mastering tips

i need some tips on mastering ..... mostly rock stuff 80's to new metal i need help

http://forum.cakewalk.com/searchpro.asp?phrase=mastering&author=&forumid=9&topicreply=topic&message=subject&timeframe=%3E&timefilter=0&language=single&top=300&criteria=AND&submitbutton=+OK+

R

Don't master your own mixes. If the mix doesn't sound good enough to be called a master, then fix the mix. Mastering engineers are people who specialize in doing what the mix engineer cannot do. They make corrections to compensate for inadequacies in the mixing engineer's listening environment, monitoring setup, hearing ability, and so on.

If you can't afford to send your mixes to a mastering engineer, then there a couple of very basic things you can do on your own to make your CD a little more listener-friendly:

Bounce all the songs to 24-bit stereo clips, making absolutely sure that you have no digital overs on the main outs. Do not include fade ins/fade outs in the mix. Just leave the intro/outro noise and silence in the track. We'll fix those in the mastering stage.

Determine which song is the best-mixed, and which translates best on different sound systems. Friends can be helpful in this regard. Your friends and family may give you skewed advice on the quality of your material (some will say that everything is brilliant, others find fault with anything), but if you ask them which one sounds the best-recorded or most professional, they will probably give you pretty consistent answers. Keep track of which one is the best-mixed, since we will use it later as a reference.

Home mastering Stage 1 Here, we are ONLY concerned about how the songs sound in relation to one another-- ignore everything else:
Load all the tracks in the order you think you want them to appear on the record, and put them in one stereo track of one project in your software, but keep them as separate clips of audio. Space them far enough apart that you will have room to move them back and forth a little. Set the master out of your software low enough so that you have plenty of headroom, maybe like -12~18dB or so-- don't worry about the level just yet, just make sure that you have it quiet enough that you are going to hear the whole thing with no clipping, either at the converters, your amplifier, or the speakers, even if you have turn things up here and there.

Now turn the level of your monitors up to a normal listening volume (RMS level of 83dB SPL is industry-standard, about as loud as city traffic or a noisy restaurant). Play them all back and listen, focusing on the transitions between songs, and A/Bing each song against the "best mix" frequently. We are going to make some very basic adjustments to try and get them all to sound good in comparison with each other. When in doubt, use the above-selected "best mix" as a reference. The other songs should compare favorably in an A/B test with that one. Do NOT, at this stage, compare any individual song with a commercially-mastered CD. We'll get to that later.

Overall Volume:
If a ballad seems louder than a rocker, then turn down the ballad or turn up the rocker 'till they seem proportionate. Use clip envelopes for this. Use your "best mix" as a reference, turning the other songs up or down so that they seem proportionate to the best mix and also to the songs before and after one another. Don't sweat the levels or digital overs or anything like that just yet, just get all the tracks so they seem to have the correct proportional loudness, as though they were being played in order by an actual band. And use the best mix as your reference point. Don't change it's volume, change the volume of the other songs to suit it. And go by ear, not by your meters.

Instrument levels:
If the vocal sounds suddenly huge and dominating on one track compared with the best mix, then go back to the mix and lower the vocal track by a few dB until it sounds proportional. If the kick drum seems to disappear, go back to the mix and raise it a couple dB. Make sure to save these "remixes" as separate projects from the original mix (something like: "Minimum Rage-vocals down 3dB"), unless you're positive that you're making changes that you will always want to keep, even when you can afford a million-dollar mastering engineer.

Frequency balance:
Does one song appear to be really bottom-heavy, or another seems tinny, or maybe to have too much presence and not enough highs and lows compared with your best mix? If so, then you should probably remix it. If you are ABSOLUTELY positive that the mix is good, but that it just happens to be a little bottom-heavy or whatever, then you are allowed to use a tiny bit of corrective equalization to balance it out with the rest of the album. Use the best equalizer you own. You are only allowed to use the low cut/boost and high cut/boost filters, and no more than 3dB of either one, with a gradual Q (let's say 1 or lower). Any more than that, and you have to remix. Sorry, those are the rules. You are permitted to use ONE AND ONLY one cut or boost of up to 6dB per album, but your overall score drops one letter grade if you use it.

Spaces in between songs/tuck-and-tail:
Drag the song clips back and forth until the songs are spaced in a way that is pleasing and exciting. Some songs will lead naturally into the next, others will want a period of silence so that there is a real dramatic impact when the song kicks in, and so on. When in doubt, have the song begin on the downbeat of the next "invisible" measure after the last song. Inserting markers can be useful for this. In Sonar, you can hit F11 during playback to insert a marker in real time. Listen to the tail end of song 3, and hit F11 when you think song 4 should start. then drag song 4 to that spot. Concurrently with this, you should be adjusting the fade ins/fade outs of your songs to suit the tempo and feel of the song, but also the tempo and feel of the album. Unless one song feeds right into another (as in a crossfade or a live set with audience noise or whatever), almost every song should start and end with a fade. It might be a very fast fade, but a fade will prevent clips, pops, or jarring transitions in ambient sound from one track to the next. As a rule of thumb, fade outs usually start slow and then speed up, and fade ins are just the opposite.

Song order:
Listen to your songs in order and second-guess yourself. Listen especially for jarring or unbecoming transitions between songs. You definitely want to have your very best song at or near the beginning of the album if you want anyone to bother listening to the rest of it. (again-family and friends might not tell you how good you really are, but they will usually give pretty consistent responses if you ask them which songs are better/worse than others). The album, regardless of genre, should usually start with the catchiest, most accessible song, the one that's easiest to get into. An exception might be if there is one outright pop song on an album of music that is not otherwise a "pop" record-- as much as you want people to listen past the first few seconds, you also don't want to piss off or alienate the people who might become your biggest fans. It's also not a bad a idea to put a song at the end that everyone seems to like-- makes people want to hit repeat. For the stuff in-between, try and set up the song order as though it were "sets" in a live show.

So now you’ve got all your songs in order, they sound good in order, they sound good together on shuffle, they are balanced and proportionate, and everything is happy and hunky-dory at 83dB SPL. Time to do the technical stuff.

Home Mastering Stage 2- adjusting overall level. From here on, you are ONLY allowed to make changes to THE WHOLE ALBUM, not to individual tracks. You may only adjust individual tracks in relation to EACH OTHER. If you need to change a song, you go back to stage 1 and start over. Got it? Good.

Overall level:
Now that the individual songs are set in levels that are proportionate to each other, play the whole album through and watch the meters. Figure out which song has the loudest average RMS level. (you can also use some kind of analyzer tool for this). It may be that there is a particularly loud section of an otherwise quieter song that you need to go by. You want to basically figure out where the “loudest part” of the album is. This will always be somewhat subjective. Make sure that you are going by RMS level, and NOT peak level. While you’re at it, identify the quietest song on the album, RMS-wise.

Once you have identified the loudest overall section (by RMS), turn up the WHOLE ALBUM so that THAT SONG is PEAKING at about -0.3 dB. Don’t worry about the levels of anything else just yet, just adjust the volume of the whole project so that the loudest song, RMS-wise, is coming in just under a digital over, PEAK-wise. For the moment, we ONLY care about the LOUDEST part of the album, RMS-wise. Make sense? This is important.

Now check the album, all the way through, and watch for digital overs. If everything was well-mixed with controlled, natural, balanced dynamics throughout, then there will be no clipping on the whole album. If so, great, you did awesome, move on to the next step, “Stage 3-playing with others.”

Probably, though, there will be one or two digital overs, here and there. Maybe one of the quieter songs has a loud snare, or maybe there is a section where the electric bass is turned up for a solo and pins the meter. Don’t sweat it, yet.

