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Post by drbill on May 11, 2022 17:22:27 GMT -6
There are no limits, there is no self. I should know my limits by now. yup. you and everyone else around here.....
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Post by jampa on May 12, 2022 4:59:49 GMT -6
Human after all eh
Alright, recess is over, back to it slackers
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Post by Ward on May 12, 2022 5:55:48 GMT -6
Human after all eh Alright, recess is over, back to it slackers Ok, who woke dad up?
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Post by Guitar on May 12, 2022 6:49:23 GMT -6
Ward, you're simply having TOO much fun! It WON'T be tolerated!
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Post by EmRR on Aug 22, 2022 14:49:06 GMT -6
OK, after trying to make friends with it far too long, I took the limiter type settings (very fast attack and release, peak/hard knee) off the outboard comp for the live music broadcast I mix (A&H SQ-7), and changed it to slow attack and release, soft knee, RMS and it sounds WAY better. Barely touching it as a safety before was always crunchy/grainy, now leaning into it several dB sustained is barely audible, if at all. The occasional clipped transient is a better outcome. FWIW, YMMV, ETC....
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Post by copperx on Aug 24, 2022 8:38:22 GMT -6
I feel the opposite way. Mixing into that stuff gets me to a point where if the mastering guy goes to town to get levels up, it won't end up sounding tonally different. I used to prescribe to the "get things together then put the bus on" thing too, but I always felt like I had to go back and tweak everything to get it sounding right. Why mix it twice? Exactly. I used to mix with just a compressor, no limiter, because back in the day, many people said it was a no-no. Sticking to advice like that is harmful. You have to try stuff on your own, even the "don't do that!" things. You'll find out that most people don't know what they're talking about. Mixing into a limiter, in my view, is the only sane thing to do nowadays, especially if you're sending your mix to a mastering engineer. Just like a mixing into a compressor, your mix balances WILL change completely when going into a limiter. I don't want the mastering engineer messing with my balances. That said, if I'm sending the mix to be mastered, I take out the limiter after mixing into it. Most brick wall limiters have mostly the same effect, so when the ME puts on his limiter, the balances will be the same even if they use a different one. Obviously, that's something you can't do with a compressor. I was watching some Eric Valentine videos, and I was happy to see that he does the same thing. It's not just me.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on Aug 24, 2022 10:52:35 GMT -6
I feel the opposite way. Mixing into that stuff gets me to a point where if the mastering guy goes to town to get levels up, it won't end up sounding tonally different. I used to prescribe to the "get things together then put the bus on" thing too, but I always felt like I had to go back and tweak everything to get it sounding right. Why mix it twice? Exactly. I used to mix with just a compressor, no limiter, because back in the day, many people said it was a no-no. Sticking to advice like that is harmful. You have to try stuff on your own, even the "don't do that!" things. You'll find out that most people don't know what they're talking about. Mixing into a limiter, in my view, is the only sane thing to do nowadays, especially if you're sending your mix to a mastering engineer. Just like a mixing into a compressor, your mix balances WILL change completely when going into a limiter. I don't want the mastering engineer messing with my balances. That said, if I'm sending the mix to be mastered, I take out the limiter after mixing into it. Most brick wall limiters have mostly the same effect, so when the ME puts on his limiter, the balances will be the same even if they use a different one. Obviously, that's something you can't do with a compressor. I was watching some Eric Valentine videos, and I was happy to see that he does the same thing. It's not just me. I think one of the biggest issues today is so many people learn technique from either a school based program or the internet. In the grand old days, the 70’s and 80’s, you were hard pressed to even find a book on recording. This meant that most of us coming up learned from others actually working in audio one on one and by just doing it. This meant that we were lucky enough to not have 5 different sources telling us what was right and wrong, we were more likely to learn what works for us and their was far more diversity in technique than you see today. I’m not saying theses resources are bad, I’m saying those who are teaching need to spend more time explaining the basis of there methods and invest time in showing there is more than one approach.
