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P-Loc
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If u gonna send ur stuff 'out' to get mastered?..
anyone have advice or tips?
anyone have advice or tips?
The start/end times of all the songs you want mastered/sequenced (assuming it's on DAT or analog tape!)dobro said:What's a time log?
P-Loc said:If u gonna send ur stuff 'out' to get mastered?..
anyone have advice or tips?
masteringhouse said:- When mixing try to make the songs as consistent as possible as far as EQ and levels from song to song. Create a CD of your mixes, and listen on a variety of systems. If you find that you have to reach for the EQ or volume knob on your stereo when going from one song to the other something is wrong.
littledog said:masterh. -
i have a question about point #1 in your otherwise outstanding list of recommendations. I have asked my various mastering engineers this specific question, and they have invariably told me NOT to worry about balancing the volumes of songs relative to eachother - just worry about making really great sounding mixes of each song, and they'll worry about balancing them when they get them.
Do you have strong disagreement with this?
littledog said:Masterh.-
"Remember that in Pro Tools it is not trivial to go back and forth between two different sessions to compare levels since you can't have multiple sessions open at the same time."
My recommendation in this case would be that you bounce the first mix and include it as a reference in 2 tracks that you are currently mixing, muting and unmuting them as needed. Of course the reference should be the same style of music and instrumentation as you mentioned below. If not a previous track it may also be helpful to use a track from a CD the client likes. Just flying blind can waste more time than it takes to switch back and forth between sessions if things have to be remixed multiple times.
What I was referering to in the previous post was creating a CD to listen to the rough mixes on various systems. And checking balances. I always do this for a client as a take away when a session is done for the day so that they know what they're getting as a session progresses and know how the mixes translate for different systems. Just monitoring in one environment can be very misleading and usually ends up with the "I don't get it, it sounded great in the studio" syndrome and an unhappy client.
" Also, I think maximizing bit usage is not nearly the issue in 24 bits as it was in 16 bits. If a track is only using 22 bits, it's no biggie."
The question is how many bits are in use by the "average level" of the content. If you have spikes all over the place using all 24 bits but the average level is only using 10 and then has to be raised another 8 bits or more later to be competitve, maximizing bit usage is as important as maintaining a proper level in the analog world. That's one of the reasons people "slam" analog tape (other than getting a compressed sound). It reduces the amount of noise in the final product and makes the sound "punchier".
"In my work, not all CD's necessarily have the same style and instrumentation on every track. I've done plenty of projects where some tracks are a kick-ass all electric band, while others are acoustic "unplugged" arrangements..."
I agree totally and was going to mention this as a disclaimer previously but I didn't want to digress too much. The average level of an accoustic track should be less than a rocker. But not to the point where one has to strain to hear it when assembled on a final CD. Likewise one shouldn't go to the other extreme when mixing an acoustic track and make it too loud. This may also be a case for not using all 24 bits as described above. Discretion is key when trying to apply any rule of thumb. Much like the recommendations people give on EQ and compressor settings, try it, listen, and then decide what's appropriate for a given situation.
"I guess i'm assuming that I'm a good enough mixer not to have one song with an average level of -30dB while another song has an average level of -8dB. Or at least that I would notice that was the case at some point during the process."
I wish I could say the same for some of the projects I get in. Recently I had a session that was so all over the place in terms of level and EQ it sounded as if it was recorded in 12 different studios. When I approached the engineer about the inconsistency he said that he wanted it to "sound inconsistent". While I agree that an album shouldn't sound as if it came out of a blender, it shouldn't rip your head off in one song and be totally dull and lifeless in the next. One where the kick drum is sounding like a "pile driver" and then barely audible above the bass gutar in the next, and so on. You can imagine how difficult it is in a situation such as this to make it sound like "an album".