#346

On the basis of the work of an established, professional mastering engineer’s treatment of my 25+ year old (volume and tonality disparate) recordings, I recommend looking in that direction.

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#347

Similar to @lijnenspel question on noise above, I’m wondering what the mastering process would look like for something even more abstract and elemental than harsh noise (I have Merzbow in mind there, as a common reference). My latest stuff in particular has been primarily just longform experiments with pure sine tones. What could mastering lend me if my goal is to preserve the simple sounds of the tones themselves?

#348

Ghostly did an interesting round table about mixing/mastering: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/785681589

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#349

in my experience with mastering very digital, sine-wave based music, clients have often wanted to keep that ultra-clean sound and a digital/ITB process usually works better than the harmonic distortions from tube gear and the like. or… perhaps that’s a wish… to take the pure, digital sines and give them a bit more vintage or colorful flavor. the correct answer is only the one that the artist wants.

what does mastering do for such sinewave-based music? well, that’s completely based on each individual track… there is no one answer. but many of the same mastering concerns would need to be taken into account… dynamics, resonant peaks, perhaps phase concerns… but it really comes down to and starts with communication with the mastering engineer… about what your goals are for the sound. or, perhaps, as you’re suggesting, it wouldn’t need mastering at all.

noise music… or, more particularly, music with a high intentional noise floor (tape, etc) is tricky because you really need to avoid broadband compression. because noise covers the entire frequency spectrum it’s VERY noticeable when a compressor pulls a track down from some transient… you really hear the noise dip and it immediately says “oh look, a compressor is compressing” and takes you out of the moment. with such music i avoid buss compression altogether and instead use multi band compression or dynamic EQ only on the lower spectrum… keeping the mid and higher frequency noise, the most obvious stuff, free from any dynamic processing.

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#350

& to your point, i love this sound : ) really into the weird dynamic interplay between field recordings and lower tones that happens with compression & i usually try to emphasize it

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#351

indeed, it can be cool! which is a perfect illustration of “there are no rules” and “communicate with your mastering engineer”… as most engineers would try to avoid that sound as you generally want your compression to be as transparent as possible… but… not always!

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#352

I guess I just never much considered that mastering, other than the bare minimum of trimming heads and tails or prep for a specific medium, may not be necessary. Thanks for the thorough write up!

#353

Another important consideration is the media your music appears on. Certain sounds may be beautiful, and you might love them, but they won’t ever make it to vinyl. Mastering for vinyl is an art of its own. There are no rules - until the needle jumps off the platter…

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#354

Hi, posting to say hello to this podium. Always interesting to watch and perhaps be able to help out. Before I was in a FB mastering group that unfortunately often focuses on showing off gear. :unamused:
I have a small mastering business that focuses on no-beat electronic music and restauration of old (even ancient) recordings.

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#355

A lot of vintage compressors have modes (ratios) that are referred to as “limiter ratios”, “limiting”, etc. Like 20:1 on the 1176. I’m curious if there’s ever a time now when you’d want to use something like that for a certain vibe farther in the chain, maybe right before a more modern, brick-wall limiter on the master bus? If so which ones and for what sort of reason?

From a mixing perspective, I do think the higher ratios (maybe not 20, but 12) of an 1176 on say, bass guitar for evening it out, can give a nice sound that’s different than a more modern compressor or fixing volume discrepancies by hand that can be the right vibe sometimes. I guess I’m curious if these more primitive limiters have a place for a certain vibe these days at the end of chain or have digital true-peak lookback brick wall limiters really just replaced their value in that usecase more universally.

@Gregg I like this article of yours a lot on compression (it was very helpful to me when I was learning to dial stuff in), would be curious to hear your opinion on this. http://hermetechmastering.com/compressors.html

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#356

not a real answer to your question but it brought to mind a trick i learned recently about things going the other way - namely, using one of those typically “end of chain” limiters like fabfilter pro-l or ableton’s limiter really early on in an individual instrument’s chain. i find it quite helpful on monophonic synth parts like leads and basses to just even out the overall power on patches that may have some filtering / keytracking / modulation that causes notes to differ in volume.

for some reason i feel like i have heard of people using matched pairs of 1176’s and the like on the 2bus though. i don’t imagine there’s anything “wrong” with it if the sound is right for the track!

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#357

I found a video recently (I’ll link if I can find it again later) that had a really cool trick where they duplicated a bass di, and one had a 200hz low pass on it and was pretty heavily limited (well really high ratio comp, but same thing pretty much) while high passing the duplicate at 200hz and leaving that one more open. It definitely seemed to balance the “power” while not sucking the bounce and transient pops, I have filed away the technique to try when I run into the situation again.

