Music Tech Focus - Mastering Volume 4

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MASTERING INCLUDING OVER 2 HOURS OF VIDEO TUTORIALS

MASTERING VOLUME 4 ALL NEW TECHNIQUES FOR YOUR PROJECT STUDIO

ALL NEW TECHNIQUES FOR YOUR PROJECT STUDIO

VOLUME 4

YOUR ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SOUND LIKE THE PROS

132 PAGES OF PRO

MASTERING TIPS & TRICKS

ISBN 978-1-906925-47-5

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MusicTech Focus: Mastering Vol 4

www.musictechmag.co.uk

From mixdown to airplay – the complete guide 15 essential tutorials on every major DAW Insider tricks from professionals at the top of their trade The best hardware and software rounded up 25 pro tips for compression and audio editing

Mastering in... Logic | Cubase | Reason | Pro Tools | Live | And more

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Welcome MTF

Welcome

Mastering: that part of the music production process that takes your track on a journey, from being a good mix to a great-sounding commercial release. At one time it was a dark art, a hidden process talked about only by those ‘in the know’. But increased computer power and decreased software prices have brought the huge benefits of mastering to within easy reach of project studio owners. The message is clear: with a few readily available tools and a little guidance, you too can make your music productions stand side by side with the best. And for that guidance you need look no further than this very magazine. In this special issue of Music Tech Focus we’ve got mastering tutorials for every major music production DAW, so whatever your core software, there is something here for you. Then there are videos from the pros demo’ing their techniques, in-depth workshops on the major production processes, plus super-quick guides to some of the more creative techniques available – it’s not all about loudness and EQ, some of the side effects that you get from the mastering process are truly inspiring. And if you are lacking the tools to give mastering a go, don’t worry. We’ve included round-ups of the best commercially available hardware and software and, if you are short on funds, we’ve even provided a guide to getting and using the best freeware dedicated to mastering. So there really is no excuse for poor sounding releases any more and using this special Music Tech Focus could enhance your productions for ever. If you think your music sounds good now, just imagine how great it will sound after absorbing what’s on offer over the following pages…

You too can make your music productions stand side by side with the best

Paul Pettengale Editorial Director [email protected]

Business Dev’ Manager Di Marsh [email protected] MUSIC TECH FOCUS MAGAZINE www.musictechmag.co.uk Anthem Publishing Ltd Suite 6, Piccadilly House London Road, Bath BA1 6PL Tel +44 (0) 1225 489984 Fax +44 (0) 1225 489980 [email protected]

Operations Editor Jon Palmer [email protected]

Publisher Simon Lewis [email protected]

Contributors Rob Boffard, Mark Cousins, Mike Hillier, Hollin Jones

Editorial Director Paul Pettengale [email protected] Managing Director Jon Bickley [email protected] Licensing enquiries Jon Bickley +44 (0) 1225 489984 www.anthem-publishing.com Art Director Jenny Cook [email protected]

Art Editor Kai Wood [email protected] Multimedia Editor Alex Holmes [email protected]

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MTF Contents

Issue 27

Mastering Volume 4

YOUR ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SOUND LIKE THE PROS

From mixdown to airplay – the complete guide ● 15 essential tutorials on every major DAW ● Insider tricks from pros at the top of their trade ● The best hardware and software rounded up ● 25 pro tips for compression and audio editing ● And much, much more…

Workshops

Walkthroughs

p126 p06

p24

p60

p120

p84

p50 p109

4 | Mastering Volume 4

FOCUS

Contents MTF

MTF Technique

MTF Pro Tips

MTF Issue 27 Full listings… 006 | Workshop Dynamics processing 010 | Workshop M/S processing

Minute Master Mastering equalisation Restoring the balance… p88

25 tips for

Mastering Compression – p28 Audio editing – p72

014 | Studio Technique Contemporary mastering 024 | Step-by-Step Mastering with Ableton Live 028 | 25 Pro Tips for… Compression 032 | Interview Miles Showell 037 | Step-by-Step Mastering with Cubase

Round-ups

Software

Plug-ins and effects – p92

042 | Ten Minute Master Key gating 045 | Step-by-Step Mastering with Ozone 5 050 | Workshop Mastering with TrackS 3 054 | Step-by-Step Audio analysis 060 | Workshop Mastering with Logic Pro

Hardware

For sheer sonic quality – p76

064 | Interview Stuart Hawkes 068 | Workshop Ozone 5’s Meter Bridge 072 | 25 Pro Tips for… Audio editing 076 | Round-up Hardware

Tuition

The best courses – p124

080 | Step-by-Step Mastering with WaveLab 084 | Workshop Mastering with Pro Tools 10 088 | Ten Minute Master Mastering EQ 092 | Round-up Software

MTF Interview

Stuart Hawkes MTF Technique

Masterclass

“Today’s engineers have to take a holistic approach” p14

“It’s a lot more about getting it right for the digital formats now”p64

096 | Step-by-Step Mastering for free 102 | Interview Dan Austin 106 | Ten Minute Master Inter-sample peaks 109 | Step-by-Step Mastering with SONAR X2 114 | Studio Technique From mixdown to airplay 120 | Step-by-Step The soundstage 124 | Round-up Tuition 126 | Workshop Mastering with Reason 6.5 129 | Next Issue Mixing 130 | What’s on your MTF DVD

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MTF Workshop Dynamics Processing

Dynamics Processing Workshop

Dynamics processing

On the disc

The art of dynamics processing lies at the very heart of mastering, but what exactly does that mean? Hollin Jones reveals all…

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astering isn’t quite as complex a process as you might imagine, but even though it involves a relatively small number of tools, it’s as much an art as it is a science. The fundamental elements of the mastering process are dynamics and equalization, sometimes with some tape saturation or stereo widening thrown in as well. Other tools, like exciters or maximizers, fall broadly under the scope of dynamics and EQ; they just have different names. A lot of people will be working with software plug-ins to process their tracks and others with hardware, though whichever tools you use, the fundamental principles are the same. The two dynamics processors you will use when you are mastering are compression and limiting; both change the peak to average ratio of music as well as reducing dynamic range in the audio that passes through them. Since compression comes first in the signal chain and limiting always last, let’s look at compression first.

PRO TIP Some developers produce suites of dynamics tools that are designed to work as one. The Dynamics component of iZotope’s Ozone 5 system for example contains a limiter, gate and multiband compressor amongst other tools and can be loaded as a single plug-in on a track to take care of all your mastering dynamics needs. Of course you can activate or deactivate any processing section and just use the ones you want.

Compression Plug-in compressors can be broadly divided into those that have contemporary designs and those that are modelled on vintage compressors. Where you need the compression to feature prominently as an effect (rather than just for dynamic control) you will find that vintage-style compression plug-ins tend to produce the quickest and most effective results. 1 One difference between vintage compression plug-ins can be found in their relative response times, making their effectiveness often tied to specific sounds. A slow-response, optical compressor plug-in – such as Universal Audio’s LA-2A – will often deliver excellent results on bass or vocals, for example, but might struggle on more transient-heavy material like drums. Using a more contemporary compressor, like SSL’s X-Comp, opens up a greater range of compression effects, as well as the ability to control dynamic range in a more subtle and transparent way, which is often preferable when mastering. 2 These types of compressors deliver some particularly good results on low ratio settings (in the region of 1.5:1 to 2:1) coupled with a low threshold, providing a quality of delicate and transparent gain control that can be difficult to establish on a vintage plug-in. Another interesting feature of the X-Comp in particular is the unique Bleed Through parameters, which allows a part of the HF and LF signal to pass

Vintage modelled and newer compressors offer a different kind of sound and also have different sets of features, depending on what it is you’re after.

