A.a.m.s. ??

[Jouni]

Auto Audio Mastering System.


It's a proggie I've been humiliri...hulimi..humiliarisi.. getting to know lately.

It's supposed to take your sourcefile (wav) and a reference, from its own library, or you can make your own, and automatically EQ, multiband compress, adjust loudness and whatnot, so that the source get mastered close as possible to the reference.

Anyone got any previous experience???...


...Or are these ALL to be dubbed as useless toys, devils work!!!

Dudes of the old testament; "It's for trained pros ONLY"??

I've dabbled with it somewhat.. slow with my 700Mhz...
But it seems to make some difference... to better?...a question of taste perhaps....

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Oh good, just what the world needs, yet another Har Bal and yet another thread on the wrong way to mix and master.

A whole bunch of folks just got through talking about the fallacies of the idea of "curve stealing" and the inappropriateness of trying to get a mix sound in mastering instead of in mixing in this thread here.

G.

 

[Jouni]

I'm sorry. I missed that thread. Obviously.

So, the answer, straight off, without any further investigation is this:

...Or are these ALL to be dubbed as useless toys, devils work!!!

Dudes of the old testament; "It's for trained pros ONLY"??

...And here I thought you could break the fine ART of eq, compression and loudness DIFFERENCES into mathematics...
...aaawwwhhhhgod, Im a heretic!

 

[zed32]

mastering has no place in home recording!

in fact, recording has no place in the home!

fuck it!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

...And here I thought you could break the fine ART of eq, compression and loudness DIFFERENCES into mathematics...

There's more to it than just that, though that is a big part of the fallacy.

Right out of the gate, such software is "wrong" (for lack of a better word) by advancing the idea that mastering is about fixing the mix.

There's nothing wrong with mastering at home when the goal or the budget call for it. But processes like what this kind of software are designed to perform are not the kind of processes that mastering is supposed to accomplish, whether it's mastering at home or in a pro suite.

Mastering is supposed to be about prepping for publishing, not about fixing the mix.

If one gets the sound wrong in mixing, then the mix is wrong and one needs to re-mix it. Try and "fix the mix in the shrinkwrapping stage", and not only will it never sound as good as if one mixes it right to begin with, but one will never learn how to mix properly for the next time and the time after that.

G.

 

[zed32]

There's more to it than just that, though that is a big part of the fallacy.

Right out of the gate, such software is "wrong" (for lack of a better word) by advancing the idea that mastering is about fixing the mix.

There's nothing wrong with mastering at home when the goal or the budget call for it. But processes like what this kind of software are designed to perform are not the kind of processes that mastering is supposed to accomplish, whether it's mastering at home or in a pro suite.

Mastering is supposed to be about prepping for publishing, not about fixing the mix.

If one gets the sound wrong in mixing, then the mix is wrong and one needs to re-mix it. Try and "fix the mix in the shrinkwrapping stage", and not only will it never sound as good as if one mixes it right to begin with, but one will never learn how to mix properly for the next time and the time after that.

G.

very good points!

sometimes i even catch myself "mixing for the master". where i'll mix a song a certain way so that when i smash it it sounds better (mostly for the drums). but then i need to slap myself, go back and mix it right, and then don't smash it so much in mastering.

 

[Jouni]

This is starting to sound like a rant...
But at least my budget demands home recording, mixing and mastering.

I can play, somewhat record, do a little mixing, I haven't got a clue on mastering!!..

Now, if I was to do a demo, played recorded and mixed the best I can, sounds right, but needs some final boosting, which can't be done without some further eq and multiband compression, which I have no clue of..
..But this piece of software can throw in easily.

Are you really saying I shouldn't try it out!?.. or ask if anyone else has!??..

without getting this:

Oh good, just what the world needs, yet another Har Bal and yet another thread on the wrong way to mix and master.

Most condescending rolleyes ever!..congratulations!

Am I supposed to give up rehearsing, working and playing and start cramming for a degree on audio engineering before I can throw out a demotape??..

Surprisingly little about mastering in "home"recording forums anyways..
Then again if it's home"recording" we should stop at recording?...

