What If You Can't Fix It In The Mix?

[cwhitta]

Hey All-

Regarding mastering in general, I've found that 90% of the answers given here are "fix it in the mix." What if you are not able to do that? What is the next best bet?

I am currently mastering and cleaning up some old cassette soundboard recordings. On most of these, there are two common problems-

1) Too much kick, weak bass guitar
2) Cymbals too bright/harsh, vocals not bright enough

I know I am not going to make these sound stellar, but I think I can improve quite a bit. ANY TIPS?

Right now I am using Waves plugins. My chain is RComp > 10-Band Para EQ > X-Noise > L2. (I am broke, and stuck with these for a while, so you don't have to suggest "better" software.)

Does this kind of project call for multi or wideband compression?

Jeffrey Norman's work is what inspires me- He cleans up all of the old two-track Grateful Dead soundboard recordings before release. Whether you like the band or not, it is hard to argue the great job he does on these.

Any tips are most appreciated- Thanks!

Chad

[cooker]

Originally Posted by cwhitta

Hey All-

Regarding mastering in general, I've found that 90% of the answers given here are "fix it in the mix." What if you are not able to do that? What is the next best bet?

I am currently mastering and cleaning up some old cassette soundboard recordings. On most of these, there are two common problems-

1) Too much kick, weak bass guitar
2) Cymbals too bright/harsh, vocals not bright enough

I know I am not going to make these sound stellar, but I think I can improve quite a bit. ANY TIPS?

Right now I am using Waves plugins. My chain is RComp > 10-Band Para EQ > X-Noise > L2. (I am broke, and stuck with these for a while, so you don't have to suggest "better" software.)

Does this kind of project call for multi or wideband compression?

Jeffrey Norman's work is what inspires me- He cleans up all of the old two-track Grateful Dead soundboard recordings before release. Whether you like the band or not, it is hard to argue the great job he does on these.

Any tips are most appreciated- Thanks!

Chad

Generally its not good to use compression on defected tracks but multiband compression/expaning would be usefull for you for the bass and kick problems.

cymbals are usually placed on the side's of the mix so processing m/s separatly could help. For vocals (they should be at m) probably an eq would be your best friend maybe combined with a multiband.

I can't be sure without listening samples but these are rather general go to formulas for those problems as far as I know. Compression would bring up the defections more so try not to use it much.

You can download free multiband comp.s from GERSIC.COM free audio plugin database

For dividing M/S with a plug-in, I use the free voxengo but also there should be some other options at gersic.

[balanceman]

put the EQ before the compressor.
multiband? feh!

maybe set the comp to be a quicker limiter type- to cut down on the kicks

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by cwhitta

Jeffrey Norman's work is what inspires me- He cleans up all of the old two-track Grateful Dead soundboard recordings before release.

He's starting with a 7 1/2 ips 2 track tape from a stereo Nagra or high-end Sony recorder along with mostly studio quality gear and mikes on stage.

Very few board tapes are of that quality.

[Table Of Tone]

Originally Posted by cwhitta

Hey All-

Regarding mastering in general, I've found that 90% of the answers given here are "fix it in the mix." What if you are not able to do that? What is the next best bet?

I am currently mastering and cleaning up some old cassette soundboard recordings. On most of these, there are two common problems-

1) Too much kick, weak bass guitar
2) Cymbals too bright/harsh, vocals not bright enough

I know I am not going to make these sound stellar, but I think I can improve quite a bit. ANY TIPS?

Right now I am using Waves plugins. My chain is RComp > 10-Band Para EQ > X-Noise > L2. (I am broke, and stuck with these for a while, so you don't have to suggest "better" software.)

Does this kind of project call for multi or wideband compression?

Jeffrey Norman's work is what inspires me- He cleans up all of the old two-track Grateful Dead soundboard recordings before release. Whether you like the band or not, it is hard to argue the great job he does on these.

Any tips are most appreciated- Thanks!

Chad

Get a demo of Ozone 4!
You'll probably end up buying it.
Its cheap as chips but does have mid/side multiband processing.
(Something that may be useful to ya)
The limiter in "Intelligent 2" mode is also actually not that bad for a plugin that works within a puter!
It will p**s a software L2!
Compared to what you get for the money with most other plugins, this is actually really great value and may just get you out of trouble with those dodgy mixes.

Good luck

[cwhitta]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

He's starting with a 7 1/2 ips 2 track tape from a stereo Nagra or high-end Sony recorder along with mostly studio quality gear and mikes on stage.

Very few board tapes are of that quality.

My tapes are nowhere near the quality of those reels ... And I never suggested that they were!

One mistake I made at first was to NOT transfer at 24-bit ... This to me makes the biggest difference in quality, and the integrity with processing the files. Seems like a no-brainer now, but these are things you don't think about when you're educating yourself through trial-and-error and blogs like these!

I switched the comp and EQ in the chain, and I am getting way better results now ... Thanks for all of the great tips, people! I'm getting closer every day to the sound I'm looking for....

C

[wado1942]

Sometimes you have to surgically alter minute portions of the time line. Like first establish the overall spectrum you want, somewhat ignoring the overtly loud cymbal crashes. Then you can go back and manually reduce the cymbal crashes by momentarily crossfading with a version of the mix where the dominant frequencies from the cymbals have been reduced. It's time consuming but it works better than usinga deesser or multiband compressor.

Bringing up the electric bass while bringing down the bass drum is another issue alltogether. You may have to accept it and just get an overall compromise that works on a whole. You can use a multiband compressor with a relatively fast attack & release to clamp down the bass drum and bring up the makeup gain to bring up the bass. However, you're still going to have a strong attack from the bass drum residing around the 2-5KHz region and this may need to be attacked manually by cross fading in a notch filter. If you have something like Adobe Audition, you could try toning down the kick attack with the band-aid tool in spectral analysis mode. This will likely remove the attack all together but then you can mix in an unprocessed version to bring some of it back.

[taturana]

I think in this case using a multiband compressor would be an easy way out for correcting balances...

[bitman]

Run and hide.

[lerone]

Originally Posted by cwhitta

My tapes are nowhere near the quality of those reels ... And I never suggested that they were!

One mistake I made at first was to NOT transfer at 24-bit ... This to me makes the biggest difference in quality, and the integrity with processing the files. Seems like a no-brainer now, but these are things you don't think about when you're educating yourself through trial-and-error and blogs like these!

I switched the comp and EQ in the chain, and I am getting way better results now ... Thanks for all of the great tips, people! I'm getting closer every day to the sound I'm looking for....

C

Well, at least there was tape noise to pseudo-dither

Glad to hear your headed in the right direction mate!


Toby