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<title>MASSIVE Mastering BLOG - RSS Feed</title><link>http://www.massivemastering.com/index.html</link><description>Blog Entries and Articles - MASSIVE Mastering - Digital and Analog Audio and CD Mastering</description><dc:language>en</dc:language><dc:creator>massivemastering.com</dc:creator><dc:rights>Copyright 2010 MASSIVE Mastering LLC</dc:rights><dc:date>2010-07-22T14:27:05-05:00</dc:date><admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.realmacsoftware.com/" />
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<lastBuildDate>Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:06:22 -0500</lastBuildDate><item><title>Tyler Acoustics Decade Series D1 Loudspeakers</title><dc:creator>massivemastering.com</dc:creator><category>Gear Review</category><dc:date>2010-07-22T14:27:05-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/tyler_acoustics_decade_series_d1.php#unique-entry-id-17</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/tyler_acoustics_decade_series_d1.php#unique-entry-id-17</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I&rsquo;ve never been a big fan of --- I don&rsquo;t even know how to categorize them --- &ldquo;Expanded D&rsquo;Appolito&rdquo; arrays (the usual D&rsquo;Appolito speaker being a &ldquo;MTM&rdquo; or &ldquo;Mid-Tweeter-Mid&rdquo; such as a typical center channel speaker, the Tyler Decade D1&rsquo;s being a dual-woofer/MTM/dual woofer or WWMTMWW design) such as those made famous by Duntech, Dunlavy and the like.  

...After chatting with Ty for what seemed like hours about his speakers, he made me feel very confident that the much larger D1&rsquo;s weren&rsquo;t going to &lsquo;take over&rsquo; my space.  ...  I really didn&rsquo;t think the room could handle these behemoths, but the whole &ldquo;what have I got to lose&rdquo; thing came around again and I ordered a pair of D1&rsquo;s in cherry with black oak center sections, copper tweeters and gold phase plugs.  


...Fast-forward around 8 or 9 weeks and Ty is pulling up with a trailer (he was dropping off a few pairs of speakers in the area anyway, so it saved a few bucks on shipping the 170-pound beasts).   ...  We quickly roughed them in and I started the &ldquo;break-in&rdquo; disc (a mixture of very dynamic recordings, sweeps, noises, warbles, etc.) on, made sure all the drivers were functioning, thought &ldquo;eh, they&rsquo;re okay&rdquo; and then went off to mix a concert (I think if was Anoushka Shankar that night, but I can&rsquo;t remember).  


...Drivers working in harmony with each other in this way is something that&rsquo;s very rewarding to excellent recordings - and very revealing on some &lsquo;less than stellar&rsquo; recordings.  


...They'd bring over some recordings, we'd listen to some stuff (everyone wanted to hear Dark Side of the Moon on SACD on these things for some reason...), have some coffee and talk about how wonderful the imaging was.  ...  I explained that for the last few days, I'd been listening to Chesky recordings, Pink Floyd, Elgin Symphony, Al Dimeola, watching movies with great-sounding soundtracks and foley work, etc. and I hadn't heard anything that sounded - you know... bad.  

...Knowing exactly what the room sounded like at the time the recording was made and listening to those recordings on these speakers found them to be very accurate and revealing of space and instrumental positioning - Up to and including the apparent rake of the stage in relation to the positioning of the microphones.  