The other good thing you can do with a limiter is put it before some analog processing so you can get a good thick signal into it but not risk clipping the converters on the way in. You gotta be careful you’re not sucking the life out of the sound, but it’s a good tool to have when it’s needed.

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#358

Not really answering your question directly, but I have the choice of a few curves on my Germ Comps that go from very soft to very hard (the final Zener diode mode), and always exclusively use only the three softest modes for mastering (the third harder one, hardly ever), otherwise the comps become just too grabby on whole mixes. As for Ratio, again, I always only ever use the lowest three settings (they go from 1 to 11). So not really much help I’m afraid.

A lot of old compressors were called limiters, or had limiter modes (Fairchild etc.) but the only experience I have is with software plugin emulations such as MJUC and Molot, which although they are great for mixing, have not made it on to any masters so far.

For mixing I love going crazy with harder knees and greater ratios on drums etc.

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#359

I do something similar with Fabfilter Saturn 2 (somewhat analogous because saturators and limiters both keep signals from hitting peaks) on individual tracks, as well as drum busses, when needed. It’s like sidechaining some of your frequency spectrum with the rest of the spectrum – e.g., if you boost the lows then the mids & highs naturally drop in power to compensate. I think of it as an unsubtle, broad-stroke auto-eq that really works when you want something unsubtle. (You can hear this effect in a lot of bass-heavy music where I assume the effect is happening with a limiter on the master: when the bass gets heavy it swallows up the other frequency components. The idea, as you note, is to do this anywhere, not just on the master.)

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#360

I just recently picked up saturn, I’ll have to try this. One thing I realized last night is it can be a really cool three band eq using different types of subtle transformation in each area (transformers for the lows, tubes for the mids, and tape for the highs, or whatever). It’s super nice you can solo each section. Haven’t quite figured out that dynamics knob yet, it seems to often introduce some annoying artifacts, need to figurer out how to dial it in

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#361

Hi I’m a user of Etymōtic ER2XRs an absolutely love the sound. I’ve had issues with fit though, using the s-size triple flange tips. They seal breaks with popping sounds, and esp when wearing a hood but also when not. When the seal is good, they are amazing but that doesn’t last long. However I am now experimenting with the double flanges tips.

Which tips do you prefer if i may ask, and would you have opinions across the options?

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#362

Thanks again! Took the time to read this thread from the first post, your website made my day.

It is great to hear what engineers think in mind, your philosophy section is thoughtful and influential.

#363

I’ve been using Etymotics for over a decade now, love them, started with ER-6i (I think…) then ER4-P and now ER4-XRs. I can’t use the rubber flanged tips at all, the seal always breaks in my ears, I only ever use the expanding foam tips. The standard (grey) are the perfect fit for my ears, but they also do yellow (larger) and red (I think, smaller). There are other companies (I forget who) offering softer foam tips for more money, but when I tried them they were too soft and again, had no good seal. The good seal is absolutely critical for Etys. But everyone’s ears are shaped differently, so you might need to spend a while experimenting with what’s the best for you.

I don’t use them for mixing or mastering though, just with the portable Fiio player for out and about listening. They have something like 45dB isolation, which is just great.

#364

I came from some random trash headphones to ER2XRs and it blew my mind – relistening to Ikonika’s Distractions album brought me to tears.

Screenshot 2020-12-11 at 11.32.37

Great, thanks for the comment; I should try the foams too out of curiosity as I have a pair of greys. I also recently learned that one should change the tips every few months too, which is part of the reason for me now to investigate which tips to purchase. I have learned to wiggle them in first this way, then turn, then push them another direction. Etys are an invitation to body self-knowledge :stethoscope:

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#365

Yeah, I stuck with the plastic flanged tips for a while as didn’t like the feel/idea of the foam tips at first, but once I switched to foam I never looked back, a much better and tighter fit, leading to better sound, for my ears at least. Just trial and error, they all have different ways you need to learn to get them to sit right in your ear canal.

I replace my foam tips every few months, they basically just fall apart after a while (I use them 80 minutes a day, five days a week, on the school run walk), the inner plastic/rubber comes away from the outer foam, and you have to fish them out with a hook/tweezers when you get home… :slight_smile:

They are great for me in that the sound quality is excellent, and they have such great rejection of external noise, so you can actually listen more quietly out in public, helping save your hearing. The only thing I don’t like about Etys is comfort, after an hour of wearing they get quite uncomfortable for me, whereas my HD600s I could wear forever and not realise I am wearing them. But then I wouldn’t want to lug those around with me outside, and they have zero rejection, so home use only!

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