Well I am just a pawn in the royal chessboard of square wave mastering, but I do think that what this guy is doing is the norm these days. I understand from others that do similar techniques (in the Box) of mastering and is the norm these dayz. If it sounds good then that is what really matters. It really is about getting a set of functions(plugin chains) that makes the distortions sound tolerable. But is that good for your ears? I don't like things that are mastered to be loud and typically if it is louder than -10rms on avg then it usually is too much for me. I listen on headphones and it just sounds horrible after a while. Trying to get the "cymbals to shine" and the "bass drum to punch" is not what modern (in the box) mastering is about. It is about creating a new sound of psychoacoustic loudness that somehow makes something sound ok. But does it ever sound great anymore? Is it dark side of the moon? or any Vintage mastering techniques? Or Is it just an assault on my ears? It seems to me this ME is really giving a lifelong lesson early on here in their course...

Whatever he's calling it it's still part of his mix process. I would call that finalizing the mix. If it works it's a good thing. True mastering is about creative sonic processing than the less glamorous details of PQ, error lists, ISRC etc. for CD, or RIAA curve, stylus velocity etc. for vinyl.

the problem with it is that i dont think it sounds good at all while he is mixing, in fact his bounces sound terrible, then when he imports them into his other system for mastering he has to tweak the hell out of it to get it to sound right again...
maybe hes cutting frequencies in mixing so he can replace them in mastering with his vintage manley eq's... but still, the guitar tone was great coming from the amp, and greater through the crowley ribbon and vintage neve mic pres, paired with an Apogee ad16x into a protools HD card.. soo, why would you ruin what sounds good, so that you can make it sound ok again in mastering? he uses the same outboard eq's and compressers in mixing as he does in mastering... he just keeps saying "trust me, it will sound better"
and it does, but i dont understand why you would do that....

I'm not sure either, I would call what you are describing still a mix process, but if it works for him to get the sound he wants... Usually great mixes make great masters and mediocre mixes make mediocre masters (polishing the ol turd). Sounds like he "mastering" in the same room he's mixing in? If so sounds pretty far from traditional mastering concepts/practices (separate room, speaks, hopefully both better then the mixing room, and fresh set of ears to (hopefully) bring perspective to the mix!).

M2c...
There is no valid reason why you should not master your own mixes or recordings if you now what you do and you are not tempting to to master right after the mix has been done by you.
Your ears and your brain will tell you wild stories and it usually ends up in a big mess and waisted time...

The workflow of your fellow engineer is somewhat odd, but what can you say if it works well....Does it??...
I would always try to get the best mix possible before mastering, but without overdoing the mix bus compression and limiting, etc.
To tease out the right amount of sparkle and adequate loudness ( I am also no fan of squashing!! ) in a mix, as well as adjusting the overall sound to make a nice homogenous CD is what I do when mastering. I had no problems, yet, to master my own mixes, but, as I said, allow some time to free mind and ears...
If you can't agree with the way they work at this place don't try to copy it..find your own workflow.. Not even books can tell you exactly how it works best for you...

Look at starred chefs..they wandered from one gourmet temple to another to learn from different masters de cuisine... So do we...figuratively...just don't munch too loud...lol...

Thank you for the replys. What would you say of his peculiar "gain stage"principle while mixing? Is there a benifit to pushing track faders above unity, and pulling the master faded down? In protools HD.

Well, during mixing it happens that the overall level of the sum becomes too high.
Instead of re-adjusting all faders you surely can just lower the master fader.
It's been done with analog consoles and with DAWs at 24-bit there should be even less degradation of sound.
Pushing the channel levels harder on purpose ( other then to achieve a certain effect with compressors, asf.) would make more sense in the analog world, allthough, I would not want a mixer with such poor behaviour.
Mind you, if you work in 24 or 32 bit (float) you have to squeeze it real hard to overload the sum due to the huge dynamic range. Just the D/A converters will scream and yell...lol..
But that you hear immediately.. awful...

I always thought that the "master fader" was a post-summing volume control. So the post-channel-fader sends and buses all get piled into the bus, and then scaled by the master fader. Lowering it will not increase your headroom inside the summing circuit/algorithm but simply increase headroom coming out of it.
Unless I'm way off whack on how summing works.

