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Post by colinleonard on Feb 20, 2017 11:42:51 GMT -6
I think translation is a combination of the mix and the master. Aria will definitely help the translation.
Yes the mixes use the same chain but the settings change. The analog chain is almost identical to my analog chain at SING Mastering including about $25k worth of conversion. It's one thing to have top notch stuff but another skill to have it setup properly after years of tweaking.
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Post by jeromemason on Feb 20, 2017 11:50:51 GMT -6
I think translation is a combination of the mix and the master. Aria will definitely help the translation. Yes the mixes use the same chain but the settings change. The analog chain is almost identical to my analog chain at SING Mastering including about $25k worth of conversion. It's one thing to have top notch stuff but another skill to have it setup properly after years of tweaking. Hey Collin, this might be a dumb question, but is this applying EQ adjustments is well? Thanks! Jerome Mason
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Post by colinleonard on Feb 20, 2017 12:35:41 GMT -6
Yes it is. I think translation is a combination of the mix and the master. Aria will definitely help the translation. Yes the mixes use the same chain but the settings change. The analog chain is almost identical to my analog chain at SING Mastering including about $25k worth of conversion. It's one thing to have top notch stuff but another skill to have it setup properly after years of tweaking. Hey Collin, this might be a dumb question, but is this applying EQ adjustments is well? Thanks! Jerome Mason
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Post by jeromemason on Feb 20, 2017 13:02:45 GMT -6
Well I can say colinleonard that for an automated system, the master I got back in 30 minutes, I was highly impressed. - Jerome
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2017 13:45:24 GMT -6
To me this looks like in the middle between mastering yourself and give it to a trusted, possibly exclusive mastering engineer who does it on a daily basis. I guess Colin nailed the position of his product on the market. Although it might not be any competition to dedicated MEs, it might be an alternative to mediocre mastering of someone who made it additionally to mixing or other jobs. If your budget fits his product, chances are high you would not be able to afford someone who does reasonal mastering on a professional level anyway. At least i guess this is the clientel it is aimed at. C'mon, no human beeing can do a reasonable mastering job at this pricing, and if you can not convince a potential customer that you as a human beeing are able to take care of things a machine never will be able to, you already lost against a mastering plugin like the ones named above...
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Post by M57 on Feb 20, 2017 14:10:11 GMT -6
Hi Colin - Welcome to the site. A few quick questions - Is there a recommended amount of headroom that you recommend for files uploaded to Aria? Does it vary with option type. Can you give us a little more insight into how much compressing each option does.
Thanks.
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Post by wiz on Feb 20, 2017 16:04:01 GMT -6
I just remastered The Blue Green Ball, with a different setting, the original version, was their "A" ... this version is "E" This is the softest setting, I thought originally A would be the least heavy handed... I think this sounds even better.... let me know what you guys think... The Blue Green Ball - remastered using "E" setting....
cheers Wiz I like the more heavily mastered version better. It glued together the intro better, giving it more immediate tension, which matched the vibe of the lyric and mood of the song imo. The less glued intro version felt sing songy to me. Thanks for checking it out and posting your thoughts... cheers Wiz
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Post by wiz on Feb 20, 2017 16:05:08 GMT -6
I just remastered The Blue Green Ball, with a different setting, the original version, was their "A" ... this version is "E" This is the softest setting, I thought originally A would be the least heavy handed... I think this sounds even better.... let me know what you guys think... The Blue Green Ball - remastered using "E" setting....
