SOUND ADVICE /
MASTERING FAQ
(This is the Detailed
Mastering FAQ. The "QUICK
START" guide gives you the basics of file formats
and mixing tips. Also, visit our
Mastering Blog
for in-depth discussions of every aspect of mastering and what
goes into it, including dithering curve and EQ comparisons, and
all kinds of other audio geek stuff. My
Studio
Secrets blog discusses some of my stories of
recording and/our touring
with the bands I've worked with has moved to my personal
website.)
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See my in-depth
Dithering Discussion
to see why dithering is so critical to get right.
My "Mastering
Gear vs. Recording Gear" article discusses how
different each really is.
My "Recording Engineer <> Mastering Engineer"
discusses why the skill sets are so different.
And see the "Mixing
to Stereo Inside Pro Tools" to find some
surprising results, as well as my (painful) discussion
about "How
Digital Does Analog Better Than Analog".
Q: Why do we need to pay someone to master our
record at all?
A: If nothing else; simple objectivity and
complete understanding of the mastering process. Fresh ears
skilled at squeezing every last drop of sound and space out
of your mixes takes a completely different kind of well-trained
critical ear, and there's also a surprisingly different set of equipment
as well. This includes everything from bypassing the built-in (eek!)
converters in Pro Tools when bouncing a mix to disk with
something like the
WEISS box, to the sound that comes out of monitors specifically
made for mastering, to the converters used to transfer between
digital formats (like
WEISS'
Saracon which I adore) to the external processors
we couldn't live without, like our
MANLEY MASTERING EQ) to the ATR-102 1/2" tape machine,
modified by Mike Spitz and more.
But all the fancy gear in the world is no replacement for an
objective set of trained ears that can twist the depth, or
the punch, or the clarity, or any of the other things you're
looking for out of the mixes you worked so hard to create with
the seemingly endless list of tools that are now available
to just about anyone. Most studios add mastering as an
afterthought, but the Playground has been re-built as a
mastering studio that is also quite capable of tracking
equally as well, rather than the other way around.
Yes, we've got Neve preamps, as well as Shadow Hill and
Avedis MA5's, but we made sure that the studio was first and
foremost, capable of mastering even the most difficult and
desperately in need of TLC records.
Q: How much will it cost and how long will it take to master our record?
A: This is perhaps the most-asked question
we get (which is inevitably followed by "What format do we need
our music to be in?) . Even though we've done a massive upgrade
of the studio, especially in terms of mastering capabilities,
mastering
is still just $85.00/hour.
As far as time involved, there is, for purely
mechanical reasons, an absolute minimum time to get your CD
done. Briefly, this is an overview of the minimum steps and
approximate time:
1. The material must be copied or transferred to our
computer and then properly organized.
2. Song markers need to be placed at the start of each
track, timing and fades need to be added.
3. Making sure all levels are even and not clipping
anywhere...all done through listening in real time.
4. Listen to each track making any needed adjustments on a
song-by-song basis.
5. A backup needs to be created for the archives and later
retrieval.
So, for the above mechanical processes, not including a lot
creative adjustments or the
inevitable "Can we get a copy to play in our car on the way
home?", we're looking about 4-6 hours minimum in total. This
is to just organize the material into a CD, making
sure that it all sounds reasonably "together" and there are
song pointers and no errors, with very little creative input
or musical modifications to the original source material.
Then, you can go from there. Some bands want to tweak every
song until it's just right, and then go home, listen to what
they or we've come up with, and come back with fresh ears
the next day. I would say that 8-12 hours to master a
record is typical, and 4 days of 6 hours each day is not
unheard of.
Q: Do we need to be there for mastering?
A: No, not at all! - Many bands simply send of a hard disk
or a data disk with their mixes on it, and give us an idea
of what they're looking for. We then master on out
time, within the allotted time, and send the final product
off to you. You of course are free to comment, make
notes, and offer any needed changes. We go back in,
fix, and repeat. Many bands send the material in
advance, and then come in for just a few hours for the
"final tweaks" and listening. It's really up to each
band and their location as well as preference.
Q: Can we bring our favorite CD and have you make
ours sound like that?
A: You are far more than welcome to bring in a "reference"
CD of what kind of sound you're going for, but it's
important to remember this: There's only so much
can be done in the mastering process to emulate reference
music. We can't promise a match, but can promise that
we work with every last detail of the material we're given
to get it as close as sonically possible to what you're
hoping to hear. Many hope that mastering will be that
mystical "magic wand" that we can wave and make bad mixes
good, but the truth is that we can help make good mixes
sound great, we can preserve every last nuance of mixes,
maybe giving them a little more punch and impact, but
there's still no way to polish a turd.