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Some master buss compression during the mixdown stage can reduce the need to compress to add coherence at the mastering stage.

The two dynamics processors you will use when mastering are compression and limiting uncompressed, allowing elements like kick drums and cymbals to ‘breathe’ through a heavy dose of compression, for example.

Master buss Although producers generally recommend that you consider mastering to be a completely separate process to mixing, it can still be desirable to apply some master buss compression during mixdown, which should mean that less compression is required at the mastering stage. It’s also handy for listening back prior to mastering, to ensure that the track isn’t too quiet. To add a little punch to your mixdown, try strapping a buss compressor – like Duende’s Buss Compressor, or Waves’ SSL G-Master Buss Compressor, or even the Master Buss Compressor in the mixer of Reason 6 – across your main stereo outputs. 3 Keep the settings relatively light to avoid pushing the output too much, but leave enough to just give the mix a little extra punch, even a slight pumping effect. On the SSL buss compressor, for example, try using the lowest ratio and raise the threshold just high enough to shave off about 2-4dB of the top of the mix. The idea with this kind of pre-mastering dynamic treatment is to create an extra sense of loudness without affecting the general feel and character of your mix too much. Avoid any heavy equalisation or multiband compression, which can skew the sonic balance dramatically, and opt for simple, tried and tested sweetening techniques. Equalization could be as simple as a bass rolloff at 30-40Hz (just to keep the bottom end under control) and 1-2dB of EQ at 70Hz and 12kHz. Other buss sweetening processors, like Sonnox’s Inflator, can also help give the mix slightly more impact and body 4 although it’s really the Brick Wall Limiter set to around 4-6dB of additional gain, depending on your existing dynamic range, that adds the most noticeable level boost when you actually come to the full mastering stage.

PRO TIP Saturation effects can also be applied at the mastering stage, though these must be used carefully so as not to colour the sound more than you intended. Yamaha and Steinberg’s Vintage Open Deck is a good example of a tape emulation plug-in that can add warmth and very slight fluctuation to the signal, if that’s something that you’re after. There’s even a virtual tape speed and the option to choose old or new tape.

Be sympathetic When you get to the mastering stage and are trying to set up your compressor, the settings you use will of course depend on the nature of the track you are working with. On the whole though you should probably be aiming for a relatively gentle compression effect, unless your music is really heavy electronica or rock. Load up a compressor – here we are using FabFilter’s Pro-C – and then find the right general threshold where compression starts to kick in, with a relatively high ratio and fast release time. 5 Make sure the gain reduction meter bounces as the peaks in the signal occur, if your model has old style VU meters. Then drop the ratio down to a very low setting and put the release time to about 250ms to start. It’s then a matter of fine tuning the attack, release and ratio controls, and potentially tweaking the Threshold as well, until you get the right kind of balance. 6 Ideally you want to set the threshold somewhere in between the lower and higher dynamics. Too low a threshold will simply have the effect of capturing everything and

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MTF Workshop Dynamics Processing

7 Multiband compressors can help home in on problems within mixed down files, while many compressors come with presets for different genres.

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compressing it, as will too high a ratio. The aim is to keep some dynamic range in the signal and thus retain a more natural effect.

Multi band compression If a single band compressor isn’t cutting it, consider using a multiband model. You can sometimes use little or no compression on the higher frequencies, as they have a tendency to naturally cut through a mix anyway. It’s the mid and lower frequencies that usually need to

One great tip is to load up a couple of audio files and compare their waveform displays have punch and power added and, by identifying which elements of a track live in which frequency ranges, you can accurately compress the bottom and middle parts of a sound, for example, while leaving the top end relatively untouched. 7 You will probably also figure out that multiband compression is a clever way to “cheat” and alter the mix of a file that has already been mixed down. By identifying where instruments and sounds exist in the frequency range you can compress them more or less heavily and use makeup gain controls in many cases to change their relative levels, even in a stereo file.

Combined with EQ, the effect of this can be even more pronounced. Be careful however not to over-compress or indeed to get the compression settings wrong. You might end up with a track that sounds punchy but has lost all its transient impact as the quieter and louder parts of the signal have been made more equal in volume and the dynamic range has been lost. The kind of compression you use will depend on the music you’re working with. Scrolling through the presets on your software compressor or your mastering suite should reveal a pretty clear picture of what settings work best for different genres. Presets for hip hop, rock and dance for example will all compress relatively heavily, and anything targeted at chart pop probably even more than that. 8 For classical, folk or jazz you will want to use a far gentler treatment. One great tip is to load up a couple of audio files, one something modern and heavy and one something older and more mellow, and compare their waveform displays. The older track will almost certainly be far quieter and the newer one much louder and more heavily compressed, a result of the loudness wars and a modern tendency to over-compress and limit – these are things to be aware of when mastering. 9 There’s another factor that influences how you use dynamics during mastering. You can find that music that has been produced mostly or even entirely in the box using plug-in instruments already sounds pretty heavily compressed. This can be because it has never actually seen the light of day. It was generated, recorded

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Compare old and new tracks to get an idea of how mastering has changed over the years. This increase in loudness has been caused by more limiter use and nowadays limiters also come with plenty of ‘transparent’ presets.

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Add a little drive to add some volume, while Soft Knee limiting only takes effect at a certain threshold.

and mixed inside a computer. Many software synths and drum machines also have compressors as part of their onboard effects chains so they may already have compression applied, even if you weren’t aware of it. Real instruments on the other hand are entirely free of compression, unless it is added manually. So a guitar and vocal track for example would be completely dry until you added processing manually.

Limiting The other type of dynamic processing used during mastering is limiting. Limiters are designed to change the sound as little as possible and simply to make it louder. As such they come at the end of the mastering chain and are actually relatively simple to use, though some have only a few controls and some offer more options. Here for example is FabFilter’s Pro-L. 10 To reiterate, compression is used to add punch and strength to the character of a sound; limiting is used to increase its overall volume and make it suitable to be sent out into the world. One of the most commonly asked questions in music production is why someone’s track doesn’t sound as loud as commercially produced material. Aside from the money that has been spent on commercial tracks, the answer is almost always that your track hasn’t been through a limiter. Maybe it hasn’t been through mastering compression or EQ either, but here we’re talking about limiting. With a fast attack time and a relatively fast release setting, limiting can sound pretty transparent to the ears. Indeed, some software limiters make a point of having “transparent” presets. 11 Many limiters are single band but some, particularly those from Waves, work on multiple bands. Although these are much more powerful and flexible they also bring the potential to overcomplicate or mess up the mastering process, in a similar way to how multiband compressors can make your life more difficult rather than simpler if you don’t know what you’re doing. Limiters basically consist of a few controls. The output level or ceiling is the setting that determines where the signal is limited and, since the goal of mastering is to get as close to 0dB as possible without

PRO TIP Most leading DAWs support some form of track preset, or channel strip preset that can containing a chain of plug-ins complete with settings. These can be a great way to use the plug-ins that come with your DAW to create mastering setups rather than having to necessarily invest in third-party processing suites. Of course if you do buy extra plug-ins these can be used as part of the chains as well.

