MASTERING
Many of the folks I speak with have no idea what "mastering" is. Here's the scoop: Mastering is the final production step a record goes through before a master is sent to the duplication plant. Mastering involves these four mandatory (in my opinion) steps which are done to the mixed two-track (stereo) material: 1. Cleaning up beginnings and endings of songs with edits and/or fades. 2. Establishing the spacing between tracks that "feels" good. 3. Balancing the relative levels between songs, so song A doesn't feel loud or soft compared to song B or C... Generally this is based on the lead vocal, and is done by ear. 4. Generating the code information denoting track start and end locations. These are called PQ codes because those are the sub-sectors of the CD where the data is written. The duplication plant needs this info to do their job correctly. Mastering can ALSO involve: Additional 2 track processing like compression, limiting, eq, expansion, normalization and a host of other processes can be done at a mastering house. Removing extraneous noises, clicks, pops and the like are also things that are frequently done when mastering. If you can keep extraneous noises out of the mixes, so much the better. Sonic micro-mangement can also be done; raising and lowering or eq-ing sections of music, or even individual notes to get the best from a piece. In general, a good mastering job can really help a record feel like a "record," and no mastering, or poor mastering, can sometimes make a cd feel more like a collection of songs than a cohesive whole. If you want to learn more about the technical stuff (dither,noise shaping, HDCD,etc.), I'd suggest heading over to Bob Katz's mastering web site. He's got plenty of info there for those who are curious. I think that Jonathan Wyner at M-Works , located in Inman Square, Cambridge, is the most capable mastering engineer around metro Boston. Bob Ludwig in Portland, Maine is generally considered to be among the top three mastering engineers in the world, so if money is no object give him a call at Gateway Mastering. If I lived on the West Coast I would use Doug Sax at The Mastering Lab. Seven years ago I bought a Sonic Solutions mastering system, due to the fact that I was getting CDs back that were mastered poorly (not by those guys). I figured that I can do much essential mastering here, and keep the detail that I want in the master, rather than have an unknown quantity (of unknown quality) compress the life out of something I worked hard to make breathe. My system is more than capable of doing the mastering essentials, using great external processing if necessary, but if you have the budget for Jonathan or big Bob, you can't really go wrong with either of them. We'll all provide a Redbook PM-CD master with a log sheet for your dupe plant. See the sessions page to see what records I've mastered recently. They include Susan Levine's Atlas, Mark Erelli's Innocent When You Dream, Vance Gilbert's Angels, Castles and Covers and Unfamiliar Moon (selected by the Boston Globe as one of the 10 best folk albums of 2004), Kristen Miller's Strange Little Valentine, Kristen Cifelli's So Long My Love, Ellis Paul's Sweet Mistakes, Melissa Ferrick's 70 People at 70,000 Feet, and Ed Jurdi's Longshores Drive, nominated for NH record of the year by JAM Music Magazine. CDs have a maximum level that they can reproduce and as time has gone by some clever folks have found ways to keep nearly all the music on a disc within a very small dynamic range very close to the maximum level. Having a "loud" cd is not always the best thing for a few reasons. First, it's been well reseached that we humans respomd to dynamic changes on an emotional level; which is to say that when a dynamic change happens we feel it and move with it. The super loud CDs have little or no dynamic variation. Second, a loud cd gets old fast. The ebb and flow of a record has a lot to do with volume. A CD at full bore for 45 minutes is pretty monotonous. Third, the standard compressor for radio (the Orban OptiMod) turns down signals that are too close to the maximum level to keep from over-modulating. The system is designed to only turn down the peaks of the music and otherwise bring things up to an average level, however, the Optimod sees these maxed out CDs as ALL peak. So it all gets turned down. There goes the idea of making it louder for the radio. Though it's tempting to squash, please leave some dynamic range in your music! Go back and listen to Miles Davis' Kind of Blue if you have forgotten how integral dynamics are to a great sounding record that stands the test of time. Or compare Dire Straits Brothers in Arms with most any major label CD bought in the last year...which is more pleasant to listen to? Regardless of how loud you want your cd to be, let your mastering engineer put the final squish on your record. Don't limit your mixes to death or we may have to turn entire tunes down to make them fit with other songs. If there's more dynamic range to play with ,we can push the tunes up only as far as they need to go to fit with the other material on the disc, which makes for a more cohesive end product. That's all! Any questions, comments, or concerns, please e-mail me at tom@thomaseaton.com. I can be reached by phone at 978.465.5102, or by e-mail. |
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