What you want to pay attention to is 1. How LONG the digital overs are, and 2. What the average RMS volume is of the quietest song and the loudest song.

WARNING: We are about to something that can be very dangerous to the quality of your audio. It is something that, overused, can seem to the untrained ear like an instant, across-the-board improvement in sound quality, but that is a psycho-acoustical illusion. We are about to apply limiting. A limiter limits the peak volume of the program material (aka the song). This allows us to turn up the average (RMS) volume before clipping. Program material with a louder RMS volume, in the short term, almost always sounds better than quieter stuff. But if the only reason it is louder is because the dynamic range has been unnaturally limited, then it quickly becomes fatiguing and headache-inducing to listen to. THE INSTANT YOU APPLY SEVERE LIMITING WITH MAKEUP GAIN, THE SOUND QUALITY WILL SEEM TO IMPROVE. BUT THAT IS ONLY BEACAUSE IT IS LOUDER. AFTER MINUTES, THE SOUND BECOMES GRATING AND TURN-OFF-ISH, BECAUSE THE DYNAMICS ARE UNNATURAL AND HARSH. Your audience probably has a volume knob. Let them use it for what it was intended for. Do not use limiting to make your material seem louder than it is.

Ideally, in this method, you want to end up with the average level of the quietest song coming in not much lower than -20dB RMS. You are absolutely forbidden to make any corrections that make your loudest song louder than -12dB, RMS. If the quietest section of the quietest song averages -24 RMS, and the loudest section of the loudest song averages -14 RMS, and the peaks are coming in at -0.3 with only near-instantaneous limiting, then you probably have an excellent, well-balanced, dynamic mix. If any song has less than 12dB dynamic range between the average and peak levels, then it is probably going to give your audience a headache if they listen to it at normal volume.

This requires careful judgment on your part. A limiter is the audio equivalent of a loaded gun. It is what makes the world safe, and also what makes it dangerous. It is what makes most home-mastered records sound like dog excrement. But it is often a necessary evil if you have a record that sounds great, but has one snare hit that is 6dB louder than everything else.

Remember above when I said you want to keep track of how long the overs are? You are only allowed to use the limiter only on overs that are less than 2ms long, and that long only in extreme circumstances. The ideal scenario is that your overs are only occasional instantaneous transients lasting just a sample or two (in which case, my advice is to just leave the clipping in there-- that’s right, skip the limiter and let it clip for one or two samples). If you can bring your level up further and have only two- or three-sample clipping on occasion, then go a ahead and do it. Use the limiter if you want, but 99.9% of A/D converters in the world will gloss over digital clipping of only a couple samples, and almost none of them will reproduce the dynamic range differences of a one-sample sound, never mind the speakers or the amp.

What you want is to achieve the loudest level you can get without artificially squishing the dynamics. What happens if there are short portions that clip for audible periods, such as a loud bass note in one song? Here and only here, you are allowed to use bandwidth-limited compression. Set up the compressor with a really fast attack and a ratio of 2:1, maybe 3:1 in extreme cases. Set the threshold to about -2dB, maybe -4 if the clipping is bad. Set a fast-ish release time with a narrow bandwidth of maybe 1/3 octave or less. Loop the clipped section and play with the frequency until the peak level is lowest. Then narrow the frequency as much as you can and play with the release time to make the compressor sound most transparent. Bring up the ratio until just before clipping, about -.03dB. Set up automation so the compressor only kicks in on that note.
What if, on the other hand, there are lengthy portions that clip repeatedly? You have to remix. Sorry, rules are rules.

Again, do yourself a favor and keep your dynamics control to the absolute minimum required to get the loud sections loud. You can limit as many 3-sample overs as you want, but you are only allowed two instances of limiting for more than 1ms per song, and none for more than 3ms. Bandwidth-limited compression is permitted ONLY for individual notes at this stage.

Home Mastering Stage 3- playing with others.

In this stage, we will compare our master against commercially-mastered CDs to make sure we’re not kidding ourselves. Again, in this stage, you are not permitted to correct individual songs. The reasoning will be explained later. Any changes that you make have to be made to the WHOLE ALBUM.

Now that your album sounds well-balanced and well-put-together and is up to a reasonable listening level with a few well-controlled overs, it is time to pick a CD, any CD-- well, not just any one. Pick one that is similar to the style of music that you are doing, and that “sounds” the way you want yours to sound. Pick two, if you want. In fact, it is even better to pick two or more that have a similar vibe and dynamic to what you want yours to have, and it’s not a bad a idea to pick a third that you think most of your target audience will be listening to. Rip those Cds to stereo .wav files and add them to your project as tracks two and three and whatever.

Now, before you hit play, remember what we said about the loudness effect back in step two. U2 and Guns N’ Roses and Nelly and Madonna all have major advantages that you don’t have, and their mixing and mastering engineers have likely squeezed out a few extra decibels more than you will be able to without compromising audio quality. Like an amateur playing against professional golfer, you deserve a handicap. Not only is this fair, but having the handicap will probably improve your level of play by increasing your comfort level. So drop all those “pro” Cds by 6dB before you compare them to your own. I personally guarantee, nobody will ever not buy your record because they had to turn up their stereo by 6dB to hear it.

Now play back the “reference” material and compare it to your own. Does yours sound well-balanced? Do the loud songs sound loud, and the delicate ones delicate? Is the bass powerful and clear? Are the highs articulate and smooth? Is the midrange (most important) clean and well-defined? Are the vocals clear and present? Are the drums impactful and appropriate to the mix?

If you want, at this stage, you can make additional broadband, low-level eq corrections, using broad, shallow, low-Q cuts/boosts. Here, you are allowed to use filters of up to +/-6db, but only ones that cover at least two octaves. You can make small (up to 3dB), subtle corrections to the limiter or compression settings that you applied above, but only to correct transient overs, not to squash the performance dynamics. If particular songs need work, then you MUST fix them in the mix, or in the stage 1 processing (comparing them to other songs in the album, not to outside masters).


End notes:

The reasoning behind all the rules I have laid out is to protect you from doing more harm than good. As I said at the beginning, the primary job of the mastering engineer is to fix the stuff that mixing engineer cannot control. There is no such thing as a good mixing environment that is also a good mastering environment. 9 times out of ten, the final mixes sound better than home-mastered stuff does. The listener may have to adjust their volume knob or tone controls more often, but who cares? If you had to ask about mastering, then I guarantee that your room and/or equipment and/or ears are not up to the task.

I am not trying to insult you (the same is true for me), I am merely trying to point out that, if your room has a -10dB cancellation at 200Hz (and a 10dB cancellation is not at all uncommon, even in pro studios with the best gear), then you will probably compensate for that at the recording stage, at the mixing stage, and at the mastering stage, making things progressively worse at every stage for any listener who is not sitting in your room with his head between your speakers. In reality, you probably have much worse problems than a single 10dB room cancellation at one frequency, and to be honest, your gear and your ability are probably first on the list. Mixing is a mostly aesthetic challenge-- you hear the music, you mix it to get the right sound. But mastering is a more technical, more refined art. The job of the mix engineer is to make it sound great RIGHT NOW. The job of the mastering engineer is to make it sound the way it sounded to the mix engineer EVERYWHERE AND ALL THE TIME. This is the difference between photography and a photo-processing lab.

You will hear people tell you to master every song to a certain level, or to use this effect or that effect for best results. This type of one-size-fits-all approach is wrong.

The best thing you can do is to mix all your songs to sound as best you can, and then limit your “home mastering” to making them balance out with each other and sound good compared with commercial CDs. Commercial Mastering can be surprisingly inexpensive, and it will usually yeild much better results.

Cheers.

Wow, what an answer!!!

