Mastering Question

[octatonic]

Originally Posted by Daddydex

For those still following, I posted a version for comparison on my soundclick page. This is the AIFF. file run through L2. No other treatment.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/defa...?bandID=803496

Dan

Interesting.
Listening to it now- the bass response is completely different with the L2.
I don't know what monitors you guys have but on my dynaudios and genelecs the actual electric bass part seems to really pop- there isn't nearly as much low bass as my version though.
Doing a quick A/B between my edit and yours it sounds like a Jazz Bass (yours) vs PBass (mine) tonality.
What actual electric bass did you use?
Some nice 'lazy', just behind the beat bass playing there btw. Kudos.

The separation between the organ and the rhythm electric guitar parts has decreased however, quite significantly I think.

We're definitely getting somewhere.

I will mixdown with my current version, (vocals where they should be, but the same treatment as earlier today) and we can compare.
I'll turn on the outboard tomorrow and we can hear the difference that hardware compression will make to the mix.

[Daddydex]

It's a SX Jazz Bass.

Dan

[Daddydex]

And for the record, I am using KRK V6 Monitors.

I definitely could here it muddy up the guitar and organ. This was intended to demonstrate the L2 in the wrong hands scenario as I would guess most people just use it to increase the volume.

Dan

[octatonic]

Originally Posted by Daddydex

It's a SX Jazz Bass.

Dan

Nice tonality to it.
Did you DI, mic an amp or use an amp sim (like a pod).

Originally Posted by Daddydex

And for the record, I am using KRK V6 Monitors.

I know them- a colleague swears by them- I always found them a bit mid range forward to my ears, but that is more about me than any deficiency in the KRK's.

[Daddydex]

Jim, I ran the bass through a DI and a sim. I will have to look to see which one.

Dan

[octatonic]

Updates for people again.
Dan's fixed original with the vocal panned centre is here:

http://www.jamesrichmond.com/client/...%202_fixed.aif

My original edits on this file are here:

http://www.jamesrichmond.com/client/...cal_corr_1.aif

This is the same mastering chain as before- it is 1/2 way through the upload at the moment so might be best to leave it for an hour before downloading.

I have just done a new version with the Massive Passive used for high end EQ, the Focusrite Red3 compressor and I used McDSP's ML4000 mastering limiter to finish it off.
It is much closer to release quality level now- I'll upload it later tonight, once the last file has finished.

[Daddydex]

I look forward to it Jim.

What happened to Bonneville Bruce? He was going to take a stab at this.

By the way Jim, your description "shouty" is perfect in regards to the hard limiting.

Dan

[woodman]

Originally Posted by Daddydex

For those still following, I posted a version for comparison on my soundclick page. This is the AIFF. file run through L2. No other treatment.

i lost track of this thread for a couple of days and it's gotten over my head in some respects ....

L1/2/3

these are software limiters, right? are they included in your recording program, plug-ins from another source or what? the difference is stunning ... then i listened to Jim's work. wow. light-years from anything i'll be able to do anytime soon (i'm kind of an advanced beginner in the digital realm). but listening to the comparisons, i want to learn more ... especially in simple methods like the L1/2/3 thing.

[octatonic]

Here is my latest version.
It was passed through the Manley Massive Passive for a bit of boosting and cutting, into the Focusrite Red 3, beck in to Protools and I applied the McDSP ML4000 mastering limiter with some custom settings.

Sounds pretty good to my ears.

http://www.jamesrichmond.com/client/...all_ml4000.aif

[octatonic]

Originally Posted by woodman

hese are software limiters, right? are they included in your recording program, plug-ins from another source or what? the difference is stunning ... then i listened to Jim's work. wow. light-years from anything i'll be able to do anytime soon (i'm kind of an advanced beginner in the digital realm). but listening to the comparisons, i want to learn more ... especially in simple methods like the L1/2/3 thing.

Waves L1, L2 and L3 are different versions of a limiter from Waves.
They aren't included with the recording software- you have to buy them.
The TDM Version of L3 is around $900.
You need a Protools HD rig to use them.
This isn't a cost effective approach, for sure- but imho you cannot make a record that is release quality with a native computer a cheap audio card and a few plugins.
Believe me, if I though I could I would have done so and save myself a lot of money (and depreciation).

I have a 48 input TDM rig that I track with and a fair few plugins but a hell of a lot of outboard.

Also, having the plugins is one thing- learning to use them takes time as well.
I've had rookie engineers come into my studio and make a hash of it- and I've done that myself in the past too.

