Challenge to Mastering engineers who would work online

[Xaque]

So I run a studio and pretty much always master my own stuff. Plugins of course, my latest favorite being the TC powercore MD3 plug. I've tried getting my stuff sent out for mastering a few times since I am a firm believer that analog gear SHOULD outperform my plugin stuff but I've yet to have something returned that actually came out better than the master we made on our own. Once it came back sounding pretty nice but was unbearably quiet for the metal album it was for.

Anyway, that's the preface for this. The client this time....is ME. Or rather my band, and our project is a real tricky one to get mastered. It's a techy metal project that has 100% natural drums(so considerably more looseness than the average metal record) and some fairly difficult stuff to work with. I'm not in a quest to have the loudest record ever, but I would like it to stand up next to modern metal records of the similar genre and such. The typical tricks and such I use to maximize a hard rock/metal record just don't seem to cut it due to it's odd nature. I love how it's sounding unmastered(which is rare), so clearly that's where the problem lies. We just put out a pre-release copy of it with my MD3 mastering job on it, but I'm just not 100% happy. I feel the cymbals get a bit overcompressed and there's an overall grain I'm not diggin. Of course this happens since it's MY band and if you ever attempt working on your own stuff everything goes snafu.

So in other words, I'm looking to see if anybody thinks they can spice this thing up. I would gladly pay full price/whatever for somebody who has some top notch analog mastering gear(or who knows, shock me with a better digital job) that can show me a demo of one of these songs that I love. If you aren't into "free samples", just contact me and show me some of your work and I'll consider paying for such a thing, but it would be best to have some idea what I'm getting.

Here's my original job, I set up our myspace page to play 224kbps of two mp3s so they're fairly close to "full quality". I'll post the 32-bit unmastered .wav of one song here later today and see if anybody else wants to take a crack at this. If you need/require some kind of stems or something, PM me with the details of that.

Any help at all would be fantastic. By the way, I have tried different combos of Tracks, Waves plugs, Izotope Ozone on this. So far the MD3 is the winner for me. I wouldn't cry if I had to release this as is, it's definitely not terrible.


EDIT: here's the unmastered 32-bit .wav of one of the songs, good luck

oh, and for any volume reference you can check the original mp3 here

[chrisj]

Hi Zack- love your influences, and I love mastering loud metal. Put up the track (or point me to it) and I'll free-sample ya within 12 hours of when I get the mix. OK?

[Riccardo]

Xaque,
plenty of very, very good Me on this board.

Send Chris a file and see if you like it. thumbsup

I'm moving this to the "test forum" which is the place where we have posts like yours. The nemae is provisional due to a lot of s(p)cram going on...

[chrisj]

OK, getting the file now: I'll post a yousendit link when I'm done, let me know if you likey. I've no objection to other people listening in so long as they don't take up all the download slots and stop you from getting the file...

[chrisj]

OK, here it is- yousendit was being pokey. How's that?

http://www.yousendit.com/download/8VLKwk6GbWx5TA%3D%3D

I'm also using it as an example on another thread about loudness via crunch, not sheared transients (while the link lasts) and you can see a bit of the waveform depicted there. Some of the other mastering guys are trying to figure out what's happening with a kind of smokinhot mastering that isn't actually flat-topping, and since I do that I thought I'd chime in.

If you don't like it I'll happily delete the post- I figured it's among masteringslutz and might be relevant to that discussion. Plus more people should hear your music

-chris

[Xaque]

Originally Posted by Riccardo

Xaque,
plenty of very, very good Me on this board.

Send Chris a file and see if you like it. thumbsup

I'm moving this to the "test forum" which is the place where we have posts like yours. The nemae is provisional due to a lot of s(p)cram going on...

ha! I can't even find this forum. Either way, I hope to see as many people as would want to take a crack at this.

[Xaque]

Originally Posted by chrisj

OK, here it is- yousendit was being pokey. How's that?

http://www.yousendit.com/download/8VLKwk6GbWx5TA%3D%3D

I'm also using it as an example on another thread about loudness via crunch, not sheared transients (while the link lasts) and you can see a bit of the waveform depicted there. Some of the other mastering guys are trying to figure out what's happening with a kind of smokinhot mastering that isn't actually flat-topping, and since I do that I thought I'd chime in.

If you don't like it I'll happily delete the post- I figured it's among masteringslutz and might be relevant to that discussion. Plus more people should hear your music

-chris

thanks so much! I am at home so I only listened on my TV speakers(which are surprizingly good) so all I could tell so far is that it's quieter somewhat, and seemed clean as could be. I'll check it out further later on.