cheers Wiz I just took a listen. I prefer the A version. Seems to pull everything together a little tighter. Hey Jesse thanks for checking it out bud... cheers Wiz
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Post by wiz on Feb 20, 2017 16:14:25 GMT -6
wiz Like the songs, natch, do you do your own vids, they're really cool? Connection keeps dropping atm so can't do the comparison effectively. Intrigued enough to email for a free spin though. Here's a question for colinleonard - is it the job of the Mixing or Mastering engineer to make sure a track will translate well on all systems? Oh, and will all mixes go through the exact same analogue chain, and, ahem, what is that chain? * *whistles innocently** - kidding, I know you want to keep that one to yourself ... Cheers. Hey ..... I do the videos myself... i do everything myself.... 8) Regards all the general discussion.. here is how I see it. ARIA is not taking any money off Mastering engineers in my case. I can't afford to master every little thing I do.. in fact it takes me at least a year to save up enough money to put out a CD that I end up losing money on.... seriously...I havent broken even on the last 3 records... AND! I dont pay for studio time! Or session players.... !!!!! The only persons who get paid for me releasing a record are the Mastering Engineer and the Duplication service, the website hosting place..... I often joke, It would be cheaper for me to go to the peoples houses who buy my records, hand over a 20 and sing them the songs.... 8) So, I dont think ARIA is going to take away money in the most part from the guys I have used in the past, including Bob O here on my last two records. I can't afford, emotionally, and financially to keep doing it.... It nearly breaks my heart each record..... if I am being completely honest...which I am. You sweat for a year of your life..... hey, thats what being an artist is. I think ARIA is a godsend. It sounds good, its fast, its affordable...it blows the doors of its competition ... which is really the guy with a copy of LOUDES MAXX 5000 and a seat of BEATS headphones... For me, its really only competing with my FABFILTER Limiter and EQs .... cause the only other choice I have is to master myself. I will hopefully still do a CD release every 12 months and then Bob will get the call.... But I just can't keep losing money....what am I supposed to do... Nothing? cheers Wiz
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2017 16:23:37 GMT -6
ha ha - more questions possibly related to M57's.... I popped a mix through B then through A. In my DAW both were clipping (at around +.5 db). Both were really (arguably too) loud but maintained clarity though (lovely low end). Is there a way to get slightly less gain? The Aria mixes sound really good, so just out of interest I was seeing how close I could get working from some presets in Ozone and then T-Racks in about the same time as it took to upload a song to the website - I did get near, but had to push them way further than normal to get anywhere near that volume - to the point of nastiness almost. Will be interesting to try on other systems to see how they translate ( although will have to either reduce the gain or put through a limiter before hand). Even if you have to tweak the final mixes a bit yourself to keep from clipping, $50 for ten songs is really good amazing! p.s. related thread elsewhere has caused some purple knickers to get twisted .....
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Post by Martin John Butler on Feb 20, 2017 17:21:12 GMT -6
I'm planning on a remixing a dozen tracks, with the hope of calling it an album. They're all nearly done, so it shouldn't be overwhelming, I might add some API 2500, remove one or two other compressors, put a pinch of Smooth on a vocal, maybe pan a little differently, balance bass a bit better, etc.
Colin, since I'm doing that, I can choose any level I want. What level would be best to send to you. From hearing Wiz's "A" and "E" versions, I think "A" would probably suit my tracks best.
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Post by colinleonard on Feb 20, 2017 18:16:29 GMT -6
ha ha - more questions possibly related to M57's.... I popped a mix through B then through A. In my DAW both were clipping (at around +.5 db). Both were really (arguably too) loud but maintained clarity though (lovely low end). Is there a way to get slightly less gain? The Aria mixes sound really good, so just out of interest I was seeing how close I could get working from some presets in Ozone and then T-Racks in about the same time as it took to upload a song to the website - I did get near, but had to push them way further than normal to get anywhere near that volume - to the point of nastiness almost. Will be interesting to try on other systems to see how they translate ( although will have to either reduce the gain or put through a limiter before hand). Even if you have to tweak the final mixes a bit yourself to keep from clipping, $50 for ten songs is really good amazing! p.s. related thread elsewhere has caused some purple knickers to get twisted ..... The ceiling is different on different Mix Type settings but on Mix Type A it is -.1dB. So if it's clipping in your DAW there is most likely a conversion happening somewhere somewhere (either sample rate or mp3). If A is too loud for you Mix Type E should fix it.
