Mastering exercise for everybody !

FUN! FUN! FUN! PC!



I'm in, pal!

Here's mine PC ...



 



Final Master (lol)



 





Thanks, bro. Fun stuff. (y)

I am sure I probably have no legs to stand on here.. but, here's a master version from me. I didn't do anything overly fancy, just listened and used some of my usual chain, and made sure it's LUFS friendly ;). I need to work out how to put it in like Chuck did, also I did mix to WAV if I can use that instead of 320kbs mp3?.

And fixed!. Thanks Chris!!.



 

I'm not sure, Tony. I just used the 48K .wav to master, then rendered that to an MP3 for here. Here I just attached the file in the typical sense. Nothing special done.

Wish I could play!

audiokid, post: 466590, member: 1 wrote:

Wish I could play!

Why can't you??



(audiokid didn't "Like" my master ...hmmmm :cautious:)



*edit*



Thanks Chris!



Is anyone going to critique us though? Mine were done with Audeze LCD-X cans. I don't have any monitors setup currently. Is what it is, I guess.

eternalsound, post: 466592, member: 48927 wrote:

Why can't you??



(audiokid didn't "Like" my master ...hmmmm :cautious:)

I've moved and haven't been able to set up anything for years. I miss it so much but other areas are keeping me busy here. I'll have fun listening to everyone else for a change. (y)

audiokid, post: 466593, member: 1 wrote:

I've moved and haven't been able to set up anything for years. I miss it so much but other areas are keeping me busy here. I'll have fun listening to everyone else for a change. (y)

Wow, I had no idea. Hope you can get back to it. (y)

Tony Carpenter, post: 466584, member: 48344 wrote:

I am sure I probably have no legs to stand on here.. but, here's a master version from me. I didn't do anything overly fancy, just listened and used some of my usual chain, and made sure it's LUFS friendly ;). I need to work out how to put it in like Chuck did, also I did mix to WAV if I can use that instead of 320kbs mp3?.

And fixed!. Thanks Chris!!.



 

Your mix is really good tony!

Great song, Marco. Did you record it? I am having fun trying to master it too!

Okay, I'm going to play. Such a great song, I can't resist!



I haven't done any music related stuff in a few years, I guess my ears have rested enough lol! My process: Samplitude connected to my TV and the laptop using hdmi. First time for that ever! Never thought I could mix on my TV./ speakers :D



I used to be able to dynamically fix sss but don't remember anymore. I would like to seperately tweak to Vox on this. Would enjoy mixing this one day too.



 

audiokid, post: 466610, member: 1 wrote:

Your mix is really good tony!

Thanks Chris, that means more than you’ll know to me!.

Now I expect a great job from you :). I’ll listen in the studio a little later.

Personally, I think Chris's takes the cake. Good work, man.



I don't do too much of this either these days. If fact when I'm here is about the frequency of when I am. Just for fun once in a while and a great way to celebrate some new plugs.



Cheers - to 2015 revisited. Lol. And, yes, Chris, you were on the TV speakers then too.



(y)

eternalsound, post: 466616, member: 48927 wrote:

Personally, I think Chris's takes the cake. Good work, man.



I don't do too much of this either these days. If fact when I'm here is about the frequency of when I am. Just for fun once in a while and a great way to celebrate some new plugs.



Cheers - to 2015 revisited. Lol. And, yes, Chris, you were on the TV speakers then too.



(y)

Well thank you! It’s always fun when you are here!

I vaguely recall mastering on a TV. My memory is slipping, yours is amazing!

I’ve mixed on laptop and boom box speakers. Both just take not trying to push or expect too much volume with them.

I’m glad you like what I did but It’s just to play within the group for fun.

Goes to show... maybe we don’t need a lot of gear. Hope others participate.

audiokid, post: 466617, member: 1 wrote:

Well thank you! It’s always fun when you are here!

I vaguely recall mastering on a TV. My memory is slipping, yours is amazing!

I’ve mixed on laptop and boom box speakers. Both just take not trying to push or expect too much volume with them.

I’m glad you like what I did but It’s just to play within the group for fun.

Goes to show... maybe we don’t need a lot of gear. Hope others participate.

Thanks, Chris. This is the only Chris I know here ...my mastering, software advocate, plugin extraordinaire, who lives in Canada (amongst the rest of you) pal. It's cool you joined in the thread.



This is a forum board you can always "come home" to. It's mellow, low-key; knowledgeable staff actively involved: audiokid, kmetal, pcrecord, are the names that do pretty much have all your answers, here. (y)

PC, are we allowed to adjust or is this a set-in-stone "competition" sort of thing? I'm thinking this is open in the sense of it being more of an exercise open to "corrections"? I wouldn't recommend sporadically littering the thread ...maybe add versions to our original post?

@audiokid Heya Chris, nice master!. Biggest difference I think yours has over mine at least is you boosted the bass drum some more than me. I am sure there are other differences too, but I am not that clever :). Nice to be kept in company though. I said to Leigh (wife) maybe I can start charging to master now? LOL..



Tony

pcrecord, post: 466626, member: 46460 wrote:

You are allowed to do anything, of course, the subject is mastering, I'd be surprised to receive a remix with different groove and all.. but having fun while learning is the goal here.. ;)

Nooooooo, not your mix! I'd f that up for sure! :giggle:



This, I mean:



 



I'll add it as a second version to my op too.



