Robert Babicz on mastering

wow, very interesting

I guess it's also about training yourself to what works for you. It would be interesting to recreate his multiple compressor series using pluggins, just to see what happens.

Very informative.

Kinda blows the 96 k crowd out the window. He is mastering for clubs thus I don't think he is getting the very best sound for an audiophile. None the less it is clear that what Don and I have been saying for a long time now is don't destroy the dynamic range. He seems to be saying the same thing.

He looks a little young to be taking credit for inventing parallel compression!

ORIGINAL: nprime

Everyone who is thinks they can use "mastering" plug-ins to make their mix sound better...please watch this video.

I like the interview but I don't agree with your conclusions. You can use digital (plug-ins) to make mixes sound better. YMMV

For some perspective watch the following Greg Calbi interview (especially) from 24:38 to 27:13

http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/music+industry+profile+mastering+engineer+greg+calbi

Analogue is not always the solution.

UnderTow

ORIGINAL: UnderTow

ORIGINAL: nprime

Everyone who is thinks they can use "mastering" plug-ins to make their mix sound better...please watch this video.

I like the interview but I don't agree with your conclusions. You can use digital (plug-ins) to make mixes sound better. YMMV

I hope so, because I am not investing in a bunch of analogue gear.

For some perspective watch the following Greg Calbi interview (especially) from 24:38 to 27:13

http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/music+industry+profile+mastering+engineer+greg+calbi

Analogue is not always the solution.

really enjoyed this video. very insightful on the mastering process. I spent some time at sterling last summer and I have to admit, I was one of the ones who just trusted the engineer. Now I actually have some real monitors at home and have started really listening and understanding how and what to listen to. (still suck at it, but I get it now)

OZONE RULES!

Check this out.

Babicz Mastering

The raw track and the mastered track by Babicz

ORIGINAL: bitflipper
He looks a little young to be taking credit for inventing parallel compression!

Yeah I noticed that too.

It seems like the backbone of his mastering technique is to stack compressors and apply them in milder doses. Okee, that's pretty badass I reckon (if you've got gobs o' antique compressors)

The fact he poo-poos multi-band compressors is interesting, since he's basically made a giant multi-band compressor out of his EQ and stacked units.

ORIGINAL: John
He is mastering for clubs thus I don't think he is getting the very best sound for an audiophile.

but his target audience don't all have speaker stacks and 1-2k etc amps..

the music I am into , most is played in clubs. A lot still is pressed to vinyl and even then it has boundaries or else you get 1 very angry person who is the mastering engineer, the cutting tool for that isn't cheap.

limiters on club PA's that will cut out to protect the speakers. so not good for a dj in the middle of a set if the speakers cut.

Guess it depends on the dynamic of the music / genre. esp if it's something that uses a lot of sub bass, not everything does go that low.

have to master for every situation really, club, headphones, radio / tv , bog standard hifi's.

there has been a few tunes (not many) I've heard over the years that are impossible to master to vinyl, only to CD due to the dynamics of the frequencies in the tune.

If a patch cable makes a huge difference, then it's broken. We are talking about very short runs generally, and of balanced runs with well defined characteristics for the connectors. Unless they are badly designed, they should make no difference.

A guitar cable isn't exactly the same thing. It's unbalanced, and the ohmage might be different which can affect the loading on the pickups because there's probably no real standards for them, and the shielding might be better or worse, and the lengths can be considerably longer than patch cables.

In a large studio, cable runs are not necessairly short. A lot of pro studios have runs under the floor and these can be really long. Anyway...

Every single double blind test of esoteric cables vs. just plain good quality cables proves that you cannot hear the difference. You think you can, because it's so easy to hear when you know what you are listening to. But when put to the test, you won't hear the difference. It's been proven time and again. Do you believe it enough that you'd be willing to best $1000 that you can do it in a blind test? There was a recent one on AVSForum, where a guy with a super high end audio system claimed he could tell the difference, so the test was done and he gave up before it was even completed, because he knew that he couldn't hear any difference. He was good about it, and took it like a man. And I'm talking about VERY expensive cables. The fact is that any quality cable can get the signal from here to there just fine, and the esoteric cable business is just marketing mainly.