Mastering ground rules.

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sonusman

sonusman

Banned
So after some discussion with someone on mastering the HomeRecording.com compilation CD I am now going to set some ground rules for what I will and will not do in the mastering process as well as how material needs to be submitted to me.

1- All submissions need to be submitted on CD, CD-R, CD-RW, Zip disks, or DAT tape. Any bit size and sampling rate is acceptable (16-24 bits, 44.1-96khz sampling rate). If submitting on Zip or CD, the files must be either CDDA, .WAV, or .RAW files. NO OTHER FILE TYPES WILL BE ACCEPTABLE!!!

2- All submissions need to have a .txt file containing the submitters name, e-mail address, song title, and song length.

3- I WILL evaluate all submissions upon recieving them. If a submission sounds like it may need some help as far as mastering, remixing, etc...I will send an email to the submitter stating so. You have the option at that point to tell me to buzz off, it sounds fine, or pursue other options for mastering/mixing.

4- I WILL NOT do anything to a submission as far as normalizing, level optimization, eq, cut/paste, or any of that other mastering stuff. If you are after any of the above refer to the next issue.

5- I WILL offer to master your song to optimize levels, normalize with other submissions, eq, and/or cut paste edit IF the submitter request's it, and is willing to pay for such services. I am going to offer mastering services for this compilation for a fee of $20 an hour, 1/2 hour min. You can either specify to "go to town" on it, or work within a budget, in which case we can discuss what the mastering priority should be. If you have ever checked out mastering suites, you will know that $20 an hour is very cheap. I will have a new web page on my site soon that lists what is available for mastering at Echo Star Studio, as well as what is possible for either analog and/or digital mastering techniques. I will also have some 1 min demo before and after downloads available as mp3's encoded at 320kbs to show what is possible in mastering with me. These will be big downloads, but no other conversions come close enough to 16 bit/44.1khz to show just how good the mastered product is.

6- If you want your submission back on the medium it was submitted on, you must supply a self addressed, postage pre-paid shipping container for return. I will not pay for any postage and/or packaging materials to return materials to a submitter.

7- Once a completion date is set for this project, I will set a date for the latest you can change your submission, and/or have me do any mastering services for you. This date will be at least 1 week before I need to produce a CD-R Master, and will probably be about 2 weeks.

Ed Rei
Echo Star Studio www.echostarstudio.com
 
Sorry, it's the village idiot here. So... we send you tracks, you tell us (for free) if they need to be worked on. I thought you offered just to do the mastering, are you also burning the 'master disc' or whatever it's called? I'm really not sure whom to send my final mix to.
 
Ok folks. Things should still work pretty much the same.

I'm hoping that Ed is still planning on creating the master disk.

If you don't want to pay Ed a minimum of 10 bucks, then make sure to at the very least normalize your track...or get it as loud as you can. The most annoying thing will be to have various tracks at very different levels...I don't want to keep my hand on the volume knob. Of course some tracks will still be hotter than others, but as long as nobody submits an overly quiet song, it should be at least "ok".

Here's the plan. Don't start sending CD's to Ed. That'll be a pain in the ass for everyone involved....especially Ed.

I will get in touch with the right people and let you know exactly what to do when the time is right. I WILL contact every single person at that time...you will not be forgotten. The only thing I have to offer to this project, besides music, is at least a little bit of organization.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Mastering entails many CAN different things.

Editing, volume optimization, re-equalization, etc.....But mostly, it is preparing a disk for mass duplication. Start and End times, proper order, space between songs. Doing those is absolutely no problem. Spending a butt load of time of the other things is an entirely different thing all together.

Most duplication houses offer "Mastering" as part of their duplication service. Basically they put the songs in order, put silence in between songs, and make sure that there is no noise at beginnings and ends. You may be lucky and get one of their "volume limiting" jobs, but if you have ever heard this, you would know to ask them not to do it. One setting for everything. I could offer that too, but this would hurt some material, help a little to others.

Creating a Red Book standard is a bit more involved than your average hardware would lead you to believe, that is if you want it to pass a duplicators inspection of the disk.

I originally thought of offering more, but after some discussion with some people (I will not say who) a consensus was formed that playing around with peoples mixes for free was not a very good idea. After pondering that consensus, I would have to agree. Way too much potential for pickyness from the submitters. Resentments are inevitable. It only takes a tiny bit of imagination to think up likely scenarios of what can happen. I do the work for free, the submitter doesn't like what I did, they want it changed, but I think it is fine, don't want to change it. So even if the submitter decided to not use the version I did, then the potential for me to be resentful exists. Waaaaaaaay too much headache. And a whole lot of work for that headache.

So, with someone paying for the service, well, as always, the client get's what they want. Certainly all can see the value in that.

Anyone who is willing to spend the time for free to master upwards of 20 songs with all the tricks here is welcome to do so. Have fun.

