[LAU] M/S EQ in Linux

[Brent Busby]

On Wed, 11 Sep 2013, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

> On Tue, 2013-09-10 at 21:38 +0000, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
>> MS is not a 'fashion mixing technique'.
>
> MS for microphony makes sense and I didn't call this a 'fashion mixing 
> technique', I was talking about "mid/side EQ". I never heard the term 
> "mid/side EQ" before and I've got doubts, that it's a useful mixing 
> technique.

For all the appreciated criticisms of M/S EQ, I'm really just starting 
to learn about mastering, so I'm trying lots of things.  Up until 
lately, my mixes have been simple enough that it hasn't been that 
difficult to get them to translate across different speaker systems, but 
lately, I have been creating some very complicated mixes that are 
offering me an opportunity to expand my mastering knowledge.  So I'm 
experimenting...and learning a lot of things that are new to me.

One of the things I've been disovering is that actually, the EQ that 
sounds right to me doesn't seem to be the problem.  I've found that 
there are commercial mixes out there that are both colder than mine, and 
some from the 70's that are warmer than mine, and they all translate 
somehow.  So EQ curve is probably not the problem either way.  It seems 
more related to compression and limiting -- my newer mixes have lots of 
transients all over the place, which sound great on speakers that render 
them well.

But some stereos seem to have woofers/subwoofers that only get engaged 
when there's a fair amount of power, which means that if you don't turn 
the volume up, it creates the impression that the EQ is mostly high mids 
and treble.  If you turn up the volume, the "problem" disappears as the 
woofers begin to engage.  Commercially recorded music doesn't do this on 
the same stereo.  On other speaker systems, my mix never manifests a 
problem at any volume setting.  This all seems to be about dynamics.

I am already using some compression and limiting, but obviously I 
haven't nailed it yet.  I'm wondering if the Calf multiband limiter 
and/or multiband compressor may be useful here.  Obviously, I don't want 
to squash the life out of my mix, but I do want to get its transients 
tamed enough that they'll survive playback across lots of kinds of 
speakers.

-- 
+ Brent A. Busby	 + "We've all heard that a million monkeys
+ Sr. UNIX Systems Admin +  banging on a million typewriters will
+ University of Chicago	 +  eventually reproduce the entire works of
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+ Materials Research Ctr +  we know this is not true." -Robert Wilensky