 

[NYMorningstar]

This is starting to sound like a rant...
But at least my budget demands home recording, mixing and mastering.

I can play, somewhat record, do a little mixing, I haven't got a clue on mastering!!..

Now, if I was to do a demo, played recorded and mixed the best I can, sounds right, but needs some final boosting, which can't be done without some further eq and multiband compression, which I have no clue of..
..But this piece of software can throw in easily.

Are you really saying I shouldn't try it out!?.. or ask if anyone else has!??..

without getting this:



Most condescending rolleyes ever!..congratulations!

Am I supposed to give up rehearsing, working and playing and start cramming for a degree on audio engineering before I can throw out a demotape??..

Surprisingly little about mastering in "home"recording forums anyways..
Then again if it's home"recording" we should stop at recording?...

There is loads about mastering in home forums! The problem is you wouldn't know it if it hit you in the face.

There is no one piece of equipment or software that is going to turn your music out like you want it everytime. There is no replacing your ears, your know how and your individuals tastes. Sure you can go ahead and use a calculator instead of learning to add, use a music machine instead of learning how to play music or you can use an Auto Audio Mastering System instead of learning how to master. We can always build a better robot aye?

If you do the all that though, you need to remember that instead of your music being an expression of what your know and how you feel, it is more likely an accident of you stumbling onto a creation of someone elses. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

I'd say yes, if you want to aspire in this business then learn it, yes go to school. Otherwise, sit back press buttons and let the robots do it for you and add to the mountain of garbage you can find at myspace.com.

 

[LogicDeLuxe]

You got my attention. And I gave AAMS a try. Sure, it had to be something challenging. I feed it with a piece, which was simply cut with a stereo mic in front of the band (which had no mixer available) playing, recorded with an MD recorder. I guess, you can imagine the sound of it.
I did a master on it myself a few days ago. Now I feed my already mastered version (which is necessary as I also applied panning, band dynamics and mid-side-EQ'ing, which I doubt that AAMS can handle all this) prior peak limiting and dithering to be comparable at all. So I actually only tested the auto eq'ing.

Green is my master, red is what AAMS made from this using the Blues-Profile.
Most notably <100 Hz is boosted while the rest got reduced. Boosting even lower than about 70 Hz is usually a waste of power and can even reduce quality on weaker systems. Bad idea.
Around 120 Hz I did cut a bit on purpose, because of nasty room resonances. AASM boosted that up again. Bad idea.
Merely a notable hill around 7000 Hz is a matter of taste. AASM softened the cymbals there and also reduces voice clarity a bit (if you can call it that under those ugly regording conditions).
Overall, I hardly would call it an improvement. Also for that particular tool, I have to add, that it refuses most of my wav files (all the same float format) with several kind of error messages. The one it took (which I just tested above), even was not processed past eq'ing, and the programm crashed (which probably just saved me from seeing, how much damage can be done with bad compression, I guess.)

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Now, if I was to do a demo, played recorded and mixed the best I can, sounds right, but needs some final boosting, which can't be done without some further eq and multiband compression, which I have no clue of..

That's just it, if you actually listened to the seasoned pros on these forums and got a clue, you'd know that the statement that "final boosting can't be done without EQ and MBC" is just plain wrong. MBCs didn't even exist until the late '90s, and long before that the only EQ that MEs would add to a mix were RIAA EQ curves required to form fit the music to the constraints of vinyl. Yet the masters sounded just fine.

Are you really saying I shouldn't try it out

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.
You also should steer clear of Twinkies and MDMA. Do you really need to experience those yourself to know that the advice is good?

Am I supposed to give up rehearsing, working and playing and start cramming for a degree on audio engineering before I can throw out a demotape??..

No, of course not. Just advising you that if you want your demo tape to be worthy then you either got do the job the right way yourself or get someone to do it for you. You don't have to be a master engineer (or a masteriing engineer). Just learn proper procedure and mix your stuff first. Mix it right and you won't have to mess around with mastering, and it'll sound a whole lot better than the crap that's churned out by curve stealers.

Surprisingly little about mastering in "home"recording forums anyways.

Not when you finally understand that mastering is not what you think it is.

