• Mastering

    From Digital Man@VERT to Nathan Pendleton on Friday, July 04, 2008 01:03:33
    Re: Mastering
    By: Nathan Pendleton to All on Thu Jul 03 2008 02:33 pm

    Hi all,

    I've always been interested in the concept of mastering recordings for the purpose of playing on car systems, home audio, etc. I get to the point where I EQ all of my recordings, put on any digital effects, etc., but they always seem "narrow" to me when I play them in the car or at home. I
    assume this is because they need to be mastered, but I don't really understand what the process does, let alone what's involved in actually mastering a recording.

    Here's my set up:
    I record directly to a Korg D3200 Digital Multitracker.
    I then do all the EQing, compression, effects on the board and burn to CD.
    - I burn using the highest possible format and it ends up at high-quality
    WMA files once the CD is "ripped" by my computer.
    I load the WMAs into Cool Edit Pro 2.1 to trim the intro and ending
    I then save at the highest possible quality settings as MP3s

    Are you converting from a compressed WMA format to MP3? That seems strange to me. Are at least using variable bit-rate?


    There is a function on Cool Edit that supposedly does mastering, but it's more of a Pan/Expand kind of thing. Sometimes it sounds good, sometimes it doesn't.

    Does anyone know a tried-and-true method of mastering at home?

    I've used Steinberg WaveLab (for 2-track mastering) with good results in the past: http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/audioediting_product.html

    digital man (xbox-live: digitlman)

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  • From Digital Man@VERT to Nathan Pendleton on Saturday, July 05, 2008 13:55:11
    Re: Mastering
    By: Nathan Pendleton to Digital Man on Fri Jul 04 2008 01:26 pm

    Re: Mastering
    By: Digital Man to Nathan Pendleton on Fri Jul 04 2008 01:03 am

    I haven't, actually! The only reason I'm going between WMA and MP3 is because MP3 works better with more formats. I can upload it online, put it on an mp3 player, etc. I suppose I could make two separate copies (the raw data is initially in WAV format) one for the internet and one for distribution on CD, but I much more prefer to use MP3s. I always used constant bitrate ... is there a real difference between that and variable?

    I'll definitely check out wavelab. I might see if they've got a demo I can look at or something. Is the mastering function you're talking about built into wavelab or is it a plugin or addon of some type? Thanks again!

    When you mix and master you should be dealing with uncompressed highest quality audio (e.g. WAV) as you can. And then after you have your 2 track master, you can convert that to all kinds of formats, lossy or not. And variable bit-rate is a definite improvement over constant bit-rate. You can get much higher quality with the same size (or smaller) file than when using constant bit-rate.

    As for WaveLab, it comes with all kinds of mastering facilities (compressor/limiters, sonic maximizers, stereo imaging, EQ, etc.) and it supports plug-ins as well. "mastering" is not a function, but a process. The elements of this process differ depending on the engineer / producer's tastes.

    digital man (xbox-live: digitlman)

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  • From Digital Man@VERT to Nathan Pendleton on Saturday, July 05, 2008 13:59:29
    Re: Re: Mastering
    By: Nathan Pendleton to Trash80 on Fri Jul 04 2008 01:30 pm

    Re: Re: Mastering
    By: Trash80 to Nathan Pendleton on Fri Jul 04 2008 09:28 am

    What I do is just straight recording to the multitracker, then I mix it
    down to just basic stereo L and R from there. Even when I do full panning, like two guitars playing the same thing but one 100% left and the other
    100% right, it doesn't sound as "wide" as some of the commercial recordings I've heard. Could be psychological, but it really brings out the amateur qualities recording quality-wise, at least to me.

    If you're not adding any reverb, then perhaps it's just "dry". A good stereo reverb (and sometimes, delay, chorus and other effects) will help give you a more 3D soundscape.

    I have a friend who used to record to digital and then he transfers it to a reel-to-reel tape machine for mastering. I have no idea what that accomplishes, but in the end, his mixes sound a lot more powerful and
    closer to a commercially printed CD than mine.

    I doubt very much that the analog tape is accomplishing anything that can't be done digitally.

    Could it just be that I'm expecting too much?

    Nah, you may just need to use more effects / processing. :-)

    digital man (xbox-live: digitlman)

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  • From MRoblivious1bmf@VERT to Sniper on Tuesday, July 08, 2008 15:57:31
    To: Sniper
    .,: This is something about Re: Mastering,
    Sniper said it to Nathan Pendleton on Tue Jul 08 2008 09:59 am --ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ-ÄÄÄÄ---ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ---ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ--ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
    There is something about recording to MP3 format that just diminishes
    the sound. Record to wave, or to the CD directly if possible and


    that something is that its conversion format is 'lossy' not 'lossless'

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