why can't I master my own stuff?

[mtardif]

Oh yeah!?!?!? Well it's better than the acoustic pussy rock that everyone else posts! SLAM in your face dude!

You really need to learn to take constructive criticism. If you don't want to hear what people think, don't post it.

 

[grinder]

I think his stuff sounds like a cheezy beer commercial.

Cheezy beer, good product idea.Combine my two favorite flavors.Don't worry I'll give you a cut, Chess.

 

[The Seifer]

You really need to learn to take constructive criticism. If you don't want to hear what people think, don't post it.

It was sarcasm, dipshit. There is also a difference between constructive critisism and pretentious bullshit. I can tell the difference. I can also tell when people only knock on me because they're mad at me for some lame bullshit ( ). My music isn't any worse than any of the other music created by the posters here, and it still proves my original point that DIY mastering is good enough if you're not literally famous or rich. The gap between pro recording and home recording is closing and most listeners couldn't care less whether they're listening to a home mix or a $10,000 production, because both sound good.

 

[sonusman]

and is typical of pop/rock music these days. There is also no digital distortion apparent over my monitors/stereo/headphones/car or in the waveform either.

You might want to do a little more comparitive listening on your monitors/headphones. If you can't hear the distinct distortion artifacts at :10, :41-:45, :55-59, 1:26-1:30. Since this is an effect of probably limiting with too short of a release time, it is indeed considered "digital distortion". Something I dont' hear in big time masters, even when under heavy limiting.

I will not rule out that the tracks themselves could have the distortion on them. Depending upon the A/D you used, the dithering while recording could be that godaweful!

If this the effect of mp3 encoding (unlikely because I never hear that when I encode using Fraunhofer codecs at 192kbs), then you really don't have any business posting something that claims to be "mastered" as well as the big boys using a low bitrate and crappy encoder. I would be interested in hearing a .wav file of the same mix to really tell, but I mostly sure that this is the result of a cheap "mastering" plugin being taken far beyond what it is actually capable of doing without these kinds of artifacts appearing on the master.

Again, if you can't hear these distortion artifacts on your system, possibly, your system lies to you! My Lynx converters DON'T lie to me as they have an extremely high amount of headroom. If anything, stuff that doesn't distort on my Lynx D/A's will often distort on lesser converters that lack the same high headroom and accuracy, such as the Delta 1010 converters. So, if I am hearing distortion on these converters, well, it is definately there.

Your master also lacks true sub harmonic content that would give it "size". Possibly, you used a high pass filter set too high. It is very easy to want to remove those sub frequencies in the pursuit of a hotter master, because those low freq's eat up a lot of headroom in the mix, and cause limiters to limit a lot. You might have been better served with a low shelf filter set at about 60Hz and turned down maybe 3-4db. This would at least RETAIN the subharmonic content, just at a lower volume overall.

I have some mixes here that I would gladly send you to "master", and we can compare your job against what a $100 an hour mastering studio did with them. I can assure you that you will not get close, because I tried like hell to get close and couldn't using plugin's. I have "mastered" a few CD's in my time too.

This is silly conversation. If you need to make your mixes a little louder and do some gentle eq correction, by all means, go at it with plugin's! If retaining as much of the accuracy that the original mix had, but with some well done compression and limiting and useful eq correction is what you are after for a release, working with a competent mastering engineer is what you need.

Is there "secrets" to mastering effectively? Indeed there are! Are they easy to explain? Hell NO!!!! Does one applied solution work for the next client usually? Almost never. Is there "a place to start"? Yes, by LISTENING. LISTEN on something like Meyer HD1's and you will hear audio in a totally different way. LISTEN with top of the line, well clocked D/A's. LISTEN in a room that is acoustically nuetral. APPLY subtle corrections.

Can all mixes be mastered on an even level? Hell NO!!! The less a ME has to do to a mix, the better off the master will be! Bob Ludwig talks all the time about what he DOESN'T do to mixes that he masters!