going over it, this is typically set to around -0.1dB or slightly lower. 12 The input drive or gain control (there are different names used in different models) is where you choose how much to drive the input signal. Driven a little, you can add some volume and power to a signal; driven a lot, you will squash or crush it so that the level meters are almost constantly squeezed up around the -0.1dB mark. The idea behind limiting is that the signal does not exceed this level. By pushing the signal you will achieve greater volume but progressively lose dynamic range as the input is driven harder and harder. Like a compressor, a limiter reduces the differences between quieter and louder parts of the signal, though it does it in a more transparent way. So what you should be aiming for is some drive and a good, solid level, but without crushing or distorting the signal. The limiter will prevent clipping but it’s still possible to drive it too hard and squeeze the life out of it. Many limiters have a lookahead option which can scan ahead into the signal by a few milliseconds and analyse the file for upcoming peaks, adjusting itself to deal with them accordingly and resulting in more accurate overall limiting. 13 Some also have a Soft or Hard Knee option. Soft Knee limiting means that limiting only kicks in when the signal reaches the threshold, and the transition to full limiting is nonlinear, producing a softer, less abrupt effect and reducing distortion artefacts that can be produced by hard limiting. 14 The most important thing to remember when using dynamic processing during limiting is to be sympathetic to your material. It’s easy to process the life out of a track with today’s software plug-ins but that doesn’t mean you should. The loudness wars have been made possible by the prevalence of compressors and limiters available to more or less anyone making music, but there is now something of a renaissance for the idea of letting music breathe, or at least there is in some circles. Compress to add punch and weight but not to pump, unless you are working on heavy dance music. Limit to add volume and signal strength, but not to completely flatten the sound and drain it of all character. Follow these basic rules and your masters should come out sounding just great. MTF FOCUS Mastering Volume 4

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MTF Workshop M/S Processing

M/S Processing Workshop

Understanding M/S Processing

On the disc

Utilizing M/S processing could revolutionize your mastering workflow, as well as adding punch and definition to your music. Mark Cousins explains…

In essence, Mid/Side is a different way of carrying and representing a stereo signal, formed from the ‘phantom centre’ sum of the left and right channels (the L and R channels summed to mono, in other words), and the difference between the left and right channels, conveniently referred to as the Side channel. Audibly, the differentiation between the centre and the sides of a mix makes sense, as most lead instruments will reside in the Mid channel, while the Side channel will contain the width and detail of the mix. In short, M/S is a musical division, rather than the ‘dividing line’ approach of L/R stereo.

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ore than any other part of the production process, mastering has embraced the techniques and possibilities brought about through the application of M/S processing. Put simply, M/S processing offers an illuminating new way of perceiving and modifying the stereo imagery of a signal, allowing you to dissect a track in ways you might have previously thought impossible. Used correctly, M/S can add punch and definition to your masters – whether you are tightening up a flabby low end, for example, or adding a greater sense of spaciousness and expanse to your music. 1

M/S basics Given that most mastering engineers are presented with a simple two-track audio file, you can see why they would want to develop a number of devious ways to dissect a track. Principally speaking, a mastering engineer has three techniques at their disposal. First, of course, they can choose to separate a mix into Left and Right components, which is sometimes useful for the purposes of applying EQ, but is generally of little benefit otherwise. Secondly, and more productively, a track can be sliced ‘laterally’, forming a series of distinct and separate frequency bands using a multiband compressor. The third, and final, dissection tool at the mastering engineer’s disposal is that of Mid/Side stereo, a term generally abbreviated to M/S.

Enter the matrix

PRO TIP Even if you have a proper two-channel compressor to hand, you’ll still need to check its configuration before you start processing in M/S. Usually this involves unlinking the two channels so that the controls run independently, and activating the twochannel ‘mono’ mode.

Having understood the fundamentals of M/S, let’s now look at some techniques we can apply it to in a typical DAW. The key to M/S processing is a simple Encoding/ Decoding matrix plug-in, which you can either download as freeware (take a look at Voxengo’s MSED), or buy in a dedicated form, like Brainworx’s bx_control V2. As a start, therefore, try instantiating a simple M/S Encoder/Decoder across the audio file included on the DVD, or one of your own choosing. Try solo’ing the different components – Mid and Side – and listen to what you’re hearing in each channel. In particular, notice how centre-panned mono instruments (like the acoustic bass) disappear in the Side channels, as well as the other pronounced differences between the instrumentation across the two channels. 1 What’s interesting now is if we want to start processing in the M/S domain, which is easy enough, assuming that any subsequent plug-ins feature discrete two-channel operation (in other words,

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Importantly, M/S processing doesn’t necessitate a completely different set of plug-ins, just a few additional tools to facilitate moving in and out of the M/S dimension.

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Once separated into Mid and Side components, the individual channels of your two-channel compressor become independent controls for their respective part of the stereo soundstage.

separate controls for each channel of processing). In this first example we’re going to place a compressor after the M/S matrix, ensuring that its output is set to M/S mode. Rather than receiving a L/R signal, therefore, the compressor is now working with the Mid and Side channels respectively. 2 To correctly hear the results of our M/S compression, we need to return the output of the compressor back into L/R stereo. To do this, place a second instance of the M/S Encoder/Decoder plug-in on the output of the compressor, this time setting its input format to M/S and its output format to L/R. In theory, of course, we could insert any number of plug-ins into our M/S matrix, as long as the last plug-in in the chain returns the M/S signal back into its L/R form. 3

Midlife crisis The key to the application of signal processing in the M/S domain is to differentiate between the types of sound present in each channel. For example, try adding some compression to the Mid channel to see how it affects the presentation of the mix. Adding compression to the Mid channel directs the gain reduction towards principle lead instruments as well as the bass end of the mix. Even small amounts of compression can really help the drive and focus of the master, giving some extra sonic energy to an important part of the stereo soundstage. Harder compression, of course, benefits from less high-end ‘pumping’ artefacts, as these signals tend to reside more extensively in the Side channel. 4 Side channel compression, of course, changes the width and detail within the master, often enhancing small details that often get drowned by the relative prominence of a Mid Channel. Instruments panned past 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock get a pleasing lift, and you’ll also notice the reverberant qualities of the recording being marginally enhanced. If the Side channel is devoid of bass, you’ll also find that Side channel compression sounds proportionately smother, as all too often the low end dictates the amount of compression applied when in standard L/R mode. 5

PRO TIP The Fairchild 670 was originally designed for both stereo and M/S compression. In the case of the Fairchild 670, the M/S mode is labelled Lat/Vert, mainly as a throwback to the days of cutting music to vinyl. The Lat section represents the Mid, while the Vert covers the Side.

at what you can achieve with a dedicated M/S equalizer – in this case, the Brainworx bx_digital V2. Setting up the equalizer is suitably straightforward in that the M/S matrix is built in, so we don’t need to do anything more than instantiate the plug-in. 6 Of all M/S processing activities, I’d argue that M/S equalization is one of the most beneficial areas to explore, mainly because of the clear distinction between instruments residing in the Mid and Side channel respectively. Solo’ing the Mid channel, for example, we can instantly direct EQ towards the main instruments featured in the mix – instruments like bass, vocals and the snare – without fear that we’ll affect other constituent parts. This ‘directed’ approach means you can add a pleasing presence lift to the vocal, for example, without making the hi-hats too edgy, or boost the bass end without cluttering the bottom end of the mix. 7 EQ’ing the Side channel of the mix is a good opportunity to look at the tightness of the low end in your mix. To create a powerful and focused low end, accepted wisdom dictates that the bass be firmly planted in the centre of your soundstage, with little or no stereo information. Using a sharp bass roll off, therefore, or some steep low shelving on the Side channel won’t make your master bass-light, but instead ensure that the bass is carried predominantly through the Mid channel. In effect, therefore, your adjustments

