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Clipping your tracks on purpose when mastering? (pg. 3)
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| derail |
| quote: | Originally posted by Stephen Wiley
All Olympik Releases have been mastered by me, and so far so good, I think. Since I never get into mastering discussions or read about it I don't really have anything to compare against but I can say I have had only 1 artist who wanted some things change, so I *THINK* it's going ok. |
Just a question, do you always send the mastered version to the artist to get their approval before you release the song? Not all labels do this unfortunately, and unfortunately the song is still credited to/ associated with the artist if it's badly mastered.
(Please note, I'm speaking in general terms - I've listened to a few of your mixes and everything sounded fine).
There are some artists I have a low opinion of, and it may not actually be their fault at all. I'd hope the next time they read the fine print on the contract and ensure that any changes made to the song require their approval. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| I don't know if a poor mastering job can, all by itself, make me think poorly of the artist or the track. It will certainly prevent me from listening to it very often, though, even if I think the music itself is nice. |
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| kitphillips |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
I don't know if a poor mastering job can, all by itself, make me think poorly of the artist or the track. It will certainly prevent me from listening to it very often, though, even if I think the music itself is nice. |
I won't play poorly mastered tracks out either. It makes it sound like you cant mix because they won't gel with the rest of your set. Thats what's taught me how to master and mix better really. on the other hand, theres an argument that I'm just using the same mastering and mixing as everyone else now so I can play my own tracks in sets and haven't actually been getting a better result at all.
Stephen, whats this AAMS thing? It looks really suss IMO:nervous: You probably don't want to be using an automated device that brings up the RMS if you can avoid it... |
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| mfitterer1 |
Stephens post was on the money. what everyone says, find your own way of doing it. I finish my tracks composition and arrangement within 3-5 days (usually spending 3-5 hrs per session). Then, I spend the next 3 weeks to 2 months getting the mix perfect and mastering. A lot of people can compose and engineer good tracks, but very few can do that AND mix/master like a pro.
I'll share what I use on a typical track. On my master bus I will mix into PSP Vintage Warmer first, boost the song to within 2-3 db of 0 there. Then it goes into T-Racks and I only use two things in my chain there. A compressor, in which I use no more than 2 db of reduction at a threshold of 2 to glue the track and take down the peaks a bit. Then I will find what attack and release sound best, add 2.5 db of stereo width (to most tracks) and then adjust to get as close to 0 without going over as possible. Then I put a soft clipper after that, with it just soft clipping over 0 (it usually only clips about 3-4 times a song; controls explosions, loud cymbals, etc). Then after that I export to wav, load into audacity and take a look at the waveform. I run some analyzers, remove any dc offset, and then normalize to 0 db (barely does anything but im sure I gain .3-.5 db in this process). Then I will listen to it, make sure it is what I want, and let it sit for a week or more.
Then later on I will come back to it and do any mastering that I feel needs to be done. Usually I spend less than 30 minutes doing this. I am of the adage that all mastering is done on individual sounds during and prior to mixdown. It streamlines the entire process. On in individual sounds prior to mixdown and everything else I usually use Ozone as it allows me to do the most within one plug in (conserving resources).
It's really not hard I'm just ocd about music in general and that comes in handy:) People in general in EDM are lazy and don't understand that quality over quantity is the only way to go. I think it's retarded some people that are big pump out like 75-100 songs in a year or two but only half of them are solid. I'd rather have 30 songs perfectly done to my taste even if i'm going to make less money off 30 than 100.
Just my 2 cents. Oh, and keep over squashing your tracks pros, I appreciate the break you're giving me as an unknown;) |
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| Beatflux |
| quote: | Originally posted by Stephen Wiley
Do people even bother to make sure their EQ changes are done properly so the sound doesn't lose its harmony. (same cut/boost up 1 octave and down 1 octave)
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How are you suppose to do this? |
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| StephenWiley |
| Identify the fundamental frequency of the track. This obviously needs to be done at a single track level. The fundamental frequency is the frequency that has the highest amplitude related to the sound. If you cut the fundamental frequency by lets say -10db, you want to make sure you do the same for both the octave above and below the frequency. So if you're cutting at 400, you would cut at 200 and 800. This is vital if you want your sounds to be "harmonic" and rich as possible. There are always exceptions, but this is almost a rule. There are a lot of tutorials out there that can explain this more in-depth. |
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| Beatflux |
| What should I search for then? |
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| Stephen Wiley |
I don't really like this explanation, but there surprisingly isn't much I could find online about this. It's not theory. It's straight math. Not sure why it isn't more discussed?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_frequency
Wiki refers to it as the "lowest sound", because in theory that is where you would begin if you were to take a completely alien sound and try to plot out its harmonics.
