[JY]

I know the common practice is to leave the final stereo wav completely
uncompressed before mastering... and I followed this rule (too?) religiously
for years, going as far as refusing to compress my drums on their own bus,
which didn't help the product any, as I learned with the years.

As a result, there was always a HUGE discrepancy between my finished tracks
and the finished masters. That annoying "had I known the kick would come
through so much once everything gets squashed, I'd have lowered it in the
mix" type thing. So the prevailing logic for me today would be to put a
LITTLE bit of compression on the main out, if only to take me a small
percentage of the way there... while there's still time to make adjustments
to the mix.

I've got a Waves L316 Multimaximizer on the main out of my mix, with a
tiny -2db threshold and an out ceiling or -0.2. It gives the song more
cohesiveness, a little bit more volume, and the pleasant side-effect of
eliminating the rare clip/peaks that managed to escape me along the way.

I'm not hearing anything distort, and by all account, it just sounds more
pleasant. I'll leave the final EQ adjustments and quest for loudness to the
mastering engineer, but I think I can get away with this very light
compression at the mix level.

My question to you pros is... am I breaking a sacred rule of mixing, here?
I've been told countless times that the further apart the peaks and valleys
are in a mix, the better, and more room the mastering engineer has to play
with. But like I said, this makes it harder for me to guess how far upfront
certain instruments will go at the end of the process. This light
compressing via the L316 allows me to better guess, and make the appropriate
adjustments in time.

Thoughts?

[Anahata]

On Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:37:44 -0400, JY wrote:


As a result, there was always a HUGE discrepancy between my finished
tracks and the finished masters. That annoying "had I known the kick
would come through so much once everything gets squashed, I'd have
lowered it in the mix" type thing.

Why not listen occasionally though a heavily compressed monitoring chain
(not *all* the time while you're mixing, obviously) and make adjustments
based on that?

Rather like the way some people check mixes on a pair of crappy little
speakers or the car sound system.

--
Anahata
-+- http://www.treewind.co.uk
Home: 01638 720444 Mob: 07976 263827

[Scott Dorsey]

In article , JY wrote:
As a result, there was always a HUGE discrepancy between my finished tracks
and the finished masters. That annoying "had I known the kick would come
through so much once everything gets squashed, I'd have lowered it in the
mix" type thing. So the prevailing logic for me today would be to put a
LITTLE bit of compression on the main out, if only to take me a small
percentage of the way there... while there's still time to make adjustments
to the mix.

If this is indeed the case... it sounds like they're crushing the hell out
of your mixes in the mastering room. Don't let them do that.

Light compression before handing it over to the mastering guy won't hurt
anything. Limiting probably will, so don't limit.

But if you're getting such severe changes, it's a sign the mastering guy
is doing too much compression. Tell him not to.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Carey Carlan]

"JY" wrote in :

I know the common practice is to leave the final stereo wav completely
uncompressed before mastering... and I followed this rule (too?)
religiously for years, going as far as refusing to compress my drums
on their own bus, which didn't help the product any, as I learned with
the years.

As a result, there was always a HUGE discrepancy between my finished
tracks and the finished masters. That annoying "had I known the kick
would come through so much once everything gets squashed, I'd have
lowered it in the mix" type thing. So the prevailing logic for me
today would be to put a LITTLE bit of compression on the main out, if
only to take me a small percentage of the way there... while there's
still time to make adjustments to the mix.

I've got a Waves L316 Multimaximizer on the main out of my mix, with a
tiny -2db threshold and an out ceiling or -0.2. It gives the song more
cohesiveness, a little bit more volume, and the pleasant side-effect
of eliminating the rare clip/peaks that managed to escape me along the
way.

I'm not hearing anything distort, and by all account, it just sounds
more pleasant. I'll leave the final EQ adjustments and quest for
loudness to the mastering engineer, but I think I can get away with
this very light compression at the mix level.

My question to you pros is... am I breaking a sacred rule of mixing,
here? I've been told countless times that the further apart the peaks
and valleys are in a mix, the better, and more room the mastering
engineer has to play with. But like I said, this makes it harder for
me to guess how far upfront certain instruments will go at the end of
the process. This light compressing via the L316 allows me to better
guess, and make the appropriate adjustments in time.

Thoughts?

Mastering is not some dark art 'way out there in the land of the arcane.
It is merely finishing the process begun in the studio. In the ideal
world a mastering engineer just tweaks the finished tracks enough to lay
together politely in a finished album (be it CD, LP, or the next big
thing).

Tracks should be EQ'ed and compressed to your liking )barring the
massive hypercompression expected in the commercial market).

