Preparing for Mastering...

[Massive Master]

I've only once (that I can recall) had a mix come in *too* quiet.

Not sure what happened - The mix engineer was a little surprised also. We loaded the file in and you could *almost* hear something that sounded like background noise.

So for fun, I normalized the file...

There it was - The entire mix printed at -48dBFS for some odd reason (still haven't figured out why, but I wasn't there for the mix).

And of course, it sounded just fine. That mix PEAKED at -48dBFS -- And it sounded just fine, even from just normalizing it.

Obviously, the engineer insisted on correcting the problem, which was fine with me. But the short of it is that you really do have SO much more headroom than you'd ever need, it's a shame to not take advantage of it.

When digital was in its advent, we were all drooling about how much headroom there was - Even in 16-bit. Now with 24-bit the standard for tracking & mixing while calculations are being thrown in 32 bit or higher - I can't believe that so many people insist on using up all of that glorious headroom at every possible instance... Depressing to say the least... It doesn't make the final product louder (it actually squelches it because of all the added distortion during hot tracking), it doesn't improve the signal-to-noise (it makes it much worse) -- It certainly doesn't improve the sound quality (again, the first things to go are the clarity and focus).

Wow... It really *is* depressing...

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

When digital was in its advent, we were all drooling about how much headroom there was - Even in 16-bit. Now with 24-bit the standard for tracking & mixing while calculations are being thrown in 32 bit or higher - I can't believe that so many people insist on using up all of that glorious headroom at every possible instance...
Wow... It really *is* depressing...

Ain't it the truth. I was working on my treatise on Compression 101 this afternoon, writing about "The Volume Wars", and it hit me (so I mentioned it) the major irony that the modern phase of the volume wars started about the same that digital was invading the studio and the home. Just when we were finally free of the 55dBs or so of albums and the 65dBs or so of cassette, everyone wants to squash their dynamics down to 15dB. (John, you have a web cam spying on me or something? )

David, even at only 16 bits, you have almost 100dBs of real estate on which to spread out your mix. Let the ME worry about the volume. You just keep it clean.

G.

P.S., I'd give you some rep for your "great minds think alike" posting, but I have to spread the wealth a bit first...

 

[rayc]

Yeah,
send the ME a CD of what you have at present labelled DEMONSTRATION ONLY & follow it up with a phone call to ask what he wants from you. make it clear you don't want to be confused my technobabble though - even if that lowers the "I'm cool, I know where it's at!" quotient.
There's no point second guessing.
Communication.

 

[DavidK]

David, even at only 16 bits, you have almost 100dBs of real estate on which to spread out your mix. Let the ME worry about the volume. You just keep it clean.

OK, so let me get this straight:
I am to make this blaringly loud and clipping like mad. Is that it?

You guys are a wealth of good info. I feel a bit relieved about this now, I was putting way too much thought into it. This newfangled recording stuff is hard for me, I am still getting used to the wax cylinder. Seriously, I am NOT a recording guy, this helps a lot. I will get things in a reasonable range and just "set it and forget it".

This whole process of mastering is still a bit of a mystery to me. The other stuff I get well enough to not get in any trouble, my music is so dense that I can get away with a lot. I will hopefully talk to the ME, if not I will simply include a letter with my disc explaining whatever I need to. I really dont have any requests, I would like him to have carte Blanche and just want to make everything as easy as possible for him, he has some very serious recordings under his belt and I am thrilled he will be working on my crap, err, umm, music.

 

[Farview]

OK, so let me get this straight:
I am to make this blaringly loud and clipping like mad. Is that it?

Yes.
It is very easy to do, as you turn down the volume of your monitors, you tend to turn up the volume of the mix. (instead of turning the monitors back up) You can easily lose perspective of how loud the mix really is.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

This newfangled recording stuff is hard for me, I am still getting used to the wax cylinder.
...
This whole process of mastering is still a bit of a mystery to me. The other stuff I get well enough to not get in any trouble, my music is so dense that I can get away with a lot.

Don't sell yourself short, Dave. The number of people on this board that could mix over 100 tracks of orchestral instrumentation and and have it sound even halfway decent I could count on my hands and still have enough fingers left over to clean my ears.

G.

 

[DavidK]

Thanks for all the tips fellers.

I took the opportunity last week to remix a lot of the CD. Not only for levels but for musical aspects. Its a better mix and I am within the reasonable guidelines. What I did was extremely minute stuff, but I am learning how much lil details matter.

I have been working on this for 7 months, it was good to take a breather and approach it with somewhat fresh ears.