Mastering. Worrying about nothing?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steenamaroo
  • Start date Start date
Ah, thanks Vinny. In a strange way, that's good to know.
Our only 'introducing' show here is Across The Line, but they aren't playing the record because it's getting daytime coverage.
 
Wee update : They played a piano ballad track today and it sounded just lovely....
albeit with hyped highs. ;)
 
I heard back from a mate at the BBC--he's on the engineering side in London (at Broadcast House) but has had assignments out in various regions. I won't name him because some of the things he says could get him in trouble with the suits. Anyway, although far from a definitive answer, he says:

Hiya Bob,

Sheesh...just when I think I've lost you, you keep coming back like a bad penny! I can't believe that with all the attractions of tropical Queensland you can be bothered to nag Auntie Beeb about our technical quality. Actually many would ask "what technical quality?". Budget "cuts" since you retired mean there are a lot fewer engineers (and, strangely enough, a lot more managers and accountants).

By the way, have you heard about all the closures and moves? TVC is pretty much gone and that very expensive building they put up for news 20 years back has now been moved back to a new extension to BH. Crap management but I'm close to Efes again--and it's still as good as when you introduced me to their special mixed kebab!

Anyhow, I can't give you any certain answer about what's going on with your friend's mix on the NI local station--that's one beeb outpost I've never visited. However, if it's like most other local operations they play pretty fast and loose with compression and Optimod settings. Despite memos to the contrary, it's all too easy to start to think all the commercial stuff is much louder when you sweep the band. Add to this the fact that they've now stopped providing formal Orban courses on Optimod ("surely the manual is enough--anyhow, can't chat--I've got a managers' lunch to go to") and it's a recipe for crapola.

Basically what I've seen happen at other local operations is that the studio output compressor and the Optimod start fighting when hit with music that has a reasonable dynamic range. The thresholds are set somewhat similar so, on a quiet passage, both start to react at about the same time. Then the Optimod realises that the levels from studio are higher and has to turn itself down to avoid overmod at the transmitter and it becomes a pump fest.

Not saying that's what's happening in NI but it's a familiar story.

(At this stage he starts talking about mutual friends, most of whom are busy dying off young, giving me the most depressing start to the day in a long time.)
Click to expand...

Anyhow, no solution but I'd guess it means that your stuff is performing no worse than anything else with a bit of dynamic range--you just know how it SHOULD sound.

Cheers,

Bob
 
Hey Bob,
Thanks so much for going the extra mile; It's much appreciated.

It's a shame to hear the BBC is going down that road, but the technical details are certainly reassuring.
I hope you had fun catching up with your pal. ;)
 
Bobbsy said:
I heard back from a mate at the BBC--he's on the engineering side in London (at Broadcast House) but has had assignments out in various regions. I won't name him because some of the things he says could get him in trouble with the suits. Anyway, although far from a definitive answer, he says:



Anyhow, no solution but I'd guess it means that your stuff is performing no worse than anything else with a bit of dynamic range--you just know how it SHOULD sound.

Cheers,

Bob
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That was really nice of you to F/U with your friend at the BBC. Kudos man.

Hey steen. I see I have to wait 8 more days for the i-tunes download. Any chance you guys printed some hard copy CD's on this one? I'm in for a few if so...

Thanks,

GZ
 
guitar zero said:
That was really nice of you to F/U with your friend at the BBC. Kudos man.

Hey steen. I see I have to wait 8 more days for the i-tunes download. Any chance you guys printed some hard copy CD's on this one? I'm in for a few if so...

Thanks,

GZ
Click to expand...

Indeed we did. PM en route.
I even got my picture on the inside of the cover. :)


..and yes! Massive appreciation, Bobbsy.

I'm pleased to say 7/10 tracks have been aired over the last week and I'm much much happier having heard them.
That and the feedback in this thread have really set my mind at ease.

Thanks everyone.
 
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Once again i'm late to the party but just wanted to say i've experienced exactly the same thing a couple of times. We had a couple of tracks played on BBC Nottingham introducing. We recorded the show and listening back i was mortified at the sound of the tracks! It was worst still when a track i'd done for another band got played on BBC Sheffield introducing and it also pumped. Saying that, their track pumped less as i had smashed it pretty hard anyway on their request (damn kids and their metal!) but it did put me off my stride for a long time.
 
Wow, that's really cool of Bobbsy and his man on the inside.

