Radio Mix

2

2anointed

New member
Okay, I've got the song mixed in Cubase 5.0.

How do you do a radio mix?

What settings do you use in Soundforge?
what settings do you use in WAVELAB?


Compress final mix or no?
What plugins can help in the process:
magneto
T-racks. etc.

Thanks!

Finally, how to market to college radio stations?

Gregory
 
That's simple...

Use the Waves "Radio-mix" plug-in...

For marketing, I beleive there's a plug-in for that too... can't remember the name off-hand though........

Bruce
 
My man Bruce..

What's up with that? Were you serious?

Is there really a plugin with wavelab that says radio mix?

Or is that a separate plugins called "waves"?

Anyway...thanks for the humor it goes a longer way than frustration...


Peace!
 
Hey Bruce,

Ive got a rockin tune that I just finished mixing...kinda 80's esque......is there a plug in that will do one of those dance mixes for me.....
 
2anointed said:
My man Bruce..

What's up with that? Were you serious?
Click to expand...

Sorry dude...... couldn't resist - was just teasin' ya...

Wish I could give you some real advice, but I don't use computers for recording!

Bruce
 
Okay, so the secret is out. No computer recording questions for Bruce....

Ya still the man dude.

So could you please tell all of us how do you master for "radio".

Thanks for looking out.

Gregory
 
???

I think you may have a misconception about "radio" mastering friend.

The band may have a radio "mix", or certain words may have been bleeped out for radio, but usually, the radio stations are playing the same disk you go and buy at the store.

Radio stations apply a multi-band limiter across their consoles output before it goes to the transmitter and this process certainly changes the sound quite a bit. But as far as I know, there is no seperate mastering done for radio stations, unless it is possibly mastered NOT to be compressed because the stations will compress the hell out of it themselves! :)

Master you material to sound good on as many different quality of playback devices as you can. Be patient because when you start mastering, you will soon discover just how important mixing is, and of course when you mix, you discover just important tracking is, and when you track you discover just how important a good source sound is, and when you start playing with source sounds, you really discover just how important TALENT is! ;)

Mastering effectively will take a lot of practice, and really, you have the least control at mastering time then in any other part of the recording process to make changes to the song that are meaningful. After that though, you can do whatever will help the song sound better at mastering.

Good Day!
 
Re: ???

when you start mastering, you will soon discover just how important mixing is, and of course when you mix, you discover just important tracking is, and when you track you discover just how important a good source sound is, and when you start playing with source sounds, you really discover just how important TALENT is!
Click to expand...

This has got to be one of the best quotes I have heard lately. Much better then that Harvey stuff....
So true....so true.
That is why "fix it in the mix" can be a major mistake

Is this an original or are you quoting somebody?
 
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Good Day! Shailat.

Thank you for the compliment, and that is most certainly something that came right out of my mouth just then.

I am not sure about all this quoting other people stuff. I kind of like just saying it in my own way. Really makes me have to think about it.

Good Day!
 
There actually is a mix called a radio mix. Some producers do a separate mix just for radio of the single which is compressed more, has less low end , more high end and has the panning more centered.

Most radio stations compress like hell and have a smilie EQ across the transmitter.

You can't really mix to make it sound good on a hifi yet be good on radio - they a two different mediums.
I have often done a radio mix for the first single off an album and then done a different mix for the album release.

cheers
John
 
seperate radio mixes - the scoop

I'm thinking most of you already know this - I hope I'm not being redundant, but I used to work in radio. - that there are some mixes that are tailored to Radio FORMATS!!! - For example, Goo Goo Dolls "Naked" was 95% distortion on the record, yet for the radio mix (what I'd call a CHR mix) it was about 40-50% distortion and 50% clean guitar mix - (John R. says they split his guitar signal and always kept one running thru a roland jazz chorus just in case )

Most times, when you hear "Radio Mix" it means the song is cut shorter. There's a whole bridge/tangent in Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Life" that no one ever really hears unless they buy the record.

Depending on what the station sounds like, you'll also hear alternate mixes - which are usually shipped on the CD single (with intro, without intro, acoustic, crap like that - heavier drum mix - even a techno remix) - , but those are more format changes in instrumentation, not necessarily a compression change just because it's radio.

Another primo example. We got a copy of Seven Mary Three's "Cumbersome" (remember that one hit wonder?) and it had an acoustic version of the song, which essentially was the same song but the distorted track sounded like it had been stripped and run thru something like a Boss Acoustic Simulator pedal - exact same song and instruments and virtually the same riff , but they altered it for an acoustic mix. (In case your Top 40 station didn't like too much grunge)

And now I'm just a loser doing network support, but hey, at least I don't have to make the choice between tater-tots and rent.
 
Im sure......

Im sure that as well as compression and the likes of smilie waveband stuff, they Excite the hell outta the track with something like an aphex exciter...I hear the same sound on TV too here in the UK.I got an Aphex in my studio and it sure as hell sounds like that on TV and Radio too!!I think if you were heading for a mix that sounded like it does coming off a radio station it would sound horribly overprocessed when it got aired....but then again...i may be wrong...oh well..... :)
 
John Sayers said:
Most radio stations compress like hell and have a smilie EQ across the transmitter.
Click to expand...

Actually in most cases the smilie eq in radio stations is not true. True for clubs and mobile DJ's, but radio stations are usually flat across the board.

Reason: The assumption that the consumer has an EQ. So if you have let's say a consumer listening to the station that has the smilie config on the EQ, and the station sets it's EQ to that config also, most bands across the spectrum would come out distorted.

e.g. Station Bass Spectrum EQ set at +4
+
Consumer Bass Spectrum EQ set at + 4
=
Output Bass Spectrum +8


I've worked in radio, I've never seen a transmitter hooked up to an EQ, and most of the times the "pots" on the board are at 0 DB.

This kind of also answers the OP's question on mastering as well. But it also depends on the sound he wants to create. Levels across all spectrums should ideally peak around 0 DB not running it through a normilize or limiter filter. Normalizing can make the quite parts sound distorded, and limiting doesn't do very much.

This can be done on each individual band manually. Nero or software that has a 32 band EQ is really good for this. The more bands on the EQ, the more individual frequencies you can play with and take up to 0 DB manually, the better you will sound.

Hope I've been some assistance.

DJ XTC
 
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Boy, talk about a blast from the past!

This thread is what? 5 years old now?

And look at how Bruce didn't do any computer recording, and even THEN didn't know squat about "mastering". :)
 
Sound Cracker said:
Boy, talk about a blast from the past!

This thread is what? 5 years old now?

And look at how Bruce didn't do any computer recording, and even THEN didn't know squat about "mastering". :)
Click to expand...


OMG... :eek: crap...I just joined this board..Didn't even see the date. Well, at least the correct info is in place now.

XTC
 
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