On Saturday 04 April 2009 4:07:11 pm Julien Claassen wrote: The key the music is in has little bearing on how you should approach EQ. You're going to have frequencies spanning the entire frequency spectrum regardless of what key the music is in. You should first determine what type of sound you are trying to achieve and then use the EQ to correct or enhance to achieve the desired effect. There are no formulas, and no one can give an opinion without hearing the music before and after compression. Again, it's all about what you want it to sound like. You need to be able to listen to the original piece, and be able to say, ok here's where we are, but this is where I want to go with it. And then make changes accordingly. Train your ear. (Takes lots of practice) If you can't determine the frequency very well by ear, take a single pole filter with a tight Q, and sweep the frequency range during playback. You'll know when you hit the frequency you're looking for. ;) If you can't hear it, it doesn't matter. Don't risk compromising the audio by applying filters you don't need. (I doubt you have any mics that can pick up anything in those frequency ranges anyway) Yes. Higher sampling rates matter when doing digital processing in the frequency domain. Higher bit rates help with dynamics processing. -Reuben

Hi, Julien Claassen wrote: a lowpass filter above 20kHz is already included in any AD converter to avoid aliasing. If your material is recorded using analog sources then this lowpass is not needed explicitly during mastering (I don't have any experience with digitally created music, but also the DA converters have anti-aliasing filters). If you recorded sounds with microphones at weak levels, e.g. classical acoustic instruments, your signal may contain low frequency noise at a bad SNR caused by environmental noise. If you used omnidirectional microphones or if you recorded in an urban environment I would apply a high pass filter near 40 Hz at a stage as early as possible. With good near-field monitors you will not hear this noise, because they usually have a very steep high pass in that frequency range, but typical consumer systems don't have a high pass (or even come with extreme bass boosting) which may make this noise very audible. Giso

On Sat, Apr 04, 2009 at 11:07:11PM +0200, Julien Claassen wrote: I don't think the key of the music should have any influence on EQ, exectp maybe in very very specific cases. There are limits to what can be done in mastering, unless you accept to completey modify (usually mutilate) what has been done in mixing. The mastering step in commercial music production exists for three reasons: 1. Some people believe that pressing out the last half dB does provide an advantage in the context of airplay on commercial radio, no matter what it otherwise does to the quality of the sound. A mastering step separate from mixing allows record label executives to have things their way at that time without the artist looking over their shoulders. 2. To adapt a recording to the limits of the distribution medium. In vinyl disk times this was essential. It still has some significance today, but much less. 3. To ensure some uniformity in levels and sound between traks of an album. For someone producing his own music that will be distributed on digital media only (3) remains, maybe together with some fast limiting (using a look-ahead limiter) to remove short peaks and raise the average level without essentially modifying the sound. Everything else should have been done during recording or mixing. In particular things like filtering out unwanted LF (from mics) or HF (from electronics) noise are best done during recording. With the exception of close-miked drums, most instruments will need little EQ - if something extreme is required this almost allways indicates a problem elsewhere. This does not mean you should avoid EQ for some 'purity' reasons - this is nonsense. It also assumes instruments are supposed to remain 'themselves' and will be mixed more or less to their natural levels. If you are blending instruments (playing the same parts) to new new sounds, or building up a very dense mix in which individual instruments more ore less disappear into the soup then things are different, and 'anything goes'. The 'problem elsewhere' need not even be technical, it could be musical such as a part being played in a register that doesn't fit in with the rest - changing the instrument or transposing an octave up or down could solve it. How much compression is required depends very much on the type of music and sound - something supposed to sound natural will require very little compression but probably benefit more from overal peak limiting. When using compression, keep in mind *why* you use it: just to get a more constant or manangable level, or to modify the sound - a heavily compressed piano for example is almost a different instrument. Ciao, -- FA Io lo dico sempre: l'Italia è troppo stretta e lunga.