blue2blue

Yes, there are books. The Electronic Musician "DIY Mastering" is a good call. There's the search function here or with Google, which will spit up quite a few articles on mastering. Then, of course, there's lots and lots of practicing and experience, getting good monitors and acoustic treatment for your room, training your ear, and those kinds of things. Or you could do what every other hack does and boost 5k and use a shelving EQ from 13kHz up (rolling off a little bottom end if you are really "conscientious"), run it through a compressor, and then crank a gain optimization program until it's sinfully loud and distorting on the peaks, and then smile and call it an evening. Remember, if louder is better, then loudest is best! What's that toy mastering suite with all the "retro" looking screen animations? I read people recommend that all the time -- of course, that is typically followed by a raft of derision from a number of folks. But the ACID and beatbox crowd seem to like it.

I don't normally recommend buying things, even magazines -- but the current, February, ish of Electronic Musician has a moderately detailed article on "DIY mastering" -- I haven't read more than the first page or two but I didn't see anything out of line in what he was writing. It might be four bucks well spent -- or you could wait for that article to make it onto their website in a few months: http://emusician.com/

You're right... the punchline is... socko. Sorry you're the one who got socked. At least it was only a glancing blow... glad you didn't get stuck for 2 G's.

He he he...You should read this whole thread, it's already happened. Bottomline is that Charles is a pretty nasty guy. But it wil all come out in the wash, the Post production community is actually pretty small, and people with nasty streaks rarely work for long. As for the DUC, yes there was a blast of Charles' vitrol, which was promptly removed from the DUC by the Mods after I asked them to lock the thread. All in all, it was a difficult situation, $2k is a lot of money no matter who you are. -Todd A. Yeah... in catching up just now, I realized that a) I'd already posted in this a long time ago and b) I didn't finish reading earlier. I'm gonna go back through and get the nasty details. And -- actually -- I realized just now that your story was one of the stories I'd heard... (For some reason, I thought I checked the date on the thread and found it was started today. Go figger.)

What's switchboard? He just emailed me back after 4 days, claiming his son fell and got "Whiplash". That doesn't add up... I replied that i was no longer interested in doing business with him and asked for refund. We'lll see what happens. -Todd A. I've read this pattern scores of times. Now, for sure, stuff happens; musicians ARE flaky; kids do get sick; great aunts do die... But over and over I've read stories like yours... it just seems like these guys keep coming up with one plausible excuse after another. When they're on the buying end, one imagines, it might just be something as simple as cash flow. (And in the case of people who sell things they don't have yet -- as we must imagine some do -- it seems like cash flow can combine with seller issues on his end, as well.) But all too often in these stories, it's the good guy looking for a decent deal (not even a "too-good" deal... WC Fields notwithstanding, a lot of folks DO try to cheat an honest man or woman) who ends up holding the bag. Anyhow, it's a dang shame that folks like this screw it for the millions of legitimiate and responsible sellers and buyers -- but I'm afraid it's all part of the human comedy. It's just that sometimes it ain't so funny... BTW... if he posts here or you post something about this transaction at the DUC, be prepared for a blast of hostile, "wounded" emails from this guy. He'll say you're just not trusting or caring. He'll say you're jumping to conclusions. He'll say you're accusing him of being dishonest. Yadda yadda yadda... it's all part of the pattern.

Since I don't send my tracks out for "professional mastering" (sorry for the quotes, but I remember when "mastering" meant someone who really knew what they were doing running a variable groove cutting lathe and sweetening was just a last-chance option to correct problems with the mix) I've always handled any final sweetening myself. I agree that that is not ideal for all the usual reasons (less than ideal monitoring situation, sweetening in the same monitor environment as mixing, tired old ears, etc) but until someone dumps a big budget on me (oh ho) that's just how it's going to be. I would rather spend my money on the means of production than paying someone else to do what I consider my work, ie, getting the sound right. Now, I used to approach the "mastering" stage much like a third party might. I'd take the two track master recording in file form and drop that into a two track editor (Sound Forge, typically) and apply whatever compression and/or compensatory EQ I thought it needed at that point. But at a certain point I thought to myself... huh. I'm running my audio through AD/DA (in those days I mixed OTB), exporting that and taking it into another editor. When my DAW (Sonar) added enough tools (at least in the form of "Pro" package add-ons like the Timeworks Compressor-X and EQs) that I could achieve better results there than in Sound Forge I thought to myself, Why go through the extra steps? So, nowadays, I typically develop the mix as well as I can conventionally (with nothing engaged on the output buss) and then I bring in my EQ and compressor (if needed) and output the finished "master" from there. Like I said, if someone dumps a big budget on me, I'll start sending out. But until that millennial event, I'll go on my cheezy way, "mastering" at the output buss. YMMV.

