I just think it's best to avoid fakirs and charlatans.

Stems? I amazed that stems seem so revolutionary. I think when we called them subs it seemed so routuine. Stem sounds so fancy.

Seperation?... I'm disgusted... why doesn't the guy just say he's remixing your stuff and let you decide if that's what you want.

best regards,
mike

Well said Mike. LOL Subs, isn't that new? LOL It seems that stems is a term used by the video guys while subs is used by the audio guys. Same thing different words.

ORIGINAL: guitartrek

ORIGINAL: John
After all is said and done I and Undertow both took on this little project and I have to say that Undertow did a great job on the material.

I didn't get to hear Undertow's yet. Undertow - can I hear your version?

It's probably bad @$$. No doubt it .



EDIT: Not to suggest that John's version doesn't sound good by the way. It's just that I've heard Undertow's work before and, even though it was just one song, it was bad (like the good bad).

ya know,

For a big chunk of time, mastering was done with one track.

Just call it remixing... or this is gonna get real confusing.

best,
mike

well,

That's a very new definition of remix. Did the web dictionary date the usage you are sharing with us? The OED would, and they might include an earlier definition as well.

perhaps something like this:

They tried to mix it but it sucked... so they sent it out to be mixed.

BTW the use of logic is not so much... your example doesn't refute the previous statement. It's an augmentation.

Still Smiling :-)

best,
mike

well,

I can't afford a subscritption to the OED online so I had to settle for this:

Merriam Webster:

Main Entry: re·mix
Pronunciation: \(ˈ)rē-ˈmiks\
Function: transitive verb
Date: 1662
: to mix again



Main Entry: re·mix
Pronunciation: \ˈrē-ˌmiks\
Function: noun
Date: 1980
: a variant of an original recording (as of a song) made by rearranging or adding to the original


so seeing how he's performing a service... I'm going with the verb.

And.... that's 1622.... a 358 year head start.

I love English... what an exciting laungauge (just kidding, fellow world citizens!)


I gotta say this really put a big smile on my face.

best regards,
mike

Here's one to look up : pedantic

ORIGINAL: guitartrek

I didn't get to hear Undertow's yet. Undertow - can I hear your version?

Sure, send me an email through the email link in my profile.

UnderTow

ORIGINAL: mike_mccue

I'm suspicious of the new wave of Mastering philosophers... but I'd be curious to hear what some of the well regarded Mastering guru's would say about this statement:

"it is easy to copy someone else's mastering when you have the final result to mimic."

I wonder how that theory would correlate with my general theory that there aint nothing new under the sun?

How many people are working in revolutionary genres? How many are working in familair genres?

Maybe mastering isn't the mysterious practice that some people make it out to be?

Just a thought.

best regards,
mike

Hey Mike, sorry I'm a little late to the party here....I had no idea this thread was still going on. LOL! At any rate, though I don't consider myself a guru by any means, I'm quite knowledgeable in this and would like to give you my take on it...if you don't mind reading that is. :)

I personally do not think copying someone else's mastering job is easy at all. The reason for this is the different instrumentation used and the eq curve used on the actual mix. Sure we can accentuate specific frequencies that will alter the tones of certain instrumentation during masterting, but even if you had an identical eq curve of someone's mastering job, it would not sound the same on your stuff. I have a feeling you are already well aware of that, but in my humble opinion, I don't see this as easy or even feasible.

I have always took mastering as the icing on the cake to what was presented to me. I do not feel it is my job to alter the mix that was sent to me to the point of it not sounding like the mix that was sent. The only time I will ever do something like that is when the client is stuck with the product as is and can't do a remix for me. I won't even take on a job that has things that I do not like in it. My job is not to polish a turd unless instructed to do so, and if I have to do that, the client is going to pay for it. Now that said, I think it's failry easy to cop stereo seperation, compression and over-all consistency by listening to someone else's mastering job. It's the eq curve that is the toughest. For example, there is a program out which you may or may not have heard of called Har-Bal. Though I'd never rely on it, it has a few cool features in it that literally allow you to impo9rt a tune into it, and steal the over-all eq curve and loudness of that tune. You then bring your tune into it and apply the curve.

This is good in my opinion because it allows you to see where you may have to make a few adjustments. You get to compare your old file to the new one and see if maybe the curve you have selected added in some good bass, bad bass, took away some mid range congestion etc. But, if you have a snare drum that is already mid-rangey and boxey, and the source file you are applying the curve from does not, you're snare loses it's mid range pop. Same with low end...it all depends on how close your mix is eq wise and instrumentation wise to the source file you are stealing the curve from.

As for your comment about mastering being possibly less mysterious....I've never thought of it to be that way at all to be honest. It all depends how good or bad your original mix is. For example, in 2004 Bob Katz mastered my album DanziLand. Before I sent him the tracks, I attempted to do my own mastering job just to see how close it would be to Bob's. I was astonished to find out there wasn't much of a difference at all to be honest. This is not to take away from Bob one bit as I have nothing but major respect for the guy and would work with him again. But my point there is, I was able to achieve a similar result without even hearing his version. I think the reason for this is because we gave him a very good product to work with and he really didn't have to fix much of anything. From what I can tell when I compare his version to mine, he made things a little wider than I did and our eq curves seemed so similar, I really couldn't tell the difference to be honest. Mine was a little louder than his but not to the point of being crushed. But the extra wideness he provided (not extreme, it was just right) was the only major difference I noticed between our versions...and to be honest, I can't say that it made a huge difference to where I would add that particular process in mine. So I think it really depends on what you are working with that will decide how much mastering you really need to do.

Like another poster had mentioned, some guys just like to use certain weapons even if they are used in moderation because they like the sound. I have a compressor that I love to master with, but I don't use much of it. 2:1 ratio with a -12 threshold etc that just seems to work very well with rock music and alters the sound in a good way. Sometimes I use a little more, sometimes a little less. It all depends on the eq curve I use and how much has been applied. Hope this answers your question a bit. :)

Reality is just the illusion we all agree upon.



Reality is what happens to us on the way to fulfilling our dreams.