Mastering Info

[Carl P Clovis]

Here's a pretty good Read...

https://www.musictech.net/features/interviews/stem-mastering-cass-irvine-wired-masters/?utm_source=MusicTech&utm_campaign=dcaa98331d-MT_Weekly_Digest_W17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_174209224c-dcaa98331d-51976535

[Starise]

I scanned over it. Looks like this guy has all the right ideas. FWIW when talking about stems, this is basically what you have with most drum software and even some synth programs. In the case of drum software, you have an internal mixer and all the effects you probably need for the kit. Some choose to still strip out each track and send it to Cakewalk as  separate tracks. ...so what I'm saying is there's not an especially good reason to do that unless you don't like the program itself. Drums are probably the most common stem mixes. I suppose you can get deep into that with orchestral templates. You could send all the brass to a stem , all the violins etc.  It is possible to simply go into the main mix with only a stereo pair for a whole drum kit or a whole orchestra. Not that you can't get more specific in Cakewalk if this is what you want to do.

We seem to have gotten away from dedicated mastering programs like Wavelab and similar with everything mostly being in the DAW. Still I think there are good reasons to export a track and use one of those more dedicated programs, mainly if doing it helps you to concentrate more on the master. In a DAW I tend to like tweaking at all stages. It can't really be argued any more that no one else offers dithering. The decent daws all offer many of the same things the dedicated programs do.

On the loudness wars. With the Lufs standard out now mixes seem about half as loud as I remember before. Makes one want to pull out a nice limiter and bump it up some. This usually puts me in the red. I'm still sometimes trying to find that happy medium.

Edited April 26, 2019 by Starise

[craigb]

37 minutes ago, Starise said:

On the loudness wars. With the Lufs standard out now mixes seem about half as loud as I remember before. 

Nice!  The waves shouldn't all look like sausages.  I still remember this:

[Starise]

Well, I want it loud but I guess not that Loud. My ears  almost baked anyhow.

[bats brew]

i have come up with a mixing/mastering scheme i really like, and it's a bit different than i have done in the past

(which was to take a 24 bit/44.1khz stereo file out, and back into a dedicated mastering suite)

 

i have been mixing into the MASTER bus at -18 LUFS,

and running a limiter on my MAINS (master runs into mains) set for a ceiling of -3db, and lifting the level until i hit about -14LUFS on the Mains....

the ceiling gives me plenty of headroom for any mastering tweaks that might come later,

tho i am mixing to have what sounds like a 'finished' product directly off the mains.

 

at this point, i have my dynamic range where i like it,

and i can export the mix directly from the mains and leave it undithered, and have a 24 bit 48k high def finished song...

or, i can add dither at the limiter, bit rate to 16, push the ceiling up to -0.3 db, and export the mix as a 'streaming service' ready and redbook ready song...

or i can export the mix with the limiter bypassed, and take that file and put it thru my mastering processes and make it as hot as a commercial cd.

[Old Joad]

I went old school and bought a Master Link ML-9600 High Resolution Master Disk Recorder off of e-bay.

record right off cake walk onto Red Book CD...

[Starise]

I admit I don't like LUFS very much.  I've had to really adjust my gain staging to the limiter. Does often seem to need a second master after the white glove work to get LUFS right. The first time I ran a mix through a LUFS standard before master I almost couldn't hear it. I mean, sure you can always run your studio levels up a bit higher at the monitor amps. 

I think they could have come somewhere in between for levels. LUFS feels like I'm neutering my mixes.

[bats brew]

LUFS does nothing to your mix.

 

[Starise]

Agreed. I mean the overall volume of the mix.... Doesn't really matter in one context. If all the outlets that play music limit to it, then that's our threshold.