Need help with loudness maximising chain

[garyb]

eq presets!!!???
for mastering?

no.

[dawman]

Presets for complicated devices like the MASTER IT are not a bad idea.
Of course one EQ from a different recording or room isn't going to give the user any great sound quality breakthrough, but it might be good for reverse engineering to see the various Mid/Side tricks, etc.

I use zero dynamics or EQs these days.
Learning how to adjust the gain structure better helped me.

[ronnie]

Presets for complicated devices like the MASTER IT are not a bad idea.
Of course one EQ from a different recording or room isn't going to give the user any great sound quality breakthrough, but it might be good for reverse engineering to see the various Mid/Side tricks, etc.

I use zero dynamics or EQs these days.
Learning how to adjust the gain structure better helped me.

I'm sure you guys are waaaayyyy ahead of me. Dawman is right: I wanted to reverse-engineer some presets because the device is complicated (at least to me!) so I thought I could fast-track my experiments with it. I like to play with EQ on individual instrument tracks, particularly keyboards and this sounded like a superb eq (which from what I can tell so far, it is) but it is a bit overwhelming to me at this point. I'm more of a "put dots on a line and drag 'em" type of a guy. I never really used eq for mastering what originates here, my room measures nice and sounds nice. But some of the stuff I have to fly in could use a little something like this to blend in. (Not that presets would even help with this). Sometimes it works the other way if the production calls for it. I don't always have the last say.

[dante]

My whole mastering chain is a preset I then 'mix into' that.

The best thing about something like MASTERIT is mid-side. Widening mids and tops and centering bass can do wonders for a mix.

Get into M/S you wont regret it.

[ronnie]

My whole mastering chain is a preset I then 'mix into' that.

The best thing about something like MASTERIT is mid-side. Widening mids and tops and centering bass can do wonders for a mix.

Get into M/S you wont regret it.

Thanks. I have listened to demos and watched video of the MASTER IT EQ and also the DYNAPARA EQ and was very impressed by the before and after results. I also thank you for your very informative page on the MASTER IT EQ:

http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_03/masterit.htm

[garyb]

it helps to have a good meter.

the main idea of mastering is NOT to make it sound good. that job should have been completed in tracking and mixing. the idea is to make the frequency response curve for the song relatively flat. that way it will sound right on the largest number of playback systems.

[dante]

In a traditional sense I would agree - especially in a scenario where the mix man and the mastering guy are separate and the mastering guy doesn't want to screw too much with another guys mix. But times have changed over the last 3 decades. We are the babyboomers in-the-box generation and now in mastering references there's mention of adding colour and flavour at the mastering end using built-in enhancers, tube emulation and hardware emulation. Whilst avoiding coloration of the master is certainly an option, so is 'creative' mastering.

My process I call 'reverse mastering' is a great way of ensuring consistency across a set of say 12 tracks - all using the same mastering devices with the same settings, then using the mixer to balance the instruments/tracks into that mastering chain. I've got a chain that makes the tracks consistent across studio monitors / cans, iPhone and car stereo.

As long as Brickmaster is set to peak at -1 and the other processors are just under clipping it works.

And EQ / comp presets are not uncommon either. I'm checking out the Tube Tech channel strip (pultec emulation by softube) - and it has presets for all manner of scenarios - buss comp, guitar, male vocal, drums. Its handy to know what the designers recommend especially when you haven't played with the original and don't know what the famous 'Pultec trick' is that they keep talking about. After using a preset as a starting point, you can tweak as ears dictate.

[garyb]

that's not mastering. it's certainly valid, but it's not mastering.

just because a piece of music has it's dynamics limited doesn't mean one has mastered the track. if that's all it was about, music with real budgets wouldn't bother with the extra step. eq the mix however you like, but most playback systems in the world can't properly reproduce what even lower priced studio monitors can. mastering is the optimization of the track for the purpose of making it listenable in the most environments.

regardless of what fx are on a track, regardless of the interesting way the track was eq'd, you don't want peaks in any particular frequency band, generally speaking. you can remove anything you want, i'm talking about what the peaks are. boosting a frequency is the same as cutting all frequencies around the target frequency. there are mnany good reasons why one should cut instead of boosting, but i'm not going there. i'm just explaining why i'm respecting what dante is doing, but not agreeing with the definition. it's not that i'm a great engineer, but the reasons for things don't change just because of computers or the lack of them. convenient programs don't do what a great room, a great engineer, great monitors, custom electronics and a human being's subjective opinion can do. after all, music is about what one hears. that's why an eq preset for mastering is a non-sequitur. every song is different and every adjustment needed is different. the purpose of mastering is the same as the reason for putting a frame around a masterpiece. it's so the actual art can be perceived with more clarity. mastering is like the art of putting the most perfect frame around the painting, so that one's eyes are drawn into the artwork.

sure, we can do it all in one step, but there is some danger in that, assuming the work is all that. you'd at least want a corrected room and a good pair of speaks and a good meter. if the work is throwaway, it doesn't need mastering anyway. eq it so it sounds good and limit it so that it has the correct loudness. done.