Thanks a lot for the information.
Pierre

Thanks Yep, well worthy of being printed out and taped some where it can be seen constantly.

randy

On occasion there are the golden grand-daddy answers that deserve to go into the Cakewalk Forum Hall-of-Fame Digest.

And it looks as though many of them are starting to happen here in the techniques forum.

Yep - much obliged for your information. Crank up the printer.

Reading all this stuff about how great post was, I have to say, I agree. It is pretty awesome. Thanks for all the flattery.

BUT, lest I be accused of corrupting tender young minds, I must offer a couple of caveats.

I am NOT a mastering engineer, and never have been, and have no plans to be one. There are people who will disagree with some of the advice I gave above, and some of them are people who know a LOT more about mastering than I do. My above post does not describe anything close to a comprehensive or authoritative guide to home-mastering. It is intended as guide for people who don't know how to master and who aren't equipped to do it right. It is a list of shortcuts and safety checks.

Mastering engineers do many things. Here is something I posted once before about home mastered recordings:

These are some of the characteristics that I think are pretty true of different types of recordings, for those who are still wondering what all this mastering stuff is really about:

Good final mix, not mastered:
- sounds quieter than commercial recordings.
- songs sound different from one track to the next. The listener frequently adjusts tone and/or volume controls on the playback system to compensate.
- recordings sound noticably different on different playback systems.
- compared with commercial recordings, highs seem to lack "sparkle" and "shimmer." lows sound sometimes dull, weak, or boomy.
- dynamic response may be uneven from one song to the next, or within songs.
- Overall sound of individual tracks is generally good.

Good final mix, well mastered:
- Frequency spread and level is comparable to commercial recordings.
- All songs have a consistent, high-quality "sound" that translates well regardless of playback system or listener's preferences vis-a-vis tone/eq controls.
- highs, mids, and lows are tight, clear, and smooth.
- Dynamic response is natural and musical. Pads are clean and lush, drums are punchy, instrument balance sounds natural.
- Frequency spread is balanced and clear. The "sound" is transparent, it doesn't distract from the musical content. "Depth" and "airiness" sound natural and smooth.

Good final mix, poorly mastered:
- Frequency spread is uneven and distracting. Highs may be sibilant and grating, especially at high volume. Lows may be thumpy or excessively boomy. Mids are noticably lacking.
- Dynamic response is unnatural and over-compressed.
- Sound is generally consistent from one system to the next, and from one track to the next. Listener adjustment of tone controls does not alter the "sound" of the recording.
- Overall, sounds generally more "pro" than the raw mix, but slightly sterile, and possibly unpleasant after extended listening.
- Sound may be gritty or overly "digital."
- Cymbals have a white-noise sound to them. Electric guitars may sound fizzy and harsh. Bass instruments do not seem well "seated" in the track. Drum sounds are weak, boomy, mushy, or inconsistent.

Between the rough mix and the bad master, I'll take the mix every time. Have fun.

There are four things that I think anyone can safely do in the way of mastering, if you are careful to them in small baby steps, without trying to alter or "improve" the sound of the mix:

1. Put the tracks in order and well-spaced

2. Do a passable of job of raising/lowering the relative levels of the songs and keep the transitions from being unnatural or distracting.

3. Raise the levels slightly by limiting or allowing clips on occaisional instantaneous overs (I call them "stray hairs") and using VERY targeted low-level compression to control occaisional single-note overs that are slightly longer than hairs (I call these ones "spikes"). Done correctly, this sounds essentially indistinguishable from the raw mix, except it's a few dB louder.

4. Balance out the frequency spread a little with small shelving filters to get your album a little more in line from one song to another or with the other songs your audience will hear on the radio/CD changer. Again, not changing the "sound," just saving the audience from having to adjust the tone controls after every song.

The trick to doing this yourself is to NOT trust your own aesthetic judgement, which flies in the face of every piece of advice I give on these forums when it comes to mixing. Trust the technical relationships of the songs to one another, and then trust the technical relationship of the whole album to a good commercially-produced reference CD, expecting yours to end up a few dB quieter.

A good mastering engineer will usually make your mixes even better. You should not try to replicate this at home. The reason they can do this is because they have different (usually much better) speakers, and different (usually much better) ears, and because they are disconnected from the mix in a way that you will never be. If your mixes (to your ears) need improvement, then go back to the multitrack project(s) and improve the mixes. If you can't or won't pay for mastering, then don't try to improve things with fancy plugins on the stereo mix. Just do what you can to adjust the levels and balance out the spread WITHOUT altering the sound of the mix.

A good mastering engineer will also usually manage to sqeeze a few extra dB out of the mix, making it louder without making it sound compressed. In fact, a good mastering engineer can often do this and end up with a finished product that sounds MORE dynamic, natural, and exciting. How do they do this? Magic.

Any mastering engineer worth her salt will tell you that the best mixes require the least mastering processing. And a really good mixing engineer will submit final mixes that require little more than tuck-and-tail and burn to disc. But even a mediocre engineer can do a pretty good mix, given the right material and decent equipment. A good mastering engineer can make a "pretty good" mix sound "really good" and a "really good" mix sound awesome.

Mastering is more important than ever with the proliferation of digital audio. CDs and digital recorders are far less forgiving than vinyl and reel-to-reel tape, and mp3s sound crappy even if the recording was brilliant. In the old days, you could almost "master" your recording by simply turning up the send to high-quality tape by 6dB or so. Tape saturation produces a very musical, natural, soft-knee compression and adds tube-like even-order harmonics that seem to add a crisp, shimmering, detailed "warmth" to things. Digital saturation sounds like some kind of secret government weapon for instantly giving anyone a headache coupled with severe diarrhea.

Cheers.

ORIGINAL: bigstix701@hotmail.c

i need some tips on mastering ..... mostly rock stuff 80's to new metal i need help

try the masteing link on this site.

http://www.soundonsound.com/articles/Technique.php

ORIGINAL: yep

Digital saturation sounds like some kind of secret government weapon for instantly giving anyone a headache coupled with severe diarrhea.

ROTFL!!!!!!

NICEEEEE one!!!!!!!

Rolo.

In response to a (very good) question about this thread posted in the sonar forum by Ebonyfunk:

cliiping and digital overs:

Clipping happens any time any audio signal maxes out the ability of any component in the signal chain. Ever pull up to a red light and hear the stereo from the car next to you playing something that is obviously way too loud for the system to handle and it sounds all fizzy and crappy? That's clipping-- it could be the speakers, the amplifier, or even the wires, but something is maxed out and cannot deliver the levels that are being asked of it.

Analog clipping is far more forgiving than digital clipping, and some kinds of analog clipping actually sound good in some situations-- think of an overdriven guitar amp. High-quality analog devices tend to have a LOT of "headroom" (i.e., they can handle signals that are well over zero dB full scale), and they tend to have a certain degree of "soft clipping," where the signal gets sort of compressed as it approaches the limits, rather than simply turning into flat noise.

Analog clipping can happen at the amplifier, if the amplifier is asked to deliver more power than it can, or at the speaker, if the speaker is asked to push more air than it's ability to move back and forth allows, or in signal wires, if the wire is too resistive (too thin, basically) to push the amount of electrons it is supposed to handle, or at any number of transformers or other components in the signal chain. Most inexpensive home stereo components clip a lot, but it doesn't sound too bad.

This is one of the reasons why a good monitoring system is critical. It isn't that hard to make an amplifier and a set of speakers that delivers relatively flat frequency response in 1/3 octave intervals when you are playing steady sine waves through it, but most home stereos deliver drastically reduced transient response.