Side line As we’ve seen, you can use a standard two-channel equalizer in the current matrix for the application of M/S equalization, but in this example we’re going to look FOCUS Mastering Volume 4

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MTF Workshop M/S Processing

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The application of EQ really shines under M/S, allowing you to tighten up the bass end of the mix, or add a touch of air to the Sides.

are balancing both frequency characteristics and issues of stereo width, making M/S equalization a particularly powerful tool. 8

Dedicated M/S Looking at a dedicated M/S equalizer, it’s interesting to note some of the specialized features brought about through the fact that the plug-in is processing in M/S. One of the best and most immediate features of the bx_digital V2 is the Mono Maker control, which monos the mix beneath a given frequency value. In theory, the Mono Maker a similar tool to what you could conceivably create using some strategic Side channel equalization, although in theory it leaves the Side channel EQ free for other equalization activities. 9 Another useful feature is the De-Esser, which has individual controls for both the Mid and Side channels respectively. De-essing can be difficult to apply to a two-track master, largely because of the other signals that can occur in the frequency range of sibilance (around 6kHz, in other words). Although the De-essing tames the vocal sibilance, it also attacks instruments in that frequency area, so that hi-hats and cymbals start to be noticeably modulated. Given that the vocal principally resides in the Mid channel, though, we can push the De-Esser relatively hard without fear that our modifications will affect the entirety of the mix. 10

Ozone layer As an interesting example of just how far you can go with M/S processing, it’s worth taking a more detailed

look at iZotope’s Ozone 5. Since version 4 of Ozone, you can either work in Stereo mode, where multiband signal processing is applied to the L/R channels concurrently; and M/S mode, where signal processing is applied both on a band-by-band basis, but also between Mid and Side channels. As one example, therefore, you could apply compression to the low frequency band, but only direct this to the all important Mid channel, leaving the Side channel untouched. 11 Moving over to some of Ozone’s other signal processing sections, you can see the potential that an additional M/S mode offers. The Reverb module, for example, can have a distinct bias towards adding reverb to the Side channel, adding spaciousness without cluttering the principle instruments in the mix. Likewise, the Exciter, which does a good job enhancing the low end with some added saturation, can have its sound applied in a more directed manner – in this case, only adding the desired reinforcement to the Mid channel. 12

The M/S universe Having lived in a world of left/right stereo for so long, it’s easy to dismiss M/S as a gimmick. In truth, however, M/S offers both a radical new way of processing audio and an illuminating new view on the world of stereo, allowing you to better comprehend the stereo soundstage your music resides in. Understand the power of M/S, and you’ll unlock and new level of dimensionality and flexibility in your mastering, demonstrating why M/S is one of the best kept secrets of the mastering profession. MTF

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Ozone’s M/S processing offers an unprecedented amount of control over your master, arguably delivering eight separate compressors covering four frequency bands each with individual Mid and Side components.

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PROFESSIONAL MASTERING SOFTWARE

www.sonorissoftware.com

MTF Feature Contemporary mastering

MTF Masterclass Studio Technique

Contemporary

MASTERING Mastering is often thought of as little more than a final gloss of EQ, compression and limiting, but there are plenty of tasks beyond these that are required of the modern mastering engineer. Mike Hillier explores the world of today’s mastering…

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rogress in the mastering world moves at a glacial pace. While mix engineers will often look for new tools and techniques to experiment with in the hope that they can create and define a new sound, mastering engineers are more concerned with consistent quality. The goal of mastering is not to stamp a track with any sonic signature through the use of any new technique, but simply to use the tools at your disposal to ensure that a mix sounds as good as possible, and to ensure that each track on an album has a uniform level and quality,

Mastering engineers have to take a holistic approach to everything they are working on so listeners aren’t having to reach for the volume control at the start of each new track. This uniformity applies not only to the overall volume level of each track, but also to the stereo width and the frequency spectrum across the tracks, ensuring that no one track is significantly brighter or darker than another, and that the amount of bass energy remains consistent from one track to the next. Of course, there are always artistic reasons why level or frequency might need to change – perhaps you don’t want as much bass on the acoustic solo track in the middle of a rock record as the big anthem track – but you will still want a

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Contemporary mastering Feature MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Referencing tracks in Pro Tools

Bring up your mix for mastering in the first channel and add two or more subsequent tracks containing your reference material. Add a Master channel for your main outputs.

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Add any processing to the channel inserts of the track you are mastering, keeping the reference channels clean. You could choose to put an analysis plug-in of some description over the master channel, as long as it isn’t ‘effecting’ the audio.

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In the Options dropdown menu go to Solo Mode and select X-OR. Now every time you hit the solo button on a new channel any previously solo’ed channels will come out of solo mode, enabling you to quickly flick through the channels without having to mute and solo each one.

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consistency that will enable the listener to enjoy the record as a whole without needing to get up and change any settings. To achieve consistency, mastering engineers have to take a holistic approach to everything they are working on, paying attention not only to how a track sounds itself, but also to how it sounds against other tracks on the album and even how it compares with tracks from the same genre. It is this that has led to the problem of the Loudness War, with engineers being asked to push tracks louder and louder to out-do the competition. It is something to be avoided,

include completed tracks as references when working on each new one. You needn’t include every completed track – things might get out of hand towards the end of larger album projects – but by including at least the first and most recent tracks you will know that you aren’t allowing small changes to creep in throughout an album, and that your current track compares well to the previous one (which is what the listener will notice most immediately). In the case of the acoustic track or other slightly different tracks you will probably want to include one or two other reference tracks.

The Chili Peppers’ I’m With You was the first album to be marketed as ‘mastered for iTunes’

From vinyl to mp3

though, as pushing the level higher requires reducing the dynamic range, which in turn can introduce distortion and reduce the dramatic punch of transient material like drums. This idea of mastering in context is one of the most important concepts. Most mastering engineers will start a project by loading two or three similar tracks by other artists (and perhaps even one or two older tracks by the same artist) into their own channel in the DAW to compare to the track currently being mastered. It’s important to run these channels out of the DAW clean, so any processing you’re adding is being added only to the channel containing the track being mastered and not to the master buss, where it will also process the comparison tracks. You will end up chasing your tail, adding more and more of the effect to catch up with the additional processing on the comparison tracks. By comparing your master with similar commercial masters you can ensure that your track is going to sit well when played alongside these and other similar tracks. However, most important of all is ensuring that your tracks sit well alongside each other; as you progress on a project, be sure to

While mastering houses might not change their equipment or working methods very often, changes in distribution technology can force some reappraisal. Music mastered for vinyl, for example, has to be re-mastered for CD due to the very

MTF Pro Technique The Loudness War Much has been said about the Loudness War and the damaging effect it has had on music, but one aspect that is often overlooked is how by avoiding the Loudness War altogether you can make your music stand out from the crowd. Radio stations turn squashed material down and dynamic material up automatically to ensure a level output. The Sound Check function in iTunes and iPods does the same. At the same perceived output level the more dynamic track is going to have considerably more punch and depth, and will therefore have more impact on the listener than the squashed dynamics of the Loudness War victim. Victims of the Loudness War often display square-wave distortion, whereby transients have been chopped off at the top to raise the overall level.

