This one has more balls and you can take my word for it that "it does" qualify for CD audio. However, you may think the bass is a little heavy and a bit more highs. That said, it meets the levels of some of my commercial CD's. Also, if I screw the EQ up...lol, it would have the opposite effect. You could always EQ this if you need to.
Keep in mind too that this became a really tough project. I remember so I don't need to go back and re-read the thread. There is a lot of v-band talent on this record.
I left the date to indicate that I did in fact use the rar file provided above.
This is what I got, and I have to finalize it for my CD now. It is consistent with the other tracks but it____and considering the history of this project I just_____and so it boiled down to the quality of the song rather than the performance.
Edit Note: The rest of this post has been deleted
-- Edited by gtrman4040 on Tuesday 5th of January 2010 12:10:21 AM
This is yet another mastered mix. I killed the links right above...screw that.
I brought back the mids and it is consistent with the rest of my mastering project. However, it doesn't sound (the overall sound) as good as the others do...hmmm The thing is though that if I need to make an adjustment it will likely be the same adjustment for all of the other songs in the project = that's easy. Probably, however some songs are different styles. This time the spectrum is based on a synthesis tone (rest of details skipped)
I was just thinking about this...wondering why it doesn't sound right. Hmmm....
My conclusion is that there is so much sound going on that I can't zero in on what is the best EQ. I don't care...I mean...but its kind of interesting. I used the same technique on 20 other tracks and 19 of them sound really good. It has to be the the total amount of mid range sounds. On my other tracks...most of the mid is one guitar and one vocal. On this thing there is background synth, acoustic guitar, mid heavy bass, vocals, another string synth, and lead synth...all of which at some points are going at the same time. I'm just thinking out loud guys. There has to be a reason. In thoughts drop them in here. Again, I don't care...I'm just interested. Yesterday I cut some mid and it doesn't sound right...lol
Sounds fine Jerry, though I have a theory for you...
Remember I said one of your 'mastering secret' mixes was a bit 'tishy'? Tishy meaning high in mid, (although the tish saturates through the whole range)
It would seem that the technique is creating like a 'fake' mid, which gives it that mastered fidelity sound, but then when you try and cut the mid from that mix you are just reversing the fake stuff that has been added, but also taking away from the actual musics' mid? This would cause chaos?
If you could cut down on applying the fake mid effect, it may sound better, or deepen the original sound (take mid away) before you add your tish, therefore balancing it out?
Dave, thanks, and I'll have to re-read that...a few times.
This last mix...like the rest of the songs on my 20 song list...is, uh, too heavy mid. I did a slight cut on all of them last night and its better.
This track?
Well, I wanted everybody who played to be on the track. Otherwise, I could have fix this but simply, uh, cutting instruments. Really, most songs only need one drums, bass, guitar, vocals, and probably keys. All of which, imho, would sound better in mono. But that's a different topic.
I forgot to mention on my last post about the remix. Well, first I am not going to...lol. What I mean is that much of that needed to be fixed in the mix before the vocals were added. Maybe it was worked on I don't remember. What I know is it was not right. But next time I will be more aware of certain problems that come up...and be able to fix it in the mix. No, this freaking mess of a mix...no, I'm not doing it again and recommend anybody else to pass on that...lol
Like Luke said "Fun Pirate Track" Was he is saying that its a fun song. Since we are all professionals...lol, In theory we should be able to redo this song withing a couple hours. Have to learn the parts again...play it...mix it...adds up to a couple hours. I spent 5 times more time on just the last mix. Screw that...I'm not doing that anymore.
Maybe I will do a new version though. Not now though as I am busy
You know the mid is "critical" to the clarity of the vocals and other Agree?
This was actually a pretty easy fix when you have your head on straight. I simply used a good EQ and sweep the frequencies above until I found the overload, then simply reverse the sweep to about 5db below with a farely small Q...there, and done.
Sounds perfect Jerry - drop it and run whilst you have the chance.
My last post in breif? Dull the sound before you use the mastering technique, then it should clean up and regain it's mid at the same time. It sounded before like you were getting a balanced mix, but then the mastering was causing too much mid over the top.
You can turn gold into crap but you can't turn crap into gold
That said...there is a lot of music out there that I think is pure crap, but it went gold record. Probably because the people that bought it like crap...lol
Not saying this song is crap. I'm just saying that there is a limit to what you can do, and nobody can fix a crappy mix with just EQ. What they can do is make it different. Better is a matter of preference too. For example, I could make it mono and it may or may not sound better. And etc...
