13 Nov
2011
13 Nov
'11
2:42 p.m.
Hello!
In a month or so I'll for the first time in my life attempt to master two
smaller EPs (my own music should be added). I've worked up a fairly good
skillset with some parts of the mastering (multiband compressing etc) but I
need some major help with tips for what I'm trying to accomplish, which is:
* I want a similar soundlevel throughout the whole of the EP, eg. I want
the songs to be similar in strength even if they are dissimilar in
dynamics/type of song. Some songs are naturally more "aggressive" and thus
will be a bit stronger, but I want the climaxes in the more easy going
songs to be as strong.
I realise that most of this will be done through the traditional "just
listen and compare", but I'm wondering if there are any other
analyzingtools that might ease my work a bit? Like analysing RME for the
whole song, will that give a fair indication that can be compared amongst
songs? Fatigued ears and the need for alot of small breaks is calculated
with, but those difficulties will be pretty testing for me I think with my
low patience lol, so anything that makes the process easier is good stuff!
Mastering on my own like this probably isn't that good, I know, but I'm
looking at it as an opportunity to learn some tricks of the trade.
I will be using plugins from linuxDSP together with a few Calf ones and the
Foo Limiter, so no Jamin etc.
Do you have any general tips for me etc? All tips I can get are greatly
appreciated!
Thanks in advance, regards,
14 Nov
14 Nov
6:02 p.m.
Hello,
First, all of what Al said is good common sense stuff.
When you say "mastering" are you implying that someone else is mixing
and you intend to do the post-processing? Why not go the whole way and
do it all yourself?
IMHO, it's worthwhile to pause and think about how you want things to
sound *before* even touching anything. Once you have an answer to that
question, it's a very good exercise to listen to a cross-section of the
genre and pick a few reference mixes you feel comfortable with (they
don't have to be perfect, so long as you know what the strong and weak
points are): it fulfils the double role of providing some kind of marker
to ce-centre you when your ears have had all they can take, and forcing
you to think about what you like and don't like in a mix.
For a whole album, you probably want to do it in two passes, the first
focusing on the songs, the second on harmonising the sound. If the mixes
were well done in the first place, the amount of work should be minimal:
in fact, you probably should worry if you find yourself tinkering too
much with certain aspects of the sound...
That's all I can think of for now. Good luck!
Cheers,
S.M.
On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 02:42:04PM +0100, Gabbe Nord wrote:
Hello!
In a month or so I'll for the first time in my life attempt to master two
smaller EPs (my own music should be added). I've worked up a fairly good
skillset with some parts of the mastering (multiband compressing etc) but I
need some major help with tips for what I'm trying to accomplish, which is:
* I want a similar soundlevel throughout the whole of the EP, eg. I want
the songs to be similar in strength even if they are dissimilar in
dynamics/type of song. Some songs are naturally more "aggressive" and thus
will be a bit stronger, but I want the climaxes in the more easy going
songs to be as strong.
I realise that most of this will be done through the traditional "just
listen and compare", but I'm wondering if there are any other
analyzingtools that might ease my work a bit? Like analysing RME for the
whole song, will that give a fair indication that can be compared amongst
songs? Fatigued ears and the need for alot of small breaks is calculated
with, but those difficulties will be pretty testing for me I think with my
low patience lol, so anything that makes the process easier is good stuff!
Mastering on my own like this probably isn't that good, I know, but I'm
looking at it as an opportunity to learn some tricks of the trade.
I will be using plugins from linuxDSP together with a few Calf ones and the
Foo Limiter, so no Jamin etc.
Do you have any general tips for me etc? All tips I can get are greatly
appreciated!
Thanks in advance, regards,
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
--
6:41 p.m.
Hello!
Thank you all very much for your tips, I'll be sure to use 'em all!
Regardning the music: It's all produced/mixed by myself, so the workload
should indeed be minimal if all goes as planned. I'll however probably need
to do some adjusting anyways but I think mostly it'll all be about
adjusting my multiband compressor + gain enough for each song. Awesome tip
with the referencemusic, if I sort of "line up" all the tracks to the
refereencetrack it'll probably save me alot of time, kind of matching my
tracks a bit to a musical frame dynamicswise.
Regards,
On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 6:01 PM, S. Massy <lists(a)wolfdream.ca> wrote:
Hello,
First, all of what Al said is good common sense stuff.
When you say "mastering" are you implying that someone else is mixing
and you intend to do the post-processing? Why not go the whole way and
do it all yourself?
IMHO, it's worthwhile to pause and think about how you want things to
sound *before* even touching anything. Once you have an answer to that
question, it's a very good exercise to listen to a cross-section of the
genre and pick a few reference mixes you feel comfortable with (they
don't have to be perfect, so long as you know what the strong and weak
points are): it fulfils the double role of providing some kind of marker
to ce-centre you when your ears have had all they can take, and forcing
you to think about what you like and don't like in a mix.
