Things that improved my mastering

[Revelation]

1. Auralex foam and their bass lenards (So many project studio owners have flat sheetrock walls and ceiling and they try to master with the sound bouncing off these surfaces.)
2. Upgrading my amp for my Tannoy System 800 monitors. More headroom and a cleaner sound.
3. Reading Bob Katz book on mastering, and then studying it.
4. Wavelab 6
5. Waves and UAD mastering plug ins.

I used to use the Focusrite Mixmaster which I still think has a good sounding EQ and some good tools on it. (Yeah I don't have the money for the Cranesong gear, so this was the best hardware mastering piece of gear under $2,000 in my book.)

[Improv]

For me, it was developing a process for relatively seamless, level-matched A/B that I can can use to make truly blind comparisons. I use it at every step of the process now to make sure what I'm doing is truly better, not just "louder" or "brighter".

[pingu]

Originally Posted by Improv

For me, it was developing a process for relatively seamless, level-matched A/B that I can can use to make truly blind comparisons. I use it at every step of the process now to make sure what I'm doing is truly better, not just "louder" or "brighter".

I like the sound of that.


Can you elaborate a little.

[Bob Olhsson]

Even when they aren't blind, level matched comparisons are the only way to really hear what you are accomplishing. There are two kinds of comparisons I'm teaching my students:

1. Subjectively matched where things are at the same subjective volume level to the ear

2. Objectively matched where we are comparing the same peak value and how loud things are recorded relative to each other.

It's very easy to confuse eq, and compression with just a simple volume change. This applies to all aspects of recording and not just mastering.

I was lucky to be taught this along with mastering in the first place by some real pros. The two things that improved my mastering the most beyond that were acquiring high-end playback gear for home listening and attending numerous mastering sessions with Bob Ludwig, Bernie Grundman, and Doug Sax among others.

[pingu]

Doesnt wavelab 6 have the smart bypass feature which can greatly help in this respect?

[Improv]

Well, I will post my method with the understanding that it may not technically be the best way to A/B (or hell, even to master), but it works for me, so here goes:

I do mastering in Pro-tools, giving each Mix its own track, cascading down left to right. They are all bussed to a stereo bus (sometimes then through an M/S matrix bus) and eventually end up getting printed to a new stereo track. So, I get the sequence, spacing and fades how I want them. Then I ctrl-drag the mixes down to my "monitoring track" at the bottom. Arm this track and hit ctrl-k during playback and you're switching between "printed" unprocessed mixes, and the "live" mixes as heard through the mastering chain. I do my best to match apparent level by bringing down the last gain stage of my mastering chain (usually the output of an L2 or L3). With the L3 and other high-latency DSP, it is often helpful to nudge the unprocessed mixes on your monitor track by the length of processing delay so you don't get "skipping" while A/Bing.

Again it's not ideal. For example, if you print something to your monitor track, then A/B it immediately without changing anything, sometimes you can notice a small difference, just between printed and live input. Something to ask digi about, I suppose...

Like I said, though, it works for me, and has helped me become a better ME.

[cerberus]

1. waves plug-ins:
i am a tester for a few software companies, it's important to me to have some input into the development of the tools i use. waves masters bundle was a revelation for me.. finally i got to experience an eq that just equalizes, not add it's own color.

2. m/s processing
a mastering engineer from athens, greece showed me this over internet chat...he told me to read the waves s1 manual, and try the technique with compression.
this was about four years ago... i was a "pro" before that and it was not part of my education or experience... but there's always more to learn.

3. double sample rate
this one cuts your processing power in half, of course... does it sound twice as good? never mind. the top end of 44.1kHz drove me banannas for so many years, no wonder they say analog is forever, we "decided" on 44.1 about twenty five years ago and most of my clients are still recording and mixing at 44.1 today. double the sample rate and suddenly the bass tightens up too, i didn't expect that, yes it sounds twice as good.

4. bob katz' website and book "mastering audio"
i suppose without the website, i might have gotten frustrated with digital sometime around 2000. i don't recognize most of that esoteric stuff on the "honor roll", but nothing i absolutely detest is on it.

the book seems to help me with self confidence that i am not a fringe wacko mad scientist... "new york style" compression, that's how i do it here in the big apple, i refer to the book often becaue the answers to my questions happen to be in there...and almost as often i find myself reading way past the information that i was originally seeking; it's a page turner.