Digital "overs":
The technical name for a digital signal that exceeds the range of the system is an "over." As in, "over" zero decibels full scale (OdBFS for short). Any digital over will result in digital clipping, although it is possible to get digital clipping WITHOUT technically having a digital over. This is why you hear people say that you should submit final CDs with your peaks at -0.03 dB or whatever, because the playback converters may not properly reproduce signals that are close to zero. The mechanics are more complicated than I want to get into right now.

Digital clipping sounds awful, and there is no way to fix it once it's there. WITHIN a program like Sonar, which uses 32-bit floating point audio calculations, it is almost impossible to achieve digital clipping, and you can safely run individual tracks pretty far "in the red." BUT, if your main outs (or whatever the output channel is to your soundcard) goes above 0dB, you're up the creek without a paddle. So individual tracks can show up in the red, but your main outs have to be "green" or you'll have digital overs in the output.

When monitoring during either the mixing or the mastering stage, it's really important that none of your gear is clipping. Bad speakers will clip your transients and you'll never even know it. You will not be able to make smart decisions about levels, compression, eq, ambient effects, or any of it, because your speakers are already compressing and coloring the sound. It's like trying to hold a tasing contest with a mouth that's been coated with salt-- everything tastes salty, no matter what.

On an aside, for anyone who's still in school-- everything you need to know about the physical and electrical transmission of audio signals is covered in high school physics. This stuff is not rocket surgery, but it is scientifical and there's no way around it. So do your homework, and you'll make better records.

Cheers.

yep, where do you find the time?

R

ORIGINAL: nprime

yep, where do you find the time?

R

An occaisional part of my job involves troubleshooting electronic controls systems, which really means sitting at a computer screen waiting for numbers to change. I sometimes spend 30 minutes to an hour at a stretch waiting for a value to change ten percent. Most of my posts happen then.

Cheers.

Many thanks for taking the time to share a little knowledge.
If I can be of any help with metal detecting... fire away.

If you don't like your own mix and you want to master it...forget it...you have to fix the mix...the mastering process it's not a fixer method....the best tool are your ears

Yep,
Your treatise is splendid--but what about dithering? Presuming you dither once right at the very end to burn 16-bit, and not for each 24-bit "clip"--correct?
- john

ORIGINAL: zgraf

Yep,
Your treatise is splendid--but what about dithering? Presuming you dither once right at the very end to burn 16-bit, and not for each 24-bit "clip"--correct?
- john

Correct.

Cheers.

Yep excellent,

Thank you for taking the time and for being kind enough to share!

This link might be handy as well Chaz on EQ

I'll second the kudos from others yep. A nice mastering intro for mastering newbs like myself. Thanks brotha!

A few questions if you have time. Do you think it makes sense to export all stereo (assuming not using surround, just a stereo mix) tracks (at 24, 32 or now even 64 bit resolution in 5.01) for an album and then import all of them into a new SONAR mastering project and then master the first track and after you're done with one be able to copy the mastering plugins (like Ozone or Waves) from the master buss of the first track to the next track (I think this is possible no?) and start from what worked on the first track and tweak for track two etc. to save time and (hopefully) achieve greater overall consistency across tracks for a given CD? I guess I'm assuming all the track mixes were consistent across tracks to start with, and if they weren't one should go back and make them consistent as you said (I think). It makes sense to me, but I'm interested in your opinion regarding doing it this way. Do you think it's bad to use what worked on one track and then use that as a starting point for other tracks? It also seems this mastering project might make it easier to A/B individual tracks for sound/level? Also it seems it would be possible to have a full album track in such a mastering project where one would be able to render the mastered tracks one after another to a single output track (or whatever the duplicator needed) and handle the inter-track spacing that way no? Finally, one more question (really!), how do you determine overage length, this may be a dumb question, I can obviously see an overage, but how do I determine that it only existed for 2 ms, do you just zoom way in and set loop points or what?

P.S. Hehe, the part about physics is apropos too as far as understanding sound and equipment, I have a Ph.D. in physics (high energy physics to be clear, not acoustics, although I was lucky enough to have one class in that), but that's no substitute for good ears! I hope my ears are up to snuff . Bob Ludwig isn't a physicist to my knowledge though LOL!

Thanks again!

P.P.S.
I also found this useful even though it's product specific:

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/OzoneMasteringGuide.PDF

Dang, I always forget about the notify bein' a newb. Sorry for the dual post. I wish they'd make that an edit option...

The best advice I can give as a mastering engineer is to make sure your mixes are where they need to be and do not leave "fixing things" to the mastering stage when they need to be addressed at the mixing stage.

ORIGINAL: jtmckinley
Do you think it makes sense to... copy the mastering plugins (like Ozone or Waves) from the master buss of the first track to the next track...? I guess I'm assuming all the track mixes were consistent across tracks to start with...

Sure, if you feel like it. It doesn't really matter how you get to where you're going, do whatever's easiest. Just make sure that you're doing what's right for the material. It is not a safe bet that what works on one song will work on another.

For instance, let's say track 1 is in the key of C and you have an electric bass that tends to over-emphasize notes played on the "D" string (this is not at all unusual). So you use some eq or bandwidth-limited compression to control a recurring bass note on that string. You might or might not be consciously zeroing in on that particular note, it just might be what happens to sound good. It might not even be the fundamental frequency of that note, it might be some harmonic or another that clashes with the tone of the kick drum. You might not even connect the frequency with the D string, you might just hear it as a cleaner, tighter, or better-sounding low end. But clearly, any song played played in a different key or with a different bass or that doesn't use the D string will not have the same relationships to the same frequencies.

It is also not a safe bet to presume that all of you mixes will be well-balanced in relation to one another in terms of overall frequency profile, dynamic level, RMS level, etc. If they were, there would be no need to master them in the first place. It is entirely common for one really good mix to be significantly more bass-heavy than another, or for one to be a lot more dynamic than another, and so on.

Finally, one more question (really!), how do you determine overage length, this may be a dumb question, I can obviously see an overage, but how do I determine that it only existed for 2 ms, do you just zoom way in and set loop points or what?

Many types of wave-editing software (wavelab, Audition, Sound forge, etc) will allow you to easily locate and analyze digital overs for duration and severity. You can also just zoom way in and see how long the level is above threshold-- for instance, if you have an "input" signal that goes above -6dB for 2ms, and you apply 6db of gain, then you're going to have a 2ms over.

There are a lot of ways to skin this cat, and these rules are really just guidelines-- is the clipping is simply an instant "transient" from the inital "spike" of a hit cymbal or a plucked string or whatever, then you can usually limit it with little or no harm to the sound. If the clipping is affecting the "body" of the soundwave, then applying limiting or compression is actually going to affect the aesthetic and subjective "sound" of the recording, which is what I advise against.

The actual ms values are not carved in stone, but if you're limiting more than 2 or 3 ms consecutively, then you are almost certainly overstepping the narrow confines of this sort of "surgical" correction and venturing into the murkier realm of changing the dynamic feel of the recording, which is better done at the mixing stage, for a home recordist, for the reasons I cited above. Make sense?

Cheers.

ORIGINAL: yep

For instance, let's say track 1 is in the key of C and you have an electric bass that tends to over-emphasize notes played on the "D" string (this is not at all unusual). So you use some eq or bandwidth-limited compression to control a recurring bass note on that string. You might or might not be consciously zeroing in on that particular note, it just might be what happens to sound good. It might not even be the fundamental frequency of that note, it might be some harmonic or another that clashes with the tone of the kick drum. You might not even connect the frequency with the D string, you might just hear it as a cleaner, tighter, or better-sounding low end. But clearly, any song played played in a different key or with a different bass or that doesn't use the D string will not have the same relationships to the same frequencies.

