Old 03-19-2009, 03:48 AM   #1
Wolffman
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Default Pseudo mastering attempt

Yeah, I know, but i just couldn't help myself, just had to give it a shot.

This is a song from a project i'm almost finnished, and we have actually sent some samples off to a well respected mastering engineer to get his feedback etc and will have the cd mastered by him if all goes well.

Meanwhile i've been playing around and would like some opinions from fellow reaperites on my pseudo mastering attempt

Heres the unmastered track.
https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/131848/...UnMastered.mp3

and the pseudo master
https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/131851/...man-Master.mp3

Please be brutally honest, I can take it

Cheers to all.
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Old 03-19-2009, 05:03 AM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolffman View Post
Yeah, I know, but i just couldn't help myself, just had to give it a shot.

This is a song from a project i'm almost finnished, and we have actually sent some samples off to a well respected mastering engineer to get his feedback etc and will have the cd mastered by him if all goes well.

Meanwhile i've been playing around and would like some opinions from fellow reaperites on my pseudo mastering attempt

Heres the unmastered track.
https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/131848/...UnMastered.mp3

and the pseudo master
https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/131851/...man-Master.mp3

Please be brutally honest, I can take it

Cheers to all.
First of all: Beautiful tune! Sounds honest, not overproduced, great...

IMHO the mastered version is worse. Sounds like you gained some presence in the master channel, making the voice and the snare sound a bit aggressive and odd and too much upfront... (listening through a PC soundcard and SONY headphones from the office, though).
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Old 03-19-2009, 05:58 AM   #3
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Hello Wolffman,

Very cool, reminded me of Fleetwood Mac

I think the "master" is better actually at least on the "levels-matched" side.
I can't judge the compression tho, some might say that it could be done better. Snappier snare etc...

What I would do more to the "mastered" version, is add slightly amount of stereo image. I'm not sure if you doing M/S but the "side" looks healthy. I would limit that, with a limiter and add around 2db more. It should be around -10/-12db in general. When you mute the "side", you would notice that some of the body of the snare and the room are not present on the "mid". You can compensate by adding some mid-freq to the snare and with a mono reverb ("medium room" here I guess, but mixed very low in volume). By principle you should be able to listen to the "mid" from start to finish a as a full track. It should sound great on its own and the "side" should only compliment the "mid".

Another bit I can share here is MP3 compression and limiters. Recently I wrote an article about this. If your track is around -12db RMS (pure) for example you should limit at -0.5db or even lower, because otherwise your track will clip after decoding. Thats mainly due to the filtering applied on MP3 compression. After encoding you should import your MP3 back to Reaper and check if its clipping. Also if you are using software limiters, don't forget to oversample - for inter-sample peaks prevention.

Here is what I did over your "mastered" version.
Basically the things I wrote above. A minor improvement:

https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/454957/master_edit.mp3

What EQ and Compressor are you using btw?

Last edited by liteon; 03-19-2009 at 07:14 AM.
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Old 03-19-2009, 06:40 AM   #4
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Originally Posted by liteon View Post
Here is what I did over your "mastered" version.
Basically the things I wrote above. I minor improvement:

https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/454957/master_edit.mp3
WOW!!

The snare I blamed in the original master is now at the right place and more solid. Like the vocals also, upfront and clear and smooth. And the whole picture is more dense and nicely glued.

Irritating to me: the snare jumps arround from slight left center to very left depending on the particular stroke.
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Old 03-19-2009, 06:57 AM   #5
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I think you improved it a good bit on the 2nd attempt. I still might de-ess the vocals a bit more. Otherwise nicely done.
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Old 03-19-2009, 07:13 AM   #6
Wolffman
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Quote:
Originally Posted by liteon View Post
What I would do more to the "mastered" version, is add slightly amount of stereo image. I'm not sure if you doing M/S but the "side" looks healthy. I would limit that, with a limiter and add around 2db more. It should be around -10/-12db in general. When you mute the "side", you would notice that some of the body of the snare and the room are not present on the "mid". You can compensate by adding some mid-freq to the snare and with a mono reverb ("medium room" here I guess, but mixed very low in volume). By principle you should be able to listen to the "mid" from start to finish a as a full track. I should sound great on its own and the "side" should only compliment the "mid".


Here is what I did over your "mastered" version.
Basically the things I wrote above. I minor improvement:

https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/454957/master_edit.mp3

What EQ and Compressor are you using btw?
Thankyou for taking the time to listen & for your input.
unfortunatly i'm not up to speed on M/S processing at all, being reletivly new to recording /mixing (about 18 months now ), so what your talking about is over my head i'm affraid. I would certainly like to know how you go about it though.
I was just working with a 24/44.1 stereo file of this song so i'm wondering how i would add mid-freq & mono verb to the snare on this stereo track ?