Good to hear Pete's getting some radio play Steen :thumbs up:
 
Good feedback here but I do have a slightly different take. I agree with everyone else, radio compression is brutal. But I hear something in your mix that I think you can improve.

I think the broadcast compression is reacting particularly to the kick in your song, and I can hear quite a lot of energy in the side signal at around 120 Hz whenever the kick plays. This isn't really doing anything very helpful for me (I prefer to hear all the weight in the kick from the centre of the image) so I would consider checking the overheads, toms or any other panned element of the drum sound, and high-pass filtering them to remove this.

As a last resort this could be done to the whole mix in mastering, but it would be better to fix it at source. If it IS coming from the overheads, it would be worth trying phase-inverting one channel and seeing if that helps, too.

Now of course, you'll probably do all this and STILL find it pumps like a bastard when it's broadcast, but at least you'll have had some fun along the way :-)

One last point - more heavy compression going in WON'T necessarily stop heavy broadcast compression - the two get just get added together. The mushier it is to start with, the less you hear the difference afterwards, but that doesn't mean you WANT it to sound like that. There's another before & after comparison in this post, fwiw:

productionadvice.co.uk/loudness-means-nothing-on-the-radio/

Having said all that I do think your song could be pushed slightly harder without any major downside, either on CD or the radio :-)

Congrats on getting so much airplay !
 
Yeah, congrats on the airplay- that must feel great. I of course can only hear the slightest difference between the two and, if they weren't right next to each other, I don't think I'd hear it at all. Wish my ears were better!
 
ianshepherd said:
Good feedback here but I do have a slightly different take.
Click to expand...

Ian,
Thanks for taking the time, and for being honest.

That article you referenced was actually one of the main sources that got me thinking this time around.
I went into this record with the intention of maintaining dynamic range, in the hope that radio compression would be kinder to it.

The thing is when I was 'mastering' the record, everything sorta fell into the right volume range without any heavy limiting.
Everything except the single! It needed to be pushed a little to fit in with the rest of the record.

I know, I know....make the rest a bit quieter :p, but if the client wants his record to be as loud as whoever, then you gotta try to do it! lol.

Anyway, I've been extremely lucky in getting so many tracks played and now that that's happened, I can see that the clip I posted here is the odd one out. I was REALLY happy with the rest of the tunes on air.

As much as I appreciate your advice, there'll be no editing or trial and error, for two reasons.
One: It's out there...CD's done. Anyone that's likely to play it on radio has it.
Two: I had a catastrophic hard drive failure and no longer have any of the sessions! lol.

Looks like there won't be a classic albums episode about this record in 20 years time. :(
 
Steenamaroo said:
Ian,
Thanks for taking the time, and for being honest.

That article you referenced was actually one of the main sources that got me thinking this time around.
I went into this record with the intention of maintaining dynamic range, in the hope that radio compression would be kinder to it.

The thing is when I was 'mastering' the record, everything sorta fell into the right volume range without any heavy limiting.
Everything except the single! It needed to be pushed a little to fit in with the rest of the record.

I know, I know....make the rest a bit quieter :p, but if the client wants his record to be as loud as whoever, then you gotta try to do it! lol.

Anyway, I've been extremely lucky in getting so many tracks played and now that that's happened, I can see that the clip I posted here is the odd one out. I was REALLY happy with the rest of the tunes on air.

As much as I appreciate your advice, there'll be no editing or trial and error, for two reasons.
One: It's out there...CD's done. Anyone that's likely to play it on radio has it.
Two: I had a catastrophic hard drive failure and no longer have any of the sessions! lol.

Looks like there won't be a classic albums episode about this record in 20 years time. :(
Click to expand...
Paul, That really sucks. At least you got the CD out before it happened.
 
guitar zero said:
Paul, That really sucks. At least you got the CD out before it happened.
Click to expand...

Thanks man.
It worked out OK. I had backups/printouts/hard copies of anything really important. You know, financial stuff and what not.
All that's really lost is photos and sessions. Damn shame but that's all.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Ian,
Thanks for taking the time, and for being honest.

That article you referenced was actually one of the main sources that got me thinking this time around.
I went into this record with the intention of maintaining dynamic range, in the hope that radio compression would be kinder to it.

The thing is when I was 'mastering' the record, everything sorta fell into the right volume range without any heavy limiting.
Everything except the single! It needed to be pushed a little to fit in with the rest of the record.
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear about the crash - glad the CD is doing well even so !
 
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