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The ART of

MIXING &

MASTERING

KOSMAS LAPATAS

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[The Art of Mixing & Mastering] Author: [©Kosmas Lapatas, ©2014]

Publishing House: Omnibus Press

Omnibus Press 14/15 Berners Street London W1T 3LJ All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

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THE AUTHOR

Kosmas Lapatas studied Classical and Modern Piano,

Harmony, Counterpoint, Fugue (Athens Conservatory),

Composition (MIT), Musicology (ACG), Music Technology

(GIT), Audio Engineering (RID) and Music Therapy (SHA).

He has performed as soloist and accompanist with various

orchestras and at various music halls, and he has taught at

prestigious colleges, conservatories, private schools and

institutions.

He is a member of the International Association of Piano

Teachers, the Greek Association of Primary Education

Teachers, the Greek Society for Music Education, the Music

Producers Guild, and the International Alliance of Composers.

His Fellowships include institutions such as the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Georgia Institute of

Technology, the Emory University, the State University of New

York, the Institute of Education and the Recording Institute of

Detroit.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank ALL the people that have put

their faith on me and my work all these years, my

students, my colleagues and my everlasting friend,

soul mate and supporter Gianna Tzanoukaki.

FOREWORD

This book is divided into FOUR sections: MIXING

EXPLAINED, MASTERING ESSENTIALS,

MASTERING EXPLAINED and MY MASTERING.

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MIXING EXPLAINED

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The purpose of mixing is to take all the recorded

tracks from a session and put them together, so that

the listener hears exactly what you want them to

hear. It is an extremely complicated and time

consuming task, which as you might expect, doesn't

just involve setting volumes and panoramas. There

are three fundamental areas to focus on. These are

volume & pan, spectral coverage and spatial

positioning. While the principals of volume & pan

are well known, the latter two may be a little less

obvious.

So let's cover the basics. Looking at audio

waveforms shows you the level and little more.

Similarly, when looking at a spectrogram, the levels

of bass may be apparent but little else. Our brain

however is exceptional at decoding these audio

signals. Not only can it analyze levels, it can

distinguish between lots of them, and most of all it

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is able to decode the spectral domain with quite

astounding results. It can separate individual

frequencies, single out instruments including their

harmonics, compare phase differences in order to

detect the instrument location and even recognize

echos to further improve the sense of location and

space. The only downside of this however, is that

the brain expects lots of information within the

audio signal. And as a mixing engineer you have to

provide this.

SPECTRAL COVERAGE

If you were asked to put hundreds of small colorful

marbles on the floor and were then instructed to

find the one with a little star, it would probably take

some time. What if you were tasked to find the only

red marble, when each had just one color? It is

similar with audio - when you listen to 10

instruments all covering a range of 100Hz - 1kHz,

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you will have a hard time detecting which is which.

But when you divide a spectrum into several

intervals so that each instrument covers only a part

of it, the brain will do most of the hard work for you.

We call this spectral coverage.

This leads us to an obvious conclusion:

If we have multiple instruments occupying the same

part of the spectrum, there will probably be a need

to sacrifice something in order to clear the mix and

make it easier to listen to. Alternatively, we could

purposely use this effect to mask a chord structure,

for example that we don't want other musicians to

find out how to play. By simply playing another

instrument at the same time, it will generate several

harmonics, thus filling the spectrum, and making

analysis difficult.

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SPATIAL POSITIONING

Now imagine you are on a crowded bridge with

several street musicians. If the musicians are far

enough apart from each other, and you are fairly

central, you will be able to distinguish what each are

playing and where they are, even blindfolded. If

they are all in the same place however, you will

probably still be able to determine where they are,

but not who is who. This is because they are

generating similar echoes and the so-called direct

signal, which is the wave that comes directly from

the instrument into our ears without any

reflections, will also be similar. Let's look at it

physically.

Direct wave

When any of these musicians generates a sound,

audio waves will go in all directions from them. Our

brains are able to detect even tiny time differences

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with sound waves, so distance matters a lot. You

first receive the direct wave. If the musician was on

your left, then the signal will be intercepted by the

left ear first, with the right ear receiving the wave

after a little delay, or possibly even not at all. If the

musician is in front of you, both ears will get the

signal, but one may receive it a few microseconds

earlier than the other, which makes the brain say

"OK, it's a little to the right".

Echoes

After receiving the direct wave your ears start to

pick up echoes. The sound has been spread in all

directions and reflected, so you may intercept

echoes from many things around you and also

echoes of the echoes etc. Each of these reflections

causes the sound to lose energy, until it eventually

fades out completely. The time this takes depends

largely on where you are. There will be few echoes

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in the desert for instance, as sand is not exactly an

ideal reflective surface. However, in a church, the

stone reflects sound very well and there are many

walls, so each wave generates multiple echoes until

you have the full ambience, associated with

churches.