For a whole album, you probably want to do it in two passes, the first
focusing on the songs, the second on harmonising the sound. If the mixes
were well done in the first place, the amount of work should be minimal:
in fact, you probably should worry if you find yourself tinkering too
much with certain aspects of the sound...
That's all I can think of for now. Good luck!
Cheers,
S.M.
On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 02:42:04PM +0100, Gabbe Nord wrote:
Hello!
In a month or so I'll for the first time in my life attempt to master two
smaller EPs (my own music should be added). I've worked up a fairly good
skillset with some parts of the mastering (multiband compressing etc)
but I
need some major help with tips for what I'm
trying to accomplish, which
is:
* I want a similar soundlevel throughout the whole of the EP, eg. I want
the songs to be similar in strength even if they are dissimilar in
dynamics/type of song. Some songs are naturally more "aggressive" and
thus
will be a bit stronger, but I want the climaxes
in the more easy going
songs to be as strong.
I realise that most of this will be done through the traditional "just
listen and compare", but I'm wondering if there are any other
analyzingtools that might ease my work a bit? Like analysing RME for the
whole song, will that give a fair indication that can be compared amongst
songs? Fatigued ears and the need for alot of small breaks is calculated
with, but those difficulties will be pretty testing for me I think with
my
low patience lol, so anything that makes the
process easier is good
stuff!
Mastering on my own like this probably isn't
that good, I know, but I'm
looking at it as an opportunity to learn some tricks of the trade.
I will be using plugins from linuxDSP together with a few Calf ones and
the
Foo Limiter, so no Jamin etc.
Do you have any general tips for me etc? All tips I can get are greatly
appreciated!
Thanks in advance, regards,
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
--
8:11 p.m.
On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 02:42:04PM +0100, Gabbe Nord wrote:
* I want a similar soundlevel throughout the whole of
the EP, eg. I want
the songs to be similar in strength even if they are dissimilar in
dynamics/type of song. Some songs are naturally more "aggressive" and thus
will be a bit stronger, but I want the climaxes in the more easy going
songs to be as strong.
Two tools could help you with this, both available on
<http://kokkinizita.linuxaudio.org/linuxaudio/downloads>,
and used to measure your master output.
Jkmeter displays both the RMS and peak level. RMS is closely
related to loudness. The '0dB' on the RMS scale can be either
20 or 14 dB below full scale, which one you'd use depends on
the type of music and mixing style.
Ebumeter measures loudness using the EBU R-128 algorithm. This
basically means filtering and then RMS. It can also measure the
overall loudness of a complete song (it has 'start' and 'stop'
buttons), as well as the loudness range. The reference level in
R-128 is quite low (compared to mainstream mastering practices),
but you could adjust all songs to the same but higher level.
If you want to know more on how this works, read the LAC2011
paper.
Ciao,
--
FA
Vor uns liegt ein weites Tal, die Sonne scheint - ein Glitzerstrahl.
9:45 p.m.
+1 on k meter system.
IMHO there is no reasonable way to make "easy going" music sound as loud as
"aggressive" music,
I think that is the reason one is called "easy going" and one
"aggressive"
2 cents
Moshe
On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 9:11 PM, Fons Adriaensen <fons(a)linuxaudio.org>wrote;wrote:
On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 02:42:04PM +0100, Gabbe Nord
wrote:
* I want a similar soundlevel throughout the
whole of the EP, eg. I want
the songs to be similar in strength even if they are dissimilar in
dynamics/type of song. Some songs are naturally more "aggressive" and
thus
will be a bit stronger, but I want the climaxes
in the more easy going
songs to be as strong.
Two tools could help you with this, both available on
<http://kokkinizita.linuxaudio.org/linuxaudio/downloads>,
and used to measure your master output.
Jkmeter displays both the RMS and peak level. RMS is closely
related to loudness. The '0dB' on the RMS scale can be either
20 or 14 dB below full scale, which one you'd use depends on
the type of music and mixing style.
Ebumeter measures loudness using the EBU R-128 algorithm. This
basically means filtering and then RMS. It can also measure the
overall loudness of a complete song (it has 'start' and 'stop'
buttons), as well as the loudness range. The reference level in
R-128 is quite low (compared to mainstream mastering practices),
but you could adjust all songs to the same but higher level.
If you want to know more on how this works, read the LAC2011
paper.
Ciao,
--
FA
Vor uns liegt ein weites Tal, die Sonne scheint - ein Glitzerstrahl.
_______________________________________________
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http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
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4 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
Fons Adriaensen -
Gabbe Nord -
Moshe Werner -
S. Massy