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E V E

A U D I O

B E R L I N · G E R M A N Y

T H E

www.nova-distribution.co.uk [email protected] +44 (0)20 3589 2530

WWW.EVE-AUDIO.COM

"[...] They have plenty of detail and the fact that the response is even – from low levels right up to their surprisingly punchy version of loud – means you could mix on them very happily. Factor in the price and you've got two speakers punching well above their weight. Roland Stenz certainly knows a thing or two about loudspeaker design." Stuart Bruce, Future Music Magazine

N E X T

"[...] Two things stand out from the off: nicely controlled, clear bass, and a remarkably open and deep sound stage. With natural acoustic recordings you get a real sense of the recording space." Huw Price, MusicTech Magazine

S T E P

"[...] I've had a pair of SC205s set up beside my usual Near fields and I've found them to be easy to listen to with a neutral tone that doesn't wear your ears out during long sessions... Due to their size the SC205s will probably be best suited to home/project studios but they could also be used by professional studios in small rooms, as part of surround or mobile setups, or for music playback installations." Mark Woods, AudioTechnology Magazine

Contemporary mastering Feature MTF

different qualities of the two mediums. This is why many early CDs are now being remastered, as the CD master was often rushed or done using equipment designed for vinyl mastering. When mastering for vinyl, the fades and gaps need to be predetermined and cut into the lacquer; in the case of CD masters, the gaps and fades are edited in the mastering DAW along with PQ points, which determine where the track markers will fall. With PQ editing it is even possible to place audio before a track, as was popular for a while for ‘hiding’ tracks before the start of track one on a CD. The switch from CD to mp3/ AAC distribution isn’t causing the same degree of difficulty for the industry, but that doesn’t mean companies aren’t trying to get ahead of the game with tracks specifically mastered for this format. The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ I’m With You was the first album to be marketed as ‘mastered for iTunes’. This meant that as well as producing the vinyl and CD masters, mastering engineer Vlado Meller produced a separate AAC master from the original high-resolution mixes instead of simply converting the CD master into AAC files, which is the usual procedure. The intention is provide an experience that’s closer to listening to the 16-bit CD when you’re actually listening to the lossy AAC format. To improve your AAC masters you’re going to need to know what the encoding and decoding is doing to your audio. The Sonnox Fraunhofer Pro Codec enables you to audition your mixes through a variety of audio codecs in real time, including mp3, AAC-LC (as used by the iTunes Store) and HE-AAC (v1 and v2). By placing the Sonnox Fraunhofer Pro Codec at the end of your signal chain you can make changes to your EQ, dynamics or stereo processing and instantly hear what effect it is having on the audio throughout the encoding and decoding

TC Electronic’s System 6000 MKII hardware provides a variety of dedicated mastering tools, including a selection of dynamics and EQ processors, many of which are available as 5.1 versions.

processes. By comparing this to your CD master you should be able to get your lossy versions to a sound that’s closer to the 16-bit CD master.

Sounds around Multi-channel surround sound is another area in which mastering engineers have had to make changes to their workflow, initially by adapting and expanding existing hardware to do the job, then by adding dedicated surround processors such as the Neve 8051 surround compressor. Nowadays, of course, it’s obviously a lot easier to add surround capabilities to your DAW plug-ins than it is to get it from hardware. The majority of

Tech Terms ● LFE The LFE (Low Frequency Effects) channel is the ‘point one’ channel in a 5.1 system. This channel is usually sent to a subwoofer as part of a 5.1 system, and is intended to deliver bass-only information. ● CODEC The process of encoding and decoding a signal, such as audio. Different codecs are available, each using different methods to encode and decode the signal, such as mp3.

To improve your AAC masters you’re going to need to know what encoding is doing to your audio

MTF Step-by-Step mp3 encoder

Place the Pro Codec plug-in last in the signal chain on the track you want to process. This way you will be able to monitor the effects of each plug-in you place before the codec. Place a clean version of the track on another channel to use as a reference.

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Add the codecs you want to use to the Codec List and choose the settings for each one. Select the codec to edit its settings. You can create multiple entries in the Codec List with different settings to see how, for instance, different bit rates affect the quality.

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Once you’ve finished mastering arm the plug-in to record the finished file using its built-in codecs, so you can be sure that your finished mp3 or AAC is as you hear it. This is important as different encoders may have different artifacts and characteristics.

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MTF Feature Contemporary mastering

Artist Q&A

DAWs now have built-in surround support, and most plug-ins scale up into surround easily enough. Surround still hasn’t really caught on in the music world, but with more and more households now putting surround-sound home-cinema systems in their homes, the technology is expected to catch on (both DVD-A and Blu-ray audio provide support for multi-channel surround). Mastering for surround multiplies the potential problems considerably: not only do you have to work with six channels of audio, but you also have to be

Engineers perform tasks that would previously have been performed during the mix aware that many of the end-user listening environments are going to be far from perfectly set up. What’s more, many surround projects are actually brought to mastering as stereo files, which need to be up-mixed to produce a surround master. There are various tools for doing this, which usually create an ambience in the rear channels and use mid-side techniques to separate the phantom mono image from the stereo files and place it in the centre channel. When using up-mixing tools start with the stereo mix, not the master, then perform the EQ and dynamics processing on the finished up-mix. If you are lucky, instead of a stereo mix the

Neil Wilkes

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astering engineer Neil Wilkes has recently finished working on 5.1 versions of King Crimson albums In The Court Of The Crimson King, Lizard and Red from mixes completed by Porcupine Tree founder Steven Wilson and King Crimson’s Robert Fripp. He also recently authored the new 5.1 release of The Who’s Quadrophenia. We caught up with him in his Opus Productions studio to talk about surround mastering. How do you deal with the LFE channel when mastering? Should the mixer have already placed the kick and bass in this channel? What the mixer has put into it is really down to him or her and is a personal choice, but they often leave material as full-range – I have seen LFE channels with content way past 1kHz. One of the biggest problems with the LFE channel is that it is so often confused with a subwoofer, and the two are, of course, very different animals. For surround mixing the main guideline is that all five main channels should be treated as equal and full-range and to avoid piping anything exclusively into the LFE – and believe me when I say you could do a whole article just on this issue, as it gets very difficult. Of course, it is going to happen that the disc will inevitably end up being played on one of those home-theatre-type speaker setups with a subwoofer and five bookshelf speakers and if we are lucky this will have been correctly set up and the title will translate. There is no way I know of to compensate for a badly or just plain incorrectly set up playback system though.

One of the biggest problems with the LFE channel is that it is so often confused with a subwoofer

SADiE 6 is a popular DAW in dedicated mastering houses thanks to the inclusion of features such as DDP export and PQ editing.

