jasps

For starters, low bass frequencies waves can be as long as 3 feet thus a headphone less than an inch from the ear cannot physically replicate this accurately. While you can hear the low end through standard headphones, that will not possibly translate into other scenarios such as phase inversion. Also, a headphone speaker is too small to replicate the low end accurately for studio quality work. Think about it, do you really want a 1" subwoofer? I agree with you in principle that headphones shouldn't be used for mixing in normal circumstances because of translation error, but your answer is too undefined. Phase errors are actually much easier to hear through headphones IME and many times, budget studio speakers are no better for reproducing bass frequencies than are a good set of headphones. The size of the driver is only one part of the equation.

Anyone have any suggestions for getting less snare in the overheads? I seem to get less when my mic (yeah, just one for now) is further back in the room. But I prefer the character of a closer mic for my personal drumming style. I like a more immediate sound and my room doesn't sound that great anyways. Still, I want to get as much cymbal to drum ratio in the overheads as possible without resorting to EQing. Any ideas? I'm using a large diaphragm condenser (a friend's Oktava MK-319) and was planning to end up with a couple LDCs of my own but maybe a set of pencil condensers would help instead? Hey dan, I think you're going about this wrong. Try to use your overhead as your main drum sound and build the rest of your drum mix from there. If the snare is too loud, try to have the drummer back off a bit. A change in the size of the capsule diameter will not do anything to keep the snare down in your OH.

Actually it's the very cleanliness of modern digital recordings that is the argument for using tube gear during the input phase of the chain, to keep it from sounding completely sterile and overly clean... It's just that overly clean, overly accurate recordings are not really even desirable for some types of music, though it is for others. Dean, A lot of recording engineers stopped using tube gear when transistors started being used as the gain stage for preamps. Now then, I'd still classify a 1073 as warm and it doesn't have any tubes. My point is, tube gear is not the only way to achieve a "warm" sound, SS recording gear is just as good at warmth, IMO.

This is hilarious, all the know it alls that have absolutely nothing to show for all their misunderstood genius come out of the wood work and say how everything I've said is wrong, complete horse {censored}. These are the rants of bitter, angry, desperate people that have absolutely nothing to show for all their years working at this. For starters, any EQ with 15 bands or more 99% of the time will be a shelving EQ. You'll never see a parametric reaching this many bands. Listen carefully nay saying whiners, I BUILD the damn things, ok? I design and build them...is your English as bad as your experience behind the mixing console? Second, there is absolutely no set way to master a track, absolute fact. There are basic formulas that work like the one I gave but nothing is set in stone. A studio tech listens to the track a few times and decides what needs to be done, there's no secrets being kept, they just treat the ignorant for what they are, ignorant and keeping them employed! The point of using compression and using a SOFTWARE EQ in such a manner is, it's an easy way to balance out the tracks peaks, that's all. If