mastering on a budget of 1600 €

[Billy Palmier]

Hello,

I'm thinking about mastering some songs and I was thinking about what would be the best investment, I know 1600€ is really not a lot but anyway…

The set-up I have is powerbook G4, yamaha i88x and lots of plugins…

I was thinking about getting neumann w495b eq and spl vitalizer tube…
Then I can still put plugins on it to finish… does someone has better propositions of buying material? for example I would buy this compressor instead of an spl vitalizer for mastering… or I woul buy an old dual G4 and put UAD card in it… whatever… I want to spend about 1600€ on material and I'm trying to find the best investment for mastering, but at the same time I'm also thinking about something that could be interesting for mixing at the same time… perhaps just buy a new G5 for horsepower in mixing? or an old dual G4 with UAD card in it?

Let me know what you guys think… even if the budget is not that much for me it's a whole lot of money!!!! so I want to spend it wisely…

Thnx

[Darius van H]

monitoring (whatchagot?)

[Billy Palmier]

Also tought about that… I only have yamaha msp5 which are perhaps the first thing where I should invest a bit more…
I know I'm on a supertight budget and the results would be far better if I just spend 700€ to go to a mastering studio but I want to invest that money instead of giving it away… and the cd is not that great that it's worth yet a 700€ I think so that's why I'm planning on buying some more gear myself…

[deft_bonz]

put in another 5000€ and start with the room. you won't get the perfect room, but it will sound pretty good. and with this you can benefit for mixing too.

next step will be monitoring. another 5000€

[Billy Palmier]

That's perhaps not a bad idea, altough I think I finalised my descission… I'm gonna buy an apple G5 computer (G4 laptop can't keep up with me for effects and stuff…) and then perhaps later on a UAD 1 card… as mixing is much more important for me and is going to make the biggest difference for the final product… of course then the room is still important I'll just do bit by bit… first step, new computer… next step, room… then new speakers perhaps…

thnx anyway for the help!

[neilwight]

i'd definately suggest getting something other than MSP5s. before your room or anything. they are spectacularly woeful, even for mixing.
how they can say great for mastering in their literature i dont know, probably becuase they go to 40k i guess

they have a rather unhelpful hump in the highs with a very useful notch out at 20k, another little one at 2.5k which looks a bit like a poorly integrated crossover, a nice 5db drop from about 700hz down to about 125hz before it very helpfully has a nice 5db resonant bump centred right on 80hz before dropping almost 20db by the time its at 50hz.

and all thats from the frequency graph, IMHO they sound much worse when you listen to them.

getting better monitors will see a huge increase in your results. they are after all the only link between your audio and the real world. if you cant hear it how can you make it work.

id just continue to use my current computer and get speakers first than get a snazzy G5 and not be able to hear. all the plugins in the world wont help that.

[deft_bonz]

Originally Posted by Billy Palmier

...as mixing is much more important for me and is going to make the biggest difference for the final product…

thnx anyway for the help!

very true, indeed

[Billy Palmier]

I know speakers are a lot of time underestimated… altough when I worked on genelec 1031 I couldn't get it right, even extreme bass was nicely handled by these speakers but on small speakers it just sounded totally ****ed, too much bass… It's like whatever you throw at them, they will handle it… while I'm quite happy with these msp5 speakers… my mixes sound much better since I have them instead of the genelec 1031 and these speakers are much more expensive then my cheap yamahas… is there something a bit more expensive that you would advice?

event TR8?

It doesn't have to be more expensive then that, otherwise I prefer buying another synth as the source material is also really important… in fact every step is important which means if I want to do it good I should buy it all gearslutz, it's a disease…

Anyway, start of the thread is that I wanted to do my own mastering which is a bit difficult with the material I have

[Kiwiburger]

I know this is contraversial, but have a look at www.har-bal.com

Fixing your room acoustics and becoming familiar with quality monitors is vital. But it pays to fully understand that no matter how much money you spend on your room or your monitors, it's impossible to have a perfectly flat room and/or perfectly flat monitors.

The recent thread that posted graphs of actual monitor resonse in an anechoic chamber shows just how very flawed some monitors are.

The standard internet wisdom of "just trust your ears" is fairly lame, imo. This, I believe, is exactly why most of us need a mastering engineer to fix the damage we do - unwittingly - by trusting our room, monitors and ears.

Human ears hear things differently. Our ears are shaped differently, for a start. With genetics and time, or simply fatigue, our ears can alter response.

It's fair to say that our ears are more sensitive to miniscule detail than most electronic test gear. I'm not say don't use your ears - music is all about using our ears. But, I'm saying - use them, don't trust them.

