Weird problem that is cruelly mocking me

[kev99sl]

This is weird, but I'm hoping some of you will know what the hell is going on.

I'm working on mastering a live recording of a concert. The release is to coincide with a DVD release of the same concert.

I had absolutely nothing to do with the recording process, just for the record: I was brought on only to master and edit the tracks together.

The recording is of three guys with amplified acoustic guitars. One of those guys is pedal-effects happy, and loves to eat the microphone. Anyway, it sounds like the signal is overdriven in spots, and the reverb on his guitar is so hot at times that it overwhelms everything.

Here's the weird part. The guys doing the DVD provided the audio for me to edit. They said it's the same exact audio they used on the DVD. However, on the DVD, all of this overdriven, harsh stuff is *perfectly* tempered. No matter what I do, I can't seem to get the same results with the audio. The ONLY thing the DVD people did is convert the audio to whatever Dolby is used on the DVD -- they didn't do any other manual fixing or mastering.

I've tried gating, limiting, re-EQing -- you name it -- and I can't get the same results. Here's my question: Is there some kind of magic bullet in this Dolby conversion software? I thought I'd found a sweet spot while EQing the stuff, but because so much of the vocals and the shimmery guitar parts live in the troublesome frequencies, nothing I do saves the tracks in question from sounding blunted. Any gating or limiting I've done has been painfully obvious in the final result as the signal is attenuated to accomodate the harsh spots. No amount of splitting the difference is approaching the quality achieved by simply piping the audio through the Dolby conversion software, and we're approaching the point where we're considering back-ripping the audio from the DVD.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

What's your signal monitoring chain like compared to the ones the DVD guys have?

 

[malcolm123]

Im curious to see some responses myself.
But it sure does sound like somebody did some type of post processing.

Malcolm

 

[kev99sl]

What's your signal monitoring chain like compared to the ones the DVD guys have?

That's a good question: I don't know. I have no direct contact with the DVD people. I can tell you that they're the same people who did the recording in the first place, and since I'm doing all of this on a PC (and a budget), I can only assume that they have access to "real" equipment that I can't even touch.

That said, they swear up and down that the copy I have is the exact same copy they used on the DVD -- they just ran it through the converter to create the DVD audio. His suggestion is that the conversion process must somehow use compression that must make the difference. I know even less about DVD audio than I do CD audio, but it seems to me that any conversion would involve up-sampling and opening things up, and that compression wouldn't enter into it. Am I crazy?

 

[kev99sl]

Im curious to see some responses myself.
But it sure does sound like somebody did some type of post processing.

Malcolm

It does to me as well. I'm told that the DVD guy is at a loss to explain it, but it sure sounds like it's had some sort of treatment. Also, I have a hard time believing that any kind of automated conversion process took care of the problems I'm hearing. Granted, I'm not any kind of mastering genius, but there's no kind of automated filter I've found that would do such a good job of handling the audio. I don't get it.

 

[sjoko2]

It sounds like you've got a conversion / encoding problem.
You've got to get the DVD and decode the dolby. You also might have to put it through a sample rate converter
Having the right gear would help

 

[malcolm123]

but there's no kind of automated filter I've found that would do such a good job of handling the audio. I don't get it.

Sure there is.

Remember back in the 70s ( If your old enough) when Radio Shack made this really cool electrical box with colored wires, VU meters, Voltage gauges,etc. You could put certain wires on certain springs on the board to make all type of electronic devices. Radios, Morse code, etc. Well they took that same little box and guess what they made ??







The Radio Shack Mastering Plugin.
( 1 Pass does it all )

LOL

Sorry Guys. In a good mood today. Had a really good recording session last night.

Malcolm

 

[malcolm123]

It sounds like you've got a conversion / encoding problem.
You've got to get the DVD and decode the dolby. You also might have to put it through a sample rate converter
Having the right gear would help

Was that a Hint ??


LOL

Malcolm

 

[sjoko2]

Just a VERY subtle one

Another thing you could try is to take the analogue outputs of their gear (providing its L/R) and convert it again

 

[kev99sl]

It sounds like you've got a conversion / encoding problem.
You've got to get the DVD and decode the dolby. You also might have to put it through a sample rate converter
Having the right gear would help

If I had the right gear, I'd probably also have a different career, more money, and a degree in audio engineering to go along with it! (And this would be more than a half-favor/half-job for a friend.) Specifically, what gear would I need?

Do I understand that you're suggesting up-sampling the audio to something approaching DVD-quality resolution on my end and then trying all the gating, limiting, EQing, etc. I tried before might get me closer?