Jeff Evans


Mike you are correct. There should be no mixer between you and the speakers and also the monitor screen should be right out of the way. When I master I actually re arrange my studio to suit.  As Mr Katz points out there really should be nothing between you and the speakers.

Talking of speakers Ben you say you have three sets of monitors. What are they out of interest? Also you will need a set of real VU meters if you want to master properly, period! Every mastering suite in the universe has them. Don't even think about it without them. Have you thought of that.

No I havev'nt brought my monitors yet, thats part of the business plan, as for VU meters all the compressors and they are real have VU meters.  Plus I've worked out this K-Meter stuff as well.
 
Are you suggesting that on top on the compressor VU's I need another set.
 
Neb

Absolutely, the compressor VU's won't tell you a thing. You need a proper set right across your final output. The compressor remember is usually in between the EQ and the limiter. So you need VU's on the other side of the limiter as well.

Talking about limiters you need a real decent one eg PSP Xenon. It's expensive though. Without it you are sort of wasting your time as well. It is the ultimate limiter. Quiate a few famous mastering engineers use it. I now know why.

Also what speakers are you thinking of getting? This is rather important. Sub?

PSP Xenon

Jeff Evans


Absolutely, the compressor VU's won't tell you a thing. You need a proper set right across your final output. The compressor remember is usually in between the EQ and the limiter. So you need VU's on the other side of the limiter as well.

Talking about limiters you need a real decent one eg PSP Xenon. It's expensive though. Without it you are sort of wasting your time as well. It is the ultimate limiter. Quiate a few famous mastering engineers use it. I now know why.

Also what speakers are you thinking of getting? This is rather important. Sub?

+1 on the PSP

Jeff Evans


Absolutely, the compressor VU's won't tell you a thing. You need a proper set right across your final output. The compressor remember is usually in between the EQ and the limiter. So you need VU's on the other side of the limiter as well.

Talking about limiters you need a real decent one eg PSP Xenon. It's expensive though. Without it you are sort of wasting your time as well. It is the ultimate limiter. Quiate a few famous mastering engineers use it. I now know why.

Also what speakers are you thinking of getting? This is rather important. Sub?

Well some really crappy ones like the new Behringer Mastering ones, I know yuck but if you can get the master right on them then we know we are cooking, I hadn't thought of a sub, so I will probally get a tannoy one to with my monitor's and probally some PA speakers don't forget this is not high end end but mid-end mastering jeff.
 
PSP Xenon just looked that up all I can find is the software version, is there a hardware version??
 
I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have a fair idea of what I was doing, %90 percent of the time my masters translate, case in point I forgot what I was listening to the other night on my computer speakers but it was distorting like hell where as http://soundcloud.com/aaudiomystiks/nowandthen this I could turn up loud and no distotion.
 
You must remember I am a different engineer and I use meters and my understanding of convertors to mix and master.
 
For instance I know if we have an RMS of -6db all the time on most systems it will be unlistenable, also I am not trying to get into anything but digital mastering and this is a whole new ball game.  Ok and CD''s but I understand also what ballpark I am aiming for for most types of music and I know this will scare you but because Sonar meters so well I know where to aim when mastering.  The Span Kmeter has also given me an extra understanding of where to aim and having the appropriate amount of headroom.
 
Look if you import a complete master of a track into Sonar, as long as you have ballpark figures, you can reverse engineer stuff, eg a decent spectrum analyser and now this K-Meter.
 
Keep the advice coming Jeff, I need it.
 
Look I have no choice in the matter of setting up a business, they're no studio jobs, and it's more expensive to set up a studio.  I almost and this will make you laugh had a job at JMC Brisbane but they won't pay relocation costs.  And we both know that there is no job security at JMC.
 
This hasn't even been approved yet, yes I am flying by the seat of my pants, but I ask again Jeff what else can I do???
 
You have your teaching job, I am sick of going hungry, I belong in Research because I understand what is coming, as I have suggested the next DAW will be an emualtion of a studio: Abbey Road anyone.
 
So keep the suggestions coming but don't be too negative I am scared enough, I have $3000's worth of compressor's sitting in a box doing nothing.
 
Do I leave them there and go and become a bum because I can't become a high end mastering studio, you have to start somewhere and since there is nowhere to start in audio anymore, I have to roll the dice.
 
As I have said there is not one mastering studio in Tasmainia and it is a large music industry, larger than Canberra, so I can fill a niche.  There are other things I am planing to do but mastering is a begining.
 
Ben 

Hey Jeff, that's some really interesting stuff, and some great advice too.

Hey thanks Steve always keen on giving good advice. Ben I just noticed that word JMC! I was the head of Audio at the JMC here in Melbourne but we won't go there!!I could tell you a story or two on that one. It was interesting at the time. They threw out a broken Yamaha Rev 5 that nobody could fix but I got it going. Also they got rid of a Harrison console and a 2" tape machine all in perfect working order for $10,000 and replaced it with a Pro Tools HD system and a Control 24! I wanted them to keep the Harrison and the 2" machine because the Harrison can accomodate 2 x 24 channel multitracks. The tape machine AND Pro Tools would have been amazing together!

Anyway more mastering. I use the LP64 EQ as my main EQ and feed that out to a SMART C2 compressor and then back in for the PSP Xenon. You could easily use the TL Audio as the compressor for sure. But if you have the UAD card then your finest compressor there might be just as good. (or better even)

I start be EQing the bottom end. I have found that the bottom end on a lot of great mastered tracks is similar. I used Span to find out what it is. It is basically everything down to about 60Hz and a pretty quick roll off after that. I found this out in my car. I have got a killer system in there and the bass is over the top. But even in my car I found on many commercial CD's the bass just kicks nicely and does not rattle your teeth. But on a lot of mixed unmastered tracks the bass rattled my teeth so I decided to dig in and find out why. You have to clean up the low end and after some experimentation I found this steep curve produced the same result in the car. I do low end first. It effects everything that comes after that!

