Mastering procedures

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Heya!

If there's any mastering pro's out there, perhaps you can enlighten me abit.
There's quite alot guides out there that explains what mastering is and some
of them goes a bit more into details. What I am interested in, is to hear
your methods, more precisely the order of procedures or the setup (how you
chain your units/plugins), what do you do first, what comes next etc.
The way I work now (which is not fully satisfactory) is something like this:

1. Trim wavefile (start/ending, silence parts)
2. Click search n remove
3. Maximize Peak
4. Spectrum Analysis to reveal hums n hizzes, if anything critical found,
these are EQ'et out as clean as possiple
5. If Mix is cd quality I change bitdepth and samplerate to a higher

6. Gentle limiting ( to normalize file )
7. EQ adjustments
8. Multiband compressions
9. Maximizing and dithering
10. Resampling back down to CD quality


What do you think of this? Any comment is welcome.. how do you generally
master?


Regards

Michael Hansen

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

> I think it's a whole lot o' "maximizing" goin' on, and I wonder if
> you're setting those levels by ear or letting software crunch the
> numbers.

Well, I'm not sure I'll get anywhere by letting my ears crunch the numbers

Ofcourse I'm not presetting my way out of it, I listen carefully at every
step..

> Further, to just be listing what one does without regard for
> what one is hearing is not mastering as the term is professionally
> understood.

I don't believe I expressed that either, at least that wasn't my intention.
I believe that mastering as a term professionally includes more than just
the process of listening.. its that "more" I'm interested in, whats the
first thing you pay attention to and correct, whats the next etc.
I.e the practical workflow.

> The most important tool for mastering, after the masterer's ears, is the
> playback system and room with which one works. What have you put into
> that portion of your system?

First of all I have different sets of speakers in different "types" of rooms
which I check up the mastering, secondly I figured that the best mastering
enviroment would be a place as close to the main audience enviroment, a
livingroom, perhaps I'm wrong here. On occasions I even check the mastering
in my car... which posses about the worst speakers ever seen on earth..
I have bad experience doing the mastering in our studio.. the speakers and
enviroment is simply too far from a normal listening enviroment...


/Michael

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

John <are.you.crazy@sendmenomail.com> wrote:
>In article <cugot5$13k4$1@news.cybercity.dk>,
> "Michael Hansen" <dyster_tid@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I have bad experience doing the mastering in our studio.. the speakers and
>> enviroment is simply too far from a normal listening enviroment...
>
>gee, i thought a studio was supposed to have accurate monitoring that
>would allow sound design that would translate well to other more colored
>reproduction systems.

Sadly I have been in very few studios that had even acceptable monitoring
systems, let alone mastering-grade monitoring.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Wow, you guys are really being helpful..
OT: so what is the ideal mastering enviroment?

With the priority you present it seems to me that the actual workflow
doesn't matter... its all about ears and good monitors.. hmm?!
Lets say we got the ideal mastering enviroment, then what do you do when
mastering?

- "use our ears"

hmpf..hehe .. well more than that as answer would be just great

Regards,

Michael

"another viewer" <toomuch@spam.net> wrote in message
news:toomuch-8CF9F8.19572810022005@library.airnews.net...
> In article <cuh1kt$nnc$1@panix2.panix.com>,
> kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
>
>> John <are.you.crazy@sendmenomail.com> wrote:
>> >In article <cugot5$13k4$1@news.cybercity.dk>,
>> > "Michael Hansen" <dyster_tid@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> I have bad experience doing the mastering in our studio.. the speakers
>> >> and
>> >> enviroment is simply too far from a normal listening enviroment...
>> >
>> >gee, i thought a studio was supposed to have accurate monitoring that
>> >would allow sound design that would translate well to other more colored
>> >reproduction systems.
>>
>> Sadly I have been in very few studios that had even acceptable monitoring
>> systems, let alone mastering-grade monitoring.
>> --scott
>
> sadder yet, for people to realize their monitoring is out to lunch and
> still do nothing about it.
> "But, it's L O U D !!" <g>
>
> i'm just spoiled i guess....
>
> --
> Iron Butt Assoc., WATR 4X, BL3 paparazzi, E.O.B.
> R1100RT, R75/5
> "If you are civil to the voluble, they will abuse your patience;
> if brusque, your character." - Jonathon Swift

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Michael Hansen <dyster_tid@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Wow, you guys are really being helpful..
>OT: so what is the ideal mastering enviroment?

