jps
I could never become a mastering engineer because those people need to stay objective to the material in hand .
Boring if you ask me :-))

Somebody once posted a query on GS, asking MEs how they could stand to listen to music all day long, given that most of it wasn't very good. The consensus was that they engage an entirely separate mode of listening in which music is just sound.
 
One mentioned the phenomenon of having spent hours editing, comping and tuning a vocal but at the end having no idea what the lyrics were about. It was just sound.
 
When I listen to stuff people have posted on the Songs forum, I try to listen like that first - just as sound. If it's good, I then give it a second (or even third) pass and listen to it as music. If it's really good, I download it to my pocket MP3 player. Then at bedtime I smoke a joint, turn out the lights, prop up the pillows and listen with my favorite headphones. I encourage everyone who posts their tunes to make them downloadable!

Checked out ohgrant's version...man, you guys are actually pretty good at this! So far I like all of them better than the automated rendition. Grant's version is similar to Jan's, but with a lower average crest factor. Quite pleasant to listen to, but it did take some of the punch out of the bass and low percussion. The easy-listening version, perhaps?
 
BTW, could you guys list your mastering chains? Not that it's the most important factor - I don't subscribe to the idea that you need expensive plugins to make a good master - but I think it would at least be interesting to others.
 
My own master bus contained only Ozone. Mode: Intelligent II. Character: 3.7. Threshold at -7.8 dB, for 1-3 dB gain reduction. Harmonic exciter in Tape mode. For the raw version that I posted, I merely bypassed the limiter but left the harmonic exciter engaged. There was no EQ or bus compression.
 

Thanks Dave glad you liked, that tune is really growing on me. The vocal melody and harmonies are top notch. The synth guitar parts sound good and seems much effort was put into making it sound like how a guitar player would have played it. I didn't notice the handclap at until I heard that backward effect. I really dig that.
 
 If I were a mastering engineer, the only thing I may have asked you if that's what you intended was a clicky sound I was hearing from the bass and or kick. I don't hear it in you master or any of the others as much.
 
It was too early here for a monitor master so it was mastered with cans and the Focusrite VRM box.
In the channel I used TC's poco Assimilator for the EQ curve and also TC's declicker. In the master buss, I used ozone 4 just to center the lows from about 300 down. UAD's K-Stereo, TC poco MD3, Waves J37 tape sim.
I also had 2 effects auxiliary busses one with Waves ADT, the other had TC's Tap factory.

I used Blue Cat's triple EQ to do a slight notch of two frequencies that were bothering me. I had to use 2 instances since it's really a notch  filter unless you use the shelving portion. I used the leveler on the track but there was barely any gain reduction. The little red line barely showed.
 
I used two busses. One bus, again, I used barely any gain reduction and the other I squashed it with the compressor. On both busses I took out some mid and one of them I gave a little boost on the high.
 
On the master bus I used the Waves Kramer tape plug and the T-Racks shell. In the TR shell I used the LPEQ gave a 1db low shelf boost at around 70HZ, -1db cut around 200hz and rolled off the top just a bit. Then the White 2A, on compressor mode with less than -.5db gain reduction followed by the Black 76 which the little needle only moved once or twice, Then the Quad-Image which is surprisingly useful to make sure the mix can translate well to mono. You can use it to manipulate the correlation meter so it stays between 0 and 1 on the right side. I then used the classic clipper just as a gain boost then the Brickwall limiter with only 2 or 3 db of input gain and the wall set to -1db.
 
This was cool as I'm trying to figure out a decent workflow for mastering in HMB. I have another PC with a bundled version of Wavelab that I trimmed it and removed the DC offset.
 
I keep wondering whether I'm using to many compressors but maybe not as I barely use gain reduction. Onle the one squashed buss to add more punch. It would be interesting to try this in a treated room. My mixing area is in my basement. It's a 10ft long area with maybe 4ft of walk room the whole length but on one side was storage shelving that I cut apart to make a desk and the other side is all shelves. When I did my ARC measurements, I was surprised that only the bottom and top end needed correcting. I'm guessing the shelves act as bass traps which why the bottom and top end needed boosting for the correct ARC curve.
 
The main thing I learned is as well as listening in the sweet spot, I get up and walk around the basement and listen everywhere. You would be surprised at what you hear.

Thanks for that detailed description, Robert. You put more than a little thought into it!
 
Interesting to compare your elaborate chain to my single conservatively-applied plugin. Two different approaches, but in the end not all that dramatically different results.
 
Grant: I was after a very fast-attack punch on kick and bass, but I found during mixing that the technique I used required EQ finesse to prevent the effect from crossing the line into clickiness.
 
The effect was achieved by overlaying two kick samples and two bass guitar samples. The second kick was high-passed to emphasize the beater. For the bass overlay I used a muted Gretsch (not a bass) sample, again just for the initial attack.
 
I like the effect and I've used it a couple times since, but it is tricky and can quickly go over the top. Plus it's a bit of a bother.
 

Thanks for the details Dave, sounds like a hard trick to pull off, it does add to the overall realism of the initial pluck for the bass. For educational purpose, think I'll play with it a bit more... I really dig your guitar soloing chops on that.
 
Edit: I added and tweaked a few plugs. Added were Waves trans-x to add a bit of punch, uad's Oxford inflator and waves L2.
 I have to say listening to Landr's master, it certainly more transparent and clear sounding then mine. They got it louder than I can without cutting frequencies I wouldn't want to cut. I guess I do like it a bit more warm and easy listening though. 
 
    https://www.dropbox.com/s...mo%20wav%20mst%202.wav
 
 

I guess I do like it a bit more warm and easy listening though.

 
Most of the Landr loudness came from EQ rather than compression. That's my biggest complaint. You can't boost the critical upper mids that much without substantially altering the mix itself.
 
A human ME might very well make that decision and improve the mix, but I don't see how an automated process would ever be able to reliably make such aesthetic decisions.
 
A thought occurred to me while listening to your second version: while Trans-X did restore some of the transients, comparing the before and after waveforms suggests that the plugin is largely just un-doing the bus compressor. The transients it's accenting were already in the raw mix, knocked down through compression and then restored again by Trans-X. I've caught myself doing similar things, such as boosting a band on the snare and then cutting the same band later on the drum bus.
 
This version is the loudest yet, save for the Landr "smashed" version. Average RMS -9.5. But it's still got some dynamic range - the histogram is still wide, just with the peak of the bell curve pushed upward. Unfortunately, I do hear a lot of pumping in time with the kick. It's quite a bit more compressed than I'd do myself, but an interesting variation nonetheless. Thanks for that.
 
 

I thought I would give you another master. This time I used just HMB effects except for the IK imaging tool which I have to use in the T-Racks shell. The individual plug ins crash HMB. Oh, I left those thow notches in there using the Blue Cat Triple EQ.
 
Check it out.
 
Weird. If you press CTRL+K, the hyperlink goes where you want it to. If you click the button above the text field, it goes to the beginning of the text field.

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