Anybody else wanna take a stab? I should say it would be interesting to hear people make one that IS as hot as mine but just "better". I'm open to whatever sounds best though.

[aivoryuk]

is there any chance of getting a direct link to your master rather than going through myspace as my mastering is done at a different DAW

oh ignore that just found the seperate link for your file

[Riccardo]

Originally Posted by aivoryuk

is there any chance of getting a direct link to your master rather than going through myspace as my mastering is done at a different DAW

Alex I think there is a direct link to one of the songs above (first post). I'll give it a listen if I get some time later on.

[trilliumsound]

Zack, I PM'd you.

Cheers.

[chrisj]

I'd be happy to make one as hot as yours (probably still sounding similar to what I had) but I feel I should try and give you a frame of reference for why I chose the 'hotness level' I did.

Here's a graph of the RMS levels of 'American Idiot', followed by my first try at your song and your own. Each vertical line is 3 db, so that 'red zone' on the metering is between -6db RMS and -9db. I wasn't referring to American Idiot when I mastered your track, but what I did ended up being very similar to its 'loudness potential', differences being mostly down to the very different arrangement and the fact that Idiot's mix has hotter drums by almost 3 db, I'm guessing.

You've made your mix at least 2 db hotter than American Idiot, and some effects are as follows- look at the bits sticking up out of the top of mine, first a red one (right channel event) and then a green one later and a few more. Because of the hotter level, the contrast between these sonic events and the body of the song goes away.

I can go 2 db hotter than yours again- if that's what you REALLY wanted, and if it was a proper gig. I might not want to put my name on it if I did, because there's a reason American Idiot isn't louder than it is- the music is better served by allowing contrast to delineate musical events. My track is hardly 'clean'! It's actually at Sterling levels. It's just that you cannot exceed the loudness potential of a track without being pretty unhappy with the result.

If you wanted REALLY fine sounding, go two db below mine and still allow the biggest dynamic events to go as hot as they are. That would knock you on your butt

If I've convinced you to back off a couple DB my time's been well spent even if I haven't got the gig... your music deserves a proper hearing, not one mastered beyond its loudness comfort zone.

Fair enough?

[Xaque]

WOW! I've got 5 masters so far! Thanks for all the potential winners. Just amazing gearslutz.

One thing guys, nobody's told me anything of what sort of gear they've run this through. Any of you 5 care to share any of your "secrets"?

-zack

[chrisj]

Hey, I don't even see any other masters what's up with that?

All I'm doing is compression and limiting with some twists- notably, the limiting is kicking in a saturation effect that tracks the degree of limiting and applies a sort of make-up gain to make the turned-down bits more saturated. Also, the limiting includes 2nd harmonic generation which tracks a heavily lowpassed version of the track causing the extremely low bass to be filled in.

Oh, and these days I won't do anything that's not 48K and up, or oversampled. SRC to 48K and back done via sinc interpolation.

Oh, and I'm using Chebyshev polynomials to add trace amounts of 3rd and 5th harmonic- and with that and bass EQ I'm doing extensive pre-and-post-emphasis.

[Xaque]

they were mostly PM'd to me which is good since I would only want to show the ones I loved. So far the clear winner is Ed Littman Mastering, but I'm expecting a few more. I'll keep everybody posted, this has already been tons of fun.

[chrisj]

I'm not surprised: Ed is a great guy and he's got a terrific ear. I've always really enjoyed everything I heard out of his studio.

Keep us posted, tell us more- I'm interested to hear you describe how Ed's version sounded, in lieu of hearing it myself.

[Xaque]

Ed's master sounds....huge. huge is only word I can think of, it's got waaay more beefy subs and low end which I would love to use in mine....but I can't without mudding up the mix. It's every bit as loud as mine but in a totally different way it seems. He did some odd stuff with the stereo image that sounded cool but seemed to bury the vocals, so I'm waiting to see a version without so much of that. I'd post it here but he did PM it to me and I don't want to post it if he wouldn't want me to. I certainly wouldn't mind.

[Thor]

Hi Xaque,

sent you a PM.

Thor

[Xaque]

Okay Ed Littman revised his master and ta-da, it's even better! Might be a TOUCH too loud but it's still blowing most these others out of the water with it's agreesion. It's like he turned up the "awesome" knob to 11. I got a nice one from Ivory mastering as well, would it be okay to post that?

