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.

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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?

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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

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