you REALLY are intent on going over the entire song and shifting down all the peaks until you flatten out the track, go right ahead. I simply offered a sure fire way that gives fair results and saves a lot of time. I mean look at you {censored}ing losers, which you really really are, you put words in my mouth in an attempt to trash me and boost your own low self esteem and you REALLY are complete {censored}ing losers. Doing this {censored} on forums is all you have, you're the same {censored}ing losers from the yahoo guitar players room. Nobodies like Mesa, Meganutt, AxeCorrosion...you guys are {censored}ing losers, you'll never leave your mark on the world or even in the industry. You'd have to steal my music to do it! The gap I spoke of is simply in perception and due to the fact that, THE INSTRUMENTS WERE RECORDED ON DIFFERENT TRACKS. Of course there is an audible gap you {censored}ing moron. You mention frequency gaps, LMFAO!!! Then call me stupid??? It's an audible gap caused by recording to different tracks and if you had ANY experience or knowledge in recording that is worth mentioning, you're inbred retard going nowhere ass would have jumped right to this point, absolutely pathetic dude and you made yourself look as ignorant on the subject as you truly are. ...frequency gaps, lmfao! I read this horse {censored} about leaving mastering to the pros, it's a load of crap and I wouldn't be at all surprised if these guys generate work off a lot of forums by spreading INDUSTRY MYTHS, just like the retards behind the tube amp industry and all the ridiculous lies they tell. Listen, mastering is done by ear but the formula I gave works incredibly well. You may need to use the processes slightly differently for your personal leads but generally if you've done a good to decent job recording your song, it does the trick with top notch results. Yeah leave it to the pros...guys that think the audible gap between instruments is frequency rather than the TRACKING GAP THAT ANY EXPERIENCED STUDIO AND SOUND ENGINEER IS EXTREMELY FAMILIAR WITH. Yeah thanks for explaining what a shelving EQ is for me too, even though I've designed and built them for half a decade now. Also, would you like to tell me how to play my 6 string, 8 finger tapped arpeggios?? I'd love for you to explain to me what I'm doing wrong there as well. My album will be out mid to late summer, it will also be available all across the country. So nay sayers, please lets get together again in 6 months and compare album sales, sound like a deal?? You, build and design equipment, yet once again fail to understand the fundamental difference between shelving, graphic, or a parametric eqs, software or otherwise. You should know the difference by now...a shelving eq has (generally--sometimes you can adjust between 6-24 db/octave in software) fixed bandwidth and boosts or cuts any frequency above (hi shelf) or below (low shelf) a given frequency. A lot of times lo shelf is set on a mixer at 60 or 80 Hz and a high shelf is at 10-12kHz. A graphic eq has fixed bandwidth at each given frequency--a dbx 1231 is an example of this. A parametric eq has variable bandwidth (Q), variable frequency, and variable boost or cut. What equipment have you designed? The point being, it would be almost impossible to use a "15 band shelving eq" to "master" a song. You also attempt to "master" a song by flattening out peaks. Transient peaks, which are results of dynamics within a song! That isn't mastering, sorry. Maybe this will be helpful to someone who listens and wants to learn.