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When dealing with catalogue material it isn’t always possible to go back to the multitracks and get a new surround mix. What plug-ins and techniques do you use for up-mixing stereo material into surround? Depends on the source material – there are a few choices available to us these days and what way we go depends very much on not only the source, but whether or not it needs to also be prepared for fold-down to two channels, or if we have the luxury of

Contemporary mastering Feature MTF

a separate stereo stream. The latter scenario gives us so much more flexibility. Another consideration is how do the clients want the 5.1 experience to be? What I mean is are they after a complete immersion in the sound, or one that simply places the listener about ten rows back from the front of a stage? It’s almost impossible to state ‘I generally use plug-in X and technique Y followed by tool Z’ as it really does depend on the source as well as the intended surround experience. I might find that I work on an up-mix for a few hours, getting maybe 95% of the way there and it all has to start over as I cannot, no matter what I try, get rid of that last 5% of problems – which will usually be artifacts of some sort or a soundfield deficiency of some form caused by a process. If a piece is causing me particular trouble I will often make a call or two and get in a specialist up-mixer for an additional pair of ears and advice.

Neil Wilkes getting hands-on with hardware.

You do all your surround processing in-the-box. Are there any hardware units you’d like to add to your studio or do you think in the world of surround mastering that software offers more flexibility? Definitely. I’d love a full TC System 6000, as well as the new Penteo system. Currently there is nothing in software that does what the Penteo does and the

There is something almost magical about the sound of good analogue gear software implementation of the TC Unwrap leaves out all the little things that make the hardware version work so well. Add in a nice Neve 8051 Surround Compressor, please, and also the SPL EQ – that still sounds beautiful to me. While software does often offer more flexibility, there is something almost magical about good analogue gear as it seems to affect the sound in a way that is very difficult to describe – it just seems to sound better, for some reason. Steven Slate Digital has done research on this and it seems that the act of passing audio through discrete components adds non-linearities to the audio that affect it in a very pleasing way. What are your favourite plug-ins for processing surround material? Very difficult question, as I do not have a ‘preferred chain’. It’s impossible to know what you will need to do to a mix until you have sat down and played it through a few times to get a handle on what needs to be done – if anything. I do have certain tools that I tend to try ahead of others, although sadly they are not multi-channel-capable, so a certain amount of creative bussing needs to be done to use them. There just are not very many properly configured surround-capable plug-ins out there.

Although the ATR-102 is only a stereo plug-in, Neil likes to set up three busses with the ATR-102 on each one to emulate a surround setup.

Currently, one of my favourites is to gang three of the UAD Ampex ATR-102 Master Tape emulations so they all operate as one unit and tweak until it does what I want – it’s an awesome plug-in and worth the price of the DSP card for this alone. Another very important tool is the correct LPF to use on the LFE channel. The recommended setting is usually 80Hz with a minimum of 48dB/octave slope, but this tends to lead to the possibility of artifacts so it can be a good idea to use two in series with 24dB/ octave per filter – you get the smoothness of the gentler slopes with the cumulative effect of a steep 48dB one. You use the WK Audio ID console. Does having tactile control over your plug-ins enable you to escape from the screen? Absolutely it does. There is simply no substitute for being able to adjust attack and release simultaneously, or frequency and Q. It’s also wonderful being able to work in software but without a screen of any description – it removes the visual element and gets you back to listening instead. It’s fair to say that surround systems remain largely the domain of audiophile listeners. Does this mean you are insulated from the Loudness War? Sadly, no. There are all too many out there who still seemingly regard louder as being better. Neil Wilkes initially worked as a live mix engineer and went into the studio in 2000 after forming Opus Productions Ltd. Since then, Opus has established an international client portfolio and has just gone into partnership with Simon Heyworth’s Super Audio Mastering to actively promote high-resolution audio and surround sound. www.opusproductions.com www.so-audio.com FOCUS Mastering Volume 4

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MTF Pro Technique Multi-band compression Mastering compressors will respond to any and all transients, reducing the level of all sounds at that point. When used carefully they can gel instruments together in a mix, but when pushed too hard can introduce unwanted pumping in response to high-energy instruments such as the kick drum. Some compressors have a sidechain with a high-pass filter to remove much of the low-end energy. Another way to deal with this problem is to use a multi-band compressor; this enables you to compress some frequency bands more than others. When used carefully it’s a powerful trick that can give weight to the bass while not causing any pumping of the high frequencies. Setting up a multi-band compressor is more complex than a standard compressor, though, so be careful when setting the crossover points and remember to set the ratio, attack and release settings for each band. The T-RackS MultiBand Limiter is a powerful tool with three bands of compression, each with their own Threshold and Level controls.

Tech Terms ● ANALOGUE SUMMING Many engineers prefer the sound of analogue summing to the summing in their DAW and choose to output each stem to its own channel on an outboard summing mixer rather than sending them to a master channel inside-the-box.

original multitracks will have been mixed explicitly for surround. In this case the rear channels are still likely to contain little more than reverb, with most surround mixers preferring to position the music coming from the band in front of the listener. There will always be exceptions, with some bands experimenting with sounds coming from the rear and even moving around the soundstage, but this remains the exception that proves the rule. Just as with a stereo mix you will usually EQ and compress both channels as a stereo pair, in surround you will often process all of the channels together. However, you might also want to apply a mono EQ and compressor to the centre channel, which is likely to house the lead vocal, kick, snare and bass. Apply

MTF Buyer’s Guide Summing mixers

D-BOX

Manufacturer Dangerous Music Price £1,200 The Dangerous Music D-Box is an eight-channel summing amp with onboard digital-to-analogue conversion and built-in talkback section with two headphone outputs. The D-Box enables you to send eight channels of AES or S/PDIF digital directly out of your DAW ready for analogue summing inside the unit. Web www.dangerousmusic.com

stereo processors across the left and right front channels, but bear in mind that these have to sit comfortably with the centre channel, and that some mixers may have kept a phantom centre in these channels as well as using the centre channel itself. Again, stereo processors can be applied to the rears, which if they contain only ambiance should be the easiest to process. Finally, depending on how it’s being used, the LFE channel can also be processed in mono, but as it is likely not to contain anything above 80Hz, it should be easy enough to EQ. Remember to always check your surround mix for fold-down compatibility. Just as you would check a stereo mix in mono, you need to check your surround mixes in both stereo and mono.

Stems and summing As well as balancing levels, EQ and spatial properties in audio tracks and dealing with gaps and fades, mastering engineers are now routinely being asked to perform tasks that previously would have been performed during the mix. Mastering from stems is one such example: the mastering

FOLCROM RMS216 Manufacturer Roll Music Price $775 The Folcrom is a 16-channel passive summing mixer without gain or level controls. Each channel has only a pair of pushbutton switches to assign the channel to the left, right or both outputs. The simplicity of the signal path enables Roll Music to make no compromises with the passive components, giving a transparent signal path. The output can be fed to any of your mic preamps to provide the tonal characteristics you prefer. Web www.rollmusic.com

8816 Manufacturer Neve Price £2,100 The 16-input Neve 8816 is hand-built and wired with the same circuit topology as the 80 Series consoles, and features two custom Carnhill transformers on the stereo output to deliver the classic, punchy Neve console sound. Each channel has up to +15dB gain, level, pan, cut/solo and cue controls. Web www.ams-neve.com

FAT BUSTARD

Manufacturer Thermionic Culture Price £3,699 The valve-based, 12-channel analogue summing mixer has four stereo ins and four mono ins, plus low- and high-shelving filters set at 50Hz and 10kHz respectively. There are also Stereo Width and Depth controls and an Attitude distortion section. Web www.thermionicculture.com

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Contemporary mastering Feature MTF

MTF Step-by-Step What’s possible in iZotope RX

Simply drag your audio file into iZotope to begin editing it. You should see a waveform view appear in blue, with an orange spectral view underneath it. You can fade between these views using the slider under the sample window.