Plugins only get you so far though- I far prefer using outboard to treat the tracks- just passing audio at unity through the Massive Passive, Focusrite Red 3 and my Summit DCL200 makes the tracks sound bigger, fatter and more fun.
There is something about passing audio through a transformer that warms it up in a musically pleasing way- much better than software.

I'm in no way saying I am the be all and end all of mastering engineers though.
Whilst I am pleased you like the treatments, put that track in the hands of someone like Tony Cousins and they will do a much better job- but they have more expensive gear, a better acoustic environment than I and they have 25+ years on me in terms of experience.

Back to the Waves limiters.... They are fine, to a point.
Although I own them I actually prefer TC Electronic MD3 and McDSP ML4000, which is what I've used here.
The ML4000 is a bargain at $500.
I use it all the time.

[woodman]

i hear you loud and clear, Jim ... the last record i made, i sprung for a pro mastering job from Dave Harris of Studio B in Charlotte NC. he uses mainly hardware too, in a room he designed for mastering. it was incredible to hear the sound come to life ... he ran it through 2-inch tape as part of the signal chain. but it sounds like you're doing the same thing in your own way.

at this point, i'm a loooong way from that, just trying to find low-cost ways to get "bigger" sound from my cheezy-sounding home recordings and train my ears. this thread has given me ideas, most of them probably laughable, but ya gotta start somewhere!

[Daddydex]

Sorry Woodman, I am so new to this that I assumed everyone else was already familiar with the Wave plugins. If your over your head, I have already drowned. Next time I will be more specific.

The file is downloading now. Jim, when you get a minute could you explain the difference in AIFF and MP3.

Dan

[giginthesky]

i am so grateful to you guys for this post. thank you!

[Daddydex]

Jim, the difference is profound to say the least. To me the track sounds much warmer. It really pulls it together. This has been a blast. Sorry it took me so long to reply. The track took about one hour to download. That is why I am curious as to the differences in AIFF and MP3. Thanks again for this.

Edit: I did a little reading and found that the AIFF is not compressed and MP3 is. So I can see why it would be preferable. How is AIFF transferred to CD?

Dan

[giantslayer]

Compression formats like mp3's are designed to make audio files, which are quite massive, smaller. There is some degree of loss of quality with this, depending on how compressed the file is. AIFFs are best for recording, mastering, and burning to CDs because they don't lose anything via file compression. For uploading onto the web or your computer, mp3s are preferable because they don't take an hour to load (like you experienced) or take up 50 mega bytes on your hard drive per song.

edit: speaking of aiffs taking forever to load, the finished version of the song just loaded up. Holy crap! It sounds so much better than the original.

[Daddydex]

I just A/B'd my L2 version with Jim's latest on a tiny pair of speakers and the difference is very noticeable. On Jim's version the instruments have some definition but the L2'd version sounds like mud. I should point out that I did nothing more than yank down the threshold control on L2. No other parameter was disturbed. Only the user.

Dan

[octatonic]

Originally Posted by woodman

i hear you loud and clear, Jim ... the last record i made, i sprung for a pro mastering job from Dave Harris of Studio B in Charlotte NC. he uses mainly hardware too, in a room he designed for mastering. it was incredible to hear the sound come to life ... he ran it through 2-inch tape as part of the signal chain. but it sounds like you're doing the same thing in your own way.

at this point, i'm a loooong way from that, just trying to find low-cost ways to get "bigger" sound from my cheezy-sounding home recordings and train my ears. this thread has given me ideas, most of them probably laughable, but ya gotta start somewhere!

Hey Woodman,

I've hit 2" in the past when tracking- basically you bounce the audio off the 2" and into protools.
This sounds better than recording to digital, then sending it to 2" and rerecording into Protools which some people do as well, but I hate how that sounds.

A lot of mastering guys use 1/2 inch tape- if you think about how much space 2 tracks has on a 1/2 inch recorder (1/4 of an inch each), that is more than dividing 24 tracks into 2" (1/12th).

Originally Posted by giginthesky

i am so grateful to you guys for this post. thank you!

Happy to do it.
It has been fun.

Originally Posted by Daddydex

Jim, the difference is profound to say the least. To me the track sounds much warmer. It really pulls it together. This has been a blast. Sorry it took me so long to reply. The track took about one hour to download. That is why I am curious as to the differences in AIFF and MP3. Thanks again for this.