Sure - with years of experience with your perfect room and perfect monitors, you will be able to judge things very accurately. But in the meantime ...

You have to realise that there is a measurable spectral curve that certain genres of music are expected to fall in line with. Certain M.E.'s can get there without using spectral analysis - all good.

But there is zero harm in testing you mix (after you've saved your wave file). Contrary to what some believe - this is not a real time process, and there are no dancing visual screen to distract you at all. Just a chart that shows you where you have stuffed up or fallen short. That's all.

I'm not actually suggesting you use Har-Bal to re-equalise your mix. I'm suggesting that you do as best as you can with your ears first.

Then, check it with Har-Bal and see if you have any problems - that will be apparant on the majority of other systems out there. The problems may not be evident to you, because you are probably overcompensating for a weakness of your room, monitors, or your ears.

Then - with the benefit of this 'second opinion' - you can tweak your mix and export a new file. Constantly using your ears all the time, but learning your own personal deficiencies, and become a better engineer.

Otherwise, you can choose to ignore this. It's your call. There are plenty of people who will tell you that you don't need visual aids, and to just trust your ears.

Or pay for professional mastering. There a many good reasons to do this anyway.

For non critical stuff, I can get loud, portable mixes that don't really need additional mastering. I can do this using free software, although i prefer to use commercial stuff - but at a pinch, some of the free stuff is good enough.

[dcollins]

Originally Posted by Kiwiburger

I know this is contraversial, but have a look at www.har-bal.com

The standard internet wisdom of "just trust your ears" is fairly lame, imo. This, I believe, is exactly why most of us need a mastering engineer to fix the damage we do - unwittingly - by trusting our room, monitors and ears.

So the advice is to "trust your eyes?" About how something sounds?

Riiiight..

I once saw a post of "I have $1000 to spend, what the best thing I should buy?" And someone replied "A copy of Spectrfoo, of course"

Yikes. I'm sure that it's a fine program for scientific anaylsis, but come on!

Also, when I or anyone else says to "trust your ears" the assumption is that you have taken some time and care to treat your room, learn your monitors, etc. It's not just a glib statement.

You have to realise that there is a measurable spectral curve that certain genres of music are expected to fall in line with.

I would love to see these curves! Think of the time we could save.

Certain M.E.'s can get there without using spectral analysis - all good.

Personally, I'm not aware of any mastering engineers that use it. Maybe some do.

Just a chart that shows you where you have stuffed up or fallen short. That's all.

Evidence please.

Peering at the screen is one of the worst things that has come out of the use of computers in music production.....

The shift from left to right brain and back, can't be helpful.

DC

[MASSIVE Master]

Originally Posted by Kiwiburger

Certain M.E.'s can get there without using spectral analysis -

Originally Posted by dcollins

Personally, I'm not aware of any mastering engineers that use it. Maybe some do.

I don't even think I *have* a spectrum analyzer in my...

Oh wait - No... No... Ummm...

Yup. There's one in there.

Seriously though - You can play two different songs that sound very similar and they'll "look" completely different in the eyes of the RTA... Contrasting, you can take two very different sounding mixes that will look remarkably similar. Pretty lights for bored clients.

[dcollins]

Originally Posted by MASSIVE Master

I don't even think I *have* a spectrum analyzer in my...

Oh wait - No... No... Ummm...

Yup. There's one in there.

Seriously though - You can play two different songs that sound very similar and they'll "look" completely different in the eyes of the RTA... Contrasting, you can take two very different sounding mixes that will look remarkably similar. Pretty lights for bored clients.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in an alternate universe here, where colour FFT's, stereo "enhancement," multi-band, and parallel compression is where it's at.

Is there a thread on learning to cut it flat?

There's a plug-in loss leader, if ever there was.

DC

[MASSIVE Master]

You gotta wonder what everyone would do if it was 20 years ago...

Hell, TEN years ago for that matter...

[Bob Olhsson]

Does anybody think audio quality has improved immensely over the past ten years?

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Does anybody think audio quality has improved immensely over the past ten years?

The POTENTIAL for increased audio quality has improved. The tools I am working with in the digital world have definitely improved to the extent that you can even associate the word "warm" with some digital processors and processes! But if you mean "has the general practice of using the tools produced improved audio quality over the past ten years", I have to answer "in general, no"... meaning that abuse or misuse of the tools has resulted in a generally worse audio quality if you study the loudness race and what people have done, especially with the digital tools, to try to keep up.

Lack of knowledge of how, for example, distorted and clipped audio produces very bad product on the radio... In the last ten years, this has gotten very bad.