Example

Now let's say you are stood next to a wall on your

right, and a musician is playing a few meters in front

of you and to the left. Your left ear will receive the

direct waves and then the echoes. There is nothing

on your left side, so your left ear will not gather

many reflections. Your right ear will start catching

many echoes from all the waves thrown into the

wall, reflected from the floor and ceiling etc. Your

brain can derive a lot from this information. The

direct wave arrives at the left ear first, so the sound

source is on the left. The many echoes on your right

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indicate that there is some big obstacle on your

right side, from a material that reflects the sound a

lot, possibly stone. Some reflections sound 'metallic'

which may indicate ironwork, some are dull (with

less highs and bass) which suggest perhaps

blankets or curtains. If the echoes go away quickly,

then there are probably no other major objects

around you. Your left ear picks up some reflections

from the floor and ceiling, which tells the brain how

tall the room is. From the delay between the direct

wave and the first echo it can even work out, how

far away the wall is to you on your right. And so on.

The brain is an amazing organ!

The brain is able to analyze things that we can

hardly simulate, so when mixing, we should try to

keep things simple to acquire as clean a sound as

possible. Our aim is to move all sound sources to

different places. If not, the mix will sound crowded

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and the listener will feel like all of the instruments

are located in the same place. If the mix is over

complicated, the listener may lose a sense of space

as the echoes will just not correspond to each other

(as if the wall is on your right in one track, but on

your left in another).

DYNAMICS & TRACK PREPROCESSING

Very often you need to gate and compress tracks.

Gating ensures there won't be any residual noise in

the silent parts of the track. Compression makes the

track level uniform, which is necessary when

adjusting volumes. Just imagine what would happen

if you mix the chorus and then go to the verse only

to discover that the levels are completely different.

Compressors can also heavily affect the final sound

of the track, so it is good practice to use them at the

start of the mixing process. See the compression

tutorial for more information on using

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compressors. Next it may be necessary to equalize

some tracks. Drums for example, rarely sound good

without a fairly high amount of equalization. There

will be more equalization added later, but at this

stage we just need to get an idea about how the

tracks should sound. After this step you should have

all the tracks prepared. They should sound good

and their levels should be more or less stable

(which doesn't mean that the whole song should

have the same loudness!). Modern hosts provide

reasonably advanced routing capabilities, so if you

have several vocals or doubled background guitars

for example, you may decide on grouping these

tracks together. Creating a group track, allows you

to adjust the advanced parameters of multiple

tracks at once and can help with work flow (mixing

will take only 4 hours as opposed to 40!).

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PRIORITIES

Remember our goal is - to tell the listener what to

hear, and where it is located. Now we have all tracks

prepared, we need to decide which of them we wish

to highlight and which should be placed in the

background. Try listening passively to some CD's

and see if you can get a 'feel' for the priority order

that was used. It may surprise you to discover how

quickly your brain can pick this up. Most

commercial recordings look like this:

1) Lead vocals & solo instruments

2) Drums & percussion

3) Bass

4) Guitars, pianos & background instruments

5) Background percussion (shakers, conga etc.)

6) Pads and ambience

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PANORAMA & SPATIAL POSITIONING

It may seem odd to start with this especially as you

will probably need to tweak it again later. But in my

opinion it is beneficial to do it at this stage, because

it tends to significantly change the sound character

and levels of the mix. Firstly you should decide upon

a particular position and space for each of the

instruments according to your priority list.

Generally the more important the track is, the closer

it should seem. It may help to try and visualize the

instruments as if they were on stage albeit with the

drummer and bassist stood in front of the guitarists!

Use the fact that all the tracks have been recorded

separately to your advantage. You have the

conditions that real time mixing engineers can only

dream of. How about making your listeners feel like

they are between the musicians? Or even moving

the singer into the listener's head! There are many

approaches to this. You may wish to solo each track

and setup the panoramas, delays and reverbs, or

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you could play all of them, adjust the levels

temporarily and then process them. Either way you

will probably return to this point later when

tweaking the whole mix.

LEAD VOCALS AND SOLO INSTRUMENTS

Lead vocals and solos are almost always panned to

the center and don't have much ambience as it tends

to make them 'somewhere in the room' rather than

'close to you'. Maybe it is because people like the

singers, I don't know :). If you want to add some

reverb, try using a middle or large room setting with

a depth of around 10% and no or minimal pre-delay.