Edit: I did a little reading and found that the AIFF is not compressed and MP3 is. So I can see why it would be preferable. How is AIFF transferred to CD?

Dan

Glad you like it.
In case I didn't make it clear, feel free to you use as you like.
I don't want to be seen as trawling for work with this- but people can always contact me if they need projects mixed or mastered as I have done.
I do charge for this- but not as much as some other places charge.
I won't mention it again- and I am always happy to offer assistance as my schedule allows if you have questions for your own home recordings and releases.

AIF can be burned to CD by pretty much any CD burning software- pressing houses usually request 16 or 24 bit AIF's to work with.
Their dithering software/process is probably superior to anything most of us have in our studio although I use Barbabatch on the Mac when I need to to it myself.

BTW, Dithering is reducing the number of bits to 16, the number of bits that a CD uses which brings me to a couple of questions you might want to think about.

Do people understand that reducing the bit depth reduces the dynamic range?
Do people understand what dynamic range is?

Originally Posted by giantslayer

edit: speaking of aiffs taking forever to load, the finished version of the song just loaded up. Holy crap! It sounds so much better than the original.

:-)

Originally Posted by Daddydex

I just A/B'd my L2 version with Jim's latest on a tiny pair of speakers and the difference is very noticeable. On Jim's version the instruments have some definition but the L2'd version sounds like mud. I should point out that I did nothing more than yank down the threshold control on L2. No other parameter was disturbed. Only the user.

Dan

Yes, L2 can be great in the right context- but it is all how it is applied.
I've seen some people, usually young guys with a stupid haircut and a backwards baseball cap, chain multiple L2's because to their ears it sounds better.
Well, it sounds LOUDER- as I said earlier, very shouty, but louder isn't better, it just reduces the dynamic range which is very much the opposite of 'musical'.

One final point, when I make a change that affects the overall loudness of the tracks I change the level on my monitor controller (the SPLMTC-2381) so that the perceived loudness to my ears stay constant.
Ie when I apply the ML4000 mastering limiter the entire tracks sounds as though it is a few deb louder- I simply turn the volume on the MTC2381 down to mate what it was before I made the change.
This helps you keep a sense of musical balance, rather than adhering to 'louder is better'.
We are programmed to think that louder is better and as an engineer you need to counteract that in order to maintain a sense of balance and apply that to the track.

I'm glad you are happy Dan and thanks for asking the original question- I always enjoy the opportunity to demonstrate the processes.

[Daddydex]

So we render to 24 bit and then reduce to 16 bit? I confess that I have no idea what bit rate I record at. Nor did I know what bit rate I used for rendering. I just went and checked. So why don't we just render to 16 bit so as not to have any effect on the dynamic range?

Dan

[octatonic]

Originally Posted by Daddydex

So we render to 24 bit and then reduce to 16 bit? I confess that I have no idea what bit rate I record at. Nor did I know what bit rate I used for rendering. I just went and checked. So why don't we just render to 16 bit so as not to have any effect on the dynamic range?

Dan

Without over simplifying it, there are benefits to tracking a 24 bit and a sample rate higher than 44.1khz (I record at 88.2kHz or 96khz mostly these days) and then having the audio dithered/sample rate converted down to 16/44.1 (in two separate processes).

This isn't cut and dried- and it isn't a straight conversion- using POW-R noise shaping dither algorithms does make a difference compared to tracking at 16 bit.
Also, if you ever want to release the music on a higher quality format further down the track, you use the highest quality master you have.

For technical info I'd suggest going to the mastering forum on Gearslutz and ask there- I am sure someone with more of a mathematics background will be able to explain it better.

[Daddydex]

I just joined Gearslutz. I will go sneak in the back door of the mastering forum and poke around. Thanks Jim.

Dan

[octatonic]

Originally Posted by Daddydex

I just joined Gearslutz. I will go sneak in the back door of the mastering forum and poke around. Thanks Jim.

Dan

Cool- I have the same name there, "Octatonic".
I am mostly in the Guitar/Bass, Electronic Music, High End sections.

It is a great place- some big name producers on there, although is down at the moment due to a power outage and some data loss.

Should be up in a couple of hours.

[Daddydex]

Originally Posted by octatonic

Cool- I have the same name there, "Octatonic".
I am mostly in the Guitar/Bass, Electronic Music, High End sections.

It is a great place- some big name producers on there, although is down at the moment due to a power outage and some data loss.

Should be up in a couple of hours.

As I was trying to sneak in, I stopped and played a game of space invaders.

Dan