At work so on the shiitest ever free airline ear buds, but it sounds like a Violin.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN At work so on the shiitest ever free airline ear buds, but it sounds like a Violin.

Thank you, now kinda little off topic. When starting a new mastering project what should the highest peaking level of a track should be?

Say, a unmastered tune has a peak of -0.8.

New Project, Insert Gain or Move channel fader to what number amount for best headroom?

Edit: I got it, after doing some research and having dj mix recording that peaks at -0.8 which is good because I'm utilizing all the Symphony's ADC bits. When I start the mastering stage lower the gain to -5.2 so it will leave me sufficient headroom for all mastering plugins. I know how to handle the rest I'm sure.

___________________
CD 1-2 Progressive Essential Compilation (September 2019)
Eve of Summer's Night (2019 Classic Progressive Vinyl Mix)

Last edited by Hides in Shadow on Jun-26-2019 at 11:09

Simple answer:

If you're asking that question, then you shouldn't be attempting mastering.

There's countless services that will master a track for pennies and frankly you're better off sending an unmastered track as a demo as stating it's not mastered.

You're also worrying too much about peak values and not RMS which again scream don't try to master.

Sorry, I know you want to have a go but I promise, Mastering is a dark art that takes tens of thousands of dollars of specialized equipment in perfectly tuned spaces run by people that have decades of experience.

I'm a fairly proficient mix engineer and have some decent credits. I wouldn't even attempt mastering - it;s a different discipline and can't be faked. You might as well slap ozone on the master.

Hmm Shux..I mean't mainly for dj mixes not originals..it would be a letdown to pay for mastering for every dj mix. I can do the basics like volume automation, then add the flavor, then limit, but for an original track, I would def send that out and pay for a pro.

___________________
CD 1-2 Progressive Essential Compilation (September 2019)
Eve of Summer's Night (2019 Classic Progressive Vinyl Mix)

Last edited by Hides in Shadow on Jun-26-2019 at 22:57

Also, can you teach me about RMS levels? I feel lost when you mention that. Know any good articles to start with? I'm ready to learn.

___________________
CD 1-2 Progressive Essential Compilation (September 2019)
Eve of Summer's Night (2019 Classic Progressive Vinyl Mix)

quote:

Originally posted by Hides in Shadow Also, can you teach me about RMS levels? I feel lost when you mention that. Know any good articles to start with? I'm ready to learn.

You can start from here:

https://www.productionmusiclive.com...rms-peak-levels

Darek

___________________
I like that freedom with no boundaries, no restrictions, no rules setup by somebody else – it's only me and my music.

SoundCloud

Traxsource

Beatport

Facebook

DariusX Page

Darek's link is a great starting place, here's another:

https://theproaudiofiles.com/video/...01-peak-vs-rms/

Again, and I don't mean to piss on the party, I love people trying new shit but if you don't know the difference between peak and rms, you are a world away from ever getting in to mastering. I mean like 10 years from this point, if you dedicated your life to it.

But there's another facet to this conversation:

You're trying to master already mastered tracks. Everything in a DJ set (for better or worse) has already been mastered on a track level. It doesn't need mastering and worse, you're taking mastered tracks either playing them from a vinyl (RIAA processing) or from a DAC if digital, putting through a mixer which is adding some for of gain staging if not inadvertent compression/clip control, then back through a DAC for recording.

That's a whole bunch of processing on already mastered tracks, that if you then add more mastering to, gets imprinted on the master.

The ideal is to really "get to tape" as clean as you can with as little distortion as possible.

More mastering is just adding more distortion, and it's simply not needed. Just get as clean a signal path as possible with as hot a signal as possible before clipping and that's the goal.

Otherwise your compressing, eqing, limiting, spatializing (etc) tracks that someone has already spent the painstaking task of doing, and you're actually changing the tracks as they were intended to be heard.

Thanks you guys, be back in 10 years.

Jk, I have a lot of reading to do. I already can do what the newb video tutorial explains and its kinda fun, I enjoy doing it, cheers.

___________________
CD 1-2 Progressive Essential Compilation (September 2019)
Eve of Summer's Night (2019 Classic Progressive Vinyl Mix)

I make sure none of the sampled peaks go above -1dB. This is for the sake of mp3/aac compression algorithms that add artifacts when you get close to clipping. The human ear is not going to notice a 1dB loss of volume. It's better to play it safe & avoid the introduction of audio artifacts.

In days of old, mastering to tape just meant saturation which actually sounded good. But in the digital age, clipping doesn't sound good. Those old TC Electronic Finalizers actually clipped the signal but it was momentarily, inaudible to humans ears, but visible on an oscilloscope. However, CDs were the main target format then, & we didn't take into account mp3 compression algorithms.

If you want the best answers regarding mastering go ask on the Sound On Sound forums.

Last edited by Mel David on Jun-27-2019 at 19:03

quote:

Originally posted by Hides in Shadow I enjoy doing it, cheers.

And that, right there is the one answer that is correct. More power to you.

quote:

Originally posted by Mel David The human ear is not going to notice a 1dB loss of volume.

Just to be a complete shit, 1dB is actually the exact threshold of what we can notice