...They&rsquo;re big (short of 6&rsquo; &ldquo;stock&rdquo; and just a whisker over 6&rsquo; on the bases I use here to get them up to the right level for my listening scenario), they&rsquo;re weighty (around 170 pounds each).  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Mastering SCAMS - Let the Buyer Beware</title><dc:creator>massivemastering.com</dc:creator><category>Rants</category><dc:date>2007-12-12T00:54:54-06:00</dc:date><link>http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/mastering_scams_buyer_beware.php#unique-entry-id-16</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/mastering_scams_buyer_beware.php#unique-entry-id-16</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[So, in the spirit of helping those who are NOT going to use MASSIVE Mastering, and want a less expensive option, I thought I&rsquo;d share some of my thoughts and somewhat shocking experiences...&nbsp;


...Anyone trying to run a business with even the slightest interest of being &ldquo;legit&rdquo; will have their *own* domain - Not some &ldquo;freebie&rdquo; anonymous site that you can put up with a phony (or anonymous) e-mail address.&nbsp;   Nothing against those &ldquo;free web hosts&rdquo; in general, but Geocities.com, CJB.net and other assorted free hosting sites are not where you&rsquo;re going to find people who take their own business seriously.&nbsp; ...  If they choose not to make a *tiny* investment in their web hosting, and would rather have a &ldquo;freebie&rdquo; site with pop-ups and ads all over it, how seriously do you think they really are in the first place?&nbsp;   Plus, you can easily be sending them your money AND your music - And if they choose to run with it, all you have is an anonymous e-mail address to complain to.&nbsp;&nbsp; 

...The industry has no governing body as a whole - I have a certificate from the Audio Engineering Society (The AES - If there was to be a &ldquo;governing body&rdquo; in the audio industry, that&rsquo;d probably be it), but does that make me &ldquo;certified?&rdquo;&nbsp; ...  Not that there&rsquo;s anything wrong with a one-man operation, but if you can&rsquo;t even find out who the one man is, then who are you dealing with?&nbsp; 

...I know precisely *0* people who actually own both (as they&rsquo;re basically the same program as far as audio is concerned), but there&rsquo;s a growing list of &ldquo;budget sites that seem to own both of these relatively expensive DAW programs.&nbsp; 

...There was one site in particular that claimed (and still has the logos up for) some very high-end gear - Manley, Crane Song, Weiss, Apogee, etc. but photos of Behringer, Samson and Digitech gear in the racks.&nbsp; ...  Obviously, he doesn&rsquo;t have any of the gear he claims to, but then again, he doesn&rsquo;t even give you the names of the &ldquo;certified engineers&rdquo; with &ldquo;hundreds of album credits.&rdquo;&nbsp; ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>RedBook Compliant Discs</title><dc:creator>massivemastering.com</dc:creator><dc:subject>HOME</dc:subject><dc:date>2003-11-25T00:18:00-06:00</dc:date><link>http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/redbook_cd.php#unique-entry-id-15</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/redbook_cd.php#unique-entry-id-15</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[2003 NOTE:&nbsp; Although many modern (post 2001) CD players will play nearly any disc you throw at it, RedBook is still the standard in which CD-DA audio is written to a disc.&nbsp; 

...PMCD) is the final &ldquo;pre-master&rdquo; that a &ldquo;glass-master&rdquo; is written from before replication onto standard aluminum & plastic CD&rsquo;s.&nbsp; 

...But, when it gets into consumer and professional gear, you&rsquo;d better make sure that your discs are RedBook compliant if they&rsquo;re going to be used for replication or performance.


...I CAN&rsquo;T TELL YOU HOW MANY TIMES I was given a disc that WOULDN&rsquo;T PLAY - No matter what, it won&rsquo;t play.&nbsp; ...  In case you didn&rsquo;t quite get that, MANY CONSUMER PROGRAMS MAY NOT BURN A REDBOOK DISC.&nbsp;   If you want to find out the hard way, burn an audio disc using the program that came with your CD writer and bring it to a professional theatre for a dance show.&nbsp; 

...What happened was this:&nbsp; The band didn&rsquo;t want to send in their only disc (smart), so they wanted to make a safety copy (smart).&nbsp; ...  Once they tried to copy the TRACKS, the TOC on the original disc was ignored, and a new, NON-RedBook compliant TOC was written to the new disc.&nbsp; 