I converted this to 256 mp3 for quick listening, hope ed doesn't mind. Think you can do better....show me!

http://www.castleultimate.com/GotCatELMREV.mp3

[chrisj]

I think Ed's a fine fellow and don't intend to get into a master-fight with him- plus, if the way to outdo him is to out-loud him and he's already extended too far in that direction, it wouldn't do him or me any good to race to the bottom that way. Enjoy the masters- I stand by my opinion (which is only an opinion) that roughly Green Day/Sterling levels are the appropriate levels, not hotter.

Next time say you want nuclear blast levels 3 db hotter than Sterling, rather than wanting the cymbals to be less compressed that's part of the reason why I stuck to Green Day levels, was to keep the cymbals from getting squashed too much. Fair enough?

[Xaque]

well I actually totally agree but actually found yours sounded the most "compressed" which is not at all what I'm going for. On the upside, yours is also only to feature no square waves

just not my thing. I just like the tone of Ed's the most so far, I'm not in a quest for the loudest master at all.

-zack

Originally Posted by chrisj

I think Ed's a fine fellow and don't intend to get into a master-fight with him- plus, if the way to outdo him is to out-loud him and he's already extended too far in that direction, it wouldn't do him or me any good to race to the bottom that way. Enjoy the masters- I stand by my opinion (which is only an opinion) that roughly Green Day/Sterling levels are the appropriate levels, not hotter.

Next time say you want nuclear blast levels 3 db hotter than Sterling, rather than wanting the cymbals to be less compressed that's part of the reason why I stuck to Green Day levels, was to keep the cymbals from getting squashed too much. Fair enough?

[chrisj]

Oh, you mean more like this?

http://download.yousendit.com/2AE0527D7E587398

Dude, you're hardcore

So much for 'only one not flat-topping' I'm sure there's some clips in there...

[Xaque]

So I've got a few new interesting ones. The Ivory Room sent me a couple more today that sounded quite nice and I got one rather quiet one from mcsnare that was probably the most "professional" and clean sounding one. It was easily 2-3 db quieter(in where I had to turn my volume knob to equal it all out with the others) but like Bob Katz Necrophagist album it managed to still sound rather agreesive. Probably not my bag, but I found it rather nice that he managed to make the "quiet yet loud" version. Still waiting to see what sort of fun Massive has with this....

[treymonfauntre]

i don't know if you realize this, but so far all the "quiet" "unmastered" ones seem to sound the best to you. i think most metal heads know how to turn their volume knobs up...

[ed littman]

Originally Posted by Xaque

and I got one rather quiet one from mcsnare that was probably the most "professional" and clean sounding one. It was easily 2-3 db quieter(in where I had to turn my volume knob to equal it all out

still loud as ****. when i did mine i just got cought in the moment.........
Ed

[Xaque]

not true, I like ed's the most and it's louder than any of them, and cleaner than most. If you listen to some of my mastering jobs you'll notice I've done things WAY louder than this in the past all while being somewhat cleaner sounding. Thus my frustration with this project. Just listen to the All Shall Perish recording I have up for example....that thing is out of control.

-zack

Originally Posted by treymonfauntre

i don't know if you realize this, but so far all the "quiet" "unmastered" ones seem to sound the best to you. i think most metal heads know how to turn their volume knobs up...

[brandy]

Just stepped over that topic. Are the files still online? I will have a look at that. I am not a ME but i do 99% Metal these days.

brandy

[brandy]

Unfortunatelly the 32bit wave is not online anymore. :-(

[Xaque]

Just to add some finality to this, I ended up out of the 17(thank you all so much) tests I got sent choosing Massive Mastering with John Scrip. You can now hear the final product at our myspace.

[brandy]

Wow!

Great Music, great performance, great production, great mastering!

PERFEKT!!

Sound huge, punchy, ballances. And CRASY!! :-)

[Led]

Did you pay John in the end for the job he did? You can flame me to death for this if you want, but is this the future - everybody have a go and the winner gets paid for the work? Sony did this not long ago with a major single release, asked 12 teams of producers to do remixes and only offered to pay the few chosen. Xaque I know you didn't exactly ask for the full track free, but does anyone ask a builder to build them a bit of a house and if they like it he'll get the job and they'll pay him? I not having a go at you as a person, but it sounds a bit like free mastering submissions in the guise of a "challenge". It's hard to expect the public not to undervalue the audio industry when it happens from within. Feel free to flame away.....