Compression and vocals

  • Thread starter Thread starter morindae
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Re: No need for Mastering?

glynb said:
This is interesting. Its the first time someone has advised AGAINST sending your stuff off for Mastering. Most of the experienced people on here have said even if you are only doing home recording if you plan to release it on a CD or whatever you should send it to be Mastered.

I hope Boardman is right, cos it would save a shed load of money not to bother with mastering. I have just got hold of Soundforge v6 with the Wavehammer plug in and am hoping that once I've learned to use it it iwill be able to do 'mastering' at home too.
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It's a toss up. I agree with Boardman in the sense that if you're doing home-recording, sending something out to be mastered is kind of a waste of money unless you plan on getting 1000 or more dups, shrink-wrapped, printed j-card, and silk-screening the CD. If you're going that far then it's probably best to have someone master it for you, unless you are absolutely sure of your mastering skillz (as the kids say).

Mastering is a totally different animal than tracking, requires a different type of listening, skill-set, and knowledge base. I'm mixing down and mastering a band now I recorded over the last few weekends and this is definately the more difficult phase versus the tracking phase.
 
RE: Mastering

I think you got it. That is why I said HOME RECORDING. If your going for sales of a CD like 1000 copies and your not sure about your own mastering skills, then yes it is worth sending it out. On the other hand, as I said before and as toorglick said, it is a different beast. Most pro enigineenrs do not master their own work, but they do know the enigineer at the house they are going to use. If your a novice engineer, your at the mersey of the house enigineer you send your stuff to. You must ask for a test press and listen to what they have done to your song. Again, as I said earlier, what they think sounds good may not be what you want. Then you have to call them and tell them what you don't like about their mix and then listen to them tell you why you should do it there way. Remember, your paying them to give you what you want. If you trust their work, then so be it. When your on a budget though, you have do get by with what you can afford. I have been in this business for 30 years and have owned 3 studios. I have used mastering houses and for the most part, got a good product. But since digital equipment has come out, I do my own. I know what I want and how to get it. Then when it comes time to order dups the cost is considerabliy less. If a mastering house is only going to charge you 100 to 200 bucks as I have seen advertisied in many mags, I would be careful. More than likely, all their going to do is a quick overall eq, normalize, and some compression. That's it. You can do that at home. As for the master disk. Unless your going to have 1000's of copies made, a good quality HHB or something on that order will do fine for your two track master disk. Anything else is a waste of money.
 
Dumb question coming up...

Er...I followed everything you said until 'HHB' - whats that?


My guess is a top quality CDR, but need to be sure!



As for the mastering thing, I think I'll go with my own ears, if the music sounds good enough to me then I won't send it for mastering. My intention BTW is to get 500 copies done for give-away demo album purposes, with pro printing, etc., as professional product as I can produce on an amateur budget... but also to sell if I should be so lucky!.
 
Correct, HHB is a qaulity mastering CD. There are many other brands out there. That's just the one I use.

As for the mastering. In real simple terms, all mastering is, is to set the overall eq of your two track mix, add overall compression, normalize, and burn your master CD, the one your going to use to make copies. As I said these are very simple terms. There are a lot of other things a real mastering house does and equipment they use. If you have mastering tools in your software, try it. You should have stock ones and then you should be able to edit them to your own taste. Try it, play with it, love it. It makes the overall sound really stand out. Good luck.

Boardman
 
This turned out to be a very educational thread.
I was wondering if you could explain what normalize is and how this relates to mastering, and why it has to be done.
 
When mastering, normalizing brings the volume level of the track up (or down, but usually up) to a specific level. All tracks would be normalized to the same level so the listener doesn't have to adjust his volume for each song on the CD, rather all levels are at a "normal" level.