By making it minimal we ensure it will be 'close'.

This will give the vocal some space.

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DRUMS & PERCUSSION

Drums and percussion are usually the most difficult

to mix, because they contain such a variety of

different sounds and recording them properly is an

art in itself. To ensure the drums won't sound like a

huge noisy ball, most engineers apply quite drastic

pans to each track. This ensures that each of the

tracks will be easy to distinguish in the stereo field

albeit at the expense of being artificially located in

space. The drums should have an overall reverb

applied giving them more space and bringing them

right behind the singer. I'd recommend a larger

room with a depth of around 20% and just a little

pre-delay. Drums also usually contain some bass

frequencies (bass drum, djembe etc.). In general it

is not a good idea to use a reverb on low-frequency.

So it's usual to use a high-pass filter on the reverb

or equalize the reverberation signal.

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BASS

Bass can be very challenging for real time mixing

especially in areas of poor acoustics, because low-

frequency echoes are very hard to manage. This

restricts us to placing it in the center with very little

or no reverb at all. As a result, bass won't fulfill our

spatial positioning requirements because it won't

be placed anywhere (except for the ambience in the

recorded track itself). However, this is preferable to

crowding the bass spectrum. As a general rule, it's

usually a mistake to put reverb on low-frequency

tracks. If you really want some ambience, use a

master track overall reverb.

GUITARS, PIANOS & BACKGROUND

INSTRUMENTS

According to our priority list these are classed as

background instruments, so they must appear as

such. Therefore don't be afraid to apply quite a lot

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of pan and reverberation. Our first task is to decide

which track should be where. If you have 2 guitars,

make your decision based on the drums you already

have in the mix. For example, if the first guitar is

more high-pitched, place it on the opposite side to

the hi-hat, which is also high pitched. Another

example is when you have a guitar and a piano.

Since the guitar is usually more rhythmical than the

piano, you may want to place it on the less

rhythmical side, again on the opposite side of the hi-

hat. Think about placement and how it affects other

instruments, but most of all - experiment...

BACKGROUND PERCUSSION

These instruments usually support the rhythm and

fill the space, but they typically don't have an

important musical meaning. It is common to pan

them slightly (to ensure they seem far away) and

give them some distant ambience.

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PADS AND AMBIENCE

Many music genres contain these sounds which you

may not even notice at first. Yet without them, the

music would sound very different. In most cases

these are already very 'stereophonic' and ambient,

so you may decide to leave them. But if they are too

upfront, you could send them through a large room

or hall. It's usual to leave them panned close to the

center, because otherwise they would lose their

natural ambience, which is after all the reason we

are using them. Sometimes it may be useful to

actually collapse their ambience a little to put them

further away.

VOLUMES

Although many presume that this is the hardest

step, it is technically the simplest one. Your aim is to

support the order of instruments defined earlier.

The idea is, when you play the mix and let your

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brain analyze the recording, you should notice

instruments one by one in that order. So if the first

thing you notice is the guitar, there's something

wrong because there are other tracks you should

hear first, such as vocals or drums. It is always good

practice to jump through the different parts of the

song, so that when your brain adjusts to the guitar

being in the front during the solo, it can regain the

objectivity during the verses, when the guitar

should be strictly in the background, not interfering

with the main vocal. It is also good to take breaks

during mixing and to repeatedly check other songs

of the same genre. And finally, try to switch back

into the spatial positioning step often to help

maintain the order.

SPECTRAL COVERAGE

In many cases you may find that you are not be able

to create a really clean mix without this step, simply

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because multiple tracks are colliding in the spectral

domain. In most cases you should hear the problem.

Common cases are bass vs. bass drum, multiple

guitars, guitar vs. vocal etc.

BASS VS. BASS DRUM

A bass drum almost always resonates somewhere

around 80-120Hz. That's low enough to provide the

typical bass hit. Note that the drum usually

generates lots of sub-bass frequencies as well

(around 50-80Hz). The bass guitar is placed in a

similar location, usually between 80-300Hz. So

what happens at 80-120Hz? Firstly, the song

arrangement may be good enough, so that this

collision actually doesn't matter. The bass drum

may be duplicating the bass guitar rhythm, and also

supporting it. In most cases however, it's not that

simple. The idea is that the bass drum needs the

very low frequencies that make the low 'pulse' and

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the high frequencies to give it some punch (it is very

hard to create a bass sound with a very short attack,

because the brain has a resolution of about 10ms,

which is 100Hz, so we could theoretically

distinguish each single sine wave in this spectrum!