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Post by recordingengineer on Aug 24, 2022 11:57:17 GMT -6
Just like a mixing into a compressor, your mix balances WILL change completely when going into a limiter. I don't want the mastering engineer messing with my balances. This line of thought doesn’t makes sense to me. A good mastering engineer won’t just be throwing a limiter on it. They will rebalance; possibly better than the balance you sent them. If not, why are you sending it to them?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2022 12:20:41 GMT -6
Just like a mixing into a compressor, your mix balances WILL change completely when going into a limiter. I don't want the mastering engineer messing with my balances. This line of thought doesn’t makes sense to me. A good mastering engineer won’t just be throwing a limiter on it. They will rebalance; possibly better than the balance you sent them. If not, why are you sending it to them? How does that work exactly? You can EQ a track but you can't split a snare from the vox down a center channel, also a ME shouldn't be "rebalancing" that's your job as the mixer. M/S shift in volume? Okay but if someone can't even get volume levels right they're better off handing the track to another mixer.
There's a large thread on what mastering engineers do around here somewhere. Yes, there is far more to it than throwing on a limiter but I can't fix a fundamentally bad mix.
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Post by EmRR on Aug 24, 2022 13:13:49 GMT -6
Just like a mixing into a compressor, your mix balances WILL change completely when going into a limiter. I don't want the mastering engineer messing with my balances. This line of thought doesn’t makes sense to me. A good mastering engineer won’t just be throwing a limiter on it. They will rebalance; possibly better than the balance you sent them. If not, why are you sending it to them? How does that work exactly? You can EQ a track but you can't split a snare from the vox down a center channel, also a ME shouldn't be "rebalancing" that's your job as the mixer. M/S shift in volume? Okay but if someone can't even get volume levels right they're better off handing the track to another mixer. There's a large thread on what mastering engineers do around here somewhere. Yes, there is far more to it than throwing on a limiter but I can't fix a fundamentally bad mix. MOST people can't get the volume levels right! Few have mastering quality listening environments. A good mastering engineer can usually steer them more towards where they need to be, and semi-fix an imperfect mix. You CAN split a snare from a vcl in the middle and rebalance that if it's that severe. On the occasions I get to attend sessions with the local top-shelf guys, there's always some thing I hear plain as day that I never heard over months of listening, 7 different systems counting car and headphones. Anytime I read about people's balances changing completely when the bus comp/lim is taken off, I think they hit that shit WAY harder than I'd ever do, even on a punk rock record.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2022 13:50:09 GMT -6
MOST people can't get the volume levels right! Few have mastering quality listening environments. A good mastering engineer can usually steer them more towards where they need to be, and semi-fix an imperfect mix. You CAN split a snare from a vcl in the middle and rebalance that if it's that severe. On the occasions I get to attend sessions with the local top-shelf guys, there's always some thing I hear plain as day that I never heard over months of listening, 7 different systems counting car and headphones. Anytime I read about people's balances changing completely when the bus comp/lim is taken off, I think they hit that shit WAY harder than I'd ever do, even on a punk rock record. Okay, what tool do you use to extract the vocal cleanly? I've used a few but nothing I've encountered is a replacement for a fader. Yes, not everyone has perfect rooms but that's what mix revisions are for. Yep, I've done 6-8dB on a VCA before and oddly enough an SSL 4K G-bus comp does a cracking job of it, some ITB "mastering" limiters I've used? They will drop the bass, crush the highs, knock the stereo image out of balance you name it. Usually you stack them but results still vary..
Fortunately I do this for myself now so I don't have to scrap in the loudness arena, I'll tickle my 2-bus with 1-3dB of comp and that's in parallel to feed the HW brickwall in an M/S config then I'll use an ITB limiter to slightly raise the volume. Between some good HW and a bit of knowhow it doesn't affect all that much, it's loud enough to meet streaming or other standards (before it's normalised anyway). If you're going after modern(ish) productions though the recording / mix and master has to be geared towards that end goal.
Back when I did this for others rarely did anyone ask me, can you make this sort of loud but not affect the quality too much? It was always, I want it to be as loud as X at -6dB RMS or something crazy (an exaggeration in part but I'm sure you understand). That's a fun task with 8 string guitars, 5 string basses, half an orchestra and double bass flaring..
