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-- mastering of individual tracks
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mastering of individual tracks

every other track i buy at beatport or someplace else is very badly mastered. what's up with that? tracks aren't really loud at all altho it seems to be peaking at 0dB. when opening the tracks to a wave editor anyone could see that the mastering is fucked up. some tracks have really sharp spikes going someplace (sometimes only down for example and not up at all) so you can clearly see that the waveform is truly fucked up. these loud spikes aren't even audible, but they make all the programs think that the tunes are peaking at 0dB when in reality they're not. i can't post printscreens of the waveforms now because i'm at school, but i'll try to post some example pics tonight when i get home.
i've encountered all sorts of other mastering problems too. some labels seem to not master their releases at all. most stuff i have that's released on JOOF sounds really fucking bad and the waveforms look like utter shit. i dunno if this has something to do with the tunes being from mp3 shops or not, but i can't remember encountering this much badly mastered stuff on bought cds. it's really annoying that i have to open every file i dl on audacity and adjust the mofo until it's really peaking at 0dB (distorting the inaudible parts) because if i burn them straight away my mixer goes to red even though some tune might be half the volume of the previous tune.
has anyone else encountered this? is mastering tunes really that hard? i wouldn't think it is.

Can't say I've experienced this, but i've only purchased 10 or so songs off beatport. It's logical to assume BeatPort only compress/convert the audio files they recieve from the labels, so I suppose the labels just don't care about the mastering?

maybe they wanted to not loose the dynamics...not every song is a part of the loudness part these days...

I don't say some aren't fucked up...but didn't you actually think it might be just your point of view?


myself...I'd much prefer if I could buy an unmastered version and master it myself...(even quickly)

quote:

Originally posted by BOOsTER maybe they wanted to not loose the dynamics...not every song is a part of the loudness part these days... I don't say some aren't fucked up...but didn't you actually think it might be just your point of view? myself...I'd much prefer if I could buy an unmastered version and master it myself...(even quickly)

huh? i'm talking about stuff that's clearly badly mastered. there seems to be a shitload of that stuff around. and could you really master the tunes yourself? i always thought you had to know about these things to be able to do it yourself, so not everyone is able to do it, so selling unmastered stuff would be pretty pointless IMO.

here's an example of a badly mastered track:
remy - dustsucker 320kbps mp3 from beatport




you can clearly see what i'm talking about here when looking at the waveforms.

16 Bit Lolitas - Destiny

Is another example of the clipped peaks from beatport

My fix is in soundforge, one of the plugins that I believe comes with the program called "clipped-peak restoration" it lowers the over volume by a parameter you chose and will fix alot of the peaks.

I'll be honest - I have no real clue what you're looking for when mastering a track.

Are all the peaks supposed to be at the same height? What should a 'balanced' or 0db track look like?

I've just recently bought a tune from Beatport (Dj Hells remix of Human Resources 'Dominator').

And it's really quite and then sounds crap when I just turn the gains up high - so with Audacity, is there a quick fix to this?

I know that I'm not gonna be able to truly master this track back to perfection, but is there something I can do to make it slightly better/louder?

Cheers

quote:

Originally posted by Xtracktor 16 Bit Lolitas - Destiny Is another example of the clipped peaks from beatport My fix is in soundforge, one of the plugins that I believe comes with the program called "clipped-peak restoration" it lowers the over volume by a parameter you chose and will fix alot of the peaks.

i'll have to look into it. i have seriously well over 20 tunes that do this and it's fucking annoying. also fixing it manually on audacity isn't so easy. takes a lot of time and guesswork.

quote:

Originally posted by Boinked I'll be honest - I have no real clue what you're looking for when mastering a track. Are all the peaks supposed to be at the same height? What should a 'balanced' or 0db track look like?

on the image i posted the peaks that go down go down much further than the peaks going up. it shouldn't be like that, they should both go equally far. and yeah, most peaks should be at 0dB (apart from sections that are intentionally quieter).

the more i think about this the more convinced i am that this has to have something to do with mp3 compression. i have a ton of tracks to burn atm and they're all like this. dunno if all of these peaks show on the mixer though, but in general i hate having cds much quieter than others.

one more example of very weird mastering.

benz & md - still rain 320kbps mp3 from beatport.





look at how the waveform dips at some points! wtf is going on there? it doesn't sound any different when it dips though. wtf would cause stuff like this and how the hell can i fix it?

hey, if it sounds good, it is good...

and yeah I think I'd be able to properly master the tracks on my own, but then again, would be damn hard to handle with the ammount of music I purchase....

anyway...saying mastering is bad/good doesn't matter on seeing the waveform...