So could you create a 100Hz sine with an attack of

1ms?). The bass guitar on the other hand should not

sound too low, as it would only make a big dull mess

on sub woofers (there are exceptions, such as

drum'n'bass, though). There is also another brain

phenomenon. As we know, each instrument

generates harmonics (multiples of the fundamental

frequency, i.e. the tone). Now when you remove the

fundamental frequency, the brain may still be able

to 'feel' it just by analyzing the harmonics. So when

our bass drum needs 100Hz, and the bass guitar

sounds at 100Hz as well, you may radically remove

100Hz from the bass guitar, because the brain

should still 'recover' it from the other harmonic

parts of the bass guitar track. We can use a high-

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pass or low-shelf filter on the bass guitar track and

slide it somewhere, so that both instruments are

clear enough. You may also use a peak filter to

diminish frequencies above say 100Hz from the

bass drum track, as they are usually not needed. It's

all about compromise. If the 2 tracks collide, you

will have to take something out, whether you like it

or not. Note that each single track may then sound

thin or empty, but in the mix it will fit well, and that

is what's important!

MULTIPLE GUITARS

Guitarists are well known for being exhibitionists!

They often make such sonic chaos just to show they

can play, which unfortunately means one thing - if

multiple guitars collide, then the problem is often

with the guitarist.

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For example, you may have two rhythm guitars - if

the arrangement is good, then both guitars can

either play together or fill the spaces between each

other. If half of the notes are together and half are

not, then it often sounds cluttered. The guitars

themselves may sound good and full, but it may be

almost impossible to add anything. You can try

panning them a little in opposite directions, but

although this may give a little more space it will not

remove the rhythmical jumble. In the case of

distorted guitars, used in some harder music, these

are typically similar in rhythm so the only problem

is that they occupy a similar spectrum, which then

gets too crowded. Usually one of the guitars is

playing higher notes and the other lower ones, so

the solution is as before - remove lower frequencies

from the high pitched guitar and remove higher

frequencies from the low pitched guitar. Using

low/high-pass filters may be too harsh in this case,

so you may want to stick with shelf filters. The art is

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to find the best cut-off frequencies and Q's, so that

both still sound good, while each retains a distinct

tone. Finally you should also note, that there are

cases when the 'mess' is actually desirable. Such as

in a very hard part of a metal song, where the low-

end should "kill" the listener. And what's simpler

than combining multiple guitars and even bass to

achieve this?

VOCALS VS. GUITAR

Vocals have the highest priority, which means if you

have to sacrifice something, let it be the guitar. On

the other hand, it's quite common to remove

everything below around 200Hz from the vocal and

that may help on its own. If you suspect that the

vocals and the guitar are in a similar spectrum, you

can easily find out using an analyzer. To solve the

problem, you may want to use a peak filter with

negative gain on the guitar track and place it just at

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the highest peak in the vocal spectrum. That would

diminish the most problematic frequencies. If you

are somewhat experienced, you could also try using

a light side-chain compressor on the guitar track, by

sending the vocal track into the side-chain and

filtering it, so that only the problematic frequencies

are measured by the compressor. The idea is to

lower the volume of the guitar when problematic

peaks in the vocal occur. Or you may use a

multiband compressor, not that it would be simple,

but when it needs to be perfect, you should try every

tool you have.

GET BACK TO PREVIOUS STEPS

Mixing is rarely that simple to achieve in just a few

steps. So when you reach this point, it is probable

that something is still not right. If that's the case,

just check the spatial positioning, volumes etc.

again. If it seems OK, wait 24 hours and check again.

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If it still seems OK, well, you are finished. Render it,

and send it to the mastering engineer. You may

want to create a few different versions, maybe one

with the vocals a little higher, so that if there is a

problem, the mastering engineer can solve it

themselves. No master compression, equalization

(possibly just a little) or limiting should be used! All

of this is up to the mastering engineer. You may

want to do some light compression & equalization

during the mixing, to give you some idea of how it

will sound, but you should still export it without

these processors. Render it to the highest possible

quality (your project's sampling rate, usually

96kHz, 32-bit float),

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MASTERING

ESSENTIALS

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Mastering requires an entirely different “head” than

mixing. Mastering is the art of COMPROMISE;

knowing what’s possible and impossible, and

making decisions about what’s most import and in

the music. Before mastering, listen carefully to the

performance, the message of the music. In many

music genres, the vocal message is the most

important. In other styles, it’s the rhythm, in some

it’s intended distortion, and so on. Always start by

learning the EMOTION and the message of the

client’s music. Always relate your decisions to the

intended MESSAGE of the music. There is no “one-

size-fits-all” setting, and each song should be

approached from scratch.