Anyway.........

Ed

 

[mtardif]

most listeners couldn't care less whether they're listening to a home mix or a $10,000 production, because both sound good.

One more ignorant point for you. You're not dealing with MOST listeners out here on this board. That's why I live out here, because these people on this bbs know more than average listener. If I wanted to know what the average listener thought, I would ask my mom, or maybe your mom because she seems to be telling you stories of how grand your music is.

I was just giving you advice, then you had to call me a dipshit, so you basically made one more enemy out here with the thousands of other people who already don't like you.

 

[The Seifer]

You might want to do a little more comparitive listening on your monitors/headphones. If you can't hear the distinct distortion artifacts at :10, :41-:45, :55-59, 1:26-1:30. Since this is an effect of probably limiting with too short of a release time, it is indeed considered "digital distortion". Something I dont' hear in big time masters, even when under heavy limiting.

I will not rule out that the tracks themselves could have the distortion on them. Depending upon the A/D you used, the dithering while recording could be that godaweful!

If this the effect of mp3 encoding (unlikely because I never hear that when I encode using Fraunhofer codecs at 192kbs), then you really don't have any business posting something that claims to be "mastered" as well as the big boys using a low bitrate and crappy encoder. I would be interested in hearing a .wav file of the same mix to really tell, but I mostly sure that this is the result of a cheap "mastering" plugin being taken far beyond what it is actually capable of doing without these kinds of artifacts appearing on the master.

Again, if you can't hear these distortion artifacts on your system, possibly, your system lies to you! My Lynx converters DON'T lie to me as they have an extremely high amount of headroom. If anything, stuff that doesn't distort on my Lynx D/A's will often distort on lesser converters that lack the same high headroom and accuracy, such as the Delta 1010 converters. So, if I am hearing distortion on these converters, well, it is definately there.

Your master also lacks true sub harmonic content that would give it "size". Possibly, you used a high pass filter set too high. It is very easy to want to remove those sub frequencies in the pursuit of a hotter master, because those low freq's eat up a lot of headroom in the mix, and cause limiters to limit a lot. You might have been better served with a low shelf filter set at about 60Hz and turned down maybe 3-4db. This would at least RETAIN the subharmonic content, just at a lower volume overall.

I have some mixes here that I would gladly send you to "master", and we can compare your job against what a $100 an hour mastering studio did with them. I can assure you that you will not get close, because I tried like hell to get close and couldn't using plugin's. I have "mastered" a few CD's in my time too.

This is silly conversation. If you need to make your mixes a little louder and do some gentle eq correction, by all means, go at it with plugin's! If retaining as much of the accuracy that the original mix had, but with some well done compression and limiting and useful eq correction is what you are after for a release, working with a competent mastering engineer is what you need.

Is there "secrets" to mastering effectively? Indeed there are! Are they easy to explain? Hell NO!!!! Does one applied solution work for the next client usually? Almost never. Is there "a place to start"? Yes, by LISTENING. LISTEN on something like Meyer HD1's and you will hear audio in a totally different way. LISTEN with top of the line, well clocked D/A's. LISTEN in a room that is acoustically nuetral. APPLY subtle corrections.

Can all mixes be mastered on an even level? Hell NO!!! The less a ME has to do to a mix, the better off the master will be! Bob Ludwig talks all the time about what he DOESN'T do to mixes that he masters!

Anyway.........

Ed

Hmmmm the mp3 encoding may have something to do with it, or more likely my monitors! I did notice that the original wave files sound great and don't clip, but when I compress them into mp3's the waveform looks different than the original, appears to have a broader dynamic range, and often clips.

 

[The Seifer]

One more ignorant point for you. You're not dealing with MOST listeners out here on this board. That's why I live out here, because these people on this bbs know more than average listener. If I wanted to know what the average listener thought, I would ask my mom, or maybe your mom because she seems to be telling you stories of how grand your music is.

I was just giving you advice, then you had to call me a dipshit, so you basically made one more enemy out here with the thousands of other people who already don't like you.

