can the Master detect those blemishes in a mix of 20 or 30 tracks, without soloing pairs?
Click to expand...
While I have no question that John has the ears and the experience to mix 30 tracks (and, sure, there'd probably be a lot of track comparison during mixing), that is not typically the job of the mastering engineer. At most, the ME may get a few stems or submixes to merge, but usually they work on the 2mix only.

As far as working with and listening for what he does receive, I'll leave that to him (with my own ears open too :) ).

G.
 
Oh yeah! Stereo mixdowns..duh.....which means John's detecting the goobers in all the stuff at once, and fixing with ...uh...very narrow, targeted freq bands to de-emphasize the badness. That's impressive. Not only hearing them...but knowing the freq to zoom on. Harmonics are not easy to nail. Especially digital, where they're all maj7ths and wierd intervals...not easy fifths like analog. I reckon you'd need good pitch and muso-mathematical references to assign values to the freqs, too?

Sorry for the previous dumb question.
 
I don't see how it being digital has any effect on the intervals/harmonics? :confused:
 
Never mind....I'm done axin' dumb questions. Sorry. I just don't have a grasp of fundamental digital electronics. You guys are talking apples and oranges......I talk about something that ain't likey fruit at all.

Maintaining radio silence. :^)
 
Aha. [duh]

I didn't take into account that someoone who knows what they're doing can sweep a notch across the bands of a para EQ while listening in real time. I'd seen it done, but I can't figure out how to set it up, yet, for myself. Brain fart. Just forgot about that cabability.
 
I've been trying to do the sweep/cut thing on my Yamaha aw2816 but the eq is not capable of being fine tuned to the degree necessary to be effective. The sounds John was filtering out were upper partials from my crappy singing mixing with some aux percussion like shakers and producing some sounds that were NOT MUSIC. I used a dbx286 mic pre which can exagerate the higher harmonics if a guy isn't careful. Other weirdness included some lo-mid woofieness from acoustic guitar and hi bass getting together. One more example of something to be caught in the tracking phase. I'm now at the "fix it in the the shrink-wrap" phase. I will have to live with the CD for the rest of my life and frankly it makes me kinda nervous. One thing I have found to be true....People that love you will love your CD regardless of pitchyness or shoddy playing so you can't rely on their opinions as a guide. The other side of that coin is that people who don't like you , for whatever reason, will NOT like your CD. "Whatever reason" includes envy and just plain bitchiness. They will nit pick the livin' shit outa your music and if you don't learn to ignore them, you better get outa the music biz.

chazba
 
jeffmaher said:
Especially digital, where they're all maj7ths and wierd intervals...not easy fifths like analog.
Click to expand...
That only comes in to play when you are distorting a digital signal vs. distorting an analog one.

The harmonics present in the music stay the same no matter what medium you use.
 
Any chance you could post some before and after clips please?

Eck
 
Farview said:
That only comes in to play when you are distorting a digital signal vs. distorting an analog one.
Click to expand...
That's a new concept to me, Jay. You got any more detail on that?

G.
 
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