Hi Dave, I just spent the majority of my day mastering audio...once again. While I still make mistakes I have improved quiet a bit over the past 5 hours.
I want to make a few comments first
It should only take less than 10 or 15 minutes to master. If it takes more...something is chaos. Therefore, one would be skilled to know when to quit. BTW, I didn't mess with this mix today
Ah, and you knew I would be bringing this up again....
I don't see how anybody can even pretend to accomplish a good mastered MP3 project. It freaking don't work! I'm telling you...and you can take it of leave it. It does matter and those damn mp3 causes all kinds of problems with the EQ
Check this out: I was working a track I thought was fully lossless. I can't get it to sound right and I'm three tries and 30 minutes of WTF?
I put it under the scope....yep...freaking mp3 drums. Screw that...I'm not doing that anymore. I simply will flag all projects that have mp3 tracks. Consider it crap and either get rid of it or dump it on a disc in the mp3 folder.
Ok, that said I will tell you what I do now
First, there is no getting around a manual EQ. I simply sweep the field on every mastering project. I've done it enough now to know where and what to cut and boost. It should show up in all of my lossless mixes from now on...starting now.
Mastering plugins?
Depends on what you call mastering plugins. A compressor can do you more harm than good. You have to EQ out the artificial mids or your mix sounds, uh, artificially mastered. That's why most of my mixes don't sound good. I didn't do that. The good news is I can fix some of them. The ones that were squashed....forget it and next.
Yeah, so all of those commercial mastering suites are potentially anti productive, and could actually destroy your tracks. I've done it.
I have some excellent analog EQ's and limiters. That's all I need. I don't need Ozone or TRacks mastering suits. Even Cakewalk Sonar has some potential track destroying compressors. They always say to use them and I say don't do it. No, I'm not saying don't use compressors. I'm saying that the mastering compressor (sorry...forgot the name), the one that is compatible with 64bit is a turd. It has two compressors and two EQ's built into one plugin. It does have a gate too...which is nice, but I don't need it. Just use it incorrectly one time on one track and suddenly you have chaos. What did you expect? LOL You wanted those drums to punch through the rest of that noise...didn't you? Just kidding
Anyways, a quick summary:
Manual EQ is mandatory
If you compress you must EQ too
Knowing when to quit is a skill
A good analog EQ and limiter is better than Ozone
Practice doesn't make you perfect, but it makes you better than you were
MP3 cannot be mastered correctly (includes even one single track among all lossless tracks)
PS: I know somebody out there is thinking, "Jerry, you and your mp3 problem is annoying"
I know somebody out there is thinking, "Jerry, you and your mp3 problem is annoying"
Lol,
I love your rants Jerry.
You're talking to someone that gave up on PC's, artificial software in the digital domain, sounds a bit like a definition of MP3 huh?
Yes gotta love analogue, but everything I do is done in that Juno of mine, and results are very good considering I never knew my ass from my elbow at mixing.
It was one big lump of a learning curve, but I gain peace from the knowledge that it will never change. No updates, no fuk ups cos I changed a setting in a media player somewhere, or changed some hardware.
I hate learning, unless it's something you can have confidence in when the learning is done, I can't do this with PC's, there's always some $ grabbing smuck ready to trash your set up cos they have to update their pile of crap for their dumbshit commercial reasons.
Hello, Jerry you are right. We can work with mp3 for scratch mixes and sharing ideas and doing 'fun' projects, but when it gets serous (like someone wanting to try mixing and mastering which is so important for ultimate pride in our work), we NEEEEEEEEEEED lossless formats!
For the record, I'm completely ready to work entirely in WAV, when the rest of the world catches up great, until then I'll compromise and post BOTH Mp3 for quick online streams and for those less fortunate in areas where ultra net speeds are impossible.
I highly recommend anyone who is proud of their contribution to a project to also supply a .wav or same (.Ape or Wavpack or other lossless compression) for the mixing stage.
My mixing and mastering knowledge is almost none, and my skills there are basic enough to sound like a studio recorded song, and out of gratitude for those (like Jerry) who put the work into improving the mix, I like to give them what they want in file formats......
Also keep an eye out on my future projects as I'll include a sonar bundle as well as mp3 demo and a wav seperate for the serious collaborators!
IMHO the main drawback to software/pc recording is communications limits.... the need to use compressed lossy file formats. This will change in the next 2-3 years I believe.