[dante]

What your saying about mastering is true and fits all the requirements of the definition of mastering, and yes the mixer should make it sound good. But that doesn't exclude the process of mastering to make it sound even better - although I agree that's not the accepted 'main' purpose of mastering

http://www.whatisaudiomastering.com/index.html

Point 3) here states 'Enhancement of audio material using the engineer's objectivity, equipment choices and clients input. '

Which to me - is the same as saying 'making it sound better' - albeit the mix should already sound 'good'.

[garyb]

well, of course you want to make it sound good. that's done by balancing it out. i mean, there isn't a mastering engineer around that wouldn't tell the artist to mix it over, if it had a serious issue.

personally, i have a semi-corrected room, a decent speaker system, a decent meter, and i'm a somewhat adequate, somewhat lazy engineer. i do mastering, but i'm not going to fool myself into thinking that it's the same as a top-level mastering house. the more things change, the more they stay the same...

then again, it's good enough. i have material being played on radio stations all over the USA and as far away as South Africa, and some of that material is charting higher that some very well-known names(it's Jazz, it doesn't matter). i don't do anything too complicated. i run the BX into the Optimaster and the do final limiting off-line in Samplitude to get my final loudness. it's a simple, straight-forward method that works well. i don't have the facility needed to get very high and mighty about the process, please don't misinterpret my ravings...

[dante]

Well, if I was doing Jazz, I would probably be less heavy handed on my version of Mastering, than Rock or EDM

[garyb]

dante, i don't just do jazz. the Jazz that i have worked on has just been promoted and so it's been higher up the charts. i was just admitting that the tools are adequate, even though they are inferior to what a real mastering house would use. a real mastering house would do a better job, so it's a matter of degree.

yeah, rock and edm and other pop forms are mastered louder than jazz, but the process is the same. yes, mastering should make the finished product sound better, but it shouldn't fundamentally change the piece of music either.

anyway, i'm only quibbling about the definition of the word. i'm not arguing with your process or whether or not what you do, works.

[ronnie]

I was really just looking for presets as a starting point so that I could get familiar with where all the controls and lights are (there's a heckuva lot of them!) for some visual cues in learning this device. I can see some of this in the videos posted. For many years I too have used Optimaster and finished up in SoundForge without turning things into a long rectangle or as the production dictated sent it on for real mastering however that would turn out, like it or not. I just want to explore some other options having read Bob Katz's book again after so many years. I appreciate the discourse.

[dante]

Well what I was describing with MASTERIT or M/S in general is a broad approach - eg center the bass and widen the mids / highs. The Scope brainworx device I believe had a mono-maker option to make this process easier - eg capturing low frequencies and centering them to mono.

But it's easy enough with MASTERIT as well ( I havnt actually tried the BX ).

Either way - it's a starting point whatever the devices used.

[JoPo]

Still looking for DAS TRID and MASTER IT EQ Presets.....

Don't know if you found it (the DAS link is broken) but as I said one's here :
http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=33098

Sadly, it doesn't work very well...

But you've got also : Dynamith and TRANS-A-R-T (which is recent if I remember well)

I found just this :
http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php ... t=transart
but you should seach deeper in the device zone here, I'm sure you can find it.

[ronnie]

Never found Trid but thanks for the links. From KVR I wound up here:

http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2012/01 ... u-plugins/

They're all free and got good reviews. Downloaded a couple.

Special thanks to JoPo on this one.

[dante]

I really like John Paul Braddock's cube visualisation, because its how I've been thinking of mastering recently - that of filling up the audio space which is a cube - vertical = frequency : horizontal = mid/side and depth = volume front to rear. Although my visualisation was only a 2D square until I saw this :

The John Paul Cube

cube.jpg (183.69 KiB) Viewed 2625 times

http://www.formationaudio.co.uk/article ... g-the-cube

JPB has a really good 'Modern Mastering' masterclass in Computer Music mag Jan 2015 edition. In particular relevant in this context because it focuses on software.

In the magazine it shows the same cube but filled up - eg solid. I think this might be what you are trying to achieve - so helps to be cognisant of 'loudness' in those 3 dimensions rather than just a single gain dimension.

If you own an iPad this magazine costs less than $3 bucks per issue - an absolute steal really - considering back in hard copy days I was importing them for like $25 each !

Never has so much been available to so many for so little.

[hubird]

I second the 3D thinking in mixing.
Depending on 1. volume, 2. defined frequency respons and 3. reverb amount/type all parts of a song can be placed from front to back in the mix.
Never heard of this cube, good to hear about it, thanks Dante

[dante]

His articles on the Loudness Wars and Tonal Correction in Mastering are also good.

Its made me realise I should investigate shelving EQ more : quote :

"Shelving EQ should be the first port of call - In the nature of shelving it will shift a large area of a mix's tone evenly. Introducing this tonal shift will be a minimal change to the mix balance, unlike the bell curve which will proportionally change gain differently over every frequency band effected ............"

[ronnie]

Thanks. This is really great.