Codemonkey, post: 352765 wrote: I always thought that the "master fader" was a post-summing volume control. So the post-channel-fader sends and buses all get piled into the bus, and then scaled by the master fader. Lowering it will not increase your headroom inside the summing circuit/algorithm but simply increase headroom coming out of it.
Unless I'm way off whack on how summing works.

Correct. However, a modern native DAW will still be using floating point maths for the mix bus and master fader, so there is a vast amount of potential headroom above 0dBFS and 'overs' will not actually be clipped.

At 32 bit float you just can't clip anything internally...
Look at this formula:

D =20⋅log ( 3,40⋅1038 ) ≈1530 dB dynamic range

.............. 1,18⋅10−38

IIRs, post: 352791 wrote: Correct. However, a modern native DAW will still be using floating point maths for the mix bus and master fader, so there is a vast amount of potential headroom above 0dBFS and 'overs' will not actually be clipped.

...until it has to come back down to a real world sample rate. What goes up must come down.

i love this forum. thank you to all who responded. =]
now if i can just figure out how to convince him to mix to taste...
he has this notion that his way is the only way, but the band that came in wants their album to sound like the Anberlin - New Surrender record, and the engineer is convinced he can make it more marketable by mixing another style... but thats for another day. haha

WaltzMastering, post: 352811 wrote: ...until it has to come back down to a real world sample rate. What goes up must come down.

Who said anything about samplerate? We were talking about word length / bit depth. And anyway, if the floating point signal is scaled down below 0dBFS before truncating to an integer format, there will still be no clipping.

^ You're right. I meant to say sample rate and bit depth. As long as you stay in a 32 bit floating point environment and use plugs that are also 32 bits, clipping is not possible.

But that comfort disappears when the signal must be converted down, to 24 or 16 -bit or when it enters a plugin that doesn't support the higher bit rate, or is routed to external gear via DA/AD converters.

theycallmebrown, post: 352814 wrote: i love this forum. thank you to all who responded. =]
now if i can just figure out how to convince him to mix to taste...
he has this notion that his way is the only way, but the band that came in wants their album to sound like the Anberlin - New Surrender record, and the engineer is convinced he can make it more marketable by mixing another style... but thats for another day. haha

There are many ways to reach good results. Sorry to say, there are even more to mess it up.
If one thinks he has the only right solution then all he found is a way how HE can do it best for himself.
Why do you want to convince him? It will only end up in an argument in which an intern is usually pulling the shorter stick.
See what he's got and what you can learn and mix the way you think sound good.
With most bands I recorded it would have been a bad idea to give them a sound they do not want. If you really feel, the band would be better off with your interpretation of their music, then make an additional alternative mix and let them decide. If they like it: ok. If hey should like it but are too stubborn to accept it, then they still deserve the best mix -their way.
One smartass piece of advice: If you ever get inflexible and impervious to new ways, sounds, techniques, technologies or styles.. try to get a job as a bookie.
That is a respectable profession, too, that mostly deals with clear regulations and forms.

Just to add an alternative perspective to your situation. It is possible that he is actually trying to feed you misinformation; deliberately performing odd overs and then pulling them back under later. He may be trying to disguise the fact that he perceives you as future competition or he may be trying to impress you with his knowledge by giving you very audible examples of his 'wizardry'. He may in fact be doing quite clever things that you are not understanding fully (this doesn't sound likely, but don't rule it out). Whatever the case; you just met him on the way up; be polite and discreet as you'll meet him on the way back down too..... ask intelligent questions and avoid ending up in a direct confrontation and the best you can say is that you have learnt from the situation.

thats a good point too jeemy, i have heard other records he recorded/mixed/mastered and they sound great, thats why i wanted to intern for him. i have been taking note of what he is doing and when i vocally disagree with him I'm very careful not to bruise his ego. and waltzmastering, he is using waves plugins (both tdm and rtas) as well as routing out to his manley EQ's, and chandler compressors. he is in protools HD 7 and maybe I'm totally mis-informed but i didn't know protools was floating point? i know that SONAR uses floating point calculations but on protools you still have to use dithering plugs on the master fader when bouncing so you don't truncate those vital bits.... we run sessions in 44.1/24bit, protools uses 32 bit (on protools 8 LE [where im more comfortable].. i imagine 7 HD too? maybe I'm wrong?)