Ahh, yes, I think I know what you mean. I think I had a situation similar to this whilst messing around in my buddy's home studio in St. Louis. We recorded his Larrivee J10 guitar in an open DADGAD tuning and it sounded fine when he played it, but after recording it there was this almost sinusoidal sounding harmonic resonance that was really annoying in the mix. We never made it to the mastering stage on that project; this was really apparent just in the mixing stage so I imagine this example is even worse than what you are describing. We intended to try re-recording his guitar using different techniques but ran out of time, I had to go back up to Detroit since I was just visiting on vacation. Funny thing was that when I recorded my Martin D41 playing the same part with a similar setup the resonance wasn't there. We never did figure out the cause IIRC.

ORIGINAL: yep

It is also not a safe bet to presume that all of you mixes will be well-balanced in relation to one another in terms of overall frequency profile, dynamic level, RMS level, etc. If they were, there would be no need to master them in the first place. It is entirely common for one really good mix to be significantly more bass-heavy than another, or for one to be a lot more dynamic than another, and so on.

True. I try to get my mixes to have a similar overall loudness, but no doubt there will be frequency and dynamic dependencies across tunes that I don't address in mixing. I read in the Ozone mastering guide I linked to above where they suggest using time averaged frequency spectrum snapshots to attempt to get an overall frequency and level consistency across your tracks. They also suggest taking a commercial tune that has similar characteristics style-wise to your project and whose overall sound you like and take a time averaged snapshot of that and then try to make the snapshot of your tune match it. It makes sense to me, but I'd be interested to hear your take on that advice if you have time.

ORIGINAL: yep

Many types of wave-editing software (wavelab, Audition, Sound forge, etc) will allow you to easily locate and analyze digital overs for duration and severity. You can also just zoom way in and see how long the level is above threshold-- for instance, if you have an "input" signal that goes above -6dB for 2ms, and you apply 6db of gain, then you're going to have a 2ms over.

Hmmm, OK. Would you recommend using something like SoundForge over using mastering plugins like the Waves L1, L2 or L3 plugins or iZotope Ozone plugin? Like I said, I'm new to mastering, and while I have used an old version of SoundForge that I got (free I think?) with Acid or something long ago, my head wasn't into mastering at the time. It seemed powerful, but at that time I guess I viewed it mainly as a nice tool for loop tweaking. No doubt they've improved it significantly since the last time I looked at it. I haven't made a decision as to what mastering tools I will buy yet, although I've played around with some plugin demos and used mastering plugins on friend's systems and such. I could use some recommendations, but maybe that's a better topic for another thread?

ORIGINAL: yep

There are a lot of ways to skin this cat, and these rules are really just guidelines-- is the clipping is simply an instant "transient" from the inital "spike" of a hit cymbal or a plucked string or whatever, then you can usually limit it with little or no harm to the sound. If the clipping is affecting the "body" of the soundwave, then applying limiting or compression is actually going to affect the aesthetic and subjective "sound" of the recording, which is what I advise against.

The actual ms values are not carved in stone, but if you're limiting more than 2 or 3 ms consecutively, then you are almost certainly overstepping the narrow confines of this sort of "surgical" correction and venturing into the murkier realm of changing the dynamic feel of the recording, which is better done at the mixing stage, for a home recordist, for the reasons I cited above. Make sense?

Yessir it does make sense and you have my sincere gratitude for taking the time to answer my questions! Thanks again!

I took the liberty of copying your "article" and posting it at The Other Place. (http://smokedsalmonband.com/forum/index.php)


If you have any objection to this I will remove it.

Rod

jtmckinley,
I'm afraid you're starting to ask the wrong person for advice. For good or for ill, this thread (in spite of it's title) is not really about mastering anymore. It's about a sort of "non-mastering" that I don't really even recommend. What I hoped to show was, in sort of crude terms, the kind of difference in approach that makes mastering different from mixing.

In recording and mixing, the holy golden rule is: if it sounds good, it is good. The only real technical rule is don't clip digital audio. Beyond that, you can feel free to do whatever sounds good to you, and all the books and articles and tutorials and advice and "mix-by-numbers" guides are really just ideas, suggestions, things to try out if you want. You just do whatever makes your ears happy and call it a day. There is no need to do anything other than this to make a great record. If it sounds good, it IS good.

In mastering, things are a little more complicated, and the objectives a little more technical. Mastering engineers are taking something that is already a finished product, a complete work of art, a great-sounding record, and they are doing... what? Making it more great? More finished? More better? Maybe. Hopefully. But that's not really what it's about.

Different mastering engineers have different objectives. Some of them may be trying to make sure the needle of the record player doesn't jump the groove. Some of them are making sure that the song plays back at a consistent level and doesn't disappear during the delicate bridge. Some are doing the opposite and trying to restore and emphasize dramatic dynamic changes. some of them are deliberately applying digital clipping (called "shred") to make the record sound bad. A mastering engineer may do any of these things or countless more, and may do it in a way that is very transparent, so that most people would never even notice the difference in sound, or in a way that is very dramatic, so the difference in sound knocks your socks off. But unlike a mix engineer, their primary focus is not necessarily to "make it sound good."

Why do they do these things? Because in the real world, different audiences and different playback systems and different listening environments often call for different kinds of acoustical profiles-- Mastering engineers are often thinking things like: How much can I even out the dynamic range before I give the audience a headache? If there's a 14dB RMS dynamic range in this song, is anyone going to be able to hear the quiet parts in their car or on a bar jukebox? Is there a way I can squeeze a few extra dB out of this section without making it "sound" any louder? How about if I try to use some presence-range tricks to make the chorus sound louder than the verse even if both are at the same level? Is it more important to keep the subsonic content from the dancehall kick drum or to bring up the level of the program material? How is this recording going to sound to heavy metal fans or fifteen-year-old girls or geriatric big-band fans with hearing loss, compared to what they are used to listening to? It is going to sound appropriate to the right people on the kind of playback systems they are likely to be listening on?

All of the above things are different from "if it sounds good, it is good." They are all comprimises of one sort or another, and have a lot of room for doing more harm than good. They require critical analytical skills in addition to good aesthetic sensibilities. They absolutely require a reference-caliber, full range playback system and listening environment-- this rules out little nearfields monitors and studio control rooms with big racks of hard gear right near the listener's ears.

Most people, when they master their own recordings, are really just second-guessing their mix. That hi-hat that they were never quite happy with puts a bug in their bonnet and they start "mastering" the crap out of the high mids to try and "fix it." Or they still don't feel like the guitar sound is big enough and the temptation to put a little more bandwidth-limited compression than is healthy for the mix becomes overwhelming when they hear what it does for the guitar.

Like a woman who spends the night walking all funny and looking pained and breathing weird because she likes what uncomfortable heels do for her calves, the "home mastering" engineer often ends up chasing gremlins that nobody else cares about and damaging the "big picture" for the sake of them. In the process, they create a bizzare, distracting, uneven sound with a phase-smeared, compressor-pumping, warbly quality, but they're so proud that they've made it 4dB louder and that they got to use a $600 plug-in, and that hi-hat finally disappears so far into the mix that it hardly bothers them anymore.

Don't fall into this trap. Don't think that "mastering" your own mixes is a good way to make them sound better.

That's my advice, anyway. There are a whole lot of people on these forums who master their own recordings, and there are professional mastering engineers as well. They are probably better people to ask if you want some actual "mastering tips." I never meant to hijack this thread. Sorry.

Cheers.

ORIGINAL: yep

jtmckinley,
I'm afraid you're starting to ask the wrong person for advice. For good or for ill, this thread (in spite of it's title) is not really about mastering anymore. It's about a sort of "non-mastering" that I don't really even recommend. What I hoped to show was, in sort of crude terms, the kind of difference in approach that makes mastering different from mixing.