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Post by recordingengineer on Aug 24, 2022 14:12:32 GMT -6
You can EQ a track but you can't split a snare from the vox down a center channel, also a ME shouldn't be "rebalancing" that's your job as the mixer. You’re looking at balance from an individual tracks, mixing-standpoint. Mastering is looking at the entire tonal balance of the stereo track and SHOULD rebalance if needed (possibly better than the stereo mix originally sent) while getting it to a proper finished-product level. Otherwise, what’s the point of mastering by someone else? If you don’t trust the mastering engineer to rebalance (should it need it) the way you know it will please you and possibly highly-impress you, you shouldn’t be using that mastering engineer in the first place. Keep trying different ones until you say “Wow, I can’t do that!”, then stick with them!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2022 14:25:31 GMT -6
You can EQ a track but you can't split a snare from the vox down a center channel, also a ME shouldn't be "rebalancing" that's your job as the mixer. If you don’t trust the mastering engineer to rebalance the way you know will please you and possibly highly-impress you, you shouldn’t be using that mastering engineer in the first place. Oh I dunno? Second set of ears, expensive dedicated equipment that you don't have to buy, overall eq, proper analytical analysis, enhancements, translation across wide mediums, metadata etc. etc. there's a metric ton of reasons to use a mastering engineer.
I've done plenty of mastering over the last two and half decades (approaching on) and I can do a lot with a stereo track. However mastering is never a replacement for a fundamentally flawed mix, it never has been and it never will be. What's wrong with doing a mix revision? Maybe our definition of re-balance isn't quite matching up here?
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Post by recordingengineer on Aug 24, 2022 14:30:18 GMT -6
There, you just said it: “overall eq”. If that’s not rebalancing, from a mastering perspective (what we’re talking about), then I don’t know what is.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2022 14:53:44 GMT -6
There, you just said it: “overall eq”. If that’s not rebalancing, from a mastering perspective ( what we’re talking about), then I don’t know what is. It's not though, we're talking about brick wall limiters shifting the volume of instruments. That's relative to how hard they're pushed though, if the aim is 70 / 80's production then it matters far less. If we're aiming towards a modern(ish) high LUFS or RMS production (especially with dynamic or bass centric material) it can become a problem quickly..
If you mix into a brick wall from the get go chances of that happening decreases. However with a bit of knowhow you can reduce the effect, certain (none brickwall) VCA's react far better to heavy compression, dual stacking limiters, clipping, saturation or harmonic distortion and mixing with the intent of loudness (which generally means exciting the mids / treble) can reduce the effect. I've used quite a few ITB limiters so far, Sonnox, Slate, Ozone, UA, IK etc. and every one came with their own problems. HW BW limiters tend to be worse, although again I stack mine in M/S mode into Ozone after its been through a G-Bus HW comp (also have a mu and diode to choose from).
So this entirely depends on the end goal.
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Post by notneeson on Aug 24, 2022 15:14:36 GMT -6
I use limiting, to see how the mix responds, and I also tweak with the limiter off to make sure it sounds balanced. In both cases the goal is the same: to guarantee I get something back from the ME that translates well and has great track to track consistency.
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Post by Tbone81 on Aug 24, 2022 15:28:25 GMT -6
I used to mix into a 2bus comp > Limiter. Now my chain has changed but I still use a 2bus comp. For me, it revealed problems in my mixes. By mixing into the limiter I could hear when certain instruments were distorting, when things started to choke up etc. Then I could fix them in the mix instead of relying on mastering to fix my problems. It was a great teaching tool. As my mixes got better I no longer needed the limiter. Likewise, I went from compressing like 5-6 db on the mix bus to more like 2db now. Now when I send my mixes off to mastering they sound like just slightly more polished versions of my original mix, before things would come back drastically different.
So I'd say go for it, if for no other reason than as a teaching tool.
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Post by EmRR on Aug 24, 2022 15:28:54 GMT -6
MOST people can't get the volume levels right! Few have mastering quality listening environments. A good mastering engineer can usually steer them more towards where they need to be, and semi-fix an imperfect mix. You CAN split a snare from a vcl in the middle and rebalance that if it's that severe. On the occasions I get to attend sessions with the local top-shelf guys, there's always some thing I hear plain as day that I never heard over months of listening, 7 different systems counting car and headphones. Anytime I read about people's balances changing completely when the bus comp/lim is taken off, I think they hit that shit WAY harder than I'd ever do, even on a punk rock record. Okay, what tool do you use to extract the vocal cleanly? I've used a few but nothing I've encountered is a replacement for a fader. Yes, not everyone has perfect rooms but that's what mix revisions are for. Yep, I've done 6-8dB on a VCA before and oddly enough an SSL 4K G-bus comp does a cracking job of it, some ITB "mastering" limiters I've used? They will drop the bass, crush the highs, knock the stereo image out of balance you name it. Usually you stack them but results still vary..
