Restoration Mastering

[razor7music]

Hello Group

I came across some old tracks of mine that I had completely abandoned, however, the older I get the more I'm trying to hang onto my old music pursuits.

The problem with these tracks is that I only have the stereo version- no stems. The bigger issue is that they were recorded before I had a clue what EQing was and what it was used for; as a result, almost the entire mix is one big muddy blob in the mid frequencies.

I have CbB, Sound Forge, and Wavelab, as well as many processing plug-ins, including an older version of Izotope Rx.

Does anyone know where I can start, or will I just be swapping the poor mix in one band just to create a new mess in another?

Thanks!

Edited April 2, 2021 by razor7music

[treesha]

Not at my computer but if i recall izotope has a master rebalance feature that might be helpful. I hang on to old stuff too. 

[razor7music]

2 hours ago, treesha said:

Not at my computer but if i recall izotope has a master rebalance feature that might be helpful. I hang on to old stuff too. 

Awesome @treesha

I have Rx2. I took a quick look and I don't see that particular name in the menu.

Any ideas are appreciated!

 

Thank  you!!

Edited April 3, 2021 by razor7music

[Sidney Earl Goodroe]

Rebalance is part of Ozone.

[treesha]

Here is where it is included....”Master Rebalance is a new module to Ozone 9. Master Rebalance can be used to make changes in level to the bass, vocal, or drums of your audio file empowering you to address necessary gain changes in the mastering stage without needing direct access to the mix.”  

Also 

Music Rebalance

“Also new in RX 7 is Music Rebalance, a powerful source separation tool that allows you to enhance or isolate elements of an audio track. Drums too loud? Vocals not loud enough? Are other instruments too present or is percussion not punchy enough? Easily re-animate a mix using its four sliders. You can also create instrumental versions of songs by removing the vocal elements, or isolate the vocal to prepare a remix.”

From the little i have experimented with them they do some separating and i would try these on my old live band recordings if i ever got around to that ha

[RBH]

You can do a lot in CbB alone. Experimenting with multi -band compression and eq and channel tools can  change a  lot. There is a new trend to have single do it all plug-do all things possible. They work really good. The presets can be a good starting place and you can learn quickly by sort of reverse engineering them. I think some are a little over the top.

There's a production techniques forum here,  this is a good thread to add to it.

Edited April 3, 2021 by RBH

[Blogospherianman]

+1 for Music Rebalance.  I like to render to 4 separate stems via rebalance (when multitrack stems are unavailable).  Allows to have Vox, Bass, Percussion and Other separate for different treatment and/or balance.

[razor7music]

I don't have Ozone, but thanks anyway.

[Starship Krupa]

I've done a bit of polishing of challenging material like phone captures and old cassette recordings. I actually find it great fun to see how good I can make a poor recording sound.

The tools I turn loose on them are EQ (using a plug-in like MEqualizer that can do mid, side, left and right independently is the best) stereo image processing (Voxengo MSED, and JST Sidewidener or Polyverse Wider), and transient shaping (I've used fairly simple ones in the past, but I acquired WA Production Imprint multiband transient shaper several months back and am looking forward to deploying it on one of these someday). The transient shaper can bring up or push down various elements in a mix by emphasizing attack and decay.

[John Vere]

One tool that has worked for me is BBE sonic maximizer   It brings out harmonic overtones sort of like tube overdrive does.

I’ve never used it on a finished song but it certainly works with badly recorded drums or bass to get that mud out. 
 

I read once were someone took a dull recording and copied it to 6 tracks and then processed each to highlight parts and then used these to remix. I think it might work but would be careful about phase issues 

Edited April 3, 2021 by John Vere

[Glenn Stanton]

12 hours ago, Blogospherianman said:

+1 for Music Rebalance.  I like to render to 4 separate stems via rebalance (when multitrack stems are unavailable).  Allows to have Vox, Bass, Percussion and Other separate for different treatment and/or balance.

yep same here. plus with RX7 (or later, perhaps earlier as well) - de-reverb, de-noise, etc all help.

on the simpler "synthetic" stems - capture a MIDI of each from Melodyne, use it for soft-synth replacements, and just keep the vocal or lead solo ?  (sort of like using new paint on a Sistine Chapel ceiling when needed ? )

Edited April 3, 2021 by Glenn Stanton

[Starship Krupa]

Excellent advice from John regarding the Maximizer or similar harmonic enhancement tools on old recordings.

Something I neglected to mention earlier, since you're trying to give the old mix a better overall tonal balance, reference it against a better-mixed song while using a spectrum analyzer on each.

My choice for spectrum analyzers is Meldaproduction MAnalyzer (nice because there's fully functional free version), and Voxengo SPAN is another popular choice. I prefer MAnalyzer because it shows numeric readouts on the peaks, which would help with that midrange lump. MAnalyzer also comes with presets that allow you to overlay analyses of tracks in a variety of genres for comparison. And your analysis can be copied and pasted into MEqualizer for direct reference while you're working on it.