By Adamantios via Wikipedia

I know what I’m about to say is probably complete blasphemy. So much of what the industry talks about is the complete opposite of what I am slowly believing. I could also just be so much of a DIY fanboy that I have trouble believing. Alright, here it goes:

I don’t believe that professional mastering by an outsider is required for the best sound that a recording can offer.

I know, I know… Blasphemy! I’ve been mastering my own music for years. I just can’t quite wrap my brain around what anyone else could do with a stereo render that I can’t do with my multitrack DAW. And to make matters worse, I’m finding evidence that I might be right. If you look up “Audio Mastering” in Wikipedia you’ll find a list of the most common mastering steps.

Steps of the process typically include but are not limited to the following:

1. Transferring the recorded audio tracks into the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) (optional).
2. Sequence the separate songs or tracks (the spaces in between) as they will appear on the final release.
3. Process or “sweeten” audio to maximize the sound quality for its particular medium (e.g. applying specific EQ for vinyl)
4. Transfer the audio to the final master format (i.e., CD-ROM, half-inch reel tape, PCM 1630 U-matic tape, etc.).

Examples of possible actions taken during mastering:

1. Editing minor flaws
2. Applying noise reduction to eliminate clicks, dropouts, hum and hiss
3. Adjusting stereo width
4. Adding ambience
5. Equalize audio across tracks
6. Dynamic range expansion or compression
7. Peak limit

That’s pretty much what I do on almost all my music recorded and some of the videos I make get a similar treatment. I’m starting to think that it’s less of a mysterious art that is left to the experts and more of lack of understanding.

This brings me to the big question. What is the secret to a good mix? Well the simplest way to go about this is to ask what tools are important. In most DAW there are a lot of flashy tools, but most of them are just toys. The tools that I personally feel are the most important are available in ALL DAWs.

• Equalizer – This is a no brainer. Too much bass? Fade it out. Too much high end? Fade it out. Done.
• Reverb – Easily abused but always fun to play with. A touch of this can make your mixes sound a little smoother. If done right it can give you the ‘big’ sound. If done wrong everything turns to mud.
• Compressor – This one is a new one for me. I’ve only started to understand how important it is. This is like a combination of an intelligent gain and normalizer on steroids. I use Steve Harris’ Dyson Compressor and it’s amazing how easily it can fill a weak sounding track. For vocals it’s almost required.

Learn those three plugins on your DAW, and you’ll definitely be able to make better mixes. The only other advice I think I can get is to test out you mix on you boombox, your car stereo and with a pair of iPod brand headphones. The most popular music player is an iPod, so it’d make sense that 90% of your listeners will be using that same headphones.

So I could be totally wrong. I haven’t found a single source outside companies that sell mastering services who say otherwise. What do you think? Is mastering a stage that you’d pay good money for, or do you think you have the skills to do it at home?

PDF – PDF Torrent

Sintel Open Source Film

The new Sintel open movie teaser trailer is out.  I recorded a short introduction to it for youtube, but I’ll only be posting the audio of the intro on this site because there is no point in ruining the quality of the trailer here.  Actual trailer links in theora are right here:

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Oh yeah and for the audio intro, it’s here as well…

To compress or not to compress?

After reading a lengthy article of the damning effects of over producing.  I felt the urge to see if compression could help me in developing the ‘catchy’ sound I want for my new video intro.  When I used the compressor everything sounded brighter and louder, but my tone was lost.

I can see why so many want to compress the sound.  For me, I feel as if I worked very hard to give my recordings a good tone and I don’t want to loose it.