Mastering Question

[DaKid]

Let me start off saying I'm not a mastering engineer, so hopefully this doesn't sound like a dumb question....

Anyways, I was home a while back, and dug into some older CD's and pulled out a Tupac Greatest Hits to listen to while chillin out... now this is on an older cd player where it has a little fader (i guess you can call it that) that you can move up to only hear out of the left speaker and down to hear out of the right.... When doing so- I found that one side had a little more shine, high end touch on it that the other side did not... Dare I say the other side sounded dull (in comparison I guess)

The song on topic is "Dear Mama"

I love the sound of this record, however my question is- Is this a technique used in mastering? To maybe slightly accentuate the high end out of say the left speaker and the low end in the right?

Or maybe the speakers were just shit?

[dementedchord]

i dont know the cut... but its not likely that at the level of the game he was playin dont think even a bad ME would do that.... suspect your gear....

[Cellotron]

Originally Posted by DaKid

Let me start off saying I'm not a mastering engineer, so hopefully this doesn't sound like a dumb question....

Anyways, I was home a while back, and dug into some older CD's and pulled out a Tupac Greatest Hits to listen to while chillin out... now this is on an older cd player where it has a little fader (i guess you can call it that) that you can move up to only hear out of the left speaker and down to hear out of the right.... When doing so- I found that one side had a little more shine, high end touch on it that the other side did not... Dare I say the other side sounded dull (in comparison I guess)

The song on topic is "Dear Mama"

I love the sound of this record, however my question is- Is this a technique used in mastering? To maybe slightly accentuate the high end out of say the left speaker and the low end in the right?

I would say that I know of no case where an ME would deliberately accentuate this difference between sides - but you never know - stranger things have been requested.

As far as this happening in the mix stage:
While not usual practice sometimes there are mixes where the brighter instruments such as hihats and guitars are panned to one side with darker instruments such as bass panned are to the left - making one side seem brighter than the other. This was in fact true for a lot of mixes the electric side of the Foo Fighters most recent double record. I have no idea about this particular Tupac track though - I've heard it a million times but usually just on the radio or TV and not in a place where I could do a critical evaluation of it.

Or maybe the speakers were just shit?

First thing to do is to play some other CD's to see if your system has the same problem with these also.,
The other obvious test for this is to just swap the left and right speakers to see if the duller side of the program moves when you swap the speakers. You might also try playing the same CD using the same speakers but with a different CD player and amplifier to see if there is a problem with the amp or pre-amp.
the joys of trouble shooting!

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[DaKid]

Thanks for the input!

I mean- the difference wasn't HUGE at all. I know that hi hats and everything are panned in the mixing stage... but even the sibilance in his voice was just a little crisper on the other side.... I think I brought the CD here with me and I think it's in my car.... I'll go grab it tonight or tomorrow and dump it into PT then check my studio monitors to see if I still hear the same difference.....

Once again tho, I appreciate the feedback!

[brian_delizza]

Aww..

Pssshh..


Dawg.


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