Also, it's bad enough to advise people to use techniques that aren't good. It's worse when your "techniques" don't even make sense. This has nothing to do with thinking I'm the only one that can get a good mix with cheap equipment or that if it's not expensive equipment it's not worth using. I don't say this to bash or be mean, but honestly, the original post here was nonsensical. Yes. The OP has no idea what a ME actually does. He says things like: 1. Running your mix through a 15-band eq set flat will help improve balance between instruments 2. Reverb is always needed 3. Compression should always be transparent 4. Sucking out the midrange 90% of the time will give you a sound like a professionally mastered CD ...I personally think more people don't visit/contribute to this forum because of the repeated questions like: "I've got 50 bucks, make me sound like ____" or "What's better, the RNP or the Brick" or "Suggest a tube preamp for under $100--I need to warm up my sound" YMMV

I've spotted a few threads in regards to mastering and I have to be blunt, the people behind these threads don't have a clue as to what they're talking about. For starters, mastering a track is actually pretty easy if you've done a decent job at recording/mixing it. So lets say your song is completed but seems to be missing something then you think hey, maybe it's because it needs that mastering everyone is talking about..... Here is pretty much a standard method for mastering a song that's been recorded halfway decently. Load the song into your favorite multi track program be it pro tools, cubase, Cool Edit Pro, Sequoia 9 or whatever. Also, be sure your reference amp to monitor the mixing has it's bass and treble set to flat. If you have the luxury of a loudness switch, this will help a lot. You can switch it in at times for reference but remember, you are in fact going for a flat bland sound cept detailed rather than muddy. Step 1 - Balancing out the tracks overall frequency curve. The first thing you should do is try to flatten out the tracks frequency response. This will give the instruments that "blended" feel as though everyone is playing/singing at the same time in the same room. You want to eliminate the gap you feel between the instruments when listening but without them sounding like they're stepping on one another.There are two ways to do this, sometimes both can or will be used. First start by selecting a shelving EQ, 15 bands or more. Set them all to flat and process the track. You'll notice some cuts in the wave form and the peaks should now be a little more in sync with one another. Give it a listen and see what you've got. It may payoff to do this step a second, possibly even a third time. After this process, your instruments should sound more "blended" and more importantly, your vocals should sound like the singer is surrounded by the instruments. It should be sort of bland and midrangey but not muddy. This is where kicking in the loudness switch and giving it a listen comes in handy but remember, you want to do all your mastering steps without any EQ'ing occurring in your monitor system. Another step to flatten it out a bit is compression. The tricky thing with the compression is, you have to be careful not to overdo it and you don't want your track to sound compressed what so ever. Generally a soft knee is used but rather than expanding or compressing, you set it to flat so you don't really hear it but you get that blended effect brought out even more. Keep in mind though, you may not need to use the compression at all. The key is to get rid of that gap you sense between the instruments. I've heard some outstanding recordings that weren't mastered, the "gap" sound gives this stale, sterile computer like feel to things...... Step 2 - Adding some space This is where things get tricky, you may find that it is better to take this step before compression or it may give better results after. Bottom line is, it needs done no matter what. And what am I talking about?? Reverb! A small amount of reverb breaths live back into the track. You've gotten everyone to sound like they were playing right next to each other with your singer in the center of it all by flattening out the frequency but it sounds like everyone was standing together in a fish bowl. Add a small amount of reverb and suddenly you get this feeling like the band was playing on a stage but managed to deliver a picture perfect performance. This is one of the most crucial steps. This also may be the point where you take the compression step if you hadn't before. If it works, ya keep it but if not, there's always the undo button. Step 3 - Tone balancing So we flattened the frequency response, got rid of the gap separating the instruments from one another along with the vocals and breathed some warmth and life into the song with a very mild hint of reverb...something still missing though huh? Well for starters you need to keep in mind that you want to maintain a flat frequency curve for the most part. 90% of listeners boost their bass and treble on their players. If you do it for them, they're going to pop in your CD and have MASS overkill. Not a good thing when you're going for a commercial quality sound. So heres what ya do. Go to what should be some type of 3 band master EQ. 9 times out of 10, you can simply suck out some of the midrange and suddenly you've matched he sound of legends. Maybe you actually need to boost the bass and treble ever so slightly while leaving the midrange alone. Maybe you need to boost the midrange a tiny bit because the vocals sound hollow but the bass and treble are just fine. Do some experimenting until you have a sound that seems like it needs a bit of bass and treble boost. Now do you see why flat frequency response is constantly stressed when you're reading about mics, speakers and other pieces of gear? Like I said, leave the real bass and treble boosting up to the listener. Your reference speakers or headphones should be running flat frequency response then flip in your loudness switch to get a feel for how it will sound when the listener boosts their bass and treble. There should be a fairly vast difference BUT, there should also be a fair amount of headroom for some bass and treble boosting to be done with the stereo's EQ which you can guarantee the listener will be doing. Lastly, you might need to amplify the track a bit. Flattening out the overall frequency curve of the track tends to cause a volume loss. Generally amplifying it by 3-6 decibels is enough to compensate. After taking these steps and finding the settings that best suit your tracks, you genuinely should have songs that sound like they belong on a CD you bought off the Best Buy shelf. No. Some of these steps might be useful to a hobby job of mastering, but you have a pretty skewed method, overall. E.G., I don't know a single ME who would try to use a graphic eq for mastering.

Has anyone listened to the coldplay DVD (live 2003, I think)? The video is great, the audio is really fatiguing... I can't tell, but there seems to be a lot of distortion on that disc.

I posted this under a different thread but no one will tell me what they think about sounds/mix/anything. This is a folk/country artist I engineered and mixed. Mastered by one of my mentors. The project was recorded in one day and there are 5 songs total. Here's just one...I don't know about bandwidth restrictions on geocities but here goes: http://geocities.com/bighairsuite11/almostbrave