when mastering he uses a few different programs but mainly Cubase on a different machine with different AD/DA converters, and he routes the final master back into protools for the final bounce.

i just want him to master THIS album already, im sick of guessing if he is on crack or not. i got the band calling and texting me trying to get me to push my ideas on him, and i got him trying to get me to tell the band to quit telling him how to do his job... im sitting in the middle playing messenger and i hate that.

one thing I've learned, don't promise mediocre musicians a professional record, unless they promise you a professional performance.

you are in the lower position in this situation. Your job is to work for him, not guide him or teach him. It's his client, he earned it, he can do it anyway he wants and your job is to smile and help make that possible. Agreeing or not agreeing with how he works should not be part of the equation.

With that, you can also learn what to do and not do. because he does something a certain way, doesn't mean you have to when the time comes. Learn from him, both the good and bad.

I disagree with what he is doing as well. His methods seem to be counter to everything that I have found sounds good and I think it shows poor gain staging. Don't take the bus around town when your destination is across the street. I also agree that it isn't your place to disagree with him. Hell, I'm such an asshole myself that I would tell him to make a copy and I'd make a copy doing it my way and let the client choose blindly. Then again, that is most likely the WRONG thing to do in a situation like that and I wouldn't advise it if you would like to keep your job.

Big K, post: 352799 wrote:

At 32 bit float you just can't clip anything internally...
Look at this formula:

D =20⋅log ( 3,40⋅1038 ) ≈1530 dB dynamic range

.............. 1,18⋅10−38

While the formula you gave is correct I prefer to use the term Absolute Range for this as there is a problem with resolution if you try to do that sort of thing on a mix bus. The resolution of 32 bit float is 25 bits (150dB) hence you would not be able to sum a signal at 0 dBFS to a signal at +1530 dBFS or even +200dBFS come to that as there is insufficient resolution in 32 bit float. It is therefore simpler (and more sensible) to suggest that all signals are kept below 0 dBFS when mixed such that the mix bus itself does not exceed 0 dBFS. The limited resolution is precisely why some DAW's offer 64 bit float accuracy which would otherwise be pointless.

I have received mixes like this: ones that are "pre-mastered". Then the client wants me to make them sound round and musical. This is usually a process that involves a lot of time and little satisfaction. I sometimes ask for a copy of the mix previous to the finished product.

Be kind to your mastering engineer. Let him or her help you sound your best.

Hi Don, ....
Well said...
But this is a cruel world and MEs are the ones who get hit real hard ...lol...
The more they fiddle about the smaller are the chances to safe some of the vibes ...
Some just use the bigger Hammer and mess up thorroughly.
The usable way of recovering crippled pre-pre-mastered songs I found is the use of Algorythmix ReNovator, which originally is a restauration software that works wonders.... With that you sometimes can adjust and recoup some of the accidents in real emergency cases.

Maybe I'm way off but if I were you, I'd quit! Is this guy the only one around who has the gear set up you're wanting to learn on? Perhaps he's the only one who's willing to take on an intern? From a business stand point, it sounds like his customer service policies are trash, his narrow view is stunting, and his arrogance works contrary to the artform of recording and music making. Geez, this is the only way he does it?! Where's the fun in that? Where's the experimentation? Where's the growth?! I'm not a big believer in the idea that everyone has to "pay their dues," but if he is your only option, than stick with it and take what he says with a grain of salt. Don't pick up any of his bad habits, though.

Why don't you ask him if you can 'stay late, or come in early' and master the record in the way you see fit? Paying customers don't care how it's done, they want the best finished product. I work sometimes w/ a man who mixed some Grammy winners, and let's just say his ideas are not always what I’d have thought of, or read. Guys like that know what there listening for. While used to their conventions, they will say what they think 'sounds better' when heard, regardless of 'how, or what'. i am not completely sure, but i think pt HD uses fixed point math, and LE uses floating point. I need to check my manual to be sure.