If you want/expect your finished product to have 6 dB of total dynamic
range, you should apply reasonable compression to each acoustic (that's
non-amplified) source before the final mix to get everything to blend in
a moderately compressed environment before handing it over to be rolled
flat.

[HKC]

----- Original Message -----
From: "JY"
I know the common practice is to leave the final stereo wav completely
uncompressed before mastering... and I followed this rule (too?) religiously
for years, going as far as refusing to compress my drums on their own bus,
which didn't help the product any, as I learned with the years.

As a result, there was always a HUGE discrepancy between my finished tracks
and the finished masters. That annoying "had I known the kick would come
through so much once everything gets squashed, I'd have lowered it in the
mix" type thing. So the prevailing logic for me today would be to put a
LITTLE bit of compression on the main out, if only to take me a small
percentage of the way there... while there's still time to make adjustments
to the mix.


It's a tough one....
What I do is to (semi) squash it myself (I use TC Powercore MX5) during the
final stages of the mix and then take maybe 15 minutes off, bypass the
"squasher" and listen to it again to see if it still sounds in balance
without the mastering plugin on.
Whether we like it or not people seem to like the way that modern records
sound (no dynamic headroom at any point) which is probably why your kick
drum sticks out of the mix while probably taking the edge out of the bass
after mastering.
What I'm basically saying is that I do pretty much like you do except I take
it off again to give the mastering guy as free hands as possible.

[Don Pearce]

JY wrote:
I know the common practice is to leave the final stereo wav completely
uncompressed before mastering... and I followed this rule (too?) religiously
for years, going as far as refusing to compress my drums on their own bus,
which didn't help the product any, as I learned with the years.

As a result, there was always a HUGE discrepancy between my finished tracks
and the finished masters. That annoying "had I known the kick would come
through so much once everything gets squashed, I'd have lowered it in the
mix" type thing. So the prevailing logic for me today would be to put a
LITTLE bit of compression on the main out, if only to take me a small
percentage of the way there... while there's still time to make adjustments
to the mix.

I've got a Waves L316 Multimaximizer on the main out of my mix, with a
tiny -2db threshold and an out ceiling or -0.2. It gives the song more
cohesiveness, a little bit more volume, and the pleasant side-effect of
eliminating the rare clip/peaks that managed to escape me along the way.

I'm not hearing anything distort, and by all account, it just sounds more
pleasant. I'll leave the final EQ adjustments and quest for loudness to the
mastering engineer, but I think I can get away with this very light
compression at the mix level.

My question to you pros is... am I breaking a sacred rule of mixing, here?
I've been told countless times that the further apart the peaks and valleys
are in a mix, the better, and more room the mastering engineer has to play
with. But like I said, this makes it harder for me to guess how far upfront
certain instruments will go at the end of the process. This light
compressing via the L316 allows me to better guess, and make the appropriate
adjustments in time.

Thoughts?




First, if you believe the mastering angineer has ruined your tracks,
don't pay him. If he is a professional, and willing to do what you, his
customer, asks for, explpain to him that what you have produced is what
you want, and all he must do is any final minor tweaks needed to prep it
for CD release.

If you can't find a mastering engineer who can understand this pretty
simple concept, then don't have it mastered. If you have the sound you
want, go straight to press with it.

I have said it before and I am happy to say it again - mastering is the
single most damaging process that 99% of music releases undergo these
days, and if mastering engineers are incapable of understanding that,
then bugger 'em.

d

[JY]

"HKC" wrote in message
...

It's a tough one....
What I do is to (semi) squash it myself (I use TC Powercore MX5) during
the final stages of the mix and then take maybe 15 minutes off, bypass the
"squasher" and listen to it again to see if it still sounds in balance
without the mastering plugin on.
Whether we like it or not people seem to like the way that modern records
sound (no dynamic headroom at any point) which is probably why your kick
drum sticks out of the mix while probably taking the edge out of the bass
after mastering.
What I'm basically saying is that I do pretty much like you do except I
take it off again to give the mastering guy as free hands as possible.

That's a really good idea. Best of both worlds. It stands to reason that the
mastering engineer will be able to reproduce what the L316 does, only 100
times better. I could also give him the choice of which of the 2 versions to
work on.

Thanks. I feel less paranoid about what I'm doing now.

[[email protected]]

I have said it before and I am happy to say it again - mastering is the
single most damaging process that 99% of music releases undergo these
days, and if mastering engineers are incapable of understanding that,
then bugger 'em.


wow, it's realy intresting what your saying.
that mastering damageing.
can you give me some explantions, tell a story maybe that prove your
point.

it's not that i'm against it, on the contrary

[Scott Dorsey]

wrote:
I have said it before and I am happy to say it again - mastering is the
single most damaging process that 99% of music releases undergo these
days, and if mastering engineers are incapable of understanding that,
then bugger 'em.

wow, it's realy intresting what your saying.
that mastering damageing.
can you give me some explantions, tell a story maybe that prove your
point.