Ditto that. Do NOT throw out your speaker(s). [You can PM me for a shipping address and send them to me shipping-COD, though, if you want. ] In all likelihood, your hum problem is simply a wire that's come loose. It's quite possible/likely to be something a reasonably tech-savvy person with a soldering iron can find and fix.

I would certainly expect more. Maybe he meant for every second spent tracking in the studio? I'm thinking he meant for a straight commercial with no hire out talent and just library music or minimal SFX. And it still sounds cheap but things are tough these days... But, obviously, an original jingle is a whole different animal. I mean, just imagine what you'd have to charge if it was a union date with live musicians. That said, I just don't think THAT happens anymore -- not even much at the national TV spot level. Listen to the music under a lot of TV commercials -- a lot of it was done with library music or ACID or similar.

I always thought the bathtub or jacuzzi... Of course, there's always those pesky ground issues.

If you don't like the way a vendor prices his wares you have the ULTIMATE POWER. Just don't BUY from them. Boom. Works like a charm. _______________________ But if you're actually interested in WHY some companies have to charge more just to stay in business, it has a LOT to do with economy of scale and service. I think NewEgg seems like a pretty good outfit. But just try asking them for audio advice. Or just try getting the same motherboard at the same price your buddy got a month ago; you might. But chances are if it was a good deal, they blew them out of stock. Anyhow, things are not NEARLY as simple as a lot of folks on the outside think...

All-encompassing work from Stranger! The only thing I worry about is that his instructions are so detailed and so complete that they may -- in their sheer length -- be intimitading. (I mean... I'm a power user and a business app developer but the sheer mass might give me pause. I'm kidding -- OBVIOUSLY, he's trying to cover all the bases.) With regard to single-purpose machines... while reserving your machine strictly for recording is the EASIEST way to maintain a well-optimized, lean, mean machine, if you're careful, by and large, you can maintain a multi-purpose machine that is ALSO well-optimized for recording. Both my XP laptop and my (stripped down) Windows MCE desktop have a boot profile RAM footprint of about 120-125 MB or so with 20-22 processes running. HOWEVER -- jgk62 was pretty spot on on highlighting PRECISELY the type of programs that like to burrow into your system and suck down its resources. Realplayer, Quicktime, some other big name players, put "loaders" in background that don't actually do much except put their logo in your system tray -- and take resources... sometimes more than you would ever imagine. For instance, Sun's Java Runtime installation AUTOMATICALLY -- without asking -- installs a relatively huge background process (12-15 MB RAM footprint) in your boot profile -- what's it doing? Simply waitin for Sun to send word out on the web that there is a new Runtime software update. Even MICROSOFT's Windows auto-updater doesnt' take up nearly that much resources [last time I ran it in background and checked its footprint] -- closer to one third that. It's INSANE. Sun are [uncharitable but well-warranted slagging deleted by author]. With regard to PORN... porn viewers, "video players" -- just don't do it. There are SO many threats from this sector and many of them are designed to install WORMS in your system. (OK... there are SOME innocent porn/erotica sites, you should pardon the expression. But extreme caustion is warranted.)