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Post by colinleonard on Feb 20, 2017 18:17:08 GMT -6
wiz Like the songs, natch, do you do your own vids, they're really cool? Connection keeps dropping atm so can't do the comparison effectively. Intrigued enough to email for a free spin though. Here's a question for colinleonard - is it the job of the Mixing or Mastering engineer to make sure a track will translate well on all systems? Oh, and will all mixes go through the exact same analogue chain, and, ahem, what is that chain? * *whistles innocently** - kidding, I know you want to keep that one to yourself ... Cheers. Hey ..... I do the videos myself... i do everything myself.... 8) Regards all the general discussion.. here is how I see it. ARIA is not taking any money off Mastering engineers in my case. I can't afford to master every little thing I do.. in fact it takes me at least a year to save up enough money to put out a CD that I end up losing money on.... seriously...I havent broken even on the last 3 records... AND! I dont pay for studio time! Or session players.... !!!!! The only persons who get paid for me releasing a record are the Mastering Engineer and the Duplication service, the website hosting place..... I often joke, It would be cheaper for me to go to the peoples houses who buy my records, hand over a 20 and sing them the songs.... 8) So, I dont think ARIA is going to take away money in the most part from the guys I have used in the past, including Bob O here on my last two records. I can't afford, emotionally, and financially to keep doing it.... It nearly breaks my heart each record..... if I am being completely honest...which I am. You sweat for a year of your life..... hey, thats what being an artist is. I think ARIA is a godsend. It sounds good, its fast, its affordable...it blows the doors of its competition ... which is really the guy with a copy of LOUDES MAXX 5000 and a seat of BEATS headphones... For me, its really only competing with my FABFILTER Limiter and EQs .... cause the only other choice I have is to master myself. I will hopefully still do a CD release every 12 months and then Bob will get the call.... But I just can't keep losing money....what am I supposed to do... Nothing? cheers Wiz Great review, thanks Wiz.
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Post by colinleonard on Feb 20, 2017 18:18:59 GMT -6
I'm planning on a remixing a dozen tracks, with the hope of calling it an album. They're all nearly done, so it shouldn't be overwhelming, I might add some API 2500, remove one or two other compressors, put a pinch of Smooth on a vocal, maybe pan a little differently, balance bass a bit better, etc. Colin, since I'm doing that, I can choose any level I want. What level would be best to send to you. From hearing Wiz's "A" and "E" versions, I think "A" would probably suit my tracks best. I don't think there is a rule on headroom. In fact as long as it's not clipping it doesn't matter too much. The more important thing is your dynamic range. Since you sound like an experienced engineer I think you'll know what you want your music to sound like so just mix it until it sounds right to you. Aria should be able to take it from there.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Feb 20, 2017 19:44:37 GMT -6
Cool, thanks Collin!
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Post by svart on Feb 20, 2017 20:03:00 GMT -6
I don't want to start a war here but I think that you're missing the point that these are two very different products. What I do at SING Mastering is very high end custom work and it is expensive. Aria Mastering is a very high quality budget product for DIYers who probably wouldn't use your service for the songs they use Aria on. If you don't have much mastering clientele it isn't because of an automated service or because mastering plugins are cheap. I think Aria levels the playing field and gives back to the artists and the music. Now indie musicians on a tight budget can have a quality product and have a comparison to a "mastering engineer" that should probably not be doing it and taking money from the artist. There are a lot of those guys out there. If you're truly a talented engineer who's spent years mastering your craft you'll have plenty of business based on the work you've done and word of mouth. OK, so I've been following this and holding my tongue, but I've gotta have my say and be "that guy".. Regardless of the effectiveness of the robotic mastering, doesn't anyone else see the problem with all of this? Systems like this are offering "good enough" service for super cheap prices, but are ultimately cutting the nuts off of authentic mastering services. No offense to the person who created this, but I'm personally going to boycott any and every service that aims to further reduce my clientele. Before anyone says "that's the meaning of capitalism", there is a huge difference between the work ethic of bedroom engineers and that of professionals who are actively OK with further killing the industry. It's bad enough we compete with each other over price when skill is involved, but asking me to cut my prices yet again to compete with a pre-programmed machine is a slap in the face. The industry is going downhill because everytime there is a cheaper product available, people will always gravitate towards that as the product developer will aim to make higher quality results for less money. See: plugins. 80% of the sound, for 1/10th the cost. See: Guitar Center level consumer interfaces. 75% of the quality for 1/5th the cost. The problem is that each iteration of "cheaper but less quality" means that the collectively acceptable base quality is lowered. The rise of the MP3 is a great example. The quality is clearly inferior, yet the MP3 had taken over a decade ago because of sheer cheapness. The next evolution showed us that even cheapness wasn't good enough and now it's essentially "give away your music for free, or die". Even now, bands are starting to PAY to play at venues.. Because the industry as a whole is nothing more than commodity. As you create a higher performance product for cheaper, the quality difference between your "high cost" and "low cost" solutions will become less and less, and as it approaches the singularity, your customers will start to weigh cost/performance differences and ultimately switch over to accepting marginally less quality for greatly reduced prices. You may not see it yet, but it's happening. As for me, I am talented, and have decades under my belt, but I hear from bands on a daily basis.. "Your mixes are good but your rates are too much. For that money I can go buy my own gear and do it myself." or "Why would I pay those rates when I can get my brother's friend to do it for free?". I hear it day in, and day out. The bulk of the customers don't care that you get good results, they are readily willing to accept passable results in return for greatly reduced costs. After all, it's just going to be free MP3s that they pass out on the internet.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Feb 20, 2017 20:15:49 GMT -6
Man, that's bleak Svart, but I do know what you mean. I still have hope I'll find a way to achieve my artistic goals and make a living at it simultaneously.