BRIEF HISTORY

Originally, MASTERING was simply the process of

transferring a finished mix to the intended listening

medium, which at some time was 78rpm vinyl.

What is now commonly referred to as “mastering”

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is actually “pre-mastering”, i.e. preparing the audio

for its transmission to a finished “master”. The

process of this transmission is now typically

performed at duplication plants.

GOOD MASTERING

Well mastered records sound BETTER: bigger,

clearer, wider, more coherent and louder. They

have a TRACK SPACING that makes artistic sense,

highlighting the contrast and flow of the music.

They are free from POPS and CLICKS as well as any

NOISE that detracts from the music. A GOOD

mastering engineer is like a good DOCTOR, and the

first rule of his oath is do NO harm. If something

makes the mix sound worse, it should not be done.

BAD MASTERING

Badly mastered records actually sound worse than

the original mixes. They contain destroyed

balances, mangling high or low frequencies, and

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horrible distortion through an over-use of brick

wall limiters or clipping. You can probably tell a

BAD mastering when it sounds nothing like the mix

you sent in. MASTERING SHOULD BE ENHANCING

THE MIX, NOT CHANGING THE MIX. Any processing

that is done to the mix should be in the SPIRIT of

what already exists.

THE PROCESS

The typical mastering process begins with simply

listening to all the tracks. Each production, and each

product, must be treated as an INDIVIDUAL piece of

sound. Mastering can improve a terrible mix to an

extent and it can certainly take a mix from “good” to

“great” but it cannot make a TERRIBLE mix GREAT.

EQUIPMENT

The most important piece of equipment in any

mastering studio is the engineer’s pair of EARS, not

the equipment. Of course an ACCURATE acoustic

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environment and a decent MONITORING chain

(monitors and converters) are ESSENTIAL,

otherwise the mastering engineer will have no idea

what he is actually hearing and will have no

reference to base his decisions on.

MONITORING

With few exceptions, you won't find near-field

monitors in a professional mastering room. Near-

field monitoring was devised to overcome the

interference of poor control-room acoustics, but it's

far from perfect. It's almost impossible to locate

nearfield monitors without breaking a fundamental

acoustic rule: The length of the reflected signal path

to the ears should be at least 2 to 3 times the direct

signal path. Near-field monitoring also exaggerates

the amount of REVERBERATION and left-right

separation in a recording. A good mastering room

should be at least 20 feet long, preferably 30 feet,

and the monitors, if not in soffits, anchored to the

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floor, and placed several feet from walls and

corners.

FORMATS

The mastering engineer needs the highest

resolution version of the final mix that you have for

each song. 128khz/32bit would be ideal, but let's

face it, it’s RARE. Many mastering engineers will tell

you to use NO processing on the stereo bus at all. If

you are so confident of yourself do it. But DON’T use

Brick wall limiters in any case.

LEVELS

Part of mastering is bringing the audio up to

optimum level. Be aware though, SUPER LOUD

master with no dynamic range is GARBAGE. If you

want a super loud master then you will have to live

with a certain amount of distortion and pumping.

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LOUDNESS

Sequencing an album requires adjustment of the

levels of each tune. We've seen that the EAR judges

loudness by the AVERAGE, not peak levels of the

music. Normalization is the process of finding the

highest peak, and raising the gain until it reaches 0

dBFS. But do NOT use normalization to adjust the

relative loudness of tunes, or you will end up with

nonsense

WHY NOT LOUD

There is a scientific reason for not monitoring too

loudly. The louder you monitor, you can be fooled

into thinking music has more bass energy. Thus it is

extremely important to monitor at approximately

the same level as the ultimate listener to your

recording.

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HOW MUCH LOUD?

In a world where music is often through

headphones, iPods, iPhones and on car stereos, the

dynamic range has to be limited somewhat in order

that the quiet sections can be heard over the

background noise. It is possible to get a nice, loud

sounding master without completely destroying the

song however.

METERING

The EAR is the final arbiter of quality, but METERS

can help. The VU helps demonstrate if average

levels are too hot. While mastering, use the average

meter and glance at the peak meter. A popular

meter for detecting audible peaks is a quasi-peak

meter, or analog PPM, defined by an EBU standard.

DYNAMIC PROCESSING

Wide dynamic range material, such as classical

music, folk music, some jazz and other styles are

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often mastered WITHOUT any dynamics processing

at all. Most mastering engineers have discovered

that you can often hit 0 dBFS on a digital PPM

without hearing any distortion. Both compression

and limiting change the peak to average ratio of

music, and both tools reduce dynamic range. While

reducing dynamic range, it can "beef up" or "punch"

low level and mid-level passages to make a stronger

musical message.