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Using the tools on the right it is possible to De-Clip, De-Click and De-Crackle, Remove Hum, De-Noise and perform a Spectral Repair. Simply select the section you want to repair with the various selection tools and click on the restoration tool of your choice.

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engineer is given two, or usually more, stems to work with in order to balance the levels of the various parts of the mix. Ideally the engineer should be able to bring in all of the stems at unity gain and hear the mix as intended by the mix engineer. This gives the mastering engineer the option of raising or lowering any stem directly without trying to bring out the vocal by raising a specific frequency band. As in mastering, EQ usually involves only very small changes, so you would need to make only very small changes to the mix, but being able to bring out the stems rather than a frequency band (or even a frequency band within a stem, so raising 2kHz for instance in the vocal) ensures that the other instruments remain properly balanced. As stem mixing has become more common in mastering, some mastering facilities have added a hardware summing mixer to their equipment list, giving yet another reason for some mix engineers to provide stems rather than simply a stereo mix. However, stems aren’t right for every mix, especially if you have outboard summing of your own that you feel makes up part of the mix, or any mix-buss processors that you want to add to the mix. Mixbuss compression, for instance, will respond differently to each of the stems separately than it would the whole mix, which effectively means that you have to take it off the mix buss. The mastering engineer can and almost certainly will add their own flavour of compression, of course, but if you were using the compressor to achieve a specific sound in your mix you can’t really use stems.

Noise reduction Another job commonly performed by mastering engineers is audio restoration. Hiss, hum, buzz and clicks can all make their way into a recording at any stage, and while it can be advantageous to remove them as early as possible in the mix (so as not to amplify the problem later) some will always slip through the net. Clicks in particular often end up in the final mix as levels are pushed higher and higher (one of the reasons why we always suggest leaving headroom in your mixes), but they also crop up in the

As well as restoration tools, iZotope RX 2 has a useful real-time spectrum analyser that can be great for helping to isolate specific frequency bands that are causing problems in your audio.

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edit stage, when a region is cut without a fade, for example. However, with good audiorestoration tools clicks are among the easiest things to remove, and removing them even as late as mastering shouldn’t have a noticeable effect on the audio quality. Of course, if you can go back to the mix and correct it by introducing a fade or pulling all the faders down by a few dB, that is by far the best course of action. It’s not always possible, however, and if you’re working to a deadline and it’s not your track you’re mastering it’s best to have a restoration tool to hand. There isn’t an overwhelming number of options, but iZotope’s RX2 is cross-platform and does an exceptional job of removing clicks and other noise artefacts. We’re also fans of the CEDAR suite running on the SADiE platform.

Another job commonly performed by mastering engineers is audio restoration Mastering started off as nothing more than the process of turning the final mix into a lacquer ready for printing vinyls. Any processing was done simply to ensure that the lathe would be able to cut the grooves and that the needle wouldn’t skip on playback. However, as engineers got more creative with EQ and dynamics processing during the mastering process, the process of pre-mastering for vinyl morphed into the creative process we know today. In today’s mastering facilities, the engineer’s job has become focused on that creative process. With the tasks of cutting lacquers and even printing CDs now almost obsolete, the mastering engineer is doing more and more to ensure that the final CD sounds as great and is as close to the artist’s vision as it is possible to be. MTF

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MTF Walkthrough Ableton Live

Ableton Live Step-by-Step

Mastering with

On the disc

Ableton Live

There’s much more to Ableton Live than looping and DJ’ing, it can also be put to great use as a mastering tool, as Hollin Jones explains…

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bleton Live has gained a reputation for being a great tool for DJs and performers, with a wide selection of built-in effects and instruments and a novel approach to recording and composition that involves looping, stretching and warping audio. As the software has matured, however, it has also taken on many more features of a conventional DAW, and is quite capable of mastering using its own plug-ins, plus of course any third-party models in VST or AU format (for the Mac) that you might have installed. The process simply involves loading a mixed down stereo audio file onto a track in a new project and

Live’s system of effect Racks makes it easy to combine a number of processors into a chain

applying plug-ins. It’s possible to apply mastering processing at the mixdown stage but I would discourage this because the mix and mastering processes are fundamentally different. Mixing down involves perfectly balancing all the elements of a track together and outputting a file where the overall level is good but not necessarily really loud. Mastering on the other hand involves bringing the track’s level up and glueing the mix together as a whole to make it sound more cohesive and also to ensure that it is ready for playback on any number of devices. One of the most commonly asked questions in music production is why a track doesn’t sound as loud as the ones you get on CD or hear on the radio. Commercially produced tracks are professionally mastered to sound loud, clear and punchy and although they have thousands of pounds spent on them, you can achieve great results yourself with a far more modest setup. In fact the plug-ins that come with Live can be employed to master your tracks and, with a little knowhow, you can get great results.

Rack ‘em up Live’s system of effect Racks means that it’s easy to combine a number of processors into a chain for mastering and other purposes. In fact, if you take a look

MTF Navigation Mastering with Ableton Live EQUALISATION EQ is vital at the mastering stage and the 8-band EQ unit is good for shaping the overall character of your master prior to final export.

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b COMPRESSORS There are various compressors bundled, including single and multi band models. Apply compression to gel a mix together – this preset is even called Mix Gel.

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MASTERING PATCHES Live comes with some great preset mastering patches that use its own processors. You can of course create your own including third-party plug-ins and use these as well.

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PLUG-IN CHAINS Although you may think of Live as a looping tool it’s just as adept at loading regular stereo mixdowns and then processing them through mastering plug-in chains.

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Ableton Live Walkthrough MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Using mastering presets in Live

Load up a stereo audio file into Live and make sure there are no other tracks or plug-ins going when you start. Use a completely fresh project. Now go into Live’s Devices menu and locate the Audio Effect Rack section. Then look in the Mastering subfolder. Try applying one of the presets, for example the Mastering Suite patch. You will see the plug-ins appear at the base of the window.

This preset is good because it contains all the essential elements you need to master a track. You will see that the main control panel consolidates the most important mastering parameters into a single section and you can tweak these to affect the sound. The first three are EQ controls and the fourth is the amount of compression that is applied. Tone changes the character of the processing and Stereo Width affects the stereo field.

The Limit Gain knob controls the amount of drive applied using the limiter. Click on the Show / Hide Devices button to reveal the plug-ins that make up the chain, then click on the Multiband Dynamics model to open its editor window. Raise the Comp Amount quick control to bring the compressor into the signal, then drag the three bands to affect the amount of compression applied to each one.

Move on to the EQ Eight module that comes next in the chain. Activate as many bands as you feel you need to sweeten and fine tune the overall EQ of the sound. If your mixdown was decent you shouldn’t have to be doing too much at this stage, it’s probably just a case of adding a few small boosts to draw out certain elements. Use the Q control for each band to affect the amount of frequency around the EQ point affected.

The Limiter sits at the end of the audio processing chain and adds gain. The Ceiling is set to -0.10 dB by default, which is a pretty safe setting to use. It’s not going to result in clipping but it’s loud enough that you should end up with a decent amount of gain, especially if you drive the input a little. Parameters mapped to quick controls, as in the case of the input gain knob here, may need to be altered from the Quick Control section.