Originally posted by qw345ty789 don't use 24bit audio, use 16bit audio. i still have one DAW (backup) with a P4-1.9ghz CPU, and i've done over 70 mono 44.1/16bit tracks with no problems. i do however use 3 harddrives (2 exclusively for sonar) so the system drive doesn't suffer a performance hit. using any audio beyond CD quality is a complete waste since no one will ever hear it, and in fact most people buy my songs in MP3 or OGG format. all that 24bit bull{censored} is just hardware vendors trying to sell more {censored}ing soundcards That is just SO NOT TRUE. 1) using 24 bit allows you to give yourself more audio headroom at the input -- so you don't continually have to juggle level and the possiblity of clipping your interface. 2) using 24 bit allows the processing you do in the box to cause less degradation to your signal as multiple processes are invoked. (That said, your DAW's processing engine probably will work at 24 bit or 32 bit no matter what your input or output formats are.) 3) using 24 bit output while mixing means you have the best fidelity possible as you're working -- why put blinders on? 4) if you do after-mix sweetening/mastering, you will achieve better results starting with a 24 bit signal. Now, yes, if you store your tracks as 24 bit files there WILL be a rough 50% increase in some processing overhead. But what do you get for that 50% increase in overhead? The potential to store any of approximately 17 million dynamic values -- as opposed to a maximum of about 65 thousand in a 16 bit format. It IS a tradeoff but the benefits of working at 24 bit are potentially large. If you're very careful -- YES, by all means, you can get good results working with a 16 bit interface and storing your project files in 16 bit formats -- but you can potentially get much more accurate results of successive processing as well as greater ease of use, by "moving up" to the de facto production standard of 24 bit audio. ___________ PS... I used 16 bit 8 channel audio interface until about 2000. In 2001, I switched to a 24 bit interface. I've done a LOT of recording at both bit depths. For me, there's no question what works best and produces the best (16 bit) end product. But everyone's mileage varies -- what works for YOU might not work for me -- but the CONVERSE is also very true: I took exception to what you wrote because you were making a blanket generalization that I KNOW to be a very foolish one.

Originally posted by IsildursBane Really? I always thought the MSDN library stuff was pretty good, albeit a bit tough to navigate at times. -Dan. OK... I'll go that -- at least for the purpose of argument (but, ACTUALLY, I've found a LOT of wrong info in MS's developer docs). I've actually -- on rare occasions got just the info I needed -- but almost NEVER using MS's benighted search engine. My point: the best answers in the world are little good if few can find them. I don't know if you're familiar with the MySQL online documentation but I think it's pretty great. I approached my first MySQL project a few years ago with considerable trepidation... having been developing mostly with MS tools for a number of years. I thought it was night and day... it was almost a pleasure using the MySQL documentation because everything is laid out, easy to get to, coherently organized, version by version... not the horrorific jumble of outdated info on MS's dev sites. I mean -- really -- I think MS's documentation, as a whole, is utterly pathetic.

BTW, I was over at GS earlier and George Necola who runs the music computers forum there was saying that -- with Aero, the new graphics engine, and a couple other things turned off -- Vista runs about as fast as XP. http://gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php?t=102464 He also says they've turned DRM off on their machine(s) but I have to admit I'm not at all up to speed on all the DRM issues... I only became aware of the intentional signal degradation (and superficially at that) in the last 10 days or so.

Originally posted by toddlans If you're looking to sell any of that vinyl, let me know. I should probably thin it out but at least half of them have some kind of sentimental attachment. Or obsessive... when I was just outta college I had about 300 LPs stolen and it really put my head in a bad place -- they were the 300 "most recent" listens... later when I had a few bucks and I'd see a copy of a favorite album in a used bin I'd buy it again -- even if I already had a copy or two. It was starting to get a little uncomfortable... When you've bought THREE copies of the Seeds' Spoonful of Seedy Blues just to replace the copy you bought for 50 cents at a swapmeet in high school you know you're acting out some inner, unhealed trauma. But that -- thinning out the LP collection, I think I've healed -- that won't be for a while... they're DEEP in the garage. They were the first thing I moved (old habit... along with the stereo... even though the tables are in the garage. Sigh. Then again, being a two minute walk to the sand is part of that tradeoff. And I do have access to most [but certainly NOT all] of the music in my vinyl collection via my subscription service.)

I've paid for three copies of XP (or, more properly, two XPs and a Media Center)... I suspect I may find some ethical "flexibility" within myself should I need to prolong the working life of one of my XP machines. One time I had a pal make mp3s from his CD copy of an album I own on vinyl.* I'm really an outlaw at heart. *(My turntable's in storage buried deep in my garage as are my 1200 vinyl LPs -- my beachside flat is just too small; the album wasn't available on my subscription service, either.)

That's somewhat heartening. With re that last one copy of XP... yeah... I was just thinking they'll pull it from the shelves long before they stop giving new authorizations. And -- long as you don't have to change CPUs after they stop giving authorizations... there's always the option of keeping a "core" backup on hand for mini-disasters. But yeah... this is REALLY pushing me a LOT closer to the open source/*nix way of thinking. It was one thing when we just had to keep a wary eye on MS... NOW they're all but threatening our computing way of life (and I DON'T mean just their draconian copy protection but it it's clear that it will impact far more than pirates).

