Mastering Vs Biology

Hi all

In my last post, I went into detail on sculpting your sound, the art of shaping your instruments etc to work together, rather than fighting against one another. The tonal curve only has so much space, so you can only push so much into it. I’ll try to explain and not sound like a text book (tall order)

The ‘A’ curve is the closest measurement we have to that of the human ear. The ears sensitivity/accuracy doesn’t reach its peak performance until 85 db.  Mixing your work at really low volumes will usually trick you into adding too much bass into the mix. While mixing too loud will dull your ears to the low freq’s, and once again, you will push too much bass in.  A sound level meter won’t cost a fortune, and could be a good investment. Working on headphones can be extremely deceiving. If you’re forced to do so, buy a decent pair, andbe sure to at least check your work on speakers.

Note, if after working on a piece for some time, you experience all the bass/sub fall out of the mix, and become dull….you’re suffering ear fatigue!. If you ignore this and carry on going, you run the risk of wasting a lot of time. Better to walk away for an hour or so.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction

“Yeh, that’s physics Tone!”…indeed, its also very relevant in audio. Pushing in too much of any frequency will steal some away from a weaker area. Turn up the 100hz too much, the 7k disappears(example), and madly enough vice-versa. In fact any freq can swamp another if its gain is too high.

Check out this pic(taken in RMS mode), what chance did the upper frequencies have of being heard ?. The extreme low below 16hz gives a numbing effect. You can’t really hear it, but it steals the clarity from the rest, and will give you a headache. Then there’s the huge spike at 70ish hz. This is a classic example of covering frequencies. Deal with those 2 issues and the spike at 600ish and parts that were hardly audible come back.

I remember a while back, I had been mastering a track, that although initially sounded awful, was quite intact, just freq’s in the wrong priority order. I was feeling pretty happy with the difference I had made, but there was still something not right, harsh somehow, but I couldn’t pinpoint the freq range. The meters weren’t helping much, so I used a trick. I set a low pass filter and moved it up the spectrum untill I found the offender….17k. There’s very little definition up that high, but it was still partly obscuring the rest of the curve with a 2db lift.

I want lots of bass!

Then you shall have it, but only if that bass guitar/synth/kick etc has been recorded and mixed tightly enough to allow it. If the sculpting and compression hasn’t been done right, then it will stomp all over less powerful parts, including vocals, and that can’t be allowed!.

Filling the curve

This is a pic of the ‘A’ weighted curve. The idea is to fill it with your material. Notice how it isn’t a perfect curve, the ear is more sensitive in certain frequency areas. To make the perfect master, we have to please the ear by giving it just the right amounts in the right areas. Note the word just. I wrote an article on my own blog covering this very subject. In it I stated this: “if your mastering eq plugin only goes to .1 increments.. bin it!!”. Quite a statement, but I’ll stand by it.

Hardware aside, I’ve tried almost every mastering eq plugin known to man, out of which i trust 2. They will both step in 1hz increments (one actually goes to .1 below 100hz, SERIOUS accuracy), and they both move in 0.01 increments for gain. I did try a very transparent linear phase model from one of the big name companies, but it fell way short on accuracy. I never even managed to master one song with it!.

What’s my point?? . If that cut needs to be 1.01 db to leave enough for that freq to be heard, but not too much to steal away from another range, then rounding off to anything else isn’t good enough. I’ve read many posts etc from artists who attend their mastering session. This is a popular statement “I watched carefully, but the mastering engineer hardly seemed to be doing anything”. This is obviously a mix from a good quality studio, but a good  M E will nick 0.2 db from here, add .05 to there, but every choice will be the right Freq, Q/bandwidth to keep the image correct.

I’m about to make a rather bold statement based on both actual findings and gut feeling. I believe mix translation between speakers can be improved by maintaining curve integrity(now I sound like a text book). The way a speaker works is down to physics, different freq’s all pushing and pulling together to make the whole sound. Introduce holes/lacking freq areas into that equation creates lack of continuity in waveforms. This in turn forces the speaker cone to pull against itself slightly. I welcome comments from other M E’s/audio pro’s on the subject.

“Tone, you’ve told us exactly nothing useful, “. I could certainly understand if it seems that way, but the fact is, all this theory is mastering.

I’ve heard this said many times before: “Tell me the secret to getting that sheen, that magic finish“, all the time expecting to be told about some special enhancer or compressor, that only mastering guys know about, but it’s all about getting the frequencies in the right order, and pushing and pulling the curve in the right places.

So, to bring my random little article to a close, here’s a big tip. When working on your material, pay close attention to every decision you make. Keep your ears open to the whole, rather than just the one item you’re adding/tweaking. Does it bend the curve out of shape, do other parts disappear?. If so, then find a way to make it work(eq sculpting/compression etc). This applies to both mixing and mastering.

Once again I’ve almost completely avoided the popular topics (compression, limiting), but they are just the tools. I’ll be starting to cover those in my next post, but I felt it was important to give you some kind of idea what you may need to fix, before blindly reaching for the wrong tools.

No matter how good they are, they will never do the job for you!.

Thanks for reading

Tone