Plugins used on my master are bootsy's NastyLF & NastyHF & Nasty tabletop, ReaEQ,SIR,ReaComp,ReaXcomp & Stillwells Event-Horizon

Cheers
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Old 03-19-2009, 08:21 AM   #7
liteon
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolffman View Post
Thankyou for taking the time to listen & for your input.
unfortunatly i'm not up to speed on M/S processing at all, being reletivly new to recording /mixing (about 18 months now ), so what your talking about is over my head i'm affraid. I would certainly like to know how you go about it though.
I was just working with a 24/44.1 stereo file of this song so i'm wondering how i would add mid-freq & mono verb to the snare on this stereo track ?

Plugins used on my master are bootsy's NastyLF & NastyHF & Nasty tabletop, ReaEQ,SIR,ReaComp,ReaXcomp & Stillwells Event-Horizon

Cheers
I must say again you did a great job with the given tools

Ah yes M/S, so....download this free plug by Voxengo:
http://www.voxengo.com/product/msed/

As you may know, a stereo track can be separated into mid(mono) signal and side(stereo) signal, where:

mid = left + right
side = left - right

Copy the stereo mix on two separate tracks:
Place this Voxengo plugin on both.
- On the first track move the "side" knob to -inf.
- On the second track move the "mid" knob to -inf.

(Alternatively you can do some routing)

Now you have your mid-side setup ready. The first track will be your "mono" signal the second track will be your "stereo" signal. And now you can process them separately.

Try soloing one of the tracks and you will hear the effect of your processing only on this track. I've added a reverb and some eq on the "mid". But make sure that "mid" track stays mono after the processing.

And thats it...
Both tracks should sound good. But as I've said in the previous post the "mid" should have good tonal balance on its own, "side" only compliments.
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Old 03-19-2009, 05:49 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by liteon View Post
I must say again you did a great job with the given tools

Ah yes M/S, so....download this free plug by Voxengo:
http://www.voxengo.com/product/msed/

As you may know, a stereo track can be separated into mid(mono) signal and side(stereo) signal, where:

mid = left + right
side = left - right

Copy the stereo mix on two separate tracks:
Place this Voxengo plugin on both.
- On the first track move the "side" knob to -inf.
- On the second track move the "mid" knob to -inf.

(Alternatively you can do some routing)

Now you have your mid-side setup ready. The first track will be your "mono" signal the second track will be your "stereo" signal. And now you can process them separately.

Try soloing one of the tracks and you will hear the effect of your processing only on this track. I've added a reverb and some eq on the "mid". But make sure that "mid" track stays mono after the processing.

And thats it...
Both tracks should sound good. But as I've said in the previous post the "mid" should have good tonal balance on its own, "side" only compliments.
Well.... I set up the voxengo MSED plugin as you recomended, but all i've managed to do is completely ruin my track , so I was wondering if you could post the .rpp you used or maybe a track template so I can see exactly how you've set things up, Whatever you've done its certainly a big improvement on my attempt.

Thanks again
Wolffman
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Old 03-19-2009, 07:11 PM   #9
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Great job man. I suck at mastering beyond just the basic stuff.

Last edited by Lawrence; 03-19-2009 at 07:38 PM.
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Old 03-20-2009, 05:38 AM   #10
liteon
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolffman View Post
Well.... I set up the voxengo MSED plugin as you recomended, but all i've managed to do is completely ruin my track , so I was wondering if you could post the .rpp you used or maybe a track template so I can see exactly how you've set things up, Whatever you've done its certainly a big improvement on my attempt.

Thanks again
Wolffman
Good day Wolffman,

Here is a project template:

Track1 (stereo mix) sends to Track2(mid) and Tracks3(side)
But Track1 does not send to the master channel.

https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/456875/MSED.RPP
copy to -> USER\Application Data\REAPER\ProjectTemplates

I suggest you use linear-phase EQ like ReaFir but don't over do it. I think I've only added a super small boost around 500hz to the MID, while cutting small amount from the SIDE at the same freq. Then some more volume to the SIDE while limiting and thats all.

Would love to hear the official master track...

Last edited by liteon; 03-20-2009 at 08:50 AM.
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Old 03-20-2009, 05:56 AM   #11
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I can hear the song 'pump and breath' a bit much from the compression. The most obvious example is at 1:07 with the sustained vocal note dipping on each bass note. You might be able to get around this by using a multiband compression to compress the kick and bass seperately to the rest of the spectrum. Or, if you can go back to the mix, it'd be easier to have another look at bass compression there, rather than on the whole mix.

Nice performance, btw.
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Old 03-20-2009, 03:40 PM   #12
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liteon, Thanks for the template, that is actually how i had it set up myself after reading your earlier post, guess i went a little overboard in my first experience with M/S
I shall try your suggestions and post the results ( if i mannage to improve the result )

Cheers


nerdfactormax

Good call on the pumping compression, i'll address that as well.


Thanks to everyone for listening & your thoughts.
Much appreciated

Wolffman
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