[LAU] LV2, DSSI and the future of plugins

[Ken Restivo]

On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 05:20:15PM -0500, Ricardus Vincente wrote:
> On Mon, 2011-01-17 at 14:11 -0800, Ken Restivo wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 10:31:41PM +0100, fons at kokkinizita.net wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 03:38:48PM +0100, J?rn Nettingsmeier wrote:
> > > 
> > > > don't forget the most important aspect of mastering: a second pair
> > > > of ears, in a very good listening room.
> > > 
> > > Correct.
> > > 
> > > > take that out of the equation, and all that's left of mastering is
> > > > some parametric eq and (if you must) multiband compression.
> > > 
> > > And I wonder why these shouldn't be done when mixing instead.
> > > 
> > > In the 'old days' EQ and compression was required to adapt a
> > > mix to the limits of the distribution medium (vinyl in most 
> > > cases). No such problem exists today. Why on earth should you
> > > re-EQ a mix ? If the mixing engineer did a good job (by carefully
> > > EQ-ing individual tracks), what chance do you have to improve this
> > > by acting on the mixed signal ? If he didn't, the way to correct
> > > for this is to redo the mix. Same for compression, it's much more
> > > effective and less intrusive when done on single tracks. 
> > > 
> > 
> > For the record, I hate mastering and compressed loudness-war mixes. I
> > enjoy making use of the dynamic range of 16-bit (or more) audio. And,
> > I also put the mastering (multiband compression, really) stuff in the
> > chain while mixing, one of the wonderful things about JACK. It's just
> > an insert on the master bus in Ardour for me, and my exported mixes
> > are mastered.
> > 
> > However, today's popular music must contend with limitations of the
> > listener's equipment, just as it did in the days of turntables and
> > six-peices-of-particle-board-and-an-8-inch-speaker turntable/stereo
> > combinations. The limitations are different and so therefore are the
> > solutions and workarounds.
> > 
> > Today, people listen to music on iPods and truly wretched laptop
> > speakers in noisy environments. And everything else they listen to is
> > compressed out the wazoo. So when my lightly-compressed mixes come up
> > on shuffle, they are inaudible, not just in comparison to other
> > professionally-mastered mixes, but against the background noise
> > they're competing with.
> > 
> > So, next time around, I'm putting my mixes thorugh NAMA and squashing
> > the holy hell out of them, until they sound like whatever the major
> > labels are pooting out these days. 
> 
>  Unfortunately most mix engineers suck.  That's why you need a real
> mastering engineer to fix your mixes.  Taking the tracks back to a guy
> with tin ears isn't going to help.
> 
>  Most people making records today are inexperienced and doing it at
> home.

Yep. I guess that's what mastering engineers spend most of their time doing: fixing bad mixes.

Not that I'm any great expert mix engineer myself, but, when in doubt, I run mixes by people who have better ears than me to get their feedback. Once in a while I deliberately choose to do things "wrong" because I like the way it sounds, but most feedback is very valuable.

> 
>  Having said that, when a world class mix engineer does a mix, the
> mastering engineer doesn't have to do much, as someone pointed out.  But
> unless someone like Dave Reitzas or Ed Cherney is mixing your tracks,
> take it to a qualified mastering house.  Even those guys take their
> mixes to guys like Bob Ludwig.  Running your mix through a Farichild 670
> isn't going to hurt it.  :-)
> 

Hmm, this thing?
http://www.proharmonic.com/images/schema/Fairchild670.JPG

I know a guy who runs mixes through an old tube 2-track 30ips tape machine, to use the tape saturation as a limiter. I guess there are all kinds of tricks people have, and probably superstition and magick has a good deal to do with it too.

Currently, I just need to make louder mixes, using tools that don't introduce artifacts into the signal, so I'll try NAMA and I expect it'll go well.

-ken