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Hi @Gregg

I’ve always done my own mix/mastering and I know they are separate disciplines, so I see this as an opportunity to learn and to expedite the time it takes you to make this a homogeneous AAA, platinum level compilation. :smiley:
Is there a way that you prefer to get a delivery like: true peak, sample rate, naming convention or something entirely different?

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Cheers for the nice words! And glad you are taking an interest in what will work best for me wrt the mastering.

In short: Everything gets SRCd to 96kHz, and boosted or attenuated to -18dB LUFS Integrated (or quieter if it won’t go that loud without clipping, sometimes on very dynamic material), as the very first thing I do, as that’s where I like my digital files to hit my analogue outboard chain for the best S/N ratio, and gives a more cohesive sound for every track. It also means less juggling of the analogue knobs from track to track.

Having said that, I can work with any file format and any level, but prefer 24 or ideally 32 float file renders, for sound quality, in whichever sample rate you have been mixing and rendering in, i.e. don’t unnecessarily SRC before submitting.

The other proviso is please no digital overs/clipping on the mix. You can use as much compression, limiting and clipping as you like, on individual tracks, busses, or the whole mix, if you like how it SOUNDS, i.e. as an aesthetic choice, and it does not go above digital zero. But if you are just doing it for level, then please desist. It’s much harder for me to do a great job with files which are already heavily clipped and limited etc.

I always err on the side of sound quality over loudness (unless clients ask me not to), so will try and find a happy medium for loudness for the entire release. Some people may even find their tracks turned down compared to their original mixes. Compilations are always the hardest things to master, for obvious reasons.

One other thing, it happens ridiculously often now, you wouldn’t believe it… The client submits a track, I master it and return it, but the client wants to make little mix changes and expects me to “just run it through again with the same settings” for no extra cost etc. Which I will not do. :slight_smile: It is really not as easy as that. I sometimes wish people could see the many stages that are involved in mastering a track (maybe I should make a video?), it averages about an hour per track, whether it’s first time or a revision. As I am doing this for free, I want to state that first submissions will be final, so please make sure you are 99.9% happy with your mix before submitting. I hope that’s OK with everyone.

I intend to do a proper, full, analogue mastering on everyone’s tracks, I don’t think I’d feel right doing it any other way. I’m always happy to chat mastering and answer any other queries people may have, just fire away!

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That’s some really great advice! Thanks @Gregg.

You know, it happened to me a lot during the mastering process for my last album, because once you get the rough master you start to hear all the mistakes you made in the mix. But in my defence, I discussed this before getting into the mastering process and we had an agreement on it. The one thing I learned from it is that making a bad mastering yourself before going to somebody to have it mastered properly is definitely a good idea :slight_smile:
Might be a discussion worth carrying on in the Mixing / mastering thread.

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8-bit .8svx files at 11 kHz, got it.

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I submitted my samples today via DM and just wanted to share how great these kinds of things are for me–they force me to learn things that are good to know. In order to prepare samples, I had to learn how to do so… Haha! After plenty of googling and reading the Ableton help section, I figured out a pretty efficient way to bounce snippets as samples efficiently. Cutting up audio is something I’ve known how to do, but exporting the samples was beyond me and I’ve got it now. This will be SUUUUUPER useful for me as some of the ideas I have right now require cutting samples to load into norns and other pieces of hardware.

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Ah yes, for sure, if I pre-arrange with a client that they want to work with me throughout the mix stage, and with some back and forth before I begin the mastering, that is fine, I like working that way, and have forged many good creative relationships like that. But if it’s not pre-arranged, (and I fully understand that the mastering can be like a microscope to the mix, and show off previously unheard mix errors etc.) I usually let it slide the first time it happens. But it happens a ridiculous amount of the time, more and more as time goes on, probably close to 50% of my work now, haha. Enough to have me considering ditching the analogue gear completely and going all ITB for faster recalls… :frowning:

Examining the reasons for why would for sure be interesting, maybe in the other thread!

@hermbot Bring it on! Can literally work with anything, very easy to convert any file type with Foobar2000 and it’s myriad “components”, NES files etc.

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Just want to say thank you for volunteering your mastering services! Having done the mastering for many past LCRP compilations, I fully appreciate the amount of effort it requires!

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This is great Gregg, thank you for an interesting and thorough answer. I have noted the details down and will keep it mind for delivery. This got me even more excited to hear the final products :slight_smile:

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@anon45924993 @undermulden Cheers, very happy to be involved!

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We’re up to 26 contributions now, 1.5GB of sounds.

I was thinking about how to make the downloading side reasonable.

My current plan was to split the files into folders of about equal size and load them into my Dropbox. I believe even without an account you can then just select each folder and download it as a zip.

Sound easy? Anyone had any issues with accessing Dropbox without an account? I might try something with incognito tabs in my browser to see what the experience is like.

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Wetransfer is also an option for larger files. And doesn’t take up any of your space.

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No, that should work. Though Dropbox has always been the most flaky option when it comes to sending large files in my experience.
Wetransfer or fromsmash.com seem to work better, but of course if you don’t have a paid plan the files are only kept for a limited time.

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I can host them on Google drive if helpful. It would just be a folder that everyone can access.

I think Dropbox should work though.

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Just checking… I know we are only using the samples but are we allowed to add vocals on the tracks?

I am trying to force myself to get over my fear of singing because my ‘real’ tracks really need vocals and I am a non-singer. This seems like a good excuse to go out of my comfort zone as it is separate from my normal stuff.

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Heh this is something I’d never thought about! I’ll say yes.

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I’ve got 29 people’s sounds now! This is your last weekend to get sounds to me if you want to participate.

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Can’t wait. Currently rushing to get 275 kids’ end of year report cards written so I can play with the sounds!

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If we get 3 more contributors we’ll have 40!

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2 left :wink: I sent my samples which are rather short with assumption that it will be allowed to mangle samples beyond recognition than using them as they are (albeit using samples without any/just a little bif of processing might also pose an interesting challenge)

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Just PM’d. Hope I’m not too late to join.

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