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Post by svart on Feb 20, 2017 20:33:09 GMT -6
Man, that's bleak Svart, but I do know what you mean. I still have hope I'll find a way to achieve my artistic goals and make a living at it simultaneously. It is bleak. I know I sound like a blathering old cynic, but it's the truth. I do hope you can find a way to do what you love and make money, but in music production, that's becoming harder and harder. And I HATE it. I hate the reality because I love recording. I love being a part of the process to bring excited young bands a product that makes them feel good about themselves, and helps them move forward on their journey. I hate that I make NO money on this stuff as it is. I've been forced to cut my rates time and time again just to stay competitive (on price) with studios that product inferior products, and I hate it. I hate it because even those in the industry are clawing at ways to stay afloat, but instead of joining the resistance, they just join the enemy. Unfortunately it's all ending up the same way. Bands initially try to "sell" their CD's, but ultimately have low sales and eventually give their stuff away online for free. Fans know this, and they just wait a few weeks until the free online release. Case in point, one of the last bands through the studio.. CD sales after 4 shows and heavily promoted content on FB and everywhere.. 10 CDs for a total of 50$. First day of free MP3s? 200 downloads of the whole EP. There was a "donate here" link on their page.. Total donations? 0$. If people had paid for the CDs, the band would have made back what it cost them to record the EP. They lost money. I lost money. I like these kids, I like their work ethic, and I like their music. They have been in the studio 4 times over the last 4 years, and now they are telling me that they probably can't come back to the studio, simply because they've made NO MONEY off of the recordings and don't see the benefit of using a professional service, and now plan on just making due with recording in their practice space. I even offered to cut the rates drastically, but even gas money for the band is costing them, as the venues they play no longer pay the bands from door/ticket sales.
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Post by colinleonard on Feb 20, 2017 21:16:33 GMT -6
I don't want to start a war here but I think that you're missing the point that these are two very different products. What I do at SING Mastering is very high end custom work and it is expensive. Aria Mastering is a very high quality budget product for DIYers who probably wouldn't use your service for the songs they use Aria on. If you don't have much mastering clientele it isn't because of an automated service or because mastering plugins are cheap. I think Aria levels the playing field and gives back to the artists and the music. Now indie musicians on a tight budget can have a quality product and have a comparison to a "mastering engineer" that should probably not be doing it and taking money from the artist. There are a lot of those guys out there. If you're truly a talented engineer who's spent years mastering your craft you'll have plenty of business based on the work you've done and word of mouth. The industry is going downhill because everytime there is a cheaper product available, people will always gravitate towards that as the product developer will aim to make higher quality results for less money. See: plugins. 80% of the sound, for 1/10th the cost. See: Guitar Center level consumer interfaces. 75% of the quality for 1/5th the cost. The problem is that each iteration of "cheaper but less quality" means that the collectively acceptable base quality is lowered. The rise of the MP3 is a great example. The quality is clearly inferior, yet the MP3 had taken over a decade ago because of sheer cheapness. The next evolution showed us that even cheapness wasn't good enough and now it's essentially "give away your music for free, or die". Even now, bands are starting to PAY to play at venues.. Because the industry as a whole is nothing more than commodity. As you create a higher performance product for cheaper, the quality difference between your "high cost" and "low cost" solutions will become less and less, and as it approaches the singularity, your customers will start to weigh cost/performance differences and ultimately switch over to accepting marginally less quality for greatly reduced prices. You may not see it yet, but it's happening. As for me, I am talented, and have decades under my belt, but I hear from bands on a daily basis.. "Your mixes are good but your rates are too much. For that money I can go buy my own gear and do it myself." or "Why would I pay those rates when I can get my brother's friend to do it for free?". I hear it day in, and day out. The bulk of the customers don't care that you get good results, they are readily willing to accept passable results in return for greatly reduced costs. After all, it's just going to be free MP3s that they pass out on the internet. This is the last time I'm going to respond to this type of negative comment but I completely disagree with everything you've said here. The production quality people are creating by themselves at home is amazing these days. Better than what a lot of pros could do back in the analog days. Look at how good Wiz's stuff sounds. I hear stuff like this every day.