MULTIBAND COMPRESSION

Multiband compression permits you to bring out

certain elements that appear to be weak in the mix,

such as the bass or bass drum, the vocal or guitars,

or the snare, literally changing the mix.

RADIO EDIT

Advertisements are created by marketing people,

whose goal is to sell products, and often use

ambiguous terms. The most ambiguous of those

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terms is RADIO ready. Almost no special

preparation is required to make a recording radio

ready. Think of your dynamics processor as a tool to

help create your sound, not to be used for radio

ready. The more compressed your material, the less

the transient impact of the drums, clarity of the

vocal syllables, and percussion. Subtle multi-band

compression and soft clipping can make you appear

louder on the radio. If you feel this compromises the

sound of the CD when played on the home system,

why not make a special compressed single just for

radio release. This gives you the best of both worlds.

EQUALIZATION

Most of us are familiar with the difference between

parametric and shelving equalizers . Very few

people know of a third and important curve that's

extremely useful in mastering: the BAXANDALL

curve. A Baxandall curve is applied to low or high

frequency boost/cuts. With a boost, instead of

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reaching a plateau (shelf), the Baxandall continues

to rise. With good monitoring, equalization changes

of less than 1/2 dB are audible, so subtlety counts.

You probably won't hear these changes in an instant

A/B comparison, but you will notice them over time.

DIGITAL

Many people have complained that digital recording

is harsh and bright. This is partly accurate. Digital

recording is extremely unforgiving; distortion in

preamplifiers, A/Ds, errors in mike placement are

mercilessly revealed. The mastering engineer

recognizes these defects and struggles to make a

pleasant-sounding result.

NOISE

Compression tends to amplify the NOISE in a

source: Tape hiss, preamp hiss, noisy guitar and

synth amplifiers can be perceived as problems. The

key to good-sounding noise reduction is NOT to

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remove all the noise, but to accept a small

improvement. An inaccurate or unrefined monitor

system not only causes incorrect equalization, but

also results in too much equalization. The more

accurate and linear your monitors, the less

equalization you will apply. Try to avoid adding

monitor correction equalizers; better to fix the

room or replace the loudspeakers.

STEREO BALANCE

Stereo balance must NOT be judged by comparing

channel meters. The only way to accurately adjust

stereo balance is by EAR. The Finalizer provides

powerful techniques for adjusting stereo imaging.

DAW

Mastering benefits from the digital audio

workstation. The DAW lets you make edits, smooth

fades, emphasize or de-emphasize the loudness of

sections, Redbooks etc.

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WHO SHOULD DO THE MASTERING?

One of the main advantages of hiring a mastering

engineer to master your record is the FRESH

perspective that he brings to proceedings. He can

HEAR things in your mix that you can’t because he

listens as a LISTENER not as someone who has been

mixing the song for 10 hours. If mastering is done

by the mix engineer then the mastering phase does

not make sense. If your mixing engineer could spot

the obvious flaws then you wouldn’t need

mastering in the first place.

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MASTERING

EXPLAINED

- 44 -

THE BEST MASTERING IS NO MASTERING

If you think your mix is perfect as is, don't process

it anymore. Each step in the processing chain adds

extra noise and distortion, digital or analog, it is

always there.

GET THE BEST MIX QUALITY YOU CAN!

The better the mix, the less processing needed at the

mastering stage. However, your mixes should not

contain compression or be equalized too much.

Once something has been changed, it is hard to undo

it.

ALWAYS MASTER AT 96 KHZ.

Alternatively, you can use up-sampling, however

the quality will always be worse and your mix

quality is already degraded from being sampled at a

lower rate. Many low-end studios still record in 44

kHz. If this is the case, you should use your DAW

(e.g. Sequoia) to increase the sampling rate of the

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mix to 96kHz for mastering, and then convert it

back to 44 kHz after completion, ideally with some

dithering applied.

ALWAYS EXPORT YOUR MIXES IN 32-BIT

FLOATING POINT FORMAT.

Audio degradation when truncated to 24-bits is

typically not audible, but further processing can

exaggerate the defects. 16-bit audio degradation is

often audible on good studio monitors. Be aware

that your ears will soon think your sound is great

even if it is not. You should always master in a DAW

where you can switch between tracks, so you can

listen to your current audio, the original, and your

reference tracks you have chosen for comparison.

Before you start, prepare these in your DAW project

(e.g. in Sequoia), and choose at least one

professionally mixed song (ideally up to 10!) for

guidance.

