Posts Tagged ‘How to’

What is mastering ?

Friday, July 6th, 2012

« MASTERING IS THE LAST CREATIVE STEP IN THE AUDIO PRODUCTION PROCESS, THE BRIDGE BETWEEN MIXING AND REPLICATION – YOUR LAST CHANCE TO ENHANCE SOUND OR REPAIR PROBLEMS IN AN ACOUSTICALLY-DESIGNED ROOM. »

- BOB KATZ, THE ART OF MASTERING.

The previous definition is coming from the book “The art of mastering” which I consider to be the bible of the mastering engineer. Bob Katz wrote down things in a way that nor I or any other mastering engineer could have. It is right, clear and inspiring. For whom this definition is still not clear enough, mastering can be seen as a multipurpose process… Here are listed the basic reasons to get your mixes mastered by a professional:

Homogeniety:

For whom this definition is still not clear enough, mastering is the step where we try to make fit different mixes in a whole. What I mean by that is fairly simple: Some mixes has been done tired at 2am, others fresh as a flower at 9am; some of them sound crazy loud and others very soft… Now, the question is : How do we put them together on a same record ?

Standardization:

Another good reason to get your mix mastered is to sound good everywhere. The problem with mixes, is usually that they have been mixed in less than perfect acoustical environment, so by definition, they won’t translate well everywhere else. A mastering studio will have a near-perfection acoustically treated room and very flat monitoring setup in order to make a sound-good-everywhere version of this mix.

Loudness:

You want your mix to be competitive in terms of loudness ? Okay, but don’t do it yourself, because it is the best way to ruin in 10 sec an excellent mix. The mastering engineer will use its talent, knowledge and experience to make sure that your songs don’t suffer too much from gain reduction undesirable effects. Moreover, mastering engineers use high end gear that helps to conserve the integrity of the master.

 

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ANNOUNCEMENT – “How to master your songs at no expense” video to be released soon

Saturday, June 30th, 2012

Quantum-Music announces that a video tutorials called ”How to master your songs at no expense” will be released on www.quantum-music.ca/blog during the current summer.

“Even if Quantum-Music does not recommend to anyone to master its own songs, sometimes the budget doesn’t allow for an external mastering service. In this perspective, Chris Dion will present good practices and methods in order to help you master your own songs by using free plugins only.”  

 

This video tutorial promises to be different in terms of quality and vision in comparison to what we can already find on the internet.

“My approach consists basically to measure, compare and make decision using my judgement and few guidelines. I think this is the first step towards a standardisation of loudness, tonal balance and harmonic content. This is what’s missing in this chaotic industry.”

 

Further details:

  • The presented method is intended to fit 90% of the situation, under the condition that the mix is already good.
  • A mastering toolkit will be available for downloading including “Quantum”, “pink”, “brown” and “white” noise, an excel spreadsheet and presets.
  • A list of the plugin used will be available on the same blogpost as well as their download link.

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Posted in Announcements, Education, Freeware Plugin Review, Mastering | 9 Comments »

What is mixing ? (part 2)

Saturday, June 30th, 2012

audio-compression

As mentioned in the previous topic about “What is mixing ? (part 1)”, we defined the mix as a three dimensional world :

  1. Frequency
  2. Dynamic
  3. Stereo

Of course, like in the real world, we can also take into account the time as the fourth dimension, which is absolutely right. But for now, let us focus mainly on the three first ones. Since the frequency dimension has already been covered in the previous section, let us now move on to the dynamic aspect of mixing.

For some of us, in mastering, dynamic is everything… But from a mixing perspective, what does that mean ? Well, it is fairly simple: Some instruments are more dense than others, so they need to be compressed in order to be “competitive” in the mix. Some people (a lot actually) just compress everything to the maximum in the hope that it will sound crazy loud. Well, if it sounds loud, don’t expect me to believe that it sounds right, or either close to be good.

Honestly, if you want it to sound loud, ask your mastering engineer. This blogpost will encourage you to focus on relative dynamic rather that absolute dynamic (or loudness). What I mean by that is that you should make sure that the dynamic between your instruments is making sense, no matter what the dynamic of the whole song is.

That said, as a rule of thumb, start by simply compressing elements that are not dense enough to compete with others. A convenient example of that is vocals compared to brass. The compressor has not been invented to kill the dynamic, but simply to blend the instruments together. Keep that in mind and your mixes will sound better, I promise.