/end

quote:

Originally posted by BOOsTER hey, if it sounds good, it is good...

not necessarily. the benz & md track for example is really quiet but still seems to clip on the parts where it dips. so when i mix the track it's gonna be a bitch.

quote:

Originally posted by BOOsTER and yeah I think I'd be able to properly master the tracks on my own, but then again, would be damn hard to handle with the ammount of music I purchase....

well i have no idea how much you know about mastering, but all i was saying is that it wouldn't make any sense to sell unmastered music.

quote:

Originally posted by BOOsTER anyway...saying mastering is bad/good doesn't matter on seeing the waveform... /end

partly does, party doesn't. on most cases you can see it on the waveform already that it's badly mastered. both these tracks i posted were special cases where there is nothing wrong when listening to them, but they clearly have some bad mastering, because the waveforms are so fucked up that you can't properly adjust them to 0dB.

many very well produced tracks have some nasty spikes...and no-one even bothers to do a thread about it...I dunno...

quote:

Originally posted by BOOsTER many very well produced tracks have some nasty spikes...and no-one even bothers to do a thread about it...I dunno...

what's your point?

uselessness of this thread in my eyes...




I mean...it's not that big of an issue if a red light flashes for half a second...as long as you're not clipping your signal all the time...

plus...there's this thing about dynamics I mean...not each and every song must have all the peaks at -0.1db...it's called dynamics...

I haven't heard any of the tracks you mentioned...but I think it just can't be that bad...and if you can't hear it, why to bother?

I mean if a track sounded good...why would I even bother looking at it's waveform?

I'm with skip on this one. There are a few "bad apples" in the bunch I've downloaded over the past year or so. By bad, I don't mean unplayable/unlistenable. There's always the Wav option I guess.

quote:

Originally posted by miamitranceman I'm with skip on this one. There are a few "bad apples" in the bunch I've downloaded over the past year or so. By bad, I don't mean unplayable/unlistenable. There's always the Wav option I guess.

I'm in no way saying there aren't some bad apples as you called the tracks...indeed there are tracks which have bad mastering...I'm just saying you can judge bad mastering only by looking at the waveform...and he said himself that some of the songs he mentioned as having "weird" waveforms do sound good...

so?

again...I'm not a pro...but this is mho...

quote:

Originally posted by BOOsTER uselessness of this thread in my eyes... I mean...it's not that big of an issue if a red light flashes for half a second...as long as you're not clipping your signal all the time... plus...there's this thing about dynamics I mean...not each and every song must have all the peaks at -0.1db...it's called dynamics... I haven't heard any of the tracks you mentioned...but I think it just can't be that bad...and if you can't hear it, why to bother? I mean if a track sounded good...why would I even bother looking at it's waveform?

well for dustsucker for example if i'd put it as loud as the tune before it with just my ears the mixer would be going red for almost the entire track. and if i use the vu meter lights to adjust the volume of the track it's going to be very fucking quiet and thus will sound like crap when mixed.
this is a problem IMO. there has been something that has caused this and it seems like the problem is more common in tracks bought from beatport etc. isn't this a subject worth talking?
and i never said every peak should peak at -0,1dB or anything like that. but i really don't think there should be huge differences between peaks that sound exactly the same either (parts that really should be as loud as the others).
mostly i check the waveforms if the tunes sound quiet, because i hate cranking it up with quiet tunes when just listening to music and that's when i noticed this thing.
IMO it really shouldn't be that hard to master the tunes in such a way that every one of the loudest peaks would peak at 0dB. i can't imagine why anyone would want it some other way.

Those weird dips, that looks like a massive low frequency wave affecting everything in its period haha

why dont yoiu give them a link to this thread [email protected]

They are cool guys sure they will do something.

quote:

Originally posted by 996vtwin why dont yoiu give them a link to this thread [email protected] They are cool guys sure they will do something.

they simply will not...because it's the labels who do the mastering...


anyway, skip did you try normalizing? or slamming a limiter on it?

quote:

Originally posted by BOOsTER they simply will not...because it's the labels who do the mastering... anyway, skip did you try normalizing? or slamming a limiter on it?

that's true about beatport. they wouldn't answer even if it was their problem. you have to get pissed off and email them at least 5 times to get any service.

i have pretty limited knowledge on stuff like this, that's why i'd like to have properly mastered stuff to begin with. i tried to normalize function in audacity and that doesn't seem to do anything and i didn't find anything but some "hard limiter" function which also did nothing.

ah I see...I believe there are some tutorials about it in the production section...I'd help you, but I'm just leaving for today's school...

later

quote:

Originally posted by BOOsTER ah I see...I believe there are some tutorials about it in the production section...I'd help you, but I'm just leaving for today's school... later

so am i.

and thanks, i'll try to check them out later tonight if i find them.

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