...ALL REDBOOK DISCS are written in DAO (Disc At Once) mode - But NOT EVERY DAO disc is a RedBook disc!&nbsp; ...  Even in a pro studio, when you record your mixes to a CD writer and &ldquo;Finalize&rdquo; it at the end, that disc IS NOT RedBook compliant.&nbsp; ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Meters and Analyzers and Scales - Oh My&#x21;</title><dc:creator>massivemastering.com</dc:creator><category>Mastering </category><category>Mixing </category><category>Listening Skills</category><dc:date>2009-02-10T22:54:19-06:00</dc:date><link>http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/meters_analyzers_.php#unique-entry-id-13</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/meters_analyzers_.php#unique-entry-id-13</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[We (referring to a collective of mastering engineers at the forum where this was originally posted) don't have a "bias against analysis tools" here - We (well, many of us) just don't use them for what people think we use them for / as companies market them.  


No chef I know will chemically analyze a soup to find out if there's too much salt in it - He'll taste it.  

...If he chooses to find out exactly how much salt he used in the soup to make it taste the way it does, he could certainly have it analyzed to find out precisely how much salt there is in that particular batch of soup -- But knowing "how much" salt there is isn't going to make it taste any different to the person eating the soup.  


...So the budding "rookie" chef gets some soup to go and has it analyzed for sodium content -- He is going to make a soup from completely different ingredients in a different kitchen and he has a different skills than the chef who made the original soup.  

...The budding art student studies the painting of the seasoned artist and finds out that he used 93.7 square inches of red paint in a particular painting that he really likes.    So, with a completely different set of paints, in a room with perhaps inaccurate lighting, he makes a painting while concentrating on hardly anything else except making sure that his painting also has 93.7 square inches of red (not the same red, as the lighting is different - and not in the same shapes or with the same style as the artist, of course - but what else would you expect?).   

...In the grand scheme, we're not the chefs - We're the chef's buddy who gets a taste of the soup after the chef has been slaving in the kitchen all day, tasting the soup over and over as he makes it.    Once he thinks it's a great soup, we get a little sample of it and say "it could use a pinch of salt" -- Or we just add some preservatives while trying to change the taste as little as possible, package it up and send it out to the canning plant.  


...We're the artist's friend who walks in after he's been working on a painting for months and we either have an emotional attachment to the painting, or we might say "maybe we can tone that red down a little bit."  ...  He has his favorites - we might have a suggestion on putting "this" painting next to "that" painting because they look good next to each other - Or because they don't look anything like each other and the contrast between them creates a unique visual tension that the artist just might not notice after having worked on all of them for so long.  
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Metallica - A Silver Lining on the Loudness Cloud?</title><dc:creator>massivemastering.com</dc:creator><category>Rants</category><category>Articles</category><dc:date>2008-09-19T12:51:57-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/a_silver_lining_on_loudness.php#unique-entry-id-11</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/a_silver_lining_on_loudness.php#unique-entry-id-11</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I was a tracking & mixing engineer when Metallica&rsquo;s &ldquo;The Black Album&rdquo; as it&rsquo;s known, came out.   ...  Enter Sandman:  Those jangly electric guitars leading into those thundering toms and kicks, blasting into a tumultuous crescendo leading into one of the most famous three-note riffs of all time.  

...Allegedly, it was crushed long before it wound up in the hands of Ted Jensen (who - some say unfortunately, has the mastering credits on this record).  

...It&rsquo;s not like &ldquo;way to f**kin&rsquo; loud&rdquo; isn&rsquo;t part of the current trend on popular albums -- Look at (listen to) Wolfmother...  