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THE 'LOUDNESS WAR' IS NOT A GOOD THING.

Modern pop-songs have almost no dynamic range

compared to recordings made 20 years ago. It all

started when someone discovered that songs sound

better when they are played louder. Modern digital

processors are able to increase the volume of songs

so much, that when compared to their older

versions, they sound many times louder. However

the dynamic range is SACRIFICED. You can hear that

most modern songs sound the same from beginning

to end because removing the transients, in order to

increase the volume to these incredible levels,

removes dynamics of the music. Therefore, always

increase the volume only as much as necessary, not

one single dB more! It may sound better, but only

for a few seconds!

NO PEAKING!

You will create a chain of effects, with each one

performing some operation on the sound and very

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often this sound may get amplified. Most plugins

have a GAIN control and a PEAK meter to ensure

that the output isn't clipping. It may be in the red

zone, but not above, otherwise the sound may get

distorted, when bypassing an effect for example.

Moreover, if the output of every effect has

approximately the same level as the input, then you

may bypass any effect in the chain to check the

sound without it. It doesn't always work, but it can

help a little.

MANAGE THE STEREO FIELD

One very hard task of a mixing engineer is to

prepare a room for the instruments. In a good mix

your brain should be able to identify each single

sound source and place it somewhere in the space.

This can be managed by various panoramas,

reverbs and delays. When mastering you should

ensure that this depth of field is PRESERVED. You

can start by checking if there is a good amount of

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stereo field and correct it if necessary. It's usually

good to keep the bass more monophonic, for

example. The goal is not to make an artificially

stereo-sounding output, but to control the stereo

content. The resulting signal in the stereo field view

on the right should form a nice vertical ellipse, not

too wide, and not too thin. Finally you should check

for MONO compatibility. Remember that even in the

21st century your recordings should be mono

compatible! When you compare the stereo and

mono recordings, the monophonic one loses the

stereo content, but it should still have some depth

and there should be no significant frequency loss

caused by phase cancellations. In extreme yet

typical cases, a track may completely disappear

when played in mono. Poor mono compatibility at

this stage, means you will have little choice but to

obtain a remix as in most cases this cannot be fixed

during mastering.

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BALANCE THE SPECTRAL CONTENT

Spectral content describes proportions of

frequencies in the audio. Mixes rarely have good

overall spectral content, but to be fair, that is not the

aim of mixing! You can usually fix this using an

equalizer, however very often these disproportions

are not constant and are changing during the song.

Spectral content affects the overall loudness a lot.

Our brain adaptively masks silent frequencies in

order to let us listen to what is important - what is

loud. Therefore the loudest recording has equal

power over most frequencies consistently. There is

an extreme case - WHITE NOISE. It is a signal that

has the same magnitude for all frequencies. I bet it

is louder than any of your recordings! Keep in mind,

that every dB you increase in loudness is lost

somewhere else. Spectral balancing and other

problems are generally fixed using multiband

compressors. They will also reduce the dynamic

range. Generally, you use equally distributed bands,

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about 4 or 5 is usually enough. Set the threshold of

each band to a similar value, and the ratio to about

2:1 and then tweak all of the bands. Remember, the

less you change the better.

COMPRESSION.

As I mentioned already, the modern trend is to over-

compress recordings in order to make them LOUD

from beginning to end. So, please read the following

advice and remember - if you don't need it, don't do

it!

MACRODYNAMICS

Your first aim is to make your song sound consistent

- ensure each refrain is not much louder than a

verse etc. The best way to do this is using

ENVELOPES in your DAW to manually manipulate

the gain. Ratio: the higher the ratio is, the more

reduction and loudness you will get, and, the more

dynamics you will lose. Set it at 1.5:1 for starters,

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then play the chorus and the verse to check if they

are similar enough.

MICRODYNAMICS

You may want to remove peaks and make it sound

louder. We repeat again - if you don't need it, don't

do it! The loudness will be increased in the final part

as well! Attack time: short, let's say 10ms. Release

time: short, let's say 100ms. RMS length: short, but

probably not minimal (peak). Threshold: overall

level should be pretty consistent due to the

previous macrodynamics stage. So play the chorus

and set the threshold slightly below the current

level.

EQUALIZATION.

This will finally make the spectrum sound

professional. This is the most IMPORTANT part.

Even the compression and limiting stages are

expendable, but this has to be present. Some of you

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are may wonder why I have put the equalization

after the dynamics. This is because the compression

may change the spectral content, so I feel it's

prudent to put the equalizer here although it is your

choice.

LIMITING.