Originally posted by alphajerk i have been running Vista betas for a while now and it wasnt much of a hog over XP with a new machine [i run a C2D 2.4 + 2GB [800mhz] RAM on a 975BX2 mobo], but even an older 3ghz P4 ran fine under Vista [just no cool aero interface]. i was all excited about Vista with its unlimited RAM capabilities, 64bit architecture and OS restylings [like breadcrumb pathways in the windows] until i read this: Vista crippled by content protection Collateral damage from Vista suicide note. Chris Mellor, Techworld 27 December 2006 PC users around the globe may find ... Such over-reaching by Microsoft could prove to be the catalyst needed to spur increased takeup of Linux desktop operating software, or of Apple's Mac OS. Yep. I'm no Microsoft basher. I really do like XP a lot and MS has done some pretty cool things by me and my sector (the release of basic Visual Studio developer apps as freeware was unexpected -- and perhaps self-serving as they were preparing for the Vista roll-out -- but it was still pretty cool)... But my loyalty is to open, standards-based computing -- not Microsoft. More of my own development work has been taking place on the web -- and that's often meant using non-MS developement tools (as well as MS tools like SQL Server and ASP). The good news is that some open source developer tools are in many ways BETTER than MS's products. MySQL is an able performer -- but where it REALLY shines is in documentation and responsiveness to the developer community -- two places where Microsoft is UTTERLY ABYSMAL. (NO other company I've dealt with on an ongoing basis has such INCREDIBLY BAD DOCUMENTATION as Microsoft. It is an UTTER DISGRACE.) I may well be among those who goes out to buy one last copy of XP... And -- honest to gosh -- I'm going to start lobbying now for my DAW, Sonar, to be ported to Linux.

Originally posted by JohnnyX Blue everytime i see that mic in your pic i think of the 60's and crack up! waaahooo, those were the days! Yeah... that little mic was damn near ubiquitous back then. I just saw one in a Perry Mason re-run last night. The bad guys were using it to bug a room! BTW, I hope you'll go back and read the comments regarding your 128 vs 192 comparison, particularly with regard to re-ripping a 128 into 192... that wouldn't buy you anything and would almost certainly result in a 192 kbps MP3 that was inferior to the "original" 128 kbps file. It would, of course, be 50% bigger by definition... a 192 kbps file is called that because it requires 50% more transmission bandwidth (as measured in kilobits per second) to transmit. And even if you were to compare a 192 and a 128 that were EACH ripped from a full, uncompressed "CD-quality" file it still would be a mighty slim test bed. My hearing -- it can safely be said now that I don't take clients anymore -- is highly compromised. But if I can hear that difference -- as well as (often as not) the diff between a 192kbps file and a potentially higher quality VBR file, it's not something overly subtle...

Someday -- when our computers are FOUR TIMES as powerful -- Vista MIGHT run as well on them as XP does on today's computers. But Vista's MASSIVE CPU requirements -- MS, themselves estimate a fourfold increase in RAM will be needed at minimum and, IIRC, an even greater increase in minimum video standards needed to support MS's Mac-me-tooism, Aero, the rescaling graphics engined designed to compete with OS X's Aqua (that name-apple didn't fall far from the tree, huh?) As far as I can tell, in the 5 years or so that Aqua has been laying its heavy hand on the Mac platform it has resulted in two things, The Swoosh (the animated "tornado" resulting from an open window "swooshing" down onto the Mac Dock [the OS X "innovation" that mimicked XP's taskbar -- MS is not the only shameless borrower]) and the ability to view graphic representation of documents in small "iconized" windows. (This ability has been available in various add-ins for Windows for years and I've yet to see anyone use it on an ongoing basis.) Vista is ALL about one thing -- the need to "churn" the computer hardware and software market. Hardware and software vendors have been increasingly anxious over MS's long-promised and often delayed "next generation" OS -- they need it to force people to buy new computers and new versions of old software. What will you gain if you switch to Vista when it becomes available? An operating system that will, in a very real sense, reduce ANY given computer's power to 25% of what it was under XP. Think about THAT.

Originally posted by nobrainer440 I'll admit my ears are not the best, but I would bet less than 1 in 20 people could tell the difference between a well-encoded VBR 192 kbps MP3 and a CD. Oh, I did NOT mean to suggest that your ears are worse than mine -- if, indeed, I can sort out compressed files from uncompressed better than you (and we really don't know) it would LIKELY be because I've carefully trained myself to listen for certain aspects of the sound. (Though I think I've focused so much on detecting high end artifacts that I may have ignored other artifacts. Next time I sit down to compare compression formats [last time was a 3-1/2 hour obsessive-compulsive fest] I'll be paying more attention to low end and mid, as well, and thinking about artifacts or problems other listeners have mentioned over the years.

