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By Fc Bester
Mastering has been around longer than most people realize, yes vinyl records where mastered too! It's with the advent of digital systems that mastering became more of a household name (at least amongst music buffs). Vinyl records where mastered as part of the pressing process and included processes to ensure that sound adhered to the limitations of vinyl records and to ensure a good 'fit' on the record. Today mastering is still that and more, it's more of a sonic challenge though as the demands for good sound increases and digital recording keeps expanding.
I am doing my best to write these short articles in a simple understandable language for most people involved in music creation, but your questions and suggestions via email are always welcome. Unfortunately I cannot afford the time to discuss articles on the phone.
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About Mastering | |
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The Whole 'Loudness' Thing |
Professional CD mastering is first and foremost a decision-making process, and then of course it's about making key changes to the sound.
You can kind of look at a mastering engineer as a 'third ear' guy, an over and above producer if you will. The mastering engineer comes in right at the end of a project and needs to make key decisions, and suggestions on the overall sound and layout (song sequences, pauses, etc.) that will be presented on an album. Producers, audio engineers, A&R persons, labels and artists all trust the mastering engineer to ensure that they put out a top sounding album with maximum impact. For this reason a mastering engineer needs more than just experience in audio engineering, experience in other aspects of the industry is vital. A mastering engineer not only needs a good ear, but also a good feeling for what works and what doesn't, a good understanding and feel for different genres of music, a good grasp of how to make an album 'flow' from the first to last track, and much more.
Mastering requires a certain level of responsibility that very few inexperienced engineers can offer. The mastering engineer is after all the last person to 'judge' and make changes to a project that costs thousands of dollars. Many producers, audio engineers, etc. trust the mastering engineers' judgment, so it's easy to see how important this function can be.
A large part of the idea behind mastering is to give a project one final 'look over' by an experienced person who has not heard the material before (hence the 'third ear' idea). Usually by the time a mixing engineer or producer has completed mixing a project they have heard the songs so many times that it's really hard to look at it objectively. For this reason, (amongst others) mastering on major release albums are almost never done by the same person(s) who did the mixing or producing, although this practice is very common when it comes to the making of demo recordings or low key productions, mainly for budgetary reasons. In most cases the producer, audio engineer, etc. do not attend mastering sessions, they will trust the mastering engineer's decisions and suggestions. There are times however that they might attend a session because they have particular concerns, changes or edits in mind.
Mastering engineers need to have excellent relations with their customers, and should therefore not have a problem to discuss suggested changes with the people involved in the making of an album. Professional mastering engineers will tell their customer(s) right away if they feel there is something the matter with a particular mix or take. It sometimes happens that tracks are referred back to the producer or mixing engineer for changes, if you don't have an open relationship with that producer or engineer, you are not going to be received well.
Finally, mastering is not so much about what equipment is used as it is about the sound. If it sounds excellent, well balanced and has a good flow, why would it matter how you got there? Mastering is a responsibilty you owe your customer.
Here are some tips you can follow before sending your project to a mastering facility. Although the items discussed here doesn't cover all scenarios, following these tips will ensure that you get off to a good start, get the absolute best results from your (hopefully reputable) mastering facility and then of course it will ensure that your mastering engineer well, just simply loves you.
You should obviously check with your mastering engineer (ME) on acceptable formats but in most cases you will be told that to always keep your files in the highest possible resolution in either WAV or AIFF format. Quite frankly, if your ME tells you to send an audio CD as your master, leave that mastering facility faster than you can say oops!
If you recorded your project at 24-bit, 96 kHz, for instance, render your mix to that same resolution without applying any dithering. Don't render your files to 16-bit, 44,1 kHz simply because it's going to end up in that format (Red Book). 24-Bit files leave more headroom for the mastering process. Dithering should always be left to the absolute last process which is usually your ME's responsibility. Most reasonable audio editing software packages will give you the option to dither or not when you render (export) your mixes to files. This might sound stupid (I wouldn't say it if it's never happened) but never render or export your files to a higher resolution than what it was recorded at, that will just worsen the quality.
Do not trim the beginning and ending of your files, leave everything intact, most ME's have the experience and 'feel' to help you make your album 'flow' and might often suggest different fade positions, lengths, etc. Another reason for this is that if you need noise removed from the recording, a good 'clean' sample of the noise is always welcome. If you have very specific ideas or requirements on how you want your master to come out, you might want to send a very good set of notes with the files to explain where you want your songs to start, end, fade, etc. Sometimes it might even be a good idea to send a reference CD of your fades, etc. with the job.
Don't write your files to CD using the highest burning speed available to you, even while this tempting because it saves time. Up to around 8x speed is quite trusty in most cases but 2x is preferred. If your CD/DVD burning software has the option to 'verify written data', use it. Nero Burning ROM for instance has this option. There is nothing more frustrating than sending your CD half way around the world only to find that some data on it contains errors or are inaccessible. If you're not sure how to check your CD, try copying the CD contents back to your own system, open the files and make sure they are what you expect them to be.
I know we are all tempted to compress our stereo mixes so they sound really tight and punchy. While that approach to mixing is perfectly normal, we are all guilty of over-compressing a mix at least once in our lives, yes me too. Over-compression causes a whole bunch of problems in a mastering facility however.
First of all, compression is one of those things which, once in a mix, can not be removed or fixed satisfactorily. I experience compression as the biggest problem with mixes sent to me. Sometimes I receive mixes (which are totally over-compressed by the way) with a note from the sender: "Please make it sound loud, but not over-compressed". This just reemphasizes to me that many audio engineers don't know how to use compression or limiting, especially on the stereo mix and, coupled with the 'mix to master' syndrome happening in many studios today, that can only mean one thing, more 'bad' mixes are hitting the road than ever before.