Sorry if this seems like a deviation of the original plan. In a way it is, but only after some serious thought concerning the original deal.

Ed
 
I've been biting my lip ever since seeing Ed's post last night. It seemed kind of cold out of context (so I wish he would have posted this explanation first) but I thought I understood immediately where he was coming from.

Now I see I was right. I totally support his decision and I thank him for offering professional-level services to the contributors for far below normal rates.

Personally I would like to hear one song in both "before" and "after" configurations; I think that would be extremely useful for people to understand mastering. But it doesn't even have to be both ways on the CD, that would take up a lot of extra room. It would make sense to have those available on the Web for people to hear both and understand. I'll set up space for this on HomeRecording.com, if someone wants to take me up on having their song on the Web that way.
 
Ok, Im thinking of doing an instrumental track entitled "Funk You And The Dragon You Rode In On". How much will you charge me to get my guitar solo to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughn?
 
Re: rule #2, I will be recording my CD-R on a stand alone unit. I don't use a computer in my recording set-up, is there an alternative to supplying the txt. file ?
 
Maybe I'm confused here, Dragon...but doesn't "mastering" involve getting various songs to match somewhat sonically with a group of other songs? How would one master a single song without a reference?

As you know I don't know much about this stuff so I appologize if I'm totally missing the point.

Ed, I understand where you're coming from. Just getting everything together on a disk (or two?) would be more than helpful.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Brad, an e-mail with the info would be fine.

Dragon, I appreciate your understanding concerning this. I think that a before and after really would show the value.

Slackmaster, as I posted earlier, mastering CAN be many things. As I posted earlier, it was after some time that I came to the decision to limit what exactly I would do. If we were just talking about a few tunes, well, a full on mastering job would be easy enough. The time investment though on 20+ tunes is far and beyond what could be expected from someone for free. There are also issues of what exactly the .Comp CD is trying to get across. Is it amature home recording? Is it a hyrid of amature and professional? Is it professional? Who knows. It would seem though at this point that the consensus is that material submitted should be totally at the discretion of the submitter. To have someone change their song in any way without a total interaction between the submitter and the person doing the changing really puts the person doing the changing in a rather difficult situation.

Hey, I love recording. I love working with artists to achieve the best results possible that reflect their sonic goals. I live for this!!! But through the years I have had my experiences with doing the "freebe" thing, and have found that it kind of sucks for everyone involved.

Let's face it, any changes that I do to a song as far as mastering reflects upon me and my business. Regardless of what I was paid for that service. The potential for a client to not be happy with what I do is very real. If they are not happy, they tell people so, regardless of what they pay. So I guess I am in a position where if I am going to put my professional reputation on the line, I need to have the motivation to provide clients with the very best I can do. I DO NOT let clients of Echo Star leave displeased with the work I have done. It may not be EXACTLY what they want, but they know for a fact that I did all that I could do with my resources to acheive the best results for them. I spend a good amount of time with clients just educating them about recording. They come to realize after spending time with me that often the limitations of their recordings are not the skills of the engineer, or the ability of the studio, but rather how well they were prepared for recording. But the main difference here is that clients "pay" me for this. If they find out at a later time that I am full of dung, they have every right to complain about my service. But I have found more problems with the "giveaway" stuff than with people paying for services. I am not quite sure why this is, but it is what happens.

So, hopefully, all can empathize with me here. I just can't justify a full on mastering approach for no compensation. A very basic compiling of the material, putting together the order, placing space between songs, is quite a chore as is. To start getting into subjective areas like volume optimiztion, eq, etc.....would turn into a project of major proportions. Let's not forget also the factors of people not caring for what was done to their mix. To deal with all of that for free is a little more of project than I would care to sign up for. Sorry.

Anyway, like I said earlier, if someone else feels they would like to take on this endeavor for free, I have no problems with that.

Ed

[This message has been edited by sonusman (edited 01-14-2000).]
 
Ed,

That's all we really needed in the first place. In fact in my very first post about this CD I mentioned that we'd need someone to do a "simple" master job....just to basically get all of the tunes together on a final disk. I also said that maybe some normalization would help if a tune was WAY too low in volume or something...nothing more, nothing fancy.

I don't know about the rest of the group, but I understand where you're coming from and don't feel that your decision is unfair.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Maybe publish technical specs for the submitted songs, such as "no peaks to be above -.5 dB and average to be greater than -12 dB" or something, just to that everyone's in the same ballpark. That would mean that Ed had less gruntwork to do, and nobody's in the position of looking bad with a song you can't hear well.

And if people don't know what any of this means or don't have the tools to do it...heck, that's just another thing we can all learn together.
 
That's a good idea. We'll need to come up with a concensus for the specs though as I'm sure guys like S8-N will have a very different outlook as to what's acceptable.