Does it really matter what the "pros" think if nobody has the means to pay insane amounts of money to do what they suggest?

 

[sonusman]

Well, since mp3's actually do a sort of "normalizing" of the file, I would expect that if anything, the dynamic range would decrease.

Again, a .wav file would confirm this. Hearing the distortion artifacts would be possibly a little harder, but I will assume they exist. You seemed to have missed in on the mp3, which was obvious to me even during a casual listen.

You want to talk about all the kick drum hits that got "hidden" from over limiting now? How about the release time that is far too quick that sort of mucks up the "feel" of the song. I know the effect you were after, but you didn't start out with a mix that is capable of mastering in the way that you did. Using cheesy drum samples, you don't even have the "feel" overall in the drum tracks to match what this song needed. There is no natural ambiance, feel, or dynamics to the drums. These are essential things that are lacking if you truely want to claim that your mix/mastering is comparing favorably to the "big boys".

Anyway, I am not hear to shoot down your attempts. It is great that you are hard at it. Just maybe cool down the claims a bit, because there is always going to be some jackass that can come along and blow holes in it. It is pretty much universally accepted now that the plugin's are not going to deliver the same quality for mastering that a proper mastering studio will. There is a whole "experience" thing too that comes into play, and you cannot discount the many years of education/on the job experience, that quality ME's have with claims that you can do just as good with a $1000 software package and $1000 hardware package as they can do with their setups. A GML 8200 EQ is the "bottom feeder" per se of acceptable mastering eq's and probably cost's twice what you have invested total in your DAW. A Sadie system run's about $8000. Meyers HD1's start somewhere around $3000. A Manley Vari-Mu is something like $4500!!! These are the "toys" of the ME, along with rooms that don't cloud what they hear friend. The other tools are the "ears" that have listened to countless productions and can make very well thought out decisions on what to do to improve a collection of mixes.

Really, that is what mastering is all about, making a collection of songs sound good together. What we have heard from you is one song. Show me 4 songs that are mastered to sound together on a CD! That is a lot harder to do than one would think. Often, the best mix is degraded to closer match the worst mix in the collection. But that is how it goes.

But in the end The Seifer, you have an okay sounding "demo". Nothing about it should be confused, or even compared to most every modern big time release I have heard. It frankly doesn't stack up. You lack the source sounds, the mix, and the type of material that makes that kind of comparison even possible without a bunch of other factors coming into play.

Peace.

Ed

 

[sonusman]

Does it really matter what the "pros" think if nobody has the means to pay insane amounts of money to do what they suggest?

What do you consider insane amounts of money?

I usually charge in the neighborhood of $25-$50 an hour for what I do (in the studio). Many happy customers at those prices. That is far shy of the $2500-5000 a day that many state of the art facilities charge.

Bob Ludwig charges on the average of $10,000 to master a major label release. I have had very effective mastering jobs done for around $500-700. Maybe not quite as good as Bob Ludwig would have done, but me, the producer, and clients were quite happy with the job done at that price!

I remember talking back stage with the bass player from Save Paris, and he talked about how their CD cost $125,000 to produce. At the time, that bought them one month in the studio, equipment rentals, living expenses for the month, etc.....That was about 7 years ago. Can you imagine was a comparable production would cost now? Actually, you can probably do about as well for the same money now mainly because studios have HAD to keep rates from going up. But they in many cases not expanding their facilities and upgrading gear anymore, nor maintaining the higher maintnance cool gear that DEFINED the sounds that we try to emulate (unsuccessfully).

A recent project I worked on cost the band $10,000 to do 6 songs, which included the producer and mastering at Bernie Grundmann mastering. The band more than made that money back, and was thankful they got the kind of quality they did for so little.

"insane prices" is a relative term.

Ed

 

[Sonixx]

I disagree 100%.... IMO - the whoel issue revolves around the fact that in DIY, you lack the required objectivity to properly analyze the work.

uh... yeah... right.... whatever....