So what can be done about this? You need your demos to sound great, right? You also need to get rid of the transients and spikes in your mixes, right? Well, the answer is quite simple really, in fact many professional studios follow this method. Render two mixes, one with your compression and limiting and, one without (did I not tell you it was simple?). The mix without not only becomes the copy to send to your mastering facility (if you plan on doing mastering), but also an important 'unaffected' back-up copy of your mix. If you later find your mix sounds too compressed you can always reload the unaffected version and try different compression and limiting settings for your song.
Your ME should be experienced enough to know exactly how much compression and/or limiting is needed to preserve the dynamics for your particular genre of music. The ME will also know how much room to leave to compensate for the 'ugly' compression done by radio stations in general.
No!
Another one of the worst things that can be done to a mix is the incorrect use of stereo enhancement effects on the overall mix. Stereo enhancers, when used wrong, will make your mix sound sloppy and un-tight. It can also cause phasing problems when used on individual tracks or the overall mix and this just opens up another can of worms. The rule of thumb for this problem is, never use stereo enhancers on a mix heading for mastering.
When a ME listens to the overall flow of your album from start to finish, he will know where and where not to enhance the stereo image of each song. In some cases the ME might even narrow the mix to better fit into the overall project.
Although CD-Text is not strictly Red Book format, this feature has become quite popular since the arrival of CD players that can display this information, a number of years ago.
If you want to include CD-Text, always ensure that you send a printed copy with the names of the songs, the artist for each song (if different from song to song) and the album title. All these should be checked for typos like capitalization, spelling and grammar. If you have a weird way of spelling certain words like using 'da' instead of 'the' for instance, make a note of that to the ME. His natural instinct might want him to fix your typos, unless you tell him not to of course.
Now go out and have fun creating!
If the musicality portion of music creation is not important to you, this article will most likely not appeal to you.
Lately there’s been much talk on-line and in some magazines about the ‘loudness’ factor in mastering. This is also known as Root Mean Square (RMS) and refers to the average ‘loudness’ of audio. I can honestly say that since my first days as a Mastering Engineer my point of view on this subject has never changed and most likely never will. I talk to many of my customers about ‘loudness’ but in the end it’s their decisions that matter to me, and my input only serve as a suggestion or recommendation.
One thing that almost kind of amazes me is the fact that producers, musicians, labels and studios spend thousands of dollars creating music and then end up over-compressing and limiting the wits out of it in the final stages. All this is unfortunately done to be more ‘acceptable’ to the radio stations and the sometimes totally oblivious public listener. Is it really that acceptable to begin with?
I’ll express my views and assessment on ‘loudness’ from mainly two angles, namely 1) What does excessive loudness do to the music? and, 2) What does it mean to you and your listeners?
What does it do to the music? Take a look at these 2 figures of a very small portion of the same audio clip. Fig.1 is what an over-compressed and limited wave looks like (and I have seen worse) when zoomed in. Fig.2 is of the same wave with just the right amount of compression and limiting. These two waves have the same perceived ‘loudness’ but the one in fig.1 does not sound as transparent and open as the one in fig.2.
The amplitude represented vertically on these charts, is also an almost direct representation of speaker movement. In affect, the speaker diaphragm does not move when it gets to the sections indicated by the arrows in fig.1. These are what I like to call ‘tabletop’ waves, the wave hits digital zero and stays there for very small fractions of a second, and so does the speaker diaphragm. This can also be called ‘mechanical distortion’. The wave in fig.2 on the other hand allows for continuous speaker movement and does not cause distortion. The sound in fig.2 is much clearer, instruments come out better and the stereo image is more defined.
I’m not going to be very popular amongst some of my colleagues for saying the following (well sorry then), but I do believe everyone should know what to look out for when having their albums mastered. Here it is. It’s easier to end up with a fig.1 type wave on analog equipment than on digital equipment. Most digital mastering stations apply a ‘look ahead’ type compression and limiting and will make the necessary adjustments internally to prevent ‘tabletop’ waves. Please do not misunderstand me here, the overwhelming majority of analog mastered albums by industry professionals, sound just great because these guys and girls know their stuff.
So what does all this mean to the listener (and you)? Ever wondered why some songs just doesn’t sound so great and transparent on the radio? Besides the obvious limitations of FM signals, the other great contributing factor is that almost all radio stations (most of them will deny this) compress and limit the sound that goes out on their transmitters. Some do this worse than others though and it’s mainly due to improper use of equipment, not understanding sound and a lack of communication. Even if you’re not into classical music, do yourself a favor and dial into a classical station for once and you’ll hear how much better the sound is on that. Classical stations also compress (not always) and limit their sound, but at they do this at moderate levels.
The compression and limiting is done for two main reasons, first to make the sound louder and second to protect their equipment (limiting) from electronic (or digital) distortion. Now imagine our poor wave in fig.1 being compressed and limited even further, the result speaks for itself.
Audio material that is mastered less ‘hot’ (and we’re talking just 1 or 2 dB’s) sound way better on radio and also when turned into MP3’s or WMA files.
There are no real rules in audio production but when you mix and master your next album put the above to the test. One thing I can assure you of is that you can only increase your chances of receiving an ‘Engineered album of the year’ award.
“Are we in the business of making music to feed our souls or to annoy our souls?”
Copyright Fc Bester