finalizer or something???

[S8-N]

The last studio I was in had a piece of gear called a finalizer or something to that effect. Im not sure exactly what it did but it supposedly transformed your final mix into a format that was "FM ready". If i remember correctly it basically was a smart EQ that made sure you didnt have too much high or low end, and it boosted your highs or lows if they were lacking. I recently recorded a song that sounded good to my ears. I decided to check the mix by comparing it to a CD that I thought had a good sound (The first Korn disk). I loaded my song into Winamp and a song off of the reference CD into Winamp and compared the two. I went back and remastered and remastered untill I thought I had my song sounding pretty close to the reference CD. Then I burned a disk and played it in my stereo and my song is totaly dry. No mids whatsoever. Its also noisey as hell with some weird compression thing going on(artifacts?). I dont have decent studio monitors so I guess thats part of the problem. The same thing used to happen to me in high dollar studios. The mix sounds great through the monitors but sounds whack on your car stereo or jambox.
Is there some digital tool that will analyze frequencies and tell you exactly whats going on with your recording without having to trust your ears? Say you have an album with a good punchy kick drum sound that you like...how you could isolate the frequencies that it was pushing and get that same eq setting for your kick? Am I making any sense?

 

[paul pos]

The piece of gear you are referring to is a T.C. Electronics Finalizer which features among other things multi-band compression. Unlike a conventional compressor which affects the highs/mids/lows equally, a multi-band compressor can be set to compress each frequency range individually. Thus is can bring out the part of your mix that is lacking. The net result is supposed to be a 'punchier' mix and the unit can go a long way toward making a mediocre recording sound better. If the recording is mixed properly with quality equipment, then there shouldn't much need for the finalizer. The 'FM ready' sound is a result of normalization feature of the Finalizer. Basically, normalization is the process of expanding the dynamics of the recording to fit the entire dynamic range of the recording medium. In other words, it greatly reduces the headroom on your DAT/CD and gives it that heavily compressed sound that all FM broadcasts have. I guess the radio industry is concerned that you might miss a quiet part of the song while riding in your car. How thoughtful. Personally, I believe normalization can suck the life out of your mix and should be used very sparingly if at all.

As far as your monitoring problems several things can be going on there. The monitoring environment is critical to how you hear the music because early reflections from the back and side walls can color the sound as can bass trapping from the back wall and corners. Professional studios spend alot of time and money designing control rooms that are sonically accurate. Thats not to say you can't achieve good results at home, but it will take more of an effort on your part to learn how the room is affecting your sound. Some inexpensive solutions include moving the speakers away from the wall, especially the corners, and placing foam on the walls behing the speakers to reduce the reflections. Try to monitor close to the speakers (about 3 feet is ideal) and at lower volumes (60-75db). This should reduce the effect of the room on your mix.

The 'high dollar' studios usually mix on at least 3 sets of speakers to get an overall idea of the sound. One set of pricey in-wall speakers, a small, inexpensive monitor (ie Yamaha NS-10) and a pair a garbage speakers like in a boom box or Ford Pinto. Only then can you get an idea how the mix will sound when released to the public.

Yes, the are real-time analyzers that will tell you what the frequency spectrum is doing, but these are used mainly for detecting problems in a room's acoustics. There is no substitute for using your ears.

As far as getting a punchy kick drum, there's no magic solution. Using the right mic with correct placement, appropriate EQ and possibly a gate or compressor, you will achieve the results you want. It's no secret what the right steps are. Just find a decent book on recording and the answers on how to record instruments properly will be there.

Happy recording!

 

[rj]

There is a program called 'freefilter' that runs in cubase (actually i run it in wavelab) the will analyze the korn cd's eq and then apply it to your mix. This program is awesome and can really steal eq off of professinally mastered records and apply it to yours. Free Filter. It rocks.

 

[S8-N]

That sounds like exactly what I need... Will it run in Cool Edit Pro? Who makes it?