Originally Posted by Improv

For me, it was developing a process for relatively seamless, level-matched A/B that I can can use to make truly blind comparisons. I use it at every step of the process now to make sure what I'm doing is truly better, not just "louder" or "brighter".

would you please elaborate?

jeff dinces

[Improv]

Originally Posted by cerberus

3. double sample rate

Oh absolutely. I notice a real difference in clarity when processing at 96k vs 44.1. Anything that comes into the studio gets bumped up whether for mixing or for mastering.

Originally Posted by cerberus

would you please elaborate?

I just did the post previous to yours.

[vaesion]

3. double sample rate
this one cuts your processing power in half, of course... does it sound twice as good? never mind. the top end of 44.1kHz drove me banannas for so many years, no wonder they say analog is forever, we "decided" on 44.1 about twenty five years ago and most of my clients are still recording and mixing at 44.1 today. double the sample rate and suddenly the bass tightens up too, i didn't expect that, yes it sounds twice as good.



I understand that it makes it sound twice as good when your mastering at the double rate but does it still sound twice is good when u down sample back to 44.1?

Bryan

[Improv]

Originally Posted by vaesion

I understand that it makes it sound twice as good when your mastering at the double rate but does it still sound twice is good when u down sample back to 44.1?

In my experience, yes. "Twice as good" though? Well, no... it's not a linear scale like that. It just sounds... "more open"

[cerberus]

I understand that it makes it sound twice as good when your mastering at the double rate but does it still sound twice is good when u down sample back to 44.1?

yes, by this time my product sounds just like it would if i had a million dollar all-analog mastering room, or so i'd like to think... i am sure it brings me closer to my sonic goals, and closer to the music.

but there is a caveat: most srcs are not worthy. if your src is going to make artifacts, then imo, it's not worth the trouble.. doing it right takes a bit more than one mouse click... you've got to be aware of bit depth a high quality src needs; 24 bit files tend to end up with more than 24 bits once the rate is raised.. or lowered! ymmv; and be careful out there.


jeff dinces

[dcollins]

1. Time/experience
2. Monitoring/acoustics
15. The gear

How boring is that?

DC

[Jerry Tubb]

Originally Posted by dcollins

1. Time/experience...

Amen.

The truth, is that the best MEs have been at it for many years, have dealt with just about every conceivable mastering situation, and have a long list of credits to show for it.

The plug-in "of the month" may be cool, but in the long run, it's talent and tenacity that wins. So if you really want it, make sure you have the ears, work hard, & hang in there.

I suppose it's the same for almost any other profession.

JT

[Midlandmorgan]

Originally Posted by Jerry Tubb

The plug-in "of the month" may be cool, but in the long run, it's talent and tenacity that wins. So if you really want it, make sure you have the ears, work hard, & hang in there.

JT

Someone make this a sticky....

[poncival]

Realizing that sometimes (albeit not very often) you don't really need to do anything to a mix in order for it to sound right in the context of the material. Meaning that the mix is "perfect" whether it is truly perfect or not if it doesn't get any better by EQing or compressing etc. and no matter what you do to it it sounds more out of place on the final CD. I have had this happen a couple times where a client will choose the "non mastered version" of a certain song because it simply had all the attributes he was looking for and nothing I did to it to "spice it up" (millennia EQ very subtle, waves L2 etc) made it any better and in fact made it less desirable to him. This was not my inability to make him happy either, the whole rest of the record was done and he really liked my work which was pretty drastic at some points. But on this one song, the mix was "it" and in the end I had to agree with him. Less is more strikes again!

John Gray
The Saltmine Studios
www.thesaltmine.com

[Improv]

Originally Posted by poncival

Realizing that sometimes (albeit not very often) you don't really need to do anything to a mix in order for it to sound right in the context of the material. Meaning that the mix is "perfect" whether it is truly perfect or not if it doesn't get any better by EQing or compressing etc. and no matter what you do to it it sounds more out of place on the final CD.

Couldn't agree more. We tend to master in-house projects, which means the majority of the material has been mixed by my boss. He's good. Rarely do things need to be "corrected"; simple balance and volume is the name of the game. I know I've done my job when I can do a level-matched A/B between before and after and not really notice a difference. At that point, if a client's with me and says "hey that doesn't sound any better, what am I paying for here," I bring the mastered version back up to full volume and show them the 6-10 dB difference