I'm also looking to do the best version I can. Not in a competitive way either, and it could be based off what someone else has done. So, I kinda have a side initiative going on here too. :)

Here's my quick swipe at it. I didn't master for maximum loudness, I targeted -14dBLUFS with 1dB of true peak headroom.



WAV file here:



https://drive.googl…



MP3 file here:

 

bouldersound, post: 466676, member: 38959 wrote:

Here's my quick swipe at it. I didn't master for maximum loudness, I targeted -14dBLUFS with 1dB of true peak headroom.



WAV file here:



https://drive.googl…



MP3 file here:

You and Me and the Radio BSG master 1.mp3

Nice work. You've tackled the harsh sss on the vox really well.



This is precisely why I couldn't be a mastering engineer. If I can't go back into a mix to fix the problematic spot without effecting everything else in the overall track ... its a constant loosing battle to me.



If I had more time I would have tried to sidechain an EQ on the sss. Maybe that would be the trick. I'd love to hear how you tackled those sss?



Again, really nice work, boulder

audiokid, post: 466677, member: 1 wrote:

Nice work. You've tackled the harsh sss on the vox really well.



This is precisely why I couldn't be a mastering engineer. If I can't go back into a mix to fix the problematic spot without effecting everything else in the overall track ... its a constant loosing battle to me.



If I had more time I would have tried to sidechain an EQ on the sss. Maybe that would be the trick. I'd love to hear how you tackled those sss?



Again, really nice work, boulder

Thanks. While I don't automatically apply multi-band compression, I'll do it if I feel it's worthwhile. In this case what I used was a little different, ReaFIR in Compressor mode. I suppose you'd call it spectral compression. It doesn't compress predefined frequency bands, the frequencies that are compressed are dictated by what actually exceeds the threshold. The threshold itself is a frequency curve.



This is what I do on my home system. When at other studios I might use a dedicated de-esser, multi-band compression or putting an eq on a compressor's side chain.



 

bouldersound, post: 466676, member: 38959 wrote:

Here's my quick swipe at it. I didn't master for maximum loudness, I targeted -14dBLUFS with 1dB of true peak headroom.



WAV file here:



https://drive.googl…



MP3 file here:

 

Very nice.

@pcrecord



Marco, do you produce your videos with 48kHz or 44.1kHz audio?

I'm going to try too!

On this I too felt challenged by not having access to the mix, but I think that this itself is part of the challenge and highlights what mastering is. I didn't take a too technical approach to things - I had three major objectives. 1 - Warm it up a bit. 2 - Tame some of the sibalince and some of the consonant sounds while leaving enough in for the overall vocal effect (thinking a lot of this was done intentionally. 3 - Tame some of the dynamics that made this pop a little too brightly as a mix for me - so some compression where appropriate but generally keeping the range.



I don't have a large enough toolkit or vocabulary for Mastering - I generally EQ, compress/limit while doing most of the heavy lifting in the mix process. Looking to learn more. (and keep the adage that it must be and remain musical, and adjustments must first add to the musicality of the song.)



 

Here's a 48kHz version in case you include the audio in a video. No sense putting it through any avoidable sample rate conversions.



https://drive.googl…

Pre-mastering prep. I liked the mix enough not to mess with it. The song has an Ian Hunter/Mick Ronson vibe to it with a touch of Peter Gabriel. I didn't try and bring up the levels to mastering levels but simply added the few things I generally use to prep a track to go to the mastering engineer I usually use.

 

I hit this one just a 'bit' harder....LOL

 

Im enjoying everyone's work here!

FWIW I did another. Tried to focus on a few weak spots. Remove some sharpness, add more air - more airy transparent compression, Bring the blast down some.



 



(y)

eternalsound, post: 466783, member: 48927 wrote:

FWIW I did another. Tried to focus on a few weak spots. Remove some sharpness, add more air - more airy transparent compression, Bring the blast down some.



 



(y)

It's quite loud (-9dBLUFS, which I think is normal for a CD master). I was noticing on my system that the highs seemed rather harsh, perhaps distorted. My LUFS meter showed a True Peak level of +1dBFS. I turned the gain down a few dB in my DAW and the harshness went away and the master sounded good. As I understand it, some converters don't have headroom built in to accommodate waveforms that reconstruct with levels above 0dBFS, so they distort. If you're mixing through a DAC that does have the headroom, you might not hear distortion that other listeners hear. Also, compressed formats like mp3 can raise the True Peak level slightly. That's why I always leave a full 1dB of headroom.

bouldersound, post: 466785, member: 38959 wrote:

It's quite loud (-9dBLUFS, which I think is normal for a CD master). I was noticing on my system that the highs seemed rather harsh, perhaps distorted. My LUFS meter showed a True Peak level of +1dBFS. I turned the gain down a few dB in my DAW and the harshness went away and the master sounded good. As I understand it, some converters don't have headroom built in to accommodate waveforms that reconstruct with levels above 0dBFS, so they distort. If you're mixing through a DAC that does have the headroom, you might not hear distortion that other listeners hear. Also, compressed formats like mp3 can raise the True Peak level slightly. That's why I always leave a full 1dB of headroom.

Thanks man. I'll take a look and tell ya. Listening back, to me it's not so harsh ...as in buzz-saw high mids ..it's just too loud there. Back in a bit. :)

 



Definitely quieter here. I do like the airy low-end anyway.



:X3: