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By The MASTERING Team, on February 22nd, 2012
The Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl has another hit on his hands — his Grammy acceptance speech is a Google chart-topper.
Coming up for one of the band’s five awards this year, Grohl took the chance to discuss the state of music mastering and recording:
“To me, this award means a lot, because it shows the human element of music is what’s important. Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument and learning to do your craft, that’s the most impotant thing for people to do …” he said.
Apparently, his words struck a chord with a lot of musicians and listeners — Watch his speech: Dave Ghrol Grammy Speech.
And the Foo Fighters, who recorded their celebrated “Wasting Light” on analog equipment in a garage, are now in the center of an impassioned debate about the line between technology and talent.
“To me,” Grohl tells Rolling Stone, “the biggest advantage of going analog is the restrictions that it implies, which gets you to perform in a way that you’re actually being a human being.
“We thought about heart and performance. And I would rather people not tune their vocals, I would rather people not grid their drums.”
It’s a more organic, come-as-you-are approach that’s helped define the Foo Fighters’ sound, and no doubt other bands are now more likely to drift in that direction.
We’re not sure every band can pull off the kind of magic the Foo Fighters can in a garage — different music calls for different technical treatments.
But we sure love the part about playing from the heart.
Contact us if you want some help with your sound … or if you can’t afford to have all that awesome gear in your garage.
If you want to see what all the fuss is about check out the speech that set it all off: Dave Grohl’s Speech
By The MASTERING Team, on February 18th, 2012
We’ve been there, and we understand how much your music means to you. That’s why we created multiMASTERING. We wanted to make the audio mastering process more like the recording process. That’s why we do things differently than other mastering studios. With multiMASTERING you have more input, more access, more control, more interaction, and more options.
With most mastering services, only one engineer works on the project, and you likely won’t have much interaction with that engineer during the process. MultiMASTERING is a completely different experience. When you send us your music, our entire team of engineers has remote access to master each track with different combinations of equipment. Out of the dozen or so preliminary masters created during this phase, a small team led by our head engineer selects the best three editions.
While the finishing touches are being applied to these three versions, their engineers make notes about the particular techniques they used and give you detailed feedback about your masters. You get the opportunity to learn more about the production process, and you have total access to your project from start to finish. With the Studio Gateway you can interact with us, ask questions and provide input about your project.
Finally, all three completed masters are sealed in a custom package and shipped to you. They will also be available for download so you can have them immediately.
At SoundOps, we understand how hard you work to create your own unique sound, and we believe you should have a say in how the finished product turns out. Contact us to learn more and experience multiMASTERING for yourself.
By The MASTERING Team, on February 9th, 2012
You’re going for an indie sound anyway, right? And hey, you’ve got a laptop, and your friend’s brother knows a guy whose neighbor has this microphone …
Wait a minute. Do you even need a mastering studio?
Of course you do — because if your music starts getting heard, you want people to hear what you were for aiming for, not what you were forced to settle for.
And as a new post from Brunei FM points out, a mastering studio will anticipate — and then help you solve — a range of issues that might not occur to you.
“Before going to print CDs or even just make available a download release, one of the jobs of a mastering engineer is to consider that the music will transmit favorably on most music listening systems and devices,” the Brunei FM article notes.
In other words, if you want to make sure you get a professional-sounding track, get a professional involved.
An unbiased set of ears can’t hurt, either, the post adds.
“Someone who is creatively more detached from the material can give you a more objective view and space for reflection — for example do you want the vocal to be very in the foreground or more submerged in the mix?”
Besides, a mastering studio will have all the technology you need to give voice to your best music.
“Mastering matters,” Brunei FM advises. “ Save up or budget for going to a pro if you can.”
OK, so maybe we’re a little biased, but we couldn’t agree more. Contact us and we’ll show you why
By The MASTERING Team, on February 2nd, 2012
The short answer to that question is yes, CD mastering is a lot different from mastering for vinyl.
We saw a couple of stories in the last couple weeks talking about that difference. Both are excellent.
One story, Why CDs Sound Better Than Vinyl, goes into the difference in some pretty interesting technical detail:
When a piece of program enters the cutting chain, it gets split to two different places. One split goes to a level attenuator, some filters, an elliptical equalizer, and ends at a very rudimentary and basic computer. The computer tells the lathe how far apart to put the grooves. The second goes to the attenuator, the filters, elliptical equalizer, a high frequency limiter, then the cutter head, which cuts the actual groove in the record. The groove, if looked at under a microscope is actually a complex sine wave. There are variations in depth, it is not straight (it’s actually quite wavy), as well as variations in the width. All of these variations are program dependent. If an experienced cutting engineer looks at a groove under a microscope, he (or she) will have a pretty good idea as to what is happening in the music at that particular spot. The groove needs more room to go back and forth the louder the program is.
The rest of the story is great, but that point about how a needle needs more room with the louder the program is an interesting point, something that we don’t need to worry about with mastering for a CD.
It’s also the main reason for this post: Quietus Mix 55: Suborno’s Blood From 25 Cuts. That name is not by accident, the whole idea of that blog is music that sounds good on vinyl in part because it’s not too loud. Consider this quote, which equates the vinyl effort to a war:
Hard sibilance, loud ride cymbals, wide bass, a resonant frequency around 1kHz – these factors can all cause the needle to jump out of its groove. Avoiding that is true craft. It’s an art. Much as Mark Kermode reveres the dying art of projectionists in multiplex cinemas, I venerate the work of the vinyl mastering engineer and cutter. I buy vinyl for the extra care, the dynamics – it’s partly why I made this vinyl only mix. Vinyl is the conscientious objector in the loudness war.
We’re not suggesting that you try to master your music for vinyl, but it’s fun to read about some of those who stand by this form of reproducing music.
If you’d like to talk about that, or about mastering for a CD or for digital downloads, please contact us.
By The MASTERING Team, on January 25th, 2012
There are two meanings, in general to phrases that have to do with banging heads.
There is head-banging music, which is a good thing (in certain circles). It means that the music is full of a kind of energy and vigor that’s impossible to get from any other source.
Then there’s banging your head against the wall. That’s bad. It means frustration, and it also makes us think of one of our favorite definitions of insanity — doing the same thing over and over and hoping for different results.
Those two head-banging and banging-heads definitions came together in one place with a story we saw from Road Runner Records.
The story is about a previous album from Metallica — head-banging music if ever there was such a thing.
There are fans of the group that have said loudly and publicly that they prefer versions of a certain set of songs that appear in the video game Guitar Hero to the ones that have been released on CDs.
Yes, you read that right. People liked the video-game version better than the one that was designed for home music systems. Why? Better mastering.
Ted Jensen, the engineer who mastered the album at Sterling Sound in New York, responded to fan complaints that the CD is too loud and the audio is pushed to distortion levels by writing, “I’m certainly sympathetic to your reaction, I get to slam my head against that brick wall every day. In this case the mixes were already brick-walled before they arrived at my place. Suffice to say I would never be pushed to overdrive things as far as they are here. Believe me, I’m not proud to be associated with this one, and we can only hope that some good will come from this in some form of backlash against volume above all else.”
Mastering is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device, the “master,” from which all copies will be produced.
Certainly the quality of the original makes a huge difference in the quality of the audio mastering work, but excellence in mastering can make a world of difference for the listener.
If you’d like to talk to someone about your needs for audio mastering, please contact us.
By The MASTERING Team, on January 25th, 2012
Here is an excellent special report by Bob Dormon, a music tech reviewer, with a complete history of the changes digital audio brought to the world of recording and mastering.
As with any new technology, digital audio looked like it was going to solve every problem we had with audio recordings from getting rid of hissing that masked quieter sounds and distortion of louder sounds. And maybe it could have if the music industry had embraced it for those possibilities.
Instead, the powers that be worried, perhaps rightly so, that some of them would be put out of business by this new kid. They started to pressure the industry to place artificial limits on what digital audio could do and how it could be used. And so it was done. Before digital could show its range, it was cut down by special interests.
But nothing can keep a good idea down for long, especially in this age of information. It wasn’t long before tinkerers and musicians and other users found ways around some of these obstacles and helped bring digital audio farther into the mainstream with more of its original capabilities.
Now that there is so much that can be done, you may need some help to take advantage of these broader capabilities. Recording and mastering are still complex sciences, it’s just that the tools have gotten better. And the better the tools get, the more we want to get out of them.
By The MASTERING Team, on January 20th, 2012
Absolutely!
As a precaution, turn phantom power off. There have been cases of phantom power being not so “phantom” and actually ruining ribbon mics.
Having a 180-degree polar pattern, ribbon mics naturally pick up what is “behind” them just as much as what is in front of them.
So we must pay attention to the acoustics of the room perhaps even more than usual.
Mic proximity is your friend. Especially with ribbon mics, you affect the source-to-room ratio by moving the mic either closer or further away. For example many engineers (and listeners, for that matter) like the sound of a ribbon mic within a few inches of a guitar amp. Despite the 180-degree polar pattern, the signal will be mainly that of the amp and not the room. But that’s just one way to do it.
For a brighter, edgier sound – face the mic directly on-axis and into the source. Be as precise as possible. Conversely, tilt it off-axis to dull things a bit.
Lastly, experiment! This sounds obvious but a surprising number of engineers NEVER experiment. They simply keep on doing what they’ve always done without occasionally stopping to hear the roses. (alright, that was corny…)
A helpful way to experiment is to have three parties – musician, assistant, and you (the listener). As the musician plays, have the assistant move the mic as you listen through monitors in an isolated room. Have a way to communicate with him or her so that you know the precise position of the mic and can therefore reproduce the same sound when desired.
Oh, and during this process try not to be preoccupied with anything else; your most important job is to listen!
Cheers!
By The MASTERING Team, on January 19th, 2012
At SoundOps, we love mastering dubstep! Over the last few years our studio has mastered dubstep more and more.
There is no denying it’s novelty to the general public, and for those of us who have enjoyed the genre for a while, it’s cool to see it grow.
We thought this video was great and wanted to share it with you. It’s a quick lesson. Let us know in the comments if you agree with this guy…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFLe3MEDwv4
To us, dubstep is not just a trend, it represents the far end of the “loudness war” where the hotter the master can be is usually better to the artist (and sometimes even as audio snobs, we agree). When our clients want it to crank, that’s what we do.
If you produce your own dubstep mixes, and want them to hit harder than the demo-sounding projects your friends have, let us master one of your tracks so you can hear the difference.
Dubstep is commonly DIY when it comes to mixing, but any dubstep should undergo mastering, especially if it’s destined for commercial release.
By The MASTERING Team, on January 3rd, 2012
Entrepreneurs who are hungry for tips and insights to boost their business often check out podcasts from B2B and B2C marketing gurus. The podcast format means they can listen to somebody’s words of wisdom while they’re on the go, whenever and wherever they want.
Unfortunately, the audio production quality of many podcasts leaves a lot to be desired. Listening to some of those podcasts can be painful. A busy businessperson will literally pull the plug on a podcast that’s too scratchy, too garbled, or otherwise too annoying to tolerate.
It’s a shame — for the erstwhile podcast producer — to lose an otherwise interested prospect due to poor sound quality, especially since all that podcaster had to do was go to an outfit like SoundOps for affordable high-quality digital mastering.
There’s too much competition for the attention of small business owners for a podcaster to think they’ll sit still for lousy recordings. They won’t. In fact, they tend to feel insulted when someone who claims to be an expert or a trustworthy authority on key small biz topics takes them for granted.
Podcasters who want to make a sharp, professional, high-end impression with their audience can run their audio files through soundops.com to make sure their digital recordings feature memorable words, rather than memorably-distracting background noise.
Who would have thought digital audio mastering would be a significant small biz marketing detail? Welcome to the portable-content world! For details on how SoundOps can help, contact us
By The MASTERING Team, on December 28th, 2011
If your band already does its own recording and mixing with audio editing software, perhaps you’re thinking the obvious next step is to do your own audio mastering as well.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a single piece of mastering software or hardware that will give you the results you need to stand out in the music market.
In this article from musformation.com, Todd Thomas explains that although bands can now save money and retain more control by handling many steps of the production process themselves, it’s wise to get some external input when it comes to mastering. He gives a couple of reasons for this. First of all, as he points out, mastering is a specialized skill: ”Most people will confirm that mastering is an expert science and it’s one of the reasons people usually specialize in it.”
The second reason is that it’s difficult if not impossible to gain perspective on your music after you’ve spent so much time on it. After months of recording and mixing, it’s easy to lose perspective. A good mastering engineer will be able to very quickly hear things that you’ve stopped noticing.
Sure, it costs more to use an expert, but as the article points out, mastering is one of the least expensive parts of your project to pay studio engineers to handle. Remember that even if you do your own recording and mixing, you owe it to yourself, your fans, and your songs, to at least have a professional help you at the mastering stage. Contact us to learn how we can provide you with quality mastering at affordable prices.
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