...And this backlash is all over music news on the internet, the forums (including the band&rsquo;s official forum), the industry rags -- It&rsquo;s talked about among employees on lunch breaks, high-school kids in study hall and audio engineers phone calls.    At no other time has the &ldquo;loudness war&rdquo; been pushed into the public eye (ear) as with the release of &ldquo;Death Magnetic.&rdquo;   ...  I&rsquo;ve seen excited fans wrangling about how a few songs on a video game &ldquo;aren&rsquo;t nearly as sh*tty sounding as they are on the CD.&rdquo;   


...As a mastering engineer, it already gives me a nasty feeling in the pit of my gut when people think that &ldquo;mastering is making it loud.&rdquo;  ...  Every mastering engineer I know would love to go back to &ldquo;making records sound good&rdquo; instead of making them much louder than they want to be.   

...We (the recording industry) can only hope that the &ldquo;pissing contest&rdquo; between bands and labels that is &ldquo;the loudness war&rdquo; takes a turn...  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Loudness War &#x27;In Real Life&#x27; - Anecdotal Evidence</title><dc:creator>massivemastering.com</dc:creator><category>Articles</category><category>Rants</category><category>Mastering </category><dc:date>2008-07-29T10:25:00-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/loudness_war_in_real_life.php#unique-entry-id-9</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/loudness_war_in_real_life.php#unique-entry-id-9</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I generally don&rsquo;t listen to tunes while I&rsquo;m riding - It&rsquo;s usually the one part of the day that I don&rsquo;t have to listen to music.    But in July, I was on a road trip and I thought I&rsquo;d burn a disc of MP3&rsquo;s to keep me company occasionally.  


...70MPH winds rushing past your head and 4&rdquo; speakers mounted to a plastic shell in front of you will make the greatest sounding recording sound like the lowest quality MP3.  

...Not having much experience listening to music while riding, I have to say that I was absolutely floored by what I aurally observed on this road trip...  

...	&bull;	Shawn Phillips - Moonshine:  As with the record, one of very few recordings I&rsquo;ve heard that&rsquo;s actually too dynamic in my opinion.  ...  Sounded great loud though - Until some of those distracting elements would pop out and sound like my speakers were going to liberate themselves.  


...Even under the worst possible listening conditions, which most people will never experience, music with contrast was far and away the winner.    On top of that, it was very revealing - Such as the case with the Kansas track, where the compression on the vocal actually made it sound a bit disjointed from the rest of the mix.  

...Over-compressed material, pushed too hard in the first place, distorted on its own, being pushed into an amplifier way hotter than the signal that amplifier was designed to handle and then played back quieter than normal -- All these things take the playback system and your ears out of the &ldquo;sweet spot&rdquo; they want to be in.  


So - The whole &ldquo;background noise&rdquo; argument is out the window except for extreme examples (such as excessively dynamic classical, folk, etc. - as one would expect).  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Calibrating Your Monitoring Chain</title><dc:creator>massivemastering.com</dc:creator><category>Articles</category><dc:date>2008-02-17T00:49:04-06:00</dc:date><link>http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/Calibrating_Your_Monitoring_Chain.php#unique-entry-id-7</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/Calibrating_Your_Monitoring_Chain.php#unique-entry-id-7</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I don't have all night, so I'm going to keep this short and sweet - There are a few things you'll need...  


...	&bull;	A SPL meter (the cheap digital one from Radio Shack is more than good enough) at ear level (you can use a camera tripod for this).


	&bull;	A "home point" on your monitoring controller that you can return to easily.    If there is no "unity" point, you can use 1 or 2 o'clock or whatever.  

...	&bull;	A recording of full-range stereo pink noise at -20dBFS (almost any DAW can create this if you don't have one handy).  


...Right where your head should be (which should be .38 the length of the long wall from the short wall if you read the "Basic Room Setup" rant).  


