RPM - Mastering - Status

[Tony Hardie-Bick]

Fascinating :)

On 27/02/12 19:36, Martin Naef wrote:
> Hi Romain
>
> On 26.02.2012 10:43, Romain / rXg wrote:
>> http://rpm.music-bar.org/2012-02-26%20mp3%20preview/
>> Thank you Martin,
>> Your work always impress me :)
>
> You're welcome. It's just a pair of fresh ears that does the trick... ;-)
>
>> Now that you did some work on it what will you advice me to do or to
>> correct for the next time when I'm mixing my own song ?
>
> I think your mix is fine. You might want to watch the bass a bit - I had to cut
> the low content by quite a bit (actually, that was a problem with nearly all
> tracks) to clean up the mix. It's not easy to spot with regular size monitors,
> but the frequency analyzer made it quite clear, and everything sounded better
> once I applied some high-pass filtering.
>
> Other than that, you might want to clear a bit more space for vocals in the mix,
> especially during the high-power section. There is not much I can do about that
> at the mastering stage.
>
>> Anyhow I listened to the other tracks they sound very good ...
>> Maybe you mentioned it in the past but what do you use in general for
>> mastering ?
>
> Software, essentially. I'm using Samplitude for all my mastering tasks including
> the generation of audio CDs.
>
> I don't always follow exactly the same procedure. For this session, each track
> had its own pair of compressor and EQ from the Focusrite Liquid Mix - a DBX 160
> and a Manley Massive Passive emulation. Some tracks also used the transient
> shaper from Samplitude (AM-Pulse) - in some case to emphasize the attacks, in
> others to smoothen them a bit.
> In general, compression wasn't set up aggressive, but I applied EQ very
> liberally to force a common sonic footprint.
>
> The rest of the chain was in the master section and shared the same parameters.
> First, a touch of multi-band compression was applied (Cakewalk's LP64). Then
> back into the Liquid Mix, this time with a LA-2A emulation in limiter mode. Next
> step was a hint of tape emulation (Samplitude AM-Track). And finally into the
> limiter (Cakewalk Boost11).
>
> None of the compression stages really do a lot - usually just 1-2 dB, 3 if it's
> a bit hot. The final limiter also shaves off only 1-2 dB typically, and only on
> occasion. But in total, the compression adds up quite a bit.
>
> I have to admit, it was quite a bit of fun to run a larger mastering project.
> It's been a while since I've done anything in the electronic music domain.
>
> (Now, a quick addition, then exporting the project...)
>
> Martin
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