In recording and mixing, the holy golden rule is: if it sounds good, it is good. The only real technical rule is don't clip digital audio. Beyond that, you can feel free to do whatever sounds good to you, and all the books and articles and tutorials and advice and "mix-by-numbers" guides are really just ideas, suggestions, things to try out if you want. You just do whatever makes your ears happy and call it a day. There is no need to do anything other than this to make a great record. If it sounds good, it IS good.

Gotcha. If I play around with mastering and it ends up sounding worse I'll go back to what I started with. I have done this many times in mixing, I always save the original project so I can A/B my latest foray into experimenting with production techniques and throw it away if it doesn't actually sound better. I enjoy experimenting to see what works and doesn't and try to learn as much about sound production and how the "pros" do it as possible. I guess my ultimate goal is to try to get stuff I produce in my home studio to sound as good as some of my favorite commercial recordings like Steely Dan's Two Against Nature for example, production-wise anyway, obviously the writing and performance is the most important factor and I've got a ways to go there LOL!

I do understand what you're saying. I could make things worse rather than better, especially since I don't really have the appropriate gear or the ideal room to work in. Hopefully I'm self-critical enough to realize if I'm doing myself a disservice and give up on it, but even if I do hopefully I will have learned something, even if it's what NOT to do. I suppose it's possible I won't be able to tell if I've made things worse given my gear and environment, but as long as I keep the original mix in a seperate project I'll be able to offer both to a mastering engineer and let him/her choose the best source material from which to start if I can ever afford to hire one.

ORIGINAL: yep
Don't fall into this trap. Don't think that "mastering" your own mixes is a good way to make them sound better.

That's my advice, anyway. There are a whole lot of people on these forums who master their own recordings, and there are professional mastering engineers as well. They are probably better people to ask if you want some actual "mastering tips." I never meant to hijack this thread. Sorry.

Cheers.

I've heard this from others as well, that one should not master one's own recordings, unfortunately I don't have the financial means to hire somebody to master my recordings, but who knows, maybe I will in the future. FWIW, I don't think you hijacked the thread, I think you have given us some good advice and I for one appreciate it. Thanks again yep for taking the time to share your thoughts on the subject.

Great post, I learnt a lot from it. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

I highly recommend http://www.har-bal.com version 2.0.

There is a learning curve, but not much.

The limiter is GREAT! It can give you that RMS level that the "big-boys' CDs" have.

I, for one, do master my own mixes.

But having said that, good mastering will NOT fix a bad mix. It will more likely reveal the incompetency of the mixing skills.

I have been using Har-Bal since it first came out over 2 years ago. While it can provide you with a competitive master, the most important aspect is that it WILL help you mix better.

It will also reveal the 'problems' of your mixing environment.

I was searching for an issue and found this great thread and awesome answer from Yep. I thought it deserved to be bumped.

I agree biggestmuff this thread deserved to be bumped. Awesome info
Holy **** yep your posts are better than buying magazines . I would buy a book of your knowledge if one is available .

ORIGINAL: kennywtelejazz

I agree biggestmuff this thread deserved to be bumped. Awesome info
Holy **** yep your posts are better than buying magazines . I would buy a book of your knowledge if one is available .

Copy a paste works great off this forum ! I save a bunch of stuff. Start a collection and you can develop your own customized book, that's what I do. I try to organize it by headings but I can also just search the document and print off what I want to study. Books often cover a bunch of stuff you already know or try to entertain the reader and fill up a bunch of pages. By saving tips I find on the various forms I go to I get just the stuff I need.

One good way to learn is to pretend you have to explain the concept to a total nub and re-write the information in your own words. If you can't explain it you need to go back and study some more or ask questions on the forum. By the time you finish your document you will never forget the material.

ORIGINAL: ohhey

ORIGINAL: kennywtelejazz

I agree biggestmuff this thread deserved to be bumped. Awesome info
Holy **** yep your posts are better than buying magazines . I would buy a book of your knowledge if one is available .

Copy a paste works great off this forum ! I save a bunch of stuff. Start a collection and you can develop your own customized book, that's what I do. I try to organize it by headings but I can also just search the document and print off what I want to study. Books often cover a bunch of stuff you already know or try to entertain the reader and fill up a bunch of pages. By saving tips I find on the various forms I go to I get just the stuff I need.

One good way to learn is to pretend you have to explain the concept to a total nub and re-write the information in your own words. If you can't explain it you need to go back and study some more or ask questions on the forum. By the time you finish your document you will never forget the material.

I hear you loud and clear on that. Started saving a few posts in notepad and your sugestion of making a custom book is right on. I think it's time for me to get serious about organizing them into some kind of topics. The wealth of knowledge around here is truly awesome. I feel like the newb and I'm OK with it . I'm here to learn from you guys.
BTW ( a little off topic ) did you ever live in Westcheser County in NY State ? I met a guy in the 70's with your same name and he was a truly great guitar player.

ORIGINAL: ohhey
...One good way to learn is to pretend you have to explain the concept to a total nub and re-write the information in your own words. If you can't explain it you need to go back and study some more or ask questions on the forum. By the time you finish your document you will never forget the material.

What's amazing to me is not just how much I learn from the information other people post, but how much I learn by actually answering questions that I never really thought about that way before. Stuff that I just kind of did and understood on autopilot, without questioning, and just learned sort of intuitively, from trial-and-error. Having to explain it to someone else forces me to sort of think it through and put my ideas in order, and to give it more pointed consideration than I ever did. It's like learning it all over again for the first time. I suddenly start to think about WHY I'm doing things a certain way, why some approaches work better than others. It's pretty cool.

Cheers.

I've been saving yep and chaz and others for a while now...

This forum is more valuable than the software...........

Regards,

I used Yep's suggestion of putting my mixes into one project when I had to produce a demo. I put markers at key spots and jumped between them and was amazed at the difference of the 3 songs I had only just mixed. That is the single best advice I have ever received, well maybe. I am sure professionals don't do that but for us hackers it's an excellent idea.

ORIGINAL: fejede

I've been saving yep and chaz and others for a while now...

This forum is more valuable than the software...........

Regards,

fejede I would have to agree with you on that . The first 6 months I had the software I was stuck in the mud . I lurked around for that time . Once I decided to ask a few questions things started to fall into place and the learning curve started to be less of a problem to me. yep, chaz , sinc , botten, daveney 5, and a host of others have been so helpfull in their posts, and information . It is a true Joy to have people like these to learn from.
Thank Guys for taking the time to help and post your knowledge with us . Kenny

yep,

Firstly, fantastic post. Secondly (and this is where I turn stoopid...)

You advise in your post at times to ignore the volume meter and concentrate on the RMS volume, or vice-versa. Can I ask, due to my current lack of knowledge (and assuming you’re only using Sonar for the whole project right up until exporting to put on CD like me), what is the difference in these two and how do I find out the RMS in Sonar?

Also, does your philosophy on the limiting apply similarly if you are only going to put one song on a CD or somewhere, or is it only relevant when burning several tracks to ensure consistency?

(this post was accidental, the one above wasn't though)

ORIGINAL: Jonny M
You advise in your post at times to ignore the volume meter and concentrate on the RMS volume, or vice-versa. Can I ask, due to my current lack of knowledge (and assuming you’re only using Sonar for the whole project right up until exporting to put on CD like me), what is the difference in these two and how do I find out the RMS in Sonar?

i'll give your first question a shot (the second i'll let yep handle if he so chooses). when you look at a volume meter you are looking for peaks, although the only one that counts in the digital realm is the soundcard's output volume. you do not want digital overs at the hardware level as the sound essentially gets its head chopped off. inside sonar you've got tons of headroom (although i've hit it once or twice putting too many loud tracks on a single bus).

you can think of RMS as a very slow meter - instead of showing you every peak and valley it takes the average over a certain amount of time. what most people look for here is the average volume of the mix. this can tell you (particularly if the RMS meter is spiking around too much) whether there are too many peaks in the mix which are robbing you of headroom in the great arms race that is modern cd mastering (as loud as possible).

a lot of labels are going for -6dB RMS, which basically means the average volume of the track (not the peaks!) is 6dB under the limit. so (unless i misunderstand) there would be at most 12dB between the lowest valleys and the highest peaks in the song. that's why many modern albums sound squashed even on primitive speakers. audioslave's audioslave is a great example - i love that album but it's flatter than kansas.

from what i understand saner folk tend to go for -14-10dB RMS, depending on the content.