Harmonics are, for the most part, math. And understanding that math is important IMO. It's not rocket science either.
Again, an example.
Bass line at 100hz
you boost it by 2 db.
You need to go back and consider boosting 50hz and 200hz because these frequencies help to enrich the 100hz sound. Some will say you need to take it a step further and look at the octaves +/- 2 of the frequency but I've never personally seen it make a difference so I just look 1 up and 1 down.
It also lends some credibility to the argument as frequency sampling. The whole 44khz vs. 96khz. I don't want to turn this thread into that, but some will argue 96khz is needed because you need the 30khz harmonics for your 15khz sounds. Some will say it doesn't matter because you can't hear it, period, others will argue it still enriches the sound.
Anyway, I am certain there are others on this board who are much more adept on this topic who could chime in here. |
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| Stephen Wiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by kitphillips
Stephen, whats this AAMS thing? It looks really suss IMO:nervous: You probably don't want to be using an automated device that brings up the RMS if you can avoid it... |
Don't knock it till you try it! |
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| Stephen Wiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by derail
Just a question, do you always send the mastered version to the artist to get their approval before you release the song? Not all labels do this unfortunately, and unfortunately the song is still credited to/ associated with the artist if it's badly mastered.
(Please note, I'm speaking in general terms - I've listened to a few of your mixes and everything sounded fine).
There are some artists I have a low opinion of, and it may not actually be their fault at all. I'd hope the next time they read the fine print on the contract and ensure that any changes made to the song require their approval. |
First, my contracts (and others I've seen) don't go THAT deep. It's a fairly laid back approach. I always send the artist the master when done, sometimes they say something, sometimes nothing. They always get the promotional email that goes out so they know what is being promoted and eventually released. No complaints yet. Only a few high fives. |
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| Beatflux |
| quote: | Originally posted by Stephen Wiley
I don't really like this explanation, but there surprisingly isn't much I could find online about this. It's not theory. It's straight math. Not sure why it isn't more discussed?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_frequency
Wiki refers to it as the "lowest sound", because in theory that is where you would begin if you were to take a completely alien sound and try to plot out its harmonics.
Harmonics are, for the most part, math. And understanding that math is important IMO. It's not rocket science either.
Again, an example.
Bass line at 100hz
you boost it by 2 db.
You need to go back and consider boosting 50hz and 200hz because these frequencies help to enrich the 100hz sound. Some will say you need to take it a step further and look at the octaves +/- 2 of the frequency but I've never personally seen it make a difference so I just look 1 up and 1 down.
It also lends some credibility to the argument as frequency sampling. The whole 44khz vs. 96khz. I don't want to turn this thread into that, but some will argue 96khz is needed because you need the 30khz harmonics for your 15khz sounds. Some will say it doesn't matter because you can't hear it, period, others will argue it still enriches the sound.
Anyway, I am certain there are others on this board who are much more adept on this topic who could chime in here. |
Could you put this technique into context for me? |
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| kitphillips |
| quote: | Originally posted by Stephen Wiley
Don't knock it till you try it! |
Hmm, I will if I get a chance;)
The other stuff you mentioned caught my eye too actually. As far as the fundamental frequency stuff goes, I think it has a grain of truth in it... but generally fundamental frequency refers to the lowest harmonic of a given note on a given instrument. Which means that a certian note played on a synthesiser will have a certain fundamental frequency, but a succession of notes (or chords) will have a sucession of different fundamental frequencies. In real instruments and certain synth configurations you might also get resonant frequencies which will be constant regardless of the note played.
So EQing to the fundamental frequency isn't really a correct explanation of what you're doing, although I suspect that what you're doing is actually right for other reasons involving preserving the relationship between harmonics and therefore the original intended sound. This is all my speculation really, I could be very wrong about all of that, I'm not the most knowledgeable about that particuar area. |
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