I don't know. For the most part, I am a fan of big planar speakers in
a large room. But the room is the real big deal, and the playback system
needs to have very deep bass extension without any real lumps in it, as
well as being somewhat analytical on top. That's not trivial.

>With the priority you present it seems to me that the actual workflow
>doesn't matter... its all about ears and good monitors.. hmm?!
>Lets say we got the ideal mastering enviroment, then what do you do when
>mastering?

For the most part, I bring stuff into the mastering house, and listen to
the various choices the mastering guy offers me. And I tend to urge him
not to do anything, but sometimes he offers EQ or dynamics changes that do
make things sound better. Invariably we wind up arguing over moderate
limiting; everybody wants to put a little limiting on things to make final
assembly a little bit easier and I don't see any reason to do it if you
don't have to.

But _sometimes_ I go into the mastering house, and I hear all kinds of
things that I never heard on the studio monitors. And then I usually
agree with the mastering guy that they need to be fixed.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <cuhpn4$2f9v$1@news.cybercity.dk> dyster_tid@hotmail.com writes:

> OT: so what is the ideal mastering enviroment?

One in which the monitors are very accurate and the design of the room
is such that it doesn't destroy that accuracy.

> With the priority you present it seems to me that the actual workflow
> doesn't matter... its all about ears and good monitors.. hmm?!

Workflow is important too. Hearing what's right and wrong is just the
start. You have to be able to do something about it, so you need the
tools at hand and you need to know what they do and how to use them.

> Lets say we got the ideal mastering enviroment, then what do you do when
> mastering?
>
> - "use our ears"

Also, use our hands and eyes to make (only) the necessary changes.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 19:35:54 +0100, Michael Hansen wrote:

> Heya!
>
> If there's any mastering pro's out there, perhaps you can enlighten me abit.
> There's quite alot guides out there that explains what mastering is and some
> of them goes a bit more into details. What I am interested in, is to hear
> your methods, more precisely the order of procedures or the setup (how you
> chain your units/plugins), what do you do first, what comes next etc.
> The way I work now (which is not fully satisfactory) is something like this:
>
> 1. Trim wavefile (start/ending, silence parts)
> 2. Click search n remove
> 3. Maximize Peak
> 4. Spectrum Analysis to reveal hums n hizzes, if anything critical found,
> these are EQ'et out as clean as possiple
> 5. If Mix is cd quality I change bitdepth and samplerate to a higher
>
> 6. Gentle limiting ( to normalize file )
> 7. EQ adjustments
> 8. Multiband compressions
> 9. Maximizing and dithering
> 10. Resampling back down to CD quality
>
>
> What do you think of this? Any comment is welcome.. how do you generally
> master?

I'd leave doing the top and tail and fades till the very last.
All that limiting and compression brings up a whole load of noises, so
what sounded like an inaudible little fade to silence, or a gap at the top
of the track before it starts, can become quite obvious.

Also, I hope you only use eq to get rid of hums/hisses on the sections of
a track where it's really exposed and annoying, rather than over the
whole track.

I generally do the lot in a single pass with eq-comp-limiter/dither as
plugins. I like to hear how the eq is working with the compression, and to
be able to move it before or after the compressor. Also, I can balance
the relative levels of the mastered and unmastered, so its easy to bypass
the plugins and check I'm actually improving the sound by fiddling with it.

I'd leave out step three and six. Why keep limiting and normalising if you
are going to put the whole lot through a maximiser at the end anyway?

I'm no proper mastering guy in any way though!

>
>
> Regards
>
> Michael Hansen