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I had finished my music (24bit recording) in Nuendo2 and mixdown everything to 16bit wave files, then burn all the songs to CD with Nero. I've been listening to it over & over, and finally happy with it.
Now I would like to do mastering myself (only gaining up the levels) in Samplitude Pro7. So I went back to my Nuendo2 and mixdowned everything to 24bit waves in order to get the hi res audio, then laid them up in Samplitude. I only put L2 Maximizer to all the tracks & then directly burn to CD from Samplitude. (dithering using Samplitude)
Then I did an AB comparison between the 2 CDs, & I found that the Samplitude CD has more bass (kinda sub bass) than the Nero CD. I was pretty dissapointed that I've been spending a lot of times balancing the eq & now everything messed up.
Is it because the bit problem or the CD burner application issue?

Maybe because of the L2 Maximizer? =P

This being said tho, 24bit definitely and perceptively sounds much nicer than 16bit, but if both CD you burned were 16bit redbook audio, it shouldn't make a difference.

edit: typo etc


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: symbiote on 2005-12-22 01:40 ]</font>

L2 is not so transparent... howewer is advisable to equalizing, with fine tuning, your tracks in mastering process with i.e. Har Bal or other mastering phase-linear equalizers (voxengo, UAD, Kjareurhus, etc.), then pass through a multiband mastering compressor (waves, voxengo, ecc.) to tweak lo-mid-hi signals dynamic, then process it carefully with L2.
Is more probably that your tracks lacks of mid-high, high, instead too much bass: L2 is revelatory of this, after his dynamic action!
In a better case you could use Optimaster that features a multi band compressor and multiband limiter (better than L2!).
In Har Bal's site you could find a useful PDF tutorial about mastering with most common VST plugins.

Anyway the masterin process reqires a lot of patience and a lot of attempts... and good monitors

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: erminardi on 2005-12-22 02:57 ]</font>

Mastering is an art, not a technique.

You’ll need much experimentation to finally arrive to the desired sound, it’s not easy. I have been told that the minimum amount of time to learn this art is three years. Three years of MUCH listening and effort in the acquisition of “sound awareness”. When I first heard this idea, I hated it because I was starting and didn’t want to wait for three long years to start mastering properly. Despite my personal desires and aspirations, I had to! After about 5 years, I started to really do with sounds, exactly what I wanted to do, getting the desired result.

The most difficult skills to develop are:

The sense of distance

The sense of deepness in relation to the other instruments so to decide which kind of frequencies have to go down there

And the most difficult of them all, the sense of wholeness or completeness, which is the not at all despicable capacity of HEARING EVERYTHING AT THE SAME TIME, with plain awareness of the contrasts instruments creates in relation to each other.

You may talk about the L2, or any other plug-in you want, but this is not the point really. The quality of your master is not so much dependant on the plug-in, as there are already quite a few fabulous plug-ins for mastering. The problem is how to use them. To use them correctly you need to first, develop all those senses in your brain, by a proper instruction, but a long and patient training.

A good way educate yourself, is getting a few master pieces you truly like, find out how many instruments there are there playing, if possible is. Listen at the album with great attention, without thinking about anything at all, just play concentrated attention to the music, period, don’t get involved with it in terms of “hemmm which EQ is being used here?” and the so. Once you have listened at it carefully, pay attention to the lowest sounding instrument, that would normally be the bass and some low lines played by synths. Then go to the drums, then to the keyboard, then to the guitar, etc., etc., etc., till you know by heart what they do and how they sound, individually, in depth. When you have done this job meticulously, which may take you about a week time for an album, you go back and listen to it carefully as you did the fist time, without thinking about anything, not getting involved with your day dreaming or ideas about music, etc., just pay close attention to the music. Once you have finished this first part of the training, go and listen to the same album after at least one day, but this time only in mono. If you can use headphones for this last part, much better. Get to listen to the music on mono so, till you get accustomed, let it for a few hours and come back to listen to it in stereo, you’ll experienced an amazing awareness of what is going on.

I guarantee for anybody doing this, to develop in a matter of a year, a powerful and deep understanding of the relationship instruments and frequencies have to each other, much beyond complicated theories on mastering. You’ll be acquainted to all kind of sounds and HOW they should relate to achieve a particular desired master piece.

Forget about plug-ins, and develop your hearing power, then come back to plug-ins as they will be very useful to your ears.

Agree...

I've talked mainly about plugins because I will warn Hangee_77, that uses only L2 as mastering gear!

Yes: patience, observation, training and obviously good equipment.

Hangee77, a limiter isn't enough for mastering.
At least you have to (?) use a good compressor.
With a limiter, uou just cut all the peaks above the threshold, to get a higher absolute volume level.
It doesn't change the relative volumes so much below it.
So if you equal the volumes of the L2 mix and the original mix, you indeed should not hear so much difference.

I bet you will hear difference if you master with this chain:
1 EQ
2 Stereo enhancer
3 Psych-acoustic enhancer (like PsyQ)
4 Compressor (like Optimaster)
5 Limiter/Dithering

It will take some time to learn how to put so much stuff together without destroying the mix...like Nestor said
cheers

On 2005-12-22 06:45, hubird wrote:
I bet you will hear difference if you master with this chain:
...
2 Stereo enhancer
3 Psych-acoustic enhancer (like PsyQ)
...

Uh... the Stereo Enhancer inside PsyQ is not enough or not so good??? Just curiosity.
Do you use a standalone S.E.?

Hi Nestor,

you have managed to put down the most important aspect of all when mastering, or mixing, the listening process.

The awareness and all that you wrote, is the way I learned things as an radio engineer in early 80's, also beeing a guitarplayer.

I guess I was very lucky to learn it that way, because we always had to think of monocompatibility.

I take my hat off, and bow for you Nestor, for writing it so clearly.

@ erminardi, sorry, you're right, in the past I used a separate SE, when I didn't have the PsyQ

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2005-12-22 20:07 ]</font>

I use cubase sx,I RECORD THE MIX DOWN VIA SOND FORGE through 24 bit WAVE DEST (cubase sx and scope plays),the 24 bit of sonud forge semm better than 24 bit of cubase,the mixdown result more clean and cristalline than cubase,enance the mix with L2 and convert to 16 bit via sonud forge

sorry for my bad english



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: bronYaur on 2005-12-24 03:27 ]</font>

On 2005-12-24 03:25, bronYaur wrote:
I use cubase sx,I RECORD THE MIX DOWN VIA SOND FORGE through 24 bit WAVE DEST (cubase sx and scope plays),the 24 bit of sonud forge semm better than 24 bit of cubase,the mixdown result more clean and cristalline than cubase,enance the mix with L2 and convert to 16 bit via sonud forge

sorry for my bad english

in cubase you can record in 32 bit floating point that is better than 24 bit.
I do not agree about using sound forge for recording the mixdown....

V-DAT could be the best choice for the mixdown recording.
I U have it...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: erminardi on 2005-12-24 04:30 ]</font>

VDAT may also be a convenient way to mix down alternative versions on (say) 4 channel pairs, for example to later compare with 'fresh' ears

cheers, Tom

Also SF have 32 bit floating point,i try now VDAT Thankes for replis