A technical description of RMS and Peak can be found in this post:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=720350&mpage=1&key=򯸦

ORIGINAL: Jonny M

yep,

Firstly, fantastic post. Secondly (and this is where I turn stoopid...)

You advise in your post at times to ignore the volume meter and concentrate on the RMS volume, or vice-versa. Can I ask, due to my current lack of knowledge (and assuming you’re only using Sonar for the whole project right up until exporting to put on CD like me), what is the difference in these two and how do I find out the RMS in Sonar?

thanks for the kind words.

jacktheexcynic basically answered the first part. To recap: "Peak" metering simply measures the loudest instantaneous level of any sample, including sharp transients that are too fast to even hear. This metering is most useful to prevent digital overs.

"RMS" metering measures average level, and is a good indicator of how "loud" something sounds. F'rinstance: you hit a drum head, there is a sharp transient peak from the impact of the stick on the head, plus the longer "note" sounded by the vibrating column of air inside the drum, plus the resonance of the drum shell and sympathetic vibrations of the heads, plus reverberant sound that continues bouncing around the room, and so on. These different elements and their ratios are constantly changing as the sound decays to silence and a peak meter that measured changes in level instantaneously would not give us very much useful information about how "loud" the drum actually sounds to a listener.

In Sonar, you can click on the metering drop-down box to pick a variety of metering options, either peak, RMS, or peak+RMS. You basically use peak to check for digital overs, and RMS to get a feel for how "loud" your record is going to sound compared with full-scale. Each matters in relation to the other in different ways dependign on what you are looking to achieve.

In most popular music recordings, the engineers use a variety of techniques to increase the percieved "loudness" of the record, ideally without killing the musical dynamics. Where to draw the line between "unneccesarily quiet" and "compressed to death" is a matter of taste, approach, and circumstances. The people who do it best have a very sophisticated understanding of a variety of complex requirements and capabilities, and can often squeeze quite a bit of level out of a record in very transparent ways, or even ways that can seem to INCREASE the dynamic impact, through a variety of sonic "optical illusions."

Also, does your philosophy on the limiting apply similarly if you are only going to put one song on a CD or somewhere, or is it only relevant when burning several tracks to ensure consistency?

My "mastering advice," is, as I said above, not really mastering advice at all, and certainly nothing so grandiose as a philosophy. It's really just a checklist of stopgap measures that are fairly harmless if you follow the steps closely, and that may help some recordings sound a little more "mastered" (whatever that means). I meant it as an alternative to blindly applying hard limiters and BBE for the benefit of people who are hell-bent on not leaving well enough alone. With that in mind, you could certainly use the same method to do a one-off single, just using other music that your audience will likely be listening to as a comparison in place of other album tracks. Just make sure to lower the commercial recordings from the get-go so that they are similar in RMS level to your mix, so that you're comparing apples and apples.

Cheers.

These are some awesome tips



Peace

I never knew about the peak/RMS meters. I had to dig around a bit in order to find them. I kept right-clicking on my meters looking for a pulldown menu, until I realized I needed to look northward. This thread, by the way, is excellent.

I have a question regarding mixing levels. How lound should my mix peaks and RMS levels be when I hand the songs off to a mastering engineer? Right now my peaks are at -5.5 dB and my RMS levels hang out around 24 to 22 dB. Is that too quiet? I don't want to encounter problems with noise when the levels get boosted. My projects are 16-bit/44.1kHz. Many thanks.

ORIGINAL: Thomas Campitelli
I have a question regarding mixing levels. How lound should my mix peaks and RMS levels be when I hand the songs off to a mastering engineer? Right now my peaks are at -5.5 dB and my RMS levels hang out around 24 to 22 dB. Is that too quiet? I don't want to encounter problems with noise when the levels get boosted. My projects are 16-bit/44.1kHz. Many thanks.

sometimes the mastering engineer will give you limits on what they will take (peaks no more than -4db, RMS no more than -14db, etc.). what you have sounds ok - it really depends on the type of song. you may want to work on your rms (while keeping your peaks where they are at) if the song is in a heavier genre, maybe shoot for -20db RMS with your peaks still at -5db or whatever. there's no magic number really but you need to give the mastering engineer some room to work.

naturally it's best to get the best mix possible before sending it off to the mastering guy. what i would do is slap a compressor on the main bus and try to get the level of your mix up (by turning up bus volume). the compressor will alert you to problems you may be having (typically low frequencies robbing you of headroom) when you hear the kick or bass guitar (or electric guitars!) "ducking" the mix. once those issues are fixed turn up the busses some more. then you might hear the mix start sounding "boxy" or hollow. this may indicate trouble with resonant frequencies in your instruments which you also can fix. turning up the mix again you might start to hear problems in the high end... and so on.

the basic idea is to listen to what happens when you turn up the mix. does anything get boomy or clangy or boxy or shrill? does the compressor seriously affect the overal tone of the mix, or cause noticeable squashing? these observations should then lead you to individual tracks which may need help. they may need eq, or compression, or reverb/delay to be set back further in the mix, or whatever.

when you've got a nice hot signal that sounds good, take away the compressor. the mix should sound more or less the same, only louder (since the peaks aren't being limited anymore). turn down the busses until you're back to -5db or whatever at your peaks. your RMS should be higher now but you don't want to compress the final product, that would be the mastering engineer's job.

having said that, don't waste your money until you actually want to sell something. if your target format is an mp3 on soundclick and you don't suck at mixing you can get far enough on your own. most of the time, the song and talent speak for themselves. when it's cd time have it done by a professional.

ORIGINAL: Thomas Campitelli
...I have a question regarding mixing levels. How lound should my mix peaks and RMS levels be when I hand the songs off to a mastering engineer? Right now my peaks are at -5.5 dB and my RMS levels hang out around 24 to 22 dB. Is that too quiet? I don't want to encounter problems with noise when the levels get boosted. My projects are 16-bit/44.1kHz. Many thanks.

Those levels are awful quiet if you're working at 16bit. My advice is to record and mix at 24 bit and then let the mastering engineer worry about the levels. If you're stuck working at 16 bit because of hardware or other limitations, then you want to try and keep your levels as close to full scale as is reasonable throughout the process. This usually means applying some peak limiting and/or compression at the tracking stage, as people did for decades with tape to keep their levels above the noise floor.

Digital has no inherent noise, and with 24 bit digital there is practically no need to worry about levels at all. Even if you record with your peaks coming in at like -50dB, you're still getting CD-quality resolution. With 16-bit, on the other hand, -50dB sounds actually have only 8 bits of resolution (since 8 bits are taken up by silence). If you were to record a whole project this way and then limit and normalize it up to full scale, the resulting sound quality would be noticably inferior.

Cheers.

Those levels are awful quiet if you're working at 16bit. My advice is to record and mix at 24 bit and then let the mastering engineer worry about the levels.

Yeah, these songs were started some time ago and 24-bit wasn't an option. When I do my next album I'm going to go for 24-bit. I haven't decided on the sampling rate issue yet, nor do I want to derail this thread with talk about that issue.