 

[sonusman]

I could go both ways with that comment myself.

 

[Sonixx]

uh... yeah... right.... whatever....

very insightful...

 

[EddieRay]

I'm pretty new around here but this thread looks like a silly debate over whether or not the term "mastering" is appropriate at a HOME RECORDING web site in a forum called "mixing / MASTERING". No offense meant but IMVHO a lot of people here, on both sides of this argument, should loosen up and get over themselves.

Here's a question for you, probably more fun to argue about too:
Today's consumer-level products permit non-pro musicians to create quality audio that was only available to the professionals around the year 19__.

I.e., with my home recording studio I can create better recordings than the pro's could back in, say, 1960. Do you agree or disagree? 1970? 1980?

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

No offense meant but IMVHO a lot of people here, on both sides of this argument, should loosen up and get over themselves.

What does "loosen up" mean? Does it mean allow bad advice?? How about propogating myths and misconceptions??? Is that what "get over themselves" means???

The reason (especially pros) post here is to help educate people. Part of education is correcting bad information, and there was plenty bad info given in this thread that needed correction..........

 

[grinder]

I'm pretty new around here but this thread looks like a silly debate over whether or not the term "mastering" is appropriate at a HOME RECORDING web site in a forum called "mixing / MASTERING". No offense meant but IMVHO a lot of people here, on both sides of this argument, should loosen up and get over themselves.

Here's a question for you, probably more fun to argue about too:
Today's consumer-level products permit non-pro musicians to create quality audio that was only available to the professionals around the year 19__.

I.e., with my home recording studio I can create better recordings than the pro's could back in, say, 1960. Do you agree or disagree? 1970? 1980?

It depends on what you consider better.LOUDER?Technology isn't going to make someones basement studio sound like Abbey Road.Or give them an ear to mix like George Martin.

 

[EddieRay]

What does "loosen up" mean? Does it mean allow bad advice?? How about progating myths and misconceptions??? Is that what "get over themselves" means???

The reason (especially pros) post here is to help educate people. Part of education is correcting bad information, and there was plenty bad info given in this thread that needed correction..........

Hello there Blue Bear. I visit homerecording.com often because that's what I am doing these days - recording my music on my home computer. But today I'm feeling out of my league here. This thread gives the strong impression that anyone here at homerecording.com who dares call what they do MASTERING, here within the MASTERING forum, should be called out as a poser.

Perhaps renaming this "Mixing / Mastering" forum to "Mixing / Finalizing" (a term someone suggested earlier) would clue some of us in that our final step in producing a CD of our music is not MASTERING. I honestly didn't know that until today.

 

[chessrock]

God, this is just so bizzare. Major flashbacks going on here . . . deja vu.

Alright! Alright! I admit I was a big fucking idiot, back then! I now see this! '

 

[DaveDrummer]

No matter how much you master, there is no plugin, rack, ME, or whatever that can move that kick drum mics 3 cm up. another words, most of the good stuff comes from the recording session. You cant turn garbage into gold.

 

[mtardif]

This thread started with someone asking for some advice. Unfortunately it boiled down to multiple people ripping that advice to shreds, and disregarding some great advice because they knew (thought) what the answer was.

I still suggest that whomever is looking for help, you'll get tons of different suggestions. It's up to you to figure out which ones work for you.

I've asked tons of questions, and folks were kind enough to give me multiple ways of dealing with my problems. I didn't say "you're freakin crazy, you don't know what you're talking about". I busted my ass and tried those suggested ways and every time, one of them turned out to be the solution I was looking for.

Like Bear said, people are here to help out and a lot of helping out is correcting bad information. All I can say is keep yourself open to suggestions.....and now....it's off for a frosty brew, another hour of mixing, and then sleep because unfortunately (like most everyone else here) I've got to get my ass up early tomorrow for my day job

 

[The Seifer]

Yeah... why the hell did I pay $400 for mastering tools?