This is where the ref tracks come in now. I start to kick them in and compare the bass and the highs and try to match. Mids obviously need some attention too. I find smooth curves over a wide frequency range work best but with tiny amounts of boost or cut like +1db or so.
The idea is to match the mids to the ref track. It is amazing how much the mids will jump out with only +1db (or less) of boost but over a wide range of frequencies eg from 500Hz to say 3Khz or so. (Big sharp spikes in the mids eg high Q settings you need to be wary of. But saying that Danny did that to one of my tracks and it sounded killer. But the track was less than perfect to begin with and Danny just fixed the offending area really well. So in some cases I say yes to that but overall I would be avoiding it)

A lot of mixes seem to build up energy around 200 to 300Hz. I find a little dip there can make a masive difference. Maybe -3db or so and not over a very wide range either.

In my previous post I mentioned measuring rms levels of a commercial track. If I am working at say K -14 and obviously a commercial track is going to blast it. So I pull it down by the required amount until the meters are just reading normally again. I might have to pull the track down 7 db which means the ref track is now at K-7 which is pretty loud! I am finding quite a few clients are expecting to get to this level. (unfortunate!)

Now I know that the PSP limiter can get me whopping 7 db in level upwards without stress but I still like to try and steal some gain form elsewhere as well. Like the EQ. If I can lift that up after doing the EQ even by 1 or 2 db then it means less work for the limiter.

The compressor I don't drive hard so much. I like to go for about 3 db of gain reduction. The attack settings are important here. Slow it down so it does not sound like it is jumping all over the music. eg 10 ms or so. (even 30 ms on the C2) The compressor should just create this lovely evening out of the mix type effect. I use the makeup gain and maybe get another db of gain out of it. That means the PSP Xenon only has to do maybe +4 or +5 db of loudness upward shift. There are quite a few controls on a PSP Xenon and that is why I like it so much. No other limiter gives you as much control over how the limiter is actually sounding like this.

I do all this at 24 bit as well. The PSP also does the dithering down right at the last minute to 16 bit. I just print the track now (even as a high speed bounce) and do final things in Adobe Audition. Studio One has got a great mastering page where you can set up all these things over all the tracks. I have to print the C2 tracks though because they are outboard obviously. If you were all ITB you would not even have to do that.

I keep switching the ref tracks in and out all the time to make sure. Mastering is also about getting all the tracks to work together as a group and you may need to fine tune the odd track here and there. When I am using the limiter I re calibrate my K system levels to K-7 so the VU's are now showing the final levels for the mastered tracks and the ref tracks. That way I can compare easily and see if I am still falling short or getting too loud.

Tracks that only have a vocal and guitar or vocal and piano will sound louder than the big kickass tracks. (even though both are reading the same on the VU) I find dropping them by 2 to 3 db usually brings them in line with the others.  Don't try to make the kickass tracks as loud as the quiet ones, I go the other way around. I lower the solo tracks to match the kickass tracks.

Then I go for a long drive in the car and check the whole thing out! Or have a dinner party and play the CD in the background. Any little thing will usually stand out a mile for some reason even when you are paying no attention to it. There will usually be some changes to some tracks. I also give the CD to the client and let them listen to it for about a week and they often come back with just minor changes but important ones none the less.

I will do more as I think of it. I don't try to change the sound of the mix very much at all but rather enhance it. It is a big mistake to completely change the sound of a mix. Unless it is terrible and needs some serious operations but in those cases you should send them back and say remix them or don't take the job on if it sounds terrible. You will never get it right no matter what you do.

Thanks jeff and Steve sorry I got a bit narky jeff Ive writing a business plan trying to get a micro enterprise loan so I can add an Avalon 747 to my mastering arsenal.  The psp limiter is only 250 bucks I was panicking that you were suggesting some expensive hardware limiter.  I've been setting up a tight budget and I thought **** psp limiter how much is that but 250 is doable. 

Man after doinging this business plan it's scary I have to turn a profit in 3 months and your right jeff most of the business is in the city you live and it's tribal again but living in Melbourne and any capital city on the mainland is too expensive. I can live in the middle of Hobart for 175 bucks a week. As I also said I would be the only mastering studio in Hobart but the tribal thing is soo scary.  So my clients would be home studios mainly and getting the word out is the hard thing but the Salamanca arts centre is a good place to do business because it's an arts community.

I just looked up the price of the c2 and our compressors that is the c2 and the tl audio a2 are about the same price everyone gives te a2 a bums rap but its a great compressor.  Don't forget the a2 has a built in eq and it is really sweet then there is the dial in tube harmonics.  When someone suggested I should offer a few free mastering jobs on the songs forum I should have done that ages ago. My confidence was low thanks to a woman not that I'm knocking woman.

The jmc thing jeff is so farcical we both have chatted before they were going to hire me without even checking that I was jmcs original bad boy and George would flip if he knew that the were going to hire me. As I say move to Brisbane with no job security but they almost had me but I love living in Hobart it has a great arts scene and culture could really become huge.

Finally Steve yep the website has to be good my friend suggested simple solution mastering as a name and I'm going with that I might run some designs past you guys once I have a web builder quote.

But getting the loan is going to be hard so I doubt it will come off might just sell everything and recoup my loss. It's soo scary setting up business I've spent nigh on a week and a half on this business plan and yes I'm checking grammar spelling colouquisisms (am I spelling that right) when it's something important like this I put the hard yards in and I'm getting better it just doesn't look like it thanks to this forum and it's a forum factor.

Thanks for the advice guys I don't know what to do its all so scary 

Neb