...Turn up the left speaker (or have someone else do it) until the meter reads 79dBSPL on the meter.  ...  If you haven&rsquo;t already (which you probably haven&rsquo;t if you&rsquo;re reading this), you need a &ldquo;standard reference&rdquo; level to train your ears to (that particular level of "around 85dBSPL" is generally the "flattest" human hearing gets - Reference the Fletcher/Munson curves / Equal Loudness Contour).  ...  It&rsquo;s great to &ldquo;mix loud&rdquo; for a while and &ldquo;mix quiet&rdquo; for a while and what not.    But if you don&rsquo;t know what your &ldquo;normal&rdquo; spot is and what &ldquo;normal&rdquo; should sound like at that spot, you&rsquo;ll wind up chasing your tail.  
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Why Aren&#x27;t My Mixes &#x27;Loud&#x27; Like Commercial CD&#x27;s?</title><dc:creator>massivemastering.com</dc:creator><category>Articles</category><category>Rants</category><dc:date>2008-02-03T19:28:59-06:00</dc:date><link>http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/My_Mixes_Are_Too_Quiet.php#unique-entry-id-6</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/My_Mixes_Are_Too_Quiet.php#unique-entry-id-6</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[What I meant by the above statement was that there are a lot of (usually "less seasoned" for lack of a better term) engineers out there who shoot themselves in the foot by tracking and/or mixing "for volume" -- Destroying the dynamics, using up all the available headroom at the first stage - along with pretty much every subsequent stage.


...Don't throw limiters all over the place just to get the mix "loud" -- Do whatever it takes to make the mix sound *good* and don't be concerned so much with volume.


I'm not saying not to use limiters -- But as a "rule of thumb," if you find a mix actually sounds better - And I mean *BETTER* -- Not "better because it's louder" -- If it actually sounds better being rammed into a limiter, take the limiter off and find out why. ...  Use a compressor when something has a dynamic range that's too wide for the mix -- Not because someone told you that everybody compresses everything so it can be louder.


...And although I'm not a fan of the current "level insanity" going on, it's better to have decent sounding recordings that have the potential to be loud than loud sounding recordings that should be shut off. 

...Keep it, love it, cherish it - Your mastering guy (even if that's yourself, which I also won't get into) is almost undoubtedly going to use it all up... 

...The mixes are amazingly good sounding - That is, until they end up squashing the life out of them during the mastering phase - And the fact that those mixes can handle that sort of abuse is a testament to the people who made it sound that good in the first place.    ...  You should hear what some of those recordings sound like when they're at the level they "want" to be at - which is part of pretty much every session (making it sound *good* before making it sound *loud*).  

...I was asked in the mid-90's (before the Loudness War was in full-swing - even though we thought it was at the time) if there should be a "standard" level that most music (pop/rock/metal) should be at once it leaves the mastering facility.  

...It's a level where most all recordings (again, pop, rock, metal, country, rap - Maybe take out jazz and classical styles) have impact and punch, reasonable dynamics, etc., without being irritating and fatiguing to listen to.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Basic Room Setup for Dummies</title><dc:creator>massivemastering.com</dc:creator><category>Articles</category><dc:date>2008-01-27T20:17:57-06:00</dc:date><link>http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/Basic_Room_Setup.php#unique-entry-id-4</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/Basic_Room_Setup.php#unique-entry-id-4</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Without getting into the physics of "why," there *is* an "ideal" spot in pretty much every rectangular room -- .38 the length of the long wall from the short wall.  

...Speaker positioning:    You've probably heard it a hundred times, but you want you and your speakers to form an equilateral (all sides equal) triangle.    Now - Because you're 5.7 feet from the wall, that doesn't mean you're going to push the speakers against the wall and space them 5.7 feet apart - You don't want the speakers up against the wall.  

...The angle of the speakers is next - You don't want them pointing directly at your head - Have them converge maybe 2-4 feet behind you.  

...Now go out and get some drink holders or egg cartons and cover the walls with them and you're set!  :-) 


...A rather common mistake by recording hobbyists is to cover the walls with drink holders or egg cartons (which is flammable - and acoustically worthless) or toss up a bunch of acoustic foam sheets.  


...Therefore, it takes up a lot of space and requires much more mass (far more than a few sheets of foam) to absorb that energy and turn it into heat.     The corners are the important part because like a funnel, the walls direct the energy into the corners where it builds up more than any other part of the room.  