My problem is this, mastering engineers tend to want some room to play and ask that nothing comes in above -3dB. That's cool. However, thanks to this board, I recently discovered how to monitor the RMS levels in Sonar. My RMS levels are low, even though my peak faders dance around between -3 and -6. I'm not sure how big a problem it is. I can easily push everything into massive digital clipping territory because I recorded all the instruments at good volumes. As I mix, I am trying to be mindful of the keeping things a bit quieter, but I don't want to make my mixes too soft.

I am definitely not going to put a compressor on my master bus, although I have compressors on a lot of individual tracks. I'll keep working and see where I get.

If you're sending it to be mastered, leave setting the final levels and peak to average ratios for the mastering engineer.

Cheers.

ORIGINAL: Thomas Campitelli
I am definitely not going to put a compressor on my master bus, although I have compressors on a lot of individual tracks. I'll keep working and see where I get.

that's good. as yep said, you want to leave the final output stuff to the mastering engineer. however you want the mix you send to the mastering engineer to be "mastering friendly", so the mix better sound good on it's own without a compressor/multi-band on the final track. that means you've still got to watch the RMS on your tracks and try to keep the dynamics balanced with good sound.

the main things to watch for per-track are the fundamental and resonant frequencies of the instrument, and across the mix watch for buildup at any frequency (lows are most common but high-end buildup isn't uncommon).

I've actually printed out Yep's original post and have it taped in my studio notebook for reference. I had lost this thread until someone pointed out to me it was in "techniques" and not "Sonar", thanks!!!

Digital clipping sounds awful, and there is no way to fix it once it's there. WITHIN a program like Sonar, which uses 32-bit floating point audio calculations, it is almost impossible to achieve digital clipping, and you can safely run individual tracks pretty far "in the red." BUT, if your main outs (or whatever the output channel is to your soundcard) goes above 0dB, you're up the creek without a paddle. So individual tracks can show up in the red, but your main outs have to be "green" or you'll have digital overs in the output.

excuse the noob questions here, but i'm a little confused. ok, i have my meters set to "rms". i have occasional "in the red" spikes on the tracks. but what you are saying is...
on my "master out" on the console view, i should have it to where there is no "in the red" at all??

thanks!!

ORIGINAL: airwreck
excuse the noob questions here, but i'm a little confused. ok, i have my meters set to "rms". i have occasional "in the red" spikes on the tracks. but what you are saying is...
on my "master out" on the console view, i should have it to where there is no "in the red" at all??

thanks!!

i always look at the soundcard's output bus (usually the last in the list and typically has the name of your souncard in it). this will tell you when you are likely to get digital overs. the "master" bus naturally should be the same as the soundcard output but this is not necessarily the case - you can route all your tracks or busses directly to your soundcard and skip the busses altogether (this is the default "new track" behavior). so like i said i watch the soundcard output as it can tell me if i've misrouted a track or bus.

finally, you should probably set your soundcard meters to RMS+Peak. RMS is used for judging apparent loudness, how loud the track will sound (and was explained in detail somewhere around here...). peak on the other hand is the actual amount of signal that is passing through at any given instant. you may not get audible digital clipping in the red - it depends on a lot of things, but it's there. unlike analog clipping, the waveforms are chopped flat at the top and any modern sound system will faithfully reproduce them as very irritating clicks (or extremely harsh static if it's really bad) which are impossible to remove from the track.

i found something i thought was appropriate for this thread:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war.

it's a good read for anybody who doesn't already know the backstory and specifically deals with the issue of digital overs and how mastering engineers have the 'golden standard' of not quite enough digital distortion to be annoying to the average listener. at the end of the article is a list of albums which many feel have gone beyond that standard.

my ever-present example for this subject, audioslave's "audioslave" album, was on the list as well as the red hot chili pepper's "californication", foo fighter's "one by one", queens of the stone age's "songs for the deaf" () and kelly clarkson's "breakaway."

i feel much better now comparing my mix volume to "cochise" and "light my way"... =)

Sorry to get OT here, but...

Yep,

What's with the Sox?!
Francona sure knows how to mismanage series' against NY, eh?

I'm waiting for the rain to stop, wondering if Schill will still be out there...and able to pitch.
Go Sox!

ugh...nevermind...

Red sox are finished........

Hey Jack that was an interesting read. I've got Audioslaves album and never realised what was wrong with it. Haven't listened to Californication for a while, I'll dig that up.

I don't listen to much western music, but Japanese pop is shocking for over compression. The engineers are very good, I don't notice much in the way of distortion but the music sure is fatiguing as they ring every last db out of the music. One of my favourite albums is by Yuki, previously of Judy and Mary who were known internationally; but this album is so "thin" that it's really disappointing. Great songs that have a great airy gloss to them but no substance. You can hear the arrangements but the mixing/mastering just pulls all the punch out of the music.

ORIGINAL: Brett
You can hear the arrangements but the mixing/mastering just pulls all the punch out of the music.

i think the over-compression destroys whatever subtlety the artist originally puts into the song, although from what i've read it's mainly the artists wanting the record "louder" and not so much the labels pushing it (although i think that's part of it as well). to me it's become more like a t.v. commerical business - the loudest, crudest one wins.

thanks for the response, but i'm still a bit confused with all the terms and the correct use of these meters.

i don't use busses (haven't gone there yet) all my tracks are routed to master and master to firewire mixer.

now when i check the master meter in console view... is it all right to have the input set to where there are a few jumps in the red?

gracias!

ORIGINAL: airwreck

thanks for the response, but i'm still a bit confused with all the terms and the correct use of these meters.

i don't use busses (haven't gone there yet) all my tracks are routed to master and master to firewire mixer.

now when i check the master meter in console view... is it all right to have the input set to where there are a few jumps in the red?

gracias!

technically you don't want your peak meters hitting red, and you especially want your RMS to stay out of the red. the reality is that if you peak into the red that sound will get chopped off when you export to wave (or mp3, or whatever). i don't know what kind of tolerances various equipment has in regards to digital clipping, so you may be able to get away with it as many mastering engineers do.

so the short answer is unless you know what you're doing, keep the master peaks out of the red.

ok, thanks!

what about the track meters? is it ok for them to occasionally hit in the red?

ORIGINAL: airwreck
what about the track meters? is it ok for them to occasionally hit in the red?

it's fine if they go into the red. sonar's audio engine is 32-bit, so it's really really hard (but possible) to get clipping on the tracks and busses except for your soundcard output bus(ses) of course. i'm not sure at what dB level clipping occurs in 32-bit land but it has to be pretty high.

To recap what jack said: ideally, your main input and output meters should never hit the "clip" light (0dB), which is slightly different from "in the red," since sonar's meters turn red at -6, if I'm not mistaken, as a kind of early warning. At the inputs and outputs, any information above 0dB will be simply chopped off (clipped) and will sound nasty.

WITHIN Sonar (or almost any other professional audio application) you can basically safely run individual tracks as far into the red as you want, although it's not necessarily the best practice. With 32 or 64 bit floating point audio, you need to be hundreds of decibels above silence to achive clipping, which is virtually impossible to achieve under any kind of real-world circumstances. The places where you have to be careful are on the incoming and outgoing audio, where you make the switch between the worlds of digital and analog.

A lot of the information out there on metering and watching levels is somewhat outdated if you record at 24-bit. As long as you stay in the realm of 24-bit digital files, the only thing you really need to know is to keep your recording levels below clipping, and make sure your final output before you burn to disc doesn't contain any clipping. There is essentially zero advantage to pushing your levels close to zero in 24-bit. If the inputs are clipping, just turn it down 6 or 12 or even 18 dB and don't sweat it (turn up your playback speakers if you want it louder).

Cheers.