The mastering engineer is there to work for you. If you go in and you
tell him "I want this music smashed beyond all recognition," that is what
he will do.

The problem is that "smashed beyond all recognition" is becoming the
default these days, because so many people are asking for it.

This means when you go to the mastering house, you need to say "I don't
want this music smashed" and "I like the overall balances here, don't
change them." And it helps to go to an attended session where you can
say, "Stop! You just made that sound worse."

it's not that i'm against it, on the contrary

If you go to a top-grade mastering guy, you will usually get precisely
what you ask for. If you don't ask for anything, who knows what you will
get?
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[We Can Do It]

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
wrote:
I have said it before and I am happy to say it again -
mastering is the
single most damaging process that 99% of music releases
undergo these
days, and if mastering engineers are incapable of
understanding that,
then bugger 'em.

wow, it's realy intresting what your saying.
that mastering damageing.
can you give me some explantions, tell a story maybe that
prove your
point.

The mastering engineer is there to work for you. If you go
in and you
tell him "I want this music smashed beyond all recognition,"
that is what
he will do.

The problem is that "smashed beyond all recognition" is
becoming the
default these days, because so many people are asking for
it.

This means when you go to the mastering house, you need to
say "I don't
want this music smashed" and "I like the overall balances
here, don't
change them." And it helps to go to an attended session
where you can
say, "Stop! You just made that sound worse."

it's not that i'm against it, on the contrary

If you go to a top-grade mastering guy, you will usually get
precisely
what you ask for. If you don't ask for anything, who knows
what you will
get?
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott:
Great article on mastering in Recording last month. I want
that belt sander plug in please.

peace
dawg

[Scott Dorsey]

We Can Do It wrote:
Great article on mastering in Recording last month. I want
that belt sander plug in please.

Everybody's doing it! Remember, if you can still make out the words, it's
not loud enough for major label release!
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Ron Capik]

Scott Dorsey wrote:

We Can Do It wrote:
Great article on mastering in Recording last month. I want
that belt sander plug in please.

Everybody's doing it! Remember, if you can still make out the words, it's
not loud enough for major label release!
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

That comment somehow reminds me
of Stan Freberg's Sha-Boom.
Guess some things never change. G


Later...

Ron Capik
--

[JY]

"We Can Do It" wrote in message
m...

Scott:
Great article on mastering in Recording last month. I want that belt
sander plug in please.

Wait.. Scott writes for Recording? In ADDITION to being one of the
friendliest people here?

-mjs

[Ron Capik]

JY wrote:

"We Can Do It" wrote in message
m...

Scott:
Great article on mastering in Recording last month. I want that belt
sander plug in please.

Wait.. Scott writes for Recording? In ADDITION to being one of the
friendliest people here?

-mjs

Ummm, he's been doing that for years. Where have you been?


Later...

Ron Capik
--

[Scott Dorsey]

In article , JY wrote:
"We Can Do It" wrote in message
om...

Scott:
Great article on mastering in Recording last month. I want that belt
sander plug in please.

Wait.. Scott writes for Recording? In ADDITION to being one of the
friendliest people here?

I do. So does Paul Stamler and still every once in a while Mike Rivers.
And Alex Case who writes for them a lot used to post here once upon a time.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[JY]

"Ron Capik" wrote in message
...

Ummm, he's been doing that for years. Where have you been?

I'm sort of a n00b (or so my wife tells me).

-mjs

[JY]

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
In article , JY wrote:

I do. So does Paul Stamler and still every once in a while Mike Rivers.
And Alex Case who writes for them a lot used to post here once upon a
time.
--scott

Hmm. Did being so friendly get you the gig, or was it the gig that made you
so friendly?

(Honestly, no matter how n00bish my questions in this forum, your responses
have been consistently helpful and nowhere near as condescending as I
probably deserve.)

-mjs

[Scott Dorsey]

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
In article , JY wrote:

I do. So does Paul Stamler and still every once in a while Mike Rivers.
And Alex Case who writes for them a lot used to post here once upon a
time.

Hmm. Did being so friendly get you the gig, or was it the gig that made you
so friendly?

Nahh, I just try and emulate Gabe Weiner, that's all.

(Honestly, no matter how n00bish my questions in this forum, your responses
have been consistently helpful and nowhere near as condescending as I
probably deserve.)

I can change that if you'd like.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."