...Broadband trapping (as much as you can get - It's very easy to ruin a room with too much foam. 

...DON'T STOP HERE:  For more information on the physics behind all this, visit two of the pros I alluded to earlier:  RealTraps and GIK Acoustics.   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Proper Audio Recording Levels</title><dc:creator>massivemastering.com</dc:creator><category>Rants</category><category>Articles</category><dc:date>2008-01-22T00:19:02-06:00</dc:date><link>http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/Proper_Audio_Recording_Levels.php#unique-entry-id-3</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/Proper_Audio_Recording_Levels.php#unique-entry-id-3</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Let me get something out of the way here - I'm going to try to keep this very "fool proof" - I'm not trying to sound like or present this very scientifically - This is just the rantings of hundreds and hundreds of posts on a dozen or more audio forums exploding like a volcano recorded with lots of headroom.  

...But with the dozens and dozens - Easily now into hundreds of e-mails, phone calls, letters, forum posts and other forms of communication from one after the next about how this advice has completely changed the way they view recording, I figured I should put it down in a centralized location.  

...Also as a mastering engineer, let's get something straight -- I don't like the "loudness war" going on - But I'm as guilty as the next in contributing to it.  

...In other words, if you run a steady signal (a sustained note on a keyboard for instance) through a preamp and turn up the preamp gain until the VU meter reads 0dBVU, at the converter, it will read -18dBFS (or -18dBFS(RMS) -- full scale, but measured over time).  


...Even though the analog gear probably has spec'd headroom well above digital's full-scale, it doesn't mean that signal actually has the integrity it should up to that level.   


...Now, after all the other tracks are recorded, ALL of them need to be attenuated by 12, maybe 15dB or more so the mix doesn't clip.  

...Here's your experiment -- You'll need a few Y-cables (let's not get into the technical aspects of splitting a mic signal - It's an experiment) and at least one stereo (2-channel) preamp.  


...Switch over to the even numbered channels and figure out how much you're going to have to attenuate them all so the main buss isn't clipping constantly.  

...If your experience is pretty much like everyone else's, the "normal" mix is *still* much more open, airy and dynamic with less distortion and more "crankability" than the other.  


...Even if your only concern is the volume of the finished product (which would be a shame, but it happens), recordings made with a good amount of headrom are almost undoubtedly better suited to handle the "abuse" of excessive dynamics control.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Mastering DURING the mix</title><dc:creator>massivemastering.com</dc:creator><category>Rants</category><category>Articles</category><dc:date>2008-01-18T13:54:37-06:00</dc:date><link>http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/Mastering_DURING_the_mix.php#unique-entry-id-2</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/Mastering_DURING_the_mix.php#unique-entry-id-2</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[There are more reasons than I have room for here, but one of the biggest is simply objectivity. 

...Seeing as it&rsquo;s the ROOM and not the instruments, it still sounds a little boxy at the board, so he may subtract a little 400Hz again during tracking.   Of course, this didn&rsquo;t fix anything during tracking, so a little more is subtracted during mixdown. 


...There are a lot of novice engineers out there that think &ldquo;mastering&rdquo; is throwing a multi-band compressor across the mix buss and smashing it to bits.   That&rsquo;s not what it&rsquo;s about - The &ldquo;sweetening&rdquo; portion of the mastering process is about listening to what the mix is asking for and moving forward from there.   If throwing a multi-band compressor across the buss is what the mix is &ldquo;asking for&rdquo; then there&rsquo;s probably something very wrong with the mix in the first place. ...  A lot of the industry (especially the software people) will have you believe that there are &ldquo;mastering&rdquo; plugins that can fix almost anything. ...  MBC&rsquo;s are only one example - The software companies make you think that they&rsquo;re the mastering engineer&rsquo;s &ldquo;secret weapon&rdquo; when in fact, it&rsquo;s rare and fairly specific occasions when they&rsquo;re used at the mastering stage - Especially on material that sounds good in the first place. 


