[LAU] [OT] Help with mixing and mastering?

Mark Knecht markknecht at gmail.com
Mon May 11 22:36:07 EDT 2009


On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 12:41 PM, James Stone <jamesmstone at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 07:13:25PM +0200, Peder Hedlund wrote:
>> Quoting James Stone <jamesmstone at gmail.com>:
>>
>>
>> > Well, our first studio track, which was recorded by a student
>> > engineer in a semi-proper studio on protools, then mixed and
>> > mastered by a professional engineer is here:
>> >
>> > http://www.last.fm/music/kitten+cake
>> >
>> > mp3 here:
>> >
>> > http://drop.io/dont_call_her_baby (password: kc09)
>>
>>
>> Unless you made something really weird when encoding the mp3, I'd
>> really suggest you avoid the "professional engineer" in the future.
>> The track is so badly compressed and brickwall-limited it distorts in
>> several places.
>>
>
> I can't really hear a difference between the wav and the mp3, so
> you are probably right. The audio does hit 0dB a lot.
>
> I have the original audio files imported into ardour, and it
> would be good to hear (and see) how someone else would approach
> mixing/mastering it (or a part of it). Let me know if you (or
> anyone else for that matter) are interested.
>
> James

You might want to get a copy of Bob Katz' book at the library

Mastering Audio, Second Edition: The art and the science

I have the first edition and it's without parallel in the area of real
mastering. (It doesn't cover mixing which is where I think you are
really working, except in how the mix might be done to get better
mastering.

Anyway, Katz convinced me that keeping the VU's below maybe -15 on
peaks makes a better CD and doesn't actually effect SNRs, at least the
way you really hear SNR and assuming some use of dithering which is a
topic that doesn't come up all that much around here. I now keep all
my mixes and final CDs very quiet and then just let the listener turn
it up a bit. To me it really does sound better.

If you can get ahold of a copy of 'NewYork Reuninon' by McCoy Tyner
you might both enjoy the music and be a bit awed by the sound. It was
mastered by Katz and is a great example of doing it right in my
opinion.

I want to come back to you later on your recordings. I haven't had a
chance to listen to the guitar part except for a few seconds. My
immediate question was whether this was the same song as the studio
production. I've honestly not had even a second to get to the machine
where that mp3 was, but if it's not then I think we could best spend
our time focusing on the question 'How can James get the same sound in
his basement as the studio engineer got in the studio using Pro
Tools?' If we approach the problem that way, my thought is that if you
can track your instruments at home as well or better than he did in
the studio then we could move on to mixing it. Moving to a different
song makes it far harder to compare the work in both locations.

Just my 2 cents,
Mark



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