Today I was doing vocal recording, I mess up, turn around, hit Stop, Unload, Rec, Start... go again. Then I remember those guys that had to work with tape and what chaos was caused by a vocalist 'messing up' 12 seconds into a song, storage, catalogue and decay problems, machinary - lol.
And it wasn't so long ago that if you wanted to send something to someone you had to use an envelope, take the trouble to go to a post office, and then pay for it to be sent, then wait days to find out if they got it.
Sounds archaic now.
We should also be glad that a wave file is just a wave file, and doesn't have to be upgraded every 5 mins, or have incompatiability issues with older wave files - we're fkn lucky Microsoft didn't invent it first
-- Edited by SuckerDJ on Thursday 7th of January 2010 02:30:30 PM
There is another export feature called OMF in Sonar. That would probably work very nicely for the exports. It is a file I can open in Sonar. However, unlike the bundle, it only contains the raw wav files with no FX. They are all lined up and in perfect sync. Try that sometime and you will see what I'm talking about. That one file, you could just rar the whole thing and post it to 4shared, and I can delete it when I have it downloaded. Even if its a couple hundred megs...you can just use the split command for the rar.
That would be excellent because I would have all of the separate vocal tracks. Also, you could just mix down an mp3 so I know what the whole thing together is intended to sound like.
Luke, I'm about to start a new remix of unknown graves "Purgatory". This should sound really amazing! There will be no thunder this time. Sorry, my sound effects are all mp3 and so they just went bye bye. My synth on that track is more than antiquate to carry the original sound effects. More on that later...it will take a few hours. I'll send you an email to let you know I have it done. Also, I will post it in the current GOA thread.
Okay, OMF I'll try, though I'm upgrading my 4shared so up to 5gb file uploads is a time saver, and I want to use it to catalog my sonar projects as well as keep them available for v-banders
Luke, I should start using that OMF export on some of these remixes. Why? Because a lot of them I have all kinds of plugins and automation, and the reality is I want a fresh slate to work with. The downside is that some of the effects (guitar presets for example) are lost and I'm kind of lost to what it was intended to sound like. More on that later but its a handy export feature regardless.
Yeah, the 4shared would improve your up and download speed too.
Dave, I have some further mastering comments:
I was sitting here, decided to remaster one of my demo CD's of 5 songs. Yes, it is much better but its still missing somewhat. Then it dawned on me that I cannot change a shitty sounding instrument to gold. Like what? Well, shid, the vocals (the mics) and guitars (mics and guitars). The simply are not very good instruments and mics. Therefore, I will just have to accept that I can only do so much with what I got, and stop being so hard on myself. Just do the best you can... However, I don't have to like it. I deserve the best equipment and recording situation (a pro studio with the best equipment...includes top of the line guitars)
I have an update for my mastering system...starting right now
Ok, so I didn't want to compress the dynamics of of the music. It turns out though that a good linear multiband compressor is exactly what it needs after I finished by EQ and limiting (equal loudness contour). I tried a couple from Cakewalk, the Sinitus and LP-64 multiband. The LP-64 Multiband is the best choice...and suddenly the sound improved.
Yeah, so I had the right system it just needed one more step...sounds pretty...this stuff I did today.
Edit Note: After the multiband comressor...make sure your snare sounds sharp. You might, as I just did, have to make s small cut around 200
-- Edited by gtrman4040 on Saturday 9th of January 2010 01:00:24 AM
This fuggin song...its a good song. I can't get it to sound right. It has two drums parts. The EQ is bogus on one of them. Yeah, a freaking sample...with bogus EQ causing me chaos. This is extremely annoying and I will never let a bogus drum sample get through again. Well, easier said than done. The point is that I hit this problem on a good fuggin song. Remember I was saying 10 or 15 minutes. How about an hour and still no go. It's chaos, and I still haven't learned to use my skill of "knowing when to quit". I"m quiting now though.
Maybe you think, "Just EQ each section separate". That would be a good point. However, my point here is that this kind of crap...uh...it shouldn't happen. Never trust somebody's samples because most are "not" good.
I'm sorry to be too late for this one but I like it very much and I did a little work on it. First I wanted to put some more instruments on it but it ended with a remaster. I hope you like it. It sounds a little bit closer (front end) than the one you submit. I just put some eq and compression on some instruments.
I am happy to listen and transform some of your songs.
I really like the lirics and the singer. Maybe I forgot to put in front the flute and the accordion when it is time... I suppose a song is never finished when it is open... and it is so un_(author)_ rights.