...I have produced may projects from start to finish - Many times I was the recording, mixing, editing and mastering engineer.  ...  Although I've learned to "distance" myself from projects so I can try to keep it fresh, I usually bring in a trusted set of ears to listen over my shoulder.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Mastering the Mixdown</title><dc:creator>massivemastering.com</dc:creator><category>Rants</category><category>Articles</category><dc:date>2008-01-13T13:50:00-06:00</dc:date><link>http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/Mastering_the_Mixdown.php#unique-entry-id-1</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/Mastering_the_Mixdown.php#unique-entry-id-1</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[If your drummer starts the song out with a hi-hat or stick clicks, your don't want the reverb of those clicks to mask the first note either.  ...  However, don't waste time trying to cue the DAT or CD recorder to start after the clicks - We'll just edit the clicks out later.


...If you are not attending the session, feel free to include a time frame on the fade - When you want it to start, when you want it to end, etc.


*** DON&rsquo;T have the mixing engineer &ldquo;get it close&rdquo; by over-compressing your mix or running it through a processor like an Aural Exciter or Finalizer.  ...  Many engineers will apply a small amount of compression during mixdown to help "bring the mix together" a bit, and that's fine.  ...  If you just can't help it and you absolutely have to hear your mix through all the bells and whistles, either do a separate mix, or run a DAT mix through to another DAT or CD-R. 

...DON&rsquo;T waste hours of time in the studio trying to get a mix to sound &ldquo;huge&rdquo;.  ...  When they'd ask me to go back with them, we concentrated on trying to make everything sound (for lack of a better term) non-irritating.  ...  You'd be surprised what you can do with a &ldquo;good&rdquo; but perhaps &ldquo;boring&rdquo; sounding mix during a mastering session (Check the Audio Samples page for examples of this). 

...If you're mixing to digital, there's no excuse not to have at least one or two backups - Usually of both the session files *and* the mixes.   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Mastering - By Mail?  </title><dc:creator>massivemastering.com</dc:creator><category>Articles</category><dc:date>2008-01-11T13:48:00-06:00</dc:date><link>http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/Mastering_by_Mail.php#unique-entry-id-0</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/index_files/Mastering_by_Mail.php#unique-entry-id-0</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The only difference is the wait - we try to alleviate that a bit by e-mailing out &ldquo;sample&rdquo; files - either small WAV files or larger high-bit rate MP3 files of your project (before and after samples) for you to audition if you like. 


This way, you don&rsquo;t have to sit through a 10 hour session (mastering can be pretty boring) listening to the same 15 seconds of your song over and over while the EQ is being tweaked.   You get to hear it in its near-finished state, while your ears are fresh, on whatever system you want to transfer it to. ...  Don&rsquo;t think there isn&rsquo;t a big advantage to listening on a system you&rsquo;re used to - Although the mastering engineer may well have an advantage in the monitoring department, if you&rsquo;re not used to his system, you may not be able to listen the way you&rsquo;re used to.   

...If the engineer has a cold and can&rsquo;t hear the distortion in the highs, you&rsquo;re booked. ...  Then later, or even the next day, approach the project again with a fresh perspective and tweak it without the rush and the ear fatigue that would no doubt be the case in a marathon session.


...A good mastering engineer should be able to listen to a source recording and have an idea of where to &ldquo;take it&rdquo; and what it will take to get it there.   It&rsquo;s all about getting the most out of any source recording, and every engineer will have a slightly different way of doing it. 


Of course, one of the greatest benefits are the rates - Since we started doing most of our sessions unattended, we&rsquo;ve been able to control our rates to be among the best anywhere for a chain of this caliber.  

...In any case, it's fairly publicized that I'm a skeptic when it comes to many "master by mail" companies.  ]]></content:encoded></item></channel>
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