I'd say I'm somewhere between you guys, certainly closer to nobrainer, although on modern, well recorded material I'd say I think I can usually spot the 192kbps MP3 pretty OK. But with the highest quality VBRs, I'd say all bets are off. I could probably spot some but certainly not all the compressed files. There are things to look for, to be sure, but, to these old ears, sometimes you have to look so hard you forget why you're looking. But, hey, I no longer take clients so I don't have to dance around any personal fictions of dog-like hearing... I know I rode a motorcycle for years, went to a jillion loud punk rock shows and used to stick my head inside kick drums to try and figure out why I couldn't get what I wanted out of them.

Of course, where02190 knows -- but others may not -- the only thing directly in common between implied data compression ratios expressed as kbps bitrates (the bandwidth required in a given unit of time to transfer data of that density) like 128 kbps or 192 kbps and the bit depth (also known as word length, often 16 bit or 24 bit these days in audio applications) of digital "words" (a string of bits used to store a given numeric value, such as the amplitude value of a given audio sample) is that bits (single binary values, ie, 0 or 1) are involved. Uncompressed CD audio -- which is sampled approximately 44,100 times a second is stored in 16 bit* words (allowing approximately 64,000+ different possible amplitude values for any given sample) has a bitrate of approximately 1411 kbps. (It takes that much bandwidth or greater to pass the signal in realtime.) Various forms of "lossy" data compression (data deemed by the encoding algorithm to be less valuable for creating a psychoacoustic impression of the original sound is "thrown away") like MP3, AAC, WMA, etc, can use source audio of different sample rates and bit depths and output audio data with different sample rates and bit depths. The final "size" of the data that must be processed to produce a second's worth of sound, as with uncompressed audio, is expressed as a bitrate. The most common bitrate for MP3s and other formats is probably still 128 kbps, which is approximately a 10-to-1 data compression (assuming both source and target are 44.1kHz/16 bit). 192 kbps is also quite common. It's also possible to create MP3s, WMAs, and AACs with variable bitrates... (less data is discarded when representing complex signals). *[bTW, 24 bit words offer any of approximately 16 million+ potential values, a 256x increase of potential values, while only requiring a 50% increase in storage requirements, since each additional bit doubles the number of potential values.] Sorry for the pedantry... I'm feeling especially ob-con on this first day of 2007.

I use Sonar 5 and I only have Tracktion 1 (which they were giving away for free when Mackie first bought it). But I was genuinely impressed with its usability for recording. It's a fairly different GUI paradigm, to be sure, but I found what I needed pretty quickly. And even version 1 had a feature sadly lacking in Sonar (until, apparently, the recent ver 6, which I don't have yet): auto track alignment compensation. (A dirty secret among manufacturers is that many, possibly most, audio interfaces and their drivers do not deliver accurately time-adjusted overdubs to DAWs, requiring adjustment/nudging by anywhere from a few ms to 30 or 40 ms or more. Tracktion has a ping-loopback utility to make calibrating their auto-track alignment compensation a pushbutton operation. From there compensation is transparent. Whereas in Sonar 5 and previous versions, as with many other DAWs, one has to manually nudge or live with the timing error. I believe Cubase's 'hardware compensation' works about the same, although they purpose it toward analog hardware FX loops. Same basic diff. An overdub is an over dub whether you're recording a new track or sending sends from already recorded tracks through an analog FX loop. If I got this wrong, I hope a Cubase maven will correct me on this.) I'm not sure how good Tracktion's MIDI support is or how important that might be to you, so that is another consideration. Tracktion, like Sonar, has a 64 bit audio engine, FWIW. It's certainly the wave of the future.

Give me a bunch of money and I'll make you famous. No I'm serious... give ME a bunch of money and I'll make you famous. Convincing? No? You know at least as much about me as you know about them (aside from what THEY have told you, anyhow). I'm not saying that you shouldn't pay for valuable services rendered. But I AM saying that this is one of the oldest scams going (third-oldest, I believe after the badger game and... politics). IF you hook up with some music promo service provider find out EXACTLY what your money will buy you and how you will be able to ascertain that you DID, indeed, get what you thought you were getting, whether or not that makes you famous. IOW, caveat emptor, baby. Bigtime.