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Post by svart on Feb 20, 2017 21:28:45 GMT -6
The industry is going downhill because everytime there is a cheaper product available, people will always gravitate towards that as the product developer will aim to make higher quality results for less money. See: plugins. 80% of the sound, for 1/10th the cost. See: Guitar Center level consumer interfaces. 75% of the quality for 1/5th the cost. The problem is that each iteration of "cheaper but less quality" means that the collectively acceptable base quality is lowered. The rise of the MP3 is a great example. The quality is clearly inferior, yet the MP3 had taken over a decade ago because of sheer cheapness. The next evolution showed us that even cheapness wasn't good enough and now it's essentially "give away your music for free, or die". Even now, bands are starting to PAY to play at venues.. Because the industry as a whole is nothing more than commodity. As you create a higher performance product for cheaper, the quality difference between your "high cost" and "low cost" solutions will become less and less, and as it approaches the singularity, your customers will start to weigh cost/performance differences and ultimately switch over to accepting marginally less quality for greatly reduced prices. You may not see it yet, but it's happening. As for me, I am talented, and have decades under my belt, but I hear from bands on a daily basis.. "Your mixes are good but your rates are too much. For that money I can go buy my own gear and do it myself." or "Why would I pay those rates when I can get my brother's friend to do it for free?". I hear it day in, and day out. The bulk of the customers don't care that you get good results, they are readily willing to accept passable results in return for greatly reduced costs. After all, it's just going to be free MP3s that they pass out on the internet. This is the last time I'm going to respond to this type of negative comment but I completely disagree with everything you've said here. The production quality people are creating by themselves at home is amazing these days. Better than what a lot of pros could do back in the analog days. Look at how good Wiz's stuff sounds. I hear stuff like this every day. Well, the irony is that you've proven my point. Wiz has openly stated that he couldn't afford to do full professional masters anymore. The industry doesn't pay, so the artist can't pay and is willing to accept less quality for drastically cheaper to get their music "out there". Because the quality is less, the industry will pay less, but because the industry pays less, the artist compromises, and on, and on, and on.. And now we're here with everyone doing it themselves, studios going out of business left and right, and folks finding ways to get the last blood from stones as we all ride the last wave into the reef pretending that we aren't about to be shipwrecked. Wiz's stuff sounds good, but it's certainly not the best it could be with some kind of serious budget.
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Post by M57 on Feb 20, 2017 21:57:45 GMT -6
Wiz's stuff sounds good, but it's certainly not the best it could be with some kind of serious budget. ..and as a result - thousands and thousands of a higher percentage of musicians (literally) are able to affordably get their music "out there" - for a handful of percentage points of what it would cost on a "serious budget", and at about 95% percent of the quality. I'll throw that number out there because I'm speculating that 95% of the people can't tell the difference - so I'll use that as the "quality" metric.
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Post by svart on Feb 20, 2017 22:48:16 GMT -6
Wiz's stuff sounds good, but it's certainly not the best it could be with some kind of serious budget. ..and as a result - thousands and thousands of a higher percentage of musicians (literally) are able to affordably get their music "out there" - for a handful of percentage points of what it would cost on a "serious budget", and at about 95% percent of the quality. I'll throw that number out there because I'm speculating that 95% of the people can't tell the difference - so I'll use that as the "quality" metric. Maybe, but I posit that the 95% is based on acceptance of what is perceived as "modern quality", aka, the MP3. If we compared to peak audiophile quality, we're more like 40%. However, to say that, is to admit that most of us will never be able to afford to get there because the industry just doesn't support the artists and the artists cannot support spending money for peak quality anymore. I mean if that you're arguing that "good enough" is really where we are at these days, why are we even discussing high end gear at all? Why are we all not using Scarletts with plugins and letting API, SSL and Neve die quick deaths? I say that it's because we all secretly know that we need and want full quality, but we're so used to the "good enough" mentality that we're not about to spend money on "best" quality anymore, and take shortcuts any chance we get. I say that even though the base recording quality has risen, we're still more likely to accept lower quality finished results due to years of salesmen telling us that cheaper gear get you similar quality, in order to make a buck on our penchant for going cheap, and we've lost sight of what top quality results really are.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2017 4:04:26 GMT -6
Years ago I worked in construction. Whenever a bit of a recession came along the industry would eat itself. Carpenters started fitting windows, bricklayers would take on painting and decorating, all cutting each others throats to get work. In the meantime people did, and have always done DIY on their own houses. What this did mean is that people could possibly hire a tradesman rather than doing work themselves, so in essence, it generated work albeit at a cheaper rate. It seems that the music industry is eating itself in a similar way. Business are turning to other revenue to survive, i.e. recording studios all seem to be offering "mastering" facilities now, which I'm sure never used to be the case, over here many are becoming "teaching" studios, and offering PT courses or supporting new talent ( for a price of course) etc. Part time studios are taking the work from full time studios and many large studios have shut.