Then again if it's home"recording" we should stop at recording?

If you're making a demo tape or disc to get yourself some business, it's no longer just "home recording", is it? You're just another one of those taking the untenable position of wanting to say "it's only home recording" and then in the next breath wanting to know how to get their stuff sounding as good as the pros...in other words, how to make a pro recording. YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. You can't expect to cut corners on your production process, claiming "it's only home recording after all" and "I don't have time to bother learning how to actually produce a demo tape" and then ask how to get a result that sounds better than that description. Software won't do it for you. Things just don't work that way. This isn't Bit Torrent where you can just get what you want for nothing without working for it.

What you get out of your demo recordings will equal what you put into them. If you simply can't take the time to learn some basics, that's perfectly understandable. But it's unreasonable to expect that there's a magic wand out there that will substutite for such effort. If you want a demo that sounds like it was done by someone who doesn't have the time to learn how to make a good demo, you're on the right track. If you want a demo that sounds like it was done right by someone who cares about such things, then eather learn the right way yourself, or pay someone else to do it right for you. But a $40 piece of shareware written by someone else who is not an audio engineer and also is looking for a magic shortcut that doesn't exist just ain't gonna cut it.

G.

 

[Jouni]

You got my attention. And I gave AAMS a try. Sure, it had to be something challenging. I feed it with a piece, which was simply cut with a stereo mic in front of the band (which had no mixer available) playing, recorded with an MD recorder. I guess, you can imagine the sound of it.
I did a master on it myself a few days ago. Now I feed my already mastered version (which is necessary as I also applied panning, band dynamics and mid-side-EQ'ing, which I doubt that AAMS can handle all this) prior peak limiting and dithering to be comparable at all. So I actually only tested the auto eq'ing.

Green is my master, red is what AAMS made from this using the Blues-Profile.
Most notably <100 Hz is boosted while the rest got reduced. Boosting even lower than about 70 Hz is usually a waste of power and can even reduce quality on weaker systems. Bad idea.
Around 120 Hz I did cut a bit on purpose, because of nasty room resonances. AASM boosted that up again. Bad idea.
Merely a notable hill around 7000 Hz is a matter of taste. AASM softened the cymbals there and also reduces voice clarity a bit (if you can call it that under those ugly regording conditions).
Overall, I hardly would call it an improvement. Also for that particular tool, I have to add, that it refuses most of my wav files (all the same float format) with several kind of error messages. The one it took (which I just tested above), even was not processed past eq'ing, and the programm crashed (which probably just saved me from seeing, how much damage can be done with bad compression, I guess.)

Now THIS is things the Neanderthal-me can grasp!... examples.

OK, the curves are quite similar, to untrained eye.. under 70hz is boosted more than yours a bit?..

Now, ofcourse a program cannot separate room resonances from music, so it has boosted 120hz back thinking it is part of the music?..right?
You're demanding.

Yes tha matter of taste... Before writing here I did a mix of my own and ran it through aams:

My mix:

Aams version:

Things it did:
http://serif.pp.fi/jaa/X2-slovari-paras_Master.doc

(Originally didn't wanna post these because the band and vocalist suck)

Used preset rock,metal-hard.

The difference is audible at distorted-guitar parts... but aams isn't much louder, and to my taste there's too much things going on in the middle, mine is clearer, though quieter...
I liked the aams guitarsound better, but it drowns the poor vocalist allready struggling...


I DO KNOW THIS IS NO MAGICK WAND.
What the fuck can you expect from a program???? I know it's just an automated tweaker. I'm not a TOTAL idiot...

Just as it can't separate room resonance from music, it cant separate singing from guitartone...

I'm at this point using Goldwave for mixing, ready for something a tad more capable/complicated I was wondering would this be useful.. since past the automated "mastering" and "suggestions" it does let you do the whole thing yourself!!
Which, eventually, I would to my taste.
But the suggestions would surely speed up the learning curve?..
If they work, they give a clue what can be done without clipping etc...?

Got derailed by some answers there, sorry.
Luckily LogicDeLuxe was right on the nail there.

This wasn't about the shortcuts of learning, but the capabilities of a program.