With my own music I don't care in this case.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I have no problem with coming up with a little scratch...but mainly just to make the thing as a whole cd sound like it has some continuity in volume and as little hiss as possible...anybody wanting to make their tune sound like the real big boys, and relying on Ed to do that sort of magic, I would definately have to say, yeah PAY for it Big, but, this cd is supposed to be about the wonders of "home" recording, right? If it's TOO slick, we all come off like Ricky Martin wannabees...just an opinion...gibs
 
What makes you think that I would want different specs??? Each song will still have a different level of perceived loudness according to how much the mixdown was compressed. If you want consistant volume without any mastering then we would have to agree on compression ratios and what sounds good on one recording might not sound good on another... So without mastering, the CD levels are gonna jump around all over the place.
It is my opinion that we should get someone to do the mastering who is at least willing to try and get a consistant level of loudness happening. Otherwise the CD is gonna be all over the place.
Surely Ed isn't the only one around here with mastering software and a CD burner... And if all he is gonna do is assemble the tracks and put them in order does that really require his golden ears?
He is only willing to master the material that the owner is willing to pay for... so basically the person who is willing to spend the most money is going to get the best product... I feel that goes against the whole DIY ethic that this site is dedicated to.
What started out as a great idea seems to have started leaning toward a pissing match that I dont want any part of.
 
I can see the problem here. And I can see Ed's point of view. Reputation is something that cannot be jeapordized. However, I guess what created this problem from the outset was that we thought Ed volunteered to the mastering.

I like the concept of this compilation. But I also see major problems if some contributers drop coin to improve their mixes via some mastering. Envision a totally inconsistent album, where you need some automatic gain control built into your home receiver. I don't like that.

This is no simple task to get consistency, that's for sure, and it would take time.

This compilation does not have to sound like a current glossy engineering/production. That is not the point of this project, to me anyway.

So here are the options as I see them:


A. Ed does all the mastering for people who are willing to pay, and assembles the cd. This may end up with an inconsistent sounding cd. (which is, in a way inevitable, but potentially, more extreme). This could cause as many problems as working for free.

B. All songs are submitted as is and put to disk - no mastering.

C. Everyone submits there song to mp3.com (one ftp directory, or however they handle uploading) under one artist name, homerecording.comp, and everyone can get an uncompressed CD created by mp3.com or DAMM cd. This leaves no room for mastering or reinterpretation.

D. Someone else does it for free.


I can offer to assemble/burn and keep consistent track levels. Any other adjustments.. I can try my best.




[This message has been edited by Emeric (edited 01-14-2000).]
 
I like the idea of Emeric taking a stab at it... Although the MP3.com idea is a really effecient way of doing it also. Then all we would would have to worry about is them dropping the ball. Has anyone ever even heard one of their DAM CD's???
I vote for Emeric doing a quick, homemade mastering just to get the loudness consistant and maybe trying to fix any MAJOR EQ problems that might arise and letting the chips fall where they may... I'm not talking getting things perfect... Just consistant.
 
S8-N:

The only reason I used you as an example is that your stuff is typically louder than most of what I've heard around here. Be it perceived or real. I've had your mixes playing in the jukebox right next to mine, and yours are louder even though I thought I had mine pretty tastey loud.

Some people might not understand how to get their stuff as hot as possible and my point was that we don't *necessarily* want to have people taking the edge off their sound to fit in better with the rest of the material. Or maybe we do. It'll definately be something that we'll all have to come to an agreement on.

Of course the best way to do this is to have a single person try to get the CD sounding ok. But then we're back where we started.

Maybe we're starting to make mountains here.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone here who is offering to put all our music together. As most of us have heard, there is quite a bit of talent in this forum. And I've certainly learned alot by reading what techniques members used to get their sound.

Secondly, I think Sonusman is being very gracious to offer his services, whether free or what I see as great rates for sound quality improvement.

However, I agree with others that we may be getting into "mission creep" on what I thought our original intent was. I thought our work would be assembled using basic normalizing to get a "somewhat" consistent sound level. Although I know most of you will come up with a more professional mix then I, that's OK with me! I'll learn alot by reading about your rigs and techniques you used to get your sound.

I vote to stay with the concept remaining that this is a project of Home Recorders sharing their work with others.

Again, thanks to everyone putting in the time and effort to make this thing happen. It's going to be a lot of fun and educational at the same time.
Ranger
 
Maybe one of the ground rules should be no compression on the mixdown wav. I dont know what the plans for replication and distribution are... But Emerics idea of submitting all of our stuff to MP3.com and letting them burn the CD's settles lots of issues that havent arisen yet. Such as where the money comes from to get the disc replicated, how many discs to replicate, how do we sell them, who prints the sleeve, etc... I'm sure that they don't offer much (or any) mastering, but if we all agreed not to use compression on the mixdown wav. then the loudness would be fairly consistant... Or someone (Emeric)could volunteer to at least match loudness for the MP3's before submitting them to MP3.com.
This idea has lots of merit considering the limited mass appeal of this project. This way it would cost us nothing, which is a plus in my book...
 
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