It kind of evens out the wave file as well, so you have to be careful with it because it can affect the dynamics of a track. A normalizer algorithm can go through a track an make the soft spots louder. People talk about "normalizing" a guitar track because "it makes it louder" but that's not really a good way to do it. You're better off drawing volume curves and compressing.
 
toorglick, after I mix down to two tracks I usually compress (the final mix) at about a 2:1 ratio and then hard limit to get the tracks to sound as loud as a professional recording. Is this a form of normalizing?
It seems to work. However, as you can guess, some of the dynamics are a little squashed.
 
Actually, normalizing is not part of the mastering process at all (except in the marketing hype of certain s/w)....

I suggest you pick up a copy of Bob Katz' book - Mastering Audio: The Art and The Science - if you want the REAL ins and outs of what is involved in professional mastering.
 
morindae said:
toorglick, after I mix down to two tracks I usually compress (the final mix) at about a 2:1 ratio and then hard limit to get the tracks to sound as loud as a professional recording. Is this a form of normalizing?
It seems to work. However, as you can guess, some of the dynamics are a little squashed.
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No it isn't. Blue Bear is right, it's really just a software trick for making the levels more even. I personally don't use it, although some people like to. It works on a different principle than compression. I think that you really have to play with ratios and plug-ins. I like to master with Waves plug-ins, but I'm no pro. I think, though, it's safe to say that your ears will tell you when you're on the right track (hey, that's a pun!). It takes a lot of playing around to get it to sound "pro," and then you're still going to wind up experimenting.
 
morindae said:
Is this a form of normalizing?
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All that Normalization is, is scanning of the audio file to find the loudest peak in the wave form, work out the difference between that and the level that you want to normalize to. The volume of the track is then raised by the difference... no compression or limiting at all!

Porter
 
...But if you want things the same loundness, you center their average volumes. Normalizing doesn't do that.
Normalizing is like setting your meter to peak hold and then adjusting up to the gap, but faster.
Like a batch processor for your album.
:) :p :)
 
Zuke, I read your articles on compression. You did a nice job.
 
Not normalizing then...?

OK so I have my 12 tracks ready, all mixed, I'm happy with them, so now i want to make my master CD ready to send off for duplication. I want to make them all have a similar sound and volume but can't afford pro mastering.

Apparently Normalizing is not the answer.

What are the basic processes to put the songs through to arrive at the result that they all have a similar volume level ? I know its complicated, but if someone could just give the basic steps in layman's terms.
 
Re: Not normalizing then...?

glynb said:
OK so I have my 12 tracks ready, all mixed, I'm happy with them, so now i want to make my master CD ready to send off for duplication. I want to make them all have a similar sound and volume but can't afford pro mastering.
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Can you afford the price of a book?

Seriously - pick up the one I recommended - it explains a lot in great detail and you can use at least some of the techniques and apply them to your own situation.

At this stage of your project, do you really wanna fuck it up by going at this completely blind???

And while you can get *some* good input here, it simply won't be detailed enough (since it would take a book of writing to cover!)
 
I can afford a book...

But I wonder what the book recomends? I guess I'll have to see.

What I'm getting at is the book may only cost $30 or so, but if it says in order to master properly you must use a piece of kit that costs $1000 and explains how to use that kit, then its not really helping!

If on the other hand it explains how to use relatively cheap pieces of software or hardware tools in order to 'master' then its worth a shot.

Then again, as every piece of hardware/software affects the sound in a slightly different way I don't see how it could be too specific!

Thanks for the advice anyway.
 
Re: Not normalizing then...?

glynb said:
OK so I have my 12 tracks ready, all mixed, I'm happy with them, so now i want to make my master CD ready to send off for duplication. I want to make them all have a similar sound and volume but can't afford pro mastering.

Apparently Normalizing is not the answer.

What are the basic processes to put the songs through to arrive at the result that they all have a similar volume level ? I know its complicated, but if someone could just give the basic steps in layman's terms.
Click to expand...

What software are you using? Please list your multi-track, wave editing, and plug-in software. That would help.