In that sense I would posit that what Colin is doing is ethically legit. Simply because he hasn't jumped a fence, he is and always was a mastering facility.
As for the industry - Turn on mainstream TV now and you rarely see shows from top artists. All we have is lots of shows in the style of X factor. It says two things to me. 1) there are 100's of incredibly gifted singers / artists out there doing mundane jobs or whatever. 2) There is more money to be made from selling the dream than the dream itself.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2017 4:40:26 GMT -6
ha ha - more questions possibly related to M57's.... I popped a mix through B then through A. In my DAW both were clipping (at around +.5 db). Both were really (arguably too) loud but maintained clarity though (lovely low end). Is there a way to get slightly less gain? The Aria mixes sound really good, so just out of interest I was seeing how close I could get working from some presets in Ozone and then T-Racks in about the same time as it took to upload a song to the website - I did get near, but had to push them way further than normal to get anywhere near that volume - to the point of nastiness almost. Will be interesting to try on other systems to see how they translate ( although will have to either reduce the gain or put through a limiter before hand). Even if you have to tweak the final mixes a bit yourself to keep from clipping, $50 for ten songs is really good amazing! p.s. related thread elsewhere has caused some purple knickers to get twisted ..... The ceiling is different on different Mix Type settings but on Mix Type A it is -.1dB. So if it's clipping in your DAW there is most likely a conversion happening somewhere somewhere (either sample rate or mp3). If A is too loud for you Mix Type E should fix it. DAW was set to 96kHz not 44.1, expect that was the prob.
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Post by svart on Feb 21, 2017 4:47:56 GMT -6
Years ago I worked in construction. Whenever a bit of a recession came along the industry would eat itself. Carpenters started fitting windows, bricklayers would take on painting and decorating, all cutting each others throats to get work. In the meantime people did, and have always done DIY on their own houses. What this did mean is that people could possibly hire a tradesman rather than doing work themselves, so in essence, it generated work albeit at a cheaper rate. It seems that the music industry is eating itself in a similar way. Business are turning to other revenue to survive, i.e. recording studios all seem to be offering "mastering" facilities now, which I'm sure never used to be the case, over here many are becoming "teaching" studios, and offering PT courses or supporting new talent ( for a price of course) etc. Part time studios are taking the work from full time studios and many large studios have shut. In that sense I would posit that what Colin is doing is ethically legit. Simply because he hasn't jumped a fence, he is and always was a mastering facility. As for the industry - Turn on mainstream TV now and you rarely see shows from top artists. All we have is lots of shows in the style of X factor. It says two things to me. 1) there are 100's of incredibly gifted singers / artists out there doing mundane jobs or whatever. 2) There is more money to be made from selling the dream than the dream itself. I would say that it's on the edge, ethically, but what really gets me is that it's simply a sign of the times, and those times mean the end of something that I held to higher standards than most around me, which is ever more apparent now. Unlike audio production, the housing industry actually supports it's own worth. Sure, housing prices fluctuate, but ultimately always rebound. Not so with audio. It's never coming back from the brink, because people don't see costs associated with recording as necessary anymore. They play for free, turn out records for free, and now so many get recorded for free that even the bands no longer see the "worth" in it like you do with a house. A house you can resell, music you cannot. A while ago I made mention of CLA and other top engineers starting to heavily promote their work and relevancy by "teaching" online. 10 years ago, this type of marketing wasn't necessary for the big boys, and now they're selling their secrets for pennies on the dollar in order to keep their heads above water. A lot of them have turned to online mix submissions as their big paying clients have waned. And I agree 100%. Now that the industry has eaten itself, the only way to keep making money is to do so by selling the dream. That's exactly what low-cost gear/services/mastering is, selling the dream to hopefuls.
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