Q: What format should our material be in?
A: This question is answered in-depth
HERE,
but the short answer is to bring 1/2" tape or stereo mixes in as
high a resolution format as possible, preferably in 24-bit WAV,
multiple mono format (The LEFT channel and the RIGHT channel are
each their own files). AIFF stereo interleaved files work
well, but are not as pure as 24-bit WAV files.
Whatever you do, do not bring in an audio CD of your music (one
that will play on a CD player). Bring in a DATA disk (or
hard disk) of your mixes. Again, a full discussion about
this very thing is in our "What to Bring With Us" article found
separate from this Mastering FAQ. We prefer to do all of the
converting and dithering and reductions here, to preserve
every last detail of your original material, and please
do not use a "maximizer" of any kind on your mixes
either. This will only crush the peaks, reducing the
dynamic range, and introduce audible digital distortion on your
mixes as well.
Q: How far in advance are you booked?
A: Weekend sessions are typically booked 4-6 weeks in advance,
but weekdays sessions; you can sometimes get in the same
week. Even better is sending the source material in
advance so we can do most of the transferring,
organizing, level-setting, and general mastering tweaks in
advance of your arrival. Then, you can show up for the
last few hours (many bands actually don't show up at all),
to help fine tune the master into it's final form.
Q: Do you always alter the sound of the source
material?
A: This is COMPLETELY dependant on the band and what they're
looking to accomplish with the mastering process. There have
been records I've mastered where we barely touched a thing,
concerned mostly with spacing and volume, and there have
been some projects where we were working as hard as we could
to "save" some bad mixes...carving and tweaking until we
were able to get all that the source material had to offer
out of it.
Q: Do you use cool analog gear like Pultech EQ's?
A: The romantic idea of putting your entire mix through some
vintage EQ such a Pultech, isn't as romantic when you
actually hear what these (amazing) pieces of gear do to your
sound. Even the best maintained vintage gear often
colors your sound simply by putting your signal through it,
and not in the ways you imagine. Yes, we have a
Pultech so you can hear the sound, but we much prefer our
"Analog Channel" plugin, as well as our Avalon or Manley
Mastering EQ's if we decide that we need to leave the
digital realm. They're ultra clean, and add that fat
warmth of tubes, but while maintaining the full frequency
and dynamic range.
I actually wrote a VERY in-depth article about this very
topic in my article called "Why
Digital Does Analog Better Than Analog Does" on
my personal blog. And in all honesty...let your ears do
the listening and not what you think would be cool to use on
your CD.
Q: Can you make our record louder than anyone
else's?
A: Yes, we can make it louder than anyone else's, but volume
comes at the cost of dynamics when pushed too far. Something that
has never changed from the early days of pressing vinyl...is
that there is a ceiling to the volume level you can reach.
Louder sounds on vinyl make fatter grooves in the record,
and limited the amount of music you could put on one side of
an album.
Digital is actually less forgiving, and not only are we
limited by ZERO as our maximum level, digital clipping is
rather unpleasant, unlike analog clipped which is called
saturation.
Furthermore, the most critical piece of information is this:
With any increase in perceived volume level, it will be at
the loss of something else.
The "something else's are a loss of bottom end or dynamic
range. Low frequencies take up A LOT of room in a mix, so if
you make a mix less "fat", you can get more volume.
Alternatively, if you want to keep your mix as fat as
possible, you would have to add some compression to make the
song "louder". This will make the louder parts seem less
loud and the quiet parts seem more loud, but the overall
effect is an increase in the overall volume of the song.
Unfortunately, for every action there is an equal and
opposite reaction, but that is part of the art of mastering:
We balance the elements to give you the best sounding record
possible from the source material you provided us with.
Q: Who will be mastering our material?
A: That depends largely on time and budget, but Keith
Cleversley does most of the mastering at the
Playground. Keith has many years of ultra-critical listening
and beta-testing many new plug-ins for several software
companies such as Waves, Nomad Factory, and a few others, so
he knows every plug-in available for mastering in some way
inside and out, and how to get exactly the sound he's
looking for out of each one. It's incredible how
different each manufacturer's EQ or compressor can sound.
(Read my article called "
We also allow outside engineers to
master at the Playground, but the rate is still $85.00/hour.
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