Essentially, if you like the sound, the ideal way to get the levels where you want them is to line up the tracks one after the other and adjust their levels so they sound even. Obviously you want them as hot as you can get them without distortion, so you may want to use a little limiting as well.
 
Re: I can afford a book...

glynb said:
But I wonder what the book recomends? I guess I'll have to see.

What I'm getting at is the book may only cost $30 or so, but if it says in order to master properly you must use a piece of kit that costs $1000 and explains how to use that kit, then its not really helping!

If on the other hand it explains how to use relatively cheap pieces of software or hardware tools in order to 'master' then its worth a shot.

Then again, as every piece of hardware/software affects the sound in a slightly different way I don't see how it could be too specific!

Thanks for the advice anyway.
Click to expand...
It describes the process of mastering, in great detail.... certainly there are things you won't be able to accomplish without a mastering facility at your disposal, but you could at least adopt *some* of the practices to your own situation.

At least you won't be "guessing" and you'll get a sense of what is and isn't possible for DIY mastering.
 
I just completed my own CD, and I searched quite a while for a place to master it. I sent out several CD's with the same .wav file to different places, and the results varied dramatically!!!
I finally went with a studio that happened to be about 2 miles from my house. The guy was fantastic. He does a lot of the mastering for labels like SubPop and Tooth and Nail. Because he was local, I got to actually sit in on the session. I got to watch the entire process from beginning to end. He charged me a $500 flat rate, and my CD ended up sounding far better than I could ever have done myself.
But more than that, the guy basically gave me a four hour class on mastering that was worth the $500 bucks alone! I understand mastering better now than I ever did before. I use Ozone to "master" my own day-to-day stuff, and even my own "masters" sound better now as a result of the things he showed me.
I am only haveing 500 copies of my CD made, but I want them to be the best they can be. Having my CD pro-mastered was worth every cent to me.

Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com
 
...I sent out several CD's with the same .wav file to different places, and the results varied dramatically!!!....

...Because he was local, I got to actually sit in on the session. I got to watch the entire process from beginning to end. He charged me a $500 flat rate, and my CD ended up sounding far better than I could ever have done myself.
But more than that, the guy basically gave me a four hour class on mastering that was worth the $500 bucks alone! I understand mastering better now than I ever did before. I use Ozone to "master" my own day-to-day stuff, and even my own "masters" sound better now as a result of the things he showed me.http://www.voodoovibe.com [/B]
Click to expand...

Right on, right on, right on!
:D
 
I'll tell you what I've got...

"What software are you using? Please list your multi-track, wave editing, and plug-in software. That would help.

Essentially, if you like the sound, the ideal way to get the levels where you want them is to line up the tracks one after the other and adjust their levels so they sound even. Obviously you want them as hot as you can get them without distortion, so you may want to use a little limiting as well."

I'm using a Fostex vf160 16 track multitracker. I have a PC with Soundforge v6.0 including wavehammer plugin. The soundcard is real basic, but doesn't matter too much as i don't use the PC for recording, though I guess it will affect the way the soundplays back through the speakers for edting/mastering purposes.


Hey, Aaron Cheney...producing a pro sounding CD at 500 copies is EXACTLY what I plan to do. It is a lifetime's ambition, which I finaly hope to achieve. When people hold my CD in their hands I want them not to be able to tell it is an amateur production!

So you feel pro mastering was DEFINITELY worth the money then obviously. OK, I guess I'll have to start saving up some more!

Without being disrespectful though, maybe some music is more capable of being improved at the mastering stage than others? Like if the music is 95% right after the final mix, then mastering can add 5% to the final product, whereas someoine who is not as capable at home recording may produce a 60% product which Mastering can double in quality by 40% - hope I'm making myself clear! ie Mastering is only as good as the final mix the engineer is presented with to work on?

So most mastering studios will do a freebie on one song then so you can hear their work? Sounds like a good idea, then as you say you can compare and contrast the results first.

Thanks for all the advice people.
 
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