 

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Towards a deep understanding of the mastering process (part 2)

Thursday, June 28th, 2012

Second step: Benchmark measurements methods
Once we identified our key parameters, the question is now : how to measure it ? Otherwise, it’s hard to build a reference and we fall into the subjectivity. At this point, some mastering engineers might disagree and that’s okay. The objective here is simply to propose a different approach, a new perspective. Use it or not but, in both case, consider it. That said, let’s look at the tools we could use for our experiment:
  • Tonal balance can be measured via spectrum analysis
  • Perceived loudness can be evaluated by RMS measurement
  • Stereo can be measured with a vectorscope
What’s missing ? A tool to measure the harmonic content of a mix. We all know what is the problem with exciters. The more you turn the button, better it is… until it sucks ! It is a key parameter that is still based on subjectivity only. For an experienced engineer, it might not be a problem to adjust the “right” amount of harmonic content but, it’s not the case for every newbie home-studio owner that work in an less-than-perfect listening environment.
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Third step: Define a standard range of values by reverse engineering
I really like this part which consists to analyze the key parameters of my favourite best-sounding records. I find it exciting, it’s like finding dinosaur bones. Let’s take the 10 best sounding albums of your musical genre and analyze them, both subjectively and objectively. How does it sound ? What do I like in these records ? Only in terms of sonic perspective, what’s different from other genre ? How the dynamic sounds like ? Does it sound bright, muddy, airy, warm or neutral ? Then:
  • Capture the tonal balance with a spectrum analyzer, then compare each of them with pink, brown and white noise
  • Measure the RMS throughout the song
  • Take a look at the vectorscope; how the mix behave in terms of stereo imaging ?
  • Try to print in your mind the degree of harmonic content.
Especially, if you’re testing similar sounding record, you will recognize patterns very quickly. Maybe only 3 records will be enough give you a very precise idea of how it should sound. More specifically:
  • Tonal balance: Is it closer to pink noise, brown noise or white noise ?
  • RMS: What is the max and min value. Is the range narrow ? Is the average making sense for your needs ?
  • Stereo: Does most records behave the same way ? Do you have a good idea of how it should look and sound like ?
  • Harmonic content: Are you going to make it shinny or raw ?
Personnally, I learned from this experiment that I like tonal balances that are between the brown and the pink noise, RMS values between -10db and -12db, a medium stereo spread with high harmonic content. This is a very very very powerful statement!
See you for the following next week !

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Posted in Education, Mastering | 1 Comment »

Towards a deep understanding of the mastering process (part 1)

Thursday, June 28th, 2012


Introduction:

You’ve probably already heard the famous quote saying that inventors are people that have been forced to change field, because they see the never solved problem with a fresh perspective. I tend to believe it, since problem solving is often a matter of paradigm shift. Even if you know me for mastering music, first you should know that my background is based on chemical process engineering. If there is something that this field taught me, it is how to define a process, understand it in order to improve it. Sometimes this improvement simply consist to simplify its operation, reduce its cost or automate its critical steps. Well, I decided to apply this method to the mastering process…

 

First step: Identify the key parameters (Success criteria)
Whatever problem you’re facing, if you want to solve it, you will have to identify what are the critical aspects. It’s not everything that really matters; there is a notion of priority. For Mastering, I think that Izotope have already done a good deal of the job with its all-included bundle Ozone. Let me enumerate the components they’ve proposed us for mastering:
  • Equalizer
  • Multiband dynamic processing (expander, compressor and limiter)
  • Mulitband Exciter (tape, tube, etc.)
  • Reverb
  • Stereo tool
  • Maximizer
Investigating a little bit about the selection of these tools brings us back to the fundamentals. Are all these tools necessary for every case ? Certainly not. Do I add reverb to every master ? No. Okay, so…What does really matters ? To find out, let’s answer the following question: How should the perfect master sound like ? Let me guess for you:
  • Well balanced
  • Powerful
  • Focused
  • Rich
Oh, we start with 6 circumstantial aspects and came down two 4 fundamental ones. Moreover, if we speak the same english, Well-balanced refers to tonal-balance, Powerful to dynamics, Focus to stereo,  and rich to Harmonic content. Can we go simpler than that ? I don’t think so. Do I play with these 4 dimensions every time I master ? Yes. We just identified the fundamental parameters:
  • Tone
  • Dynamics
  • Stereo
  • Harmonic content
Wow, that simplifies a problem, doesn’t it ?

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Posted in Education, Mastering | 3 Comments »

What is Mixing ? (part 1)

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

What is Mixing (part 1)

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Mixing is the process which consists to blend the different instruments together in a homogeneous song. While most of people don’t even know this process exists, the mixing step can arguably be the step that takes the most of your time. In order to explain properly the main concepts, we explore the sound mixing world in 3 parts, which are respectively: Frequency, Dynamics and Stereo.

The first dimension: Frequency

Except for classical music, if you try to blend the instruments together without any treatment, there are big chances that it will simply not work. The main reason is that the frequency ranges of each instrument are overlapping. To give you a better idea, let us compare figure 1 and 2.

 
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Figure 1: Song as recorded before mixing

 

 
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Figure 2: Song after mixing

As you can see, the first one is chaotic since instrument is present everywhere in the frequency range while the human ear can only hear one sound at each frequency at a time. In other words, it’s a mess.

But if you look at figure 2, you will see that every instrument has its place and play its role. The kick is not trying to replace the bass, and the snare, the lead guitar, like in a classical orchestra.

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Posted in Mixing | 1 Comment »