Play the loudest part of the song. Move the

Threshold to 0dB if it's not there already. Now there

is no limiting, so only clipping or saturation is

performed. Watch the peak meter and use the Input

gain to lower it if necessary. The input should not be

peaking! Decrease the Threshold very slowly to the

point where the peak meter touches the 0dB limit.

Not a single dB more, unless you want a crunchy

master. If you make the threshold too low, the

output will get distorted. The meter above the peak

meter is called the gain reduction meter and shows

how much of the track dynamics you have lost. It

should be tapping -6dB at most. You can get more

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transparent limiting using a MULTIBAND limiter,

but be extremely careful! Multiband limiters can

provide a higher level of loudness than single-band

limiters just by increasing the Input gain parameter.

Because each band is limited separately, by

increasing the input gain you also balance the

spectrum and get closer to the white noise we

talked about above. This tricks the brain into

thinking that it sounds better. Working with a

multiband limiter is not too difficult. Just increase

the input gain and watch the meters on the right,

especially R, the gain reduction meter, and S, the

saturation reduction meter. Saturation reduction

causes distortions, and gain reduction causes

pumping. Finally, when you think some bands are

affected more than others, you can use separate

thresholds or band input gains for them. Listen

closely to the results and if you hear any unpleasant

distortions, clicks or pops, increase the threshold

(decrease drive) or remove saturation. If none of

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this helps, decrease the input gain. If there are still

artifacts present, bypass the limiter as it is very

probable that the distortions are generated by any

of the previous steps or are even contained within

the mix! Lower the ceiling parameter to say -0.2dB.

This is basically just output gain, but some media

can by its nature create output levels after decoding

higher than the original. So despite we have room to

0dB, it is a good idea to keep the output slightly

lower. And finally, the golden rule as usual - LISTEN.

Switch between tracks and COMPARE. Don't make

your recording louder than the comparison, there is

too much to lose. Compare it to the original too, to

see if the mastering has helped. And don't forget to

listen to the quiet parts of the song as well, since the

processing might also have amplified any noise etc.

- 55 -

EXPORTING THE RESULT.

When your master sounds good, go for a walk to

CLEAR your head. When you get back, which should

be at least a few hours later, listen again. Still sounds

good? Great! Use the export/mixdown feature of

your host to generate a wave file at the same audio

quality, preferably 96 kHz and 32-bit floats. At this

stage you can add some fade-ins/outs if necessary.

Now you have the finished recording at the highest

quality. Use your DAW to create a file in the format

you need. In most cases you will be down-sampling

to 44.1 kHz and decreasing resolution to 16-bits.

Dithering is recommended here. You probably

won't hear the difference, but when your recording

is played on a big concert system, someone might!

- 56 -

MY

MASTERING

- 57 -

MY PHILOSOPHY

The key to achieving a great sounding MASTER is to

start with a great sounding MIX. If you don’t get the

mix right first, MASTERING will compensate for the

mixing issues. Distortion and over-compression for

example are difficult to deal with. Distortion is

broadband noise, so it cannot be removed with EQ.

HOW I WORK

I spend at least THREE HOURS per song. I pay close

attention to the structure, balance, movement and

tonality of the mix before I determine what the song

needs. My motto is ‘’LESS IS MORE’’. I only use

processing that I believe is ABSOLUTELY necessary.

My adjustments are SUBTLE, I try to BALANCE and

ENHANCE your mix, NOT alter the character,

emotion or sound of it. That is why I use ‘’musically

perceived’’ LOUDNESS.

- 58 -

LOUDNESS WAR

If you use high compression, limiting or brick-walls,

you always LOSE musicality, energy and dynamics.

However, if you want your mix to be as loud and

proud as it can be, I will do it for you. I understand

that the majority of people these days listen to

music through iPods, iPhones and cheap ear-buds.

That is why I always provide TWO mastering

versions.

ALBUMS

When mastering an ALBUM I pay close attention to

the GAIN levels of each song, in relation to each of

the other songs. TONALITY is important, too. Some

mixes may be brighter, some may be recorded in

different places, and some may be mixed by

different engineers. I try to make the whole release

sound COHESIVE. I spend at least ONE DAY

mastering your album.

- 59 -

HOW TO PREPARE YOUR FILES FOR MASTERING

Bounce your song in –at least- 44khz/16bit

interleaved wav/aiff. Don't dither, don't normalize,

and don’t use limiters /compressors on the master

channel. Try to leave at least -6dB headroom.

MOST IMPORTANT!

Don't forget to mention your IDOL

band/album/song to make sure I'm after the sound

you want!

©Omnibus Press 2014