Fortunately I do this for myself now so I don't have to scrap in the loudness arena, I'll tickle my 2-bus with 1-3dB of comp and that's in parallel to feed the HW brickwall in an M/S config then I'll use an ITB limiter to slightly raise the volume. Between some good HW and a bit of knowhow it doesn't affect all that much, it's loud enough to meet streaming or other standards (before it's normalised anyway). If you're going after modern(ish) productions though the recording / mix and master has to be geared towards that end goal.
Back when I did this for others rarely did anyone ask me, can you make this sort of loud but not affect the quality too much? It was always, I want it to be as loud as X at -6dB RMS or something crazy (an exaggeration in part but I'm sure you understand). That's a fun task with 8 string guitars, 5 string basses, half an orchestra and double bass flaring..
Extraction doesn't have to be clean, it's not a total remix, it's usually a half dB bump up or down. Vocal up, snare down, etc. Izotope RX does that fine, though I don't know what mastering is using, there are others. There's nothing wrong with mix revisions, with absentee clients I'm usually doing 3-5 before everyone's signed off. Good mastering still takes it up a bunch of notches I can't imagine or touch. I've gotten back a handful of things that I was already super happy with, that sounded almost like remixes that were better than anything I envisioned. If it comes back fucked or not to taste (almost never), it gets a revision at no extra charge until it's to taste. I supposed I'm doing almost all dynamics long before it sees the bus, and my tracking methods don't require bus stomping in my view. My mixes without bus limiting are usually over the level needed for streaming, and I almost never need it for effect. If I put it on, it's because there are stray transients that could use a 1dB shave, once or twice in a song. Personal choices and taste! Hell, the live streaming music broadcast I referenced earlier is usually louder than mastered mixes of mine, apples to apples on the same platform, and there's headroom with virtually nothing touching zero on the way out of my hands. That bus comp is slow, low ratio, and only catching a couple dB tops on surprise outbursts. Bad mastering? The drums might be erased in favor of level. Fire that guy. Run of the mill mastering? Eh, I probably coulda done better, which means there wasn't any real budget for mastering anyway. I don't wanna 'do better', second guess myself in circles, that's a bad day, it should go to an expert with fresh ears and great skills and great monitoring.
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Post by recordingengineer on Aug 24, 2022 15:52:47 GMT -6
There, you just said it: “overall eq”. If that’s not rebalancing, from a mastering perspective ( what we’re talking about), then I don’t know what is. It's not though, we're talking about brick wall limiters shifting the volume of instruments. That's relative to how hard they're pushed though, if the aim is 70 / 80's production then it matters far less. If we're aiming towards a modern(ish) high LUFS or RMS production (especially with dynamic or bass centric material) it can become a problem quickly..
If you mix into a brick wall from the get go chances of that happening decreases. However with a bit of knowhow you can reduce the effect, certain (none brickwall) VCA's react far better to heavy compression, dual stacking limiters, clipping, saturation or harmonic distortion and mixing with the intent of loudness (which generally means exciting the mids / treble) can reduce the effect. I've used quite a few ITB limiters so far, Sonnox, Slate, Ozone, UA, IK etc. and every one came with their own problems. HW BW limiters tend to be worse, although again I stack mine in M/S mode into Ozone after its been through a G-Bus HW comp (also have a mu and diode to choose from).
So this entirely depends on the end goal.
But my original reply was to someone specifically speaking of mastering by a dedicated mastering engineer for a project. Still, I ask you: Why are you doing all that, only to have someone else master it in a different location (without access to changing the mix), if you feel the mastering process (the stage where the brick wall limiter is implemented) is so intertwined with the mixing process, for you? There’s no right or wrong answer, but can’t have it both ways; even though we wish we could.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2022 16:14:30 GMT -6
But my original reply was to someone specifically speaking of mastering by a dedicated mastering engineer for a project. Still, I ask you: Why are you doing all that, only to have someone else master it in a different location (without access to changing the mix), if you feel the mastering process (the stage where the brick wall limiter is implemented) is so intertwined with the mixing process, for you? There’s no right or wrong answer, but can’t have it both ways; even though we wish we could. Nobody is mastering it in a different location, I was the mastering engineer.
I'm not saying it's intertwined, it's just a methodology. If you want to crush a song into oblivion (like many modern productions have or do) it might be worth checking it against a mastering limiter, or even mix into it due to the inherent effects it may cause. That's all..
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Post by wiz on Aug 24, 2022 19:21:33 GMT -6
My mastering happens at album time....and consists of me getting levels and overall tonality as close as I can for the album... and getting the mixes ready for duplication.
I don't "master" individual songs... I "mix" them... and I use whatever I can to make the song sound the best.
I leave enough headroom during the "mixing" stage that I don't need to limit.
cheers
Wiz
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Post by recordingengineer on Aug 24, 2022 22:50:30 GMT -6
But my original reply was to someone specifically speaking of mastering by a dedicated mastering engineer for a project. Still, I ask you: Why are you doing all that, only to have someone else master it in a different location (without access to changing the mix), if you feel the mastering process (the stage where the brick wall limiter is implemented) is so intertwined with the mixing process, for you? There’s no right or wrong answer, but can’t have it both ways; even though we wish we could. Nobody is mastering it in a different location, I was the mastering engineer.
I'm not saying it's intertwined, it's just a methodology. If you want to crush a song into oblivion (like many modern productions have or do) it might be worth checking it against a mastering limiter, or even mix into it due to the inherent effects it may cause. That's all.. If you’re doing it all by yourself, then by all means, do what’s best for you! I don’t think anyone can argue with that.
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Post by thehightenor on Aug 25, 2022 3:03:14 GMT -6
You can EQ a track but you can't split a snare from the vox down a center channel, also a ME shouldn't be "rebalancing" that's your job as the mixer. You’re looking at balance from an individual tracks, mixing-standpoint. Mastering is looking at the entire tonal balance of the stereo track and SHOULD rebalance if needed (possibly better than the stereo mix originally sent) while getting it to a proper finished-product level. Otherwise, what’s the point of mastering by someone else? If you don’t trust the mastering engineer to rebalance (should it need it) the way you know it will please you and possibly highly-impress you, you shouldn’t be using that mastering engineer in the first place. Keep trying different ones until you say “Wow, I can’t do that!”, then stick with them! Mastering was a critical process in the days records were on mass release as Vinyl. That diminished slightly when we moved to CD’s but remained important for glass masters and sequencing an album. Then came streaming and the demise of even the CD for mass release (goodbye to things that spin!) and from my personal perspective the importance of “Mastering” in the production of music. The tools now available at home from software for a hundred bucks to well healed project studios with boutique tube hardware, high end sophisticated monitoring and effective room treatment or systems like Trinnov have blurred the lines even further. Mastering is by the words of the great Bob Katz “a compromise process” by nature of working on a stereo mix. Back in the day of artists finishing albums quickly then going on tour cycles and large studios with limited recall the mastering engineer was forced to nudge, massage and manipulate a stereo mix as returning to the multi track was mostly not an option. Here today, with instant recall and easy over dubbing (even remotely) a production remains a work in progress until the last moment. Personally, when I finish a mix, it sounds exactly the way I want it to sound, the balance, the energy, the excitement, the emotion, the tone, the vibe, the magic (and yes of course that means the EQ and compression) is all there baked into the mix exactly and precisely as I wish to hear it. Otherwise it’s not finished and I’ve not done my job. I see it as that simple. Then for me mastering, personally speaking, is a purely technical process of topping and tailing files, sequencing songs (does anyone still do albums and tiny EQ moves to even out tiny differences between songs on the album/ collection. I’m looking for zero artistic input at the mastering stage simply because I have total confidence I achieved all I wanted to hear at the writing, arrangement, performance and mixing stage. That to me is music production in 2022. A world away from how I was recording 40 years ago - times change.
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Post by recordingengineer on Aug 25, 2022 3:21:34 GMT -6
Sure… That sounds about right: It’s all me. Me, me, me, me, me! Ain’t I grand?
I’m joking around there, obviously.
Whatever works! I just hope you’re mastering yourself too and not ever trying to use someone to master with zero artistic input. Otherwise, again, why are they doing it in the first place? That would make no sense.
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Post by thehightenor on Aug 25, 2022 4:00:09 GMT -6
Sure… That sounds about right: It’s all me. Me, me, me, me, me! Ain’t I grand? I’m joking around there, obviously. Whatever works! I just hope you’re mastering yourself too and not ever trying to use someone to master with zero artistic input. Otherwise, again, why are they doing it in the first place? That would make no sense. I’m definitely not grand. But I am very experienced As I said, it’s just my approach to “Mastering” it might not work for you or indeed anyone else, but it most definitely works for me.
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