Finally in this particular chain you will see a Spectrum plug-in. This isn’t actually processing any sound, it’s just analysing the sound that is passing through it, so it’s safe to have it after the limiter in the signal path. It’s a good way to get an idea of how the frequency bands are behaving in your track, since it looks at the sound before it has passed to the speakers. In this example we can see a lot of energy in the bass and upper mid ranges.

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inside Live’s Audio Effects folder you will see a subfolder called Mastering. The presets contained within this folder can help you to understand how the mastering process works in Live. If you load up the preset called Simple Mastering Chain, for example, you will see a number of controls grouped into a simple interface. Click to expand the devices and you will see that it is made up of an EQ and a Compressor, though not in this particular case a limiter. You can of course manually change any of the settings in each effect but the major controls have been pre-mapped through to the main control area for you. So you can change the EQ scale, low boost, stereo width and overall gain. The lower row of dials controls the compressor’s behaviour. For more complete control, delve into the effects themselves. You can re-order the plug-ins by dragging their title bars left or right, and this has some bearing on the effect you get. It’s not a set rule, but a lot of producers like to use compression first and EQ second. The reason for this is that it’s easier to EQ a compressed signal than it is to

PRO TIP Activate MIDI Mapping mode in Live by right clicking on any assignable parameter and choosing Edit MIDI Map or selecting Options > Edit MIDI Map. Assignable controls will be outlined in purple and can be assigned to any connected hardware MIDI controller or software-based controller connected wirelessly and running, for example, on an iPad. They just need to be set up in the MIDI preferences.

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compress an EQ’d signal. If you put the EQ first, any changes that you make are likely to be negated or at least dulled by the compressor as the signal passes to it. If the signal is being compressed first, EQ changes made after compression are more accurately represented in what you hear.

Mastering chains There are other, more complex mastering chains available in Live’s library. The Vintage Mastering 1 preset, for example, starts with a multiband compressor. Multiband compression is more flexible than single band compression, though it can also introduce some extra factors to think about. By compressing different bands using different amounts of processing you can get better control of a complex mix, or one where single band compression isn’t cutting it. It could be that the bass end needs reining in but single band compression has the effect of also cutting the mid range and so sucking the life out of the mix. In a situation like that, multiband compression would be more useful. FOCUS Mastering Volume 4

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MTF Walkthrough Ableton Live

This preset also takes advantage of some of Live’s other processors. There’s the Saturator, which is able to drive the signal and add analogue warmth and has a Soft Clip stage to tame any peaks. The utility plug-in contains a handy stereo width tool that can be used to add some widening to the signal. There’s also the Limiter, which always comes at the end of a mastering signal chain and is used to add punch and gain to the signal. It is this that gives a track as much volume as possible without going over 0dB and clipping. It’s the vital component in making a track sound loud, though the coherence and balance of the mix are handled by the compressor and EQ units respectively. You can set the ceiling to fractionally below zero and then use the Gain knob to drive the input signal. There’s a lookahead section too, which can help you achieve more accurate limiting by constantly seeking slightly ahead in the signal to look for changes.

Build your own Aside from the mastering presets it’s quite possible of

PRO TIP Live can see your VST plug-in collection and, on a Mac, your Audio Unit plug-ins. You can control which ones it loads by going into Preferences > File and Folder. Here you can turn AU plugs on or off on the Mac and use VST plug-in system and custom folders, which are useful if you have installed certain plugs outside of your default plug-in location.

course to build your own mastering chains in Live. Inside the Dynamic Processing plug-in subfolder you will find a number of compressors suitable to use as the starting point. The Vintage Finalizer, for example, contains a single band compressor and a Saturator, and is great for adding some richness to the signal. Away from the ready-made racks, you can use individual plug-ins to build a chain and of course add in any third-party ones you like as well. You have a choice of EQ units and while some people prefer the simplicity of the EQ Three, others opt for the greater power and flexibility of the EQ Eight since it has more bands. These can always be turned on and off, so you could for example use six or five bands – you don’t have to use all eight. Inside the Limiter folder you will find some good presets for various different strengths of limiting, from gentle through to very hard brickwall for an ultra-loud sound. Once you have built a processing chain it can of course be saved, and it so comes time to export your processed file. You can choose to render out from the

MTF Step-by-Step Build a plug-in chain in Live

Part of Live’s flexibility and power lies in the way it enables you to quickly and easily build plug-in processing chains. In the case of mastering we want to build an audio effect rack. There are several ways to do this. You could for example drag an empty rack in and then begin adding to it. Or, start building your chain and group the component parts together as you go along. Try adding a Compressor to the track.

If the compressor is sucking some of the gain out of the signal you can use the Makeup button to restore some gain, though as mentioned previously, gain is mostly handled at the limiting stage. When mastering you are looking to add some fairly gentle compression to the signal, and your aim should be to “glue” the sound together rather than necessarily making it really loud. For complex mixes, try a multiband compressor instead.

With a Multiband Compressor, you can set the threshold of each band by dragging the handles of the three bars, and dragging the mouse up or down to change the volume. There’s a master Amount dial too so you don’t have to apply all or nothing, it’s possible to apply a variable amount of multiband compression to the signal. Often this is preferable to applying 100% all the time.

Now proceed to add the remainder of the elements of the chain. We have added an EQ and a Limiter. To group them into a Rack, hold down the Shift key while left clicking on the title bar of each effect so that they are all selected, and all shown lit up in yellow. Then right click anywhere in any of the title bars and from the resulting menu, choose Group. This groups them together and Live knows that since they are audio effects it will be an audio effect rack.

With the Rack created you can add to it either by dropping further processors into the main view or by clicking to reveal the Chain List. Drag and drop further effects into this area and they are layered up on top of the original chain. So here for example we have added a Saturator to the Rack and it exists as a second chain within the Rack. Chains can be re-ordered by dragging them up or down and it makes it easy to blend chains for different treatments.

When your chains are complete and you are happy with the sound, choose to export the audio file. Switch off Normalization and choose which of the tracks you wish to output, either the Master channel or the track your audio lives on. Remember that you need to include all the processing so it makes sense to keep all the plug-ins on a single track to make things easier to manage.

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Ableton Live Walkthrough MTF

master track or from the specific track containing your audio and plug-ins. You should deselect the Normalize option prior to export. This is because normalisation is really better suited to raising the volume of audio that is too quiet, but if you have done your job properly with the compressor and limiter, the signal should already be loud enough. Normalization is fine for exporting loops, and even stems, but properly mastered files shouldn’t need it. There are dithering options available on export too, so if your project is set to a higher quality, like 24- or 32-bit or a sample rate higher than 44.1kHz, you can use dithering to convert the file, say to CD quality, without introducing any unwanted distortion.

Going Live Naturally, if you have any specialised third-party plug-ins that are suitable for use in Live you will be able to add them into the processing chain as well. If you have something specifically dedicated to mastering, like

PRO TIP Live’s single-window interface makes it easy to see how your projects are progressing. Each part is resizable and your plug-in chains live in the area along the base of the window. Using the View menu you can put Live into fullscreen mode – great for taking advantage of screen space, or when DJ’ing, as it removes the distraction of other screen elements.

iZotope’s Ozone, you might want to use Live simply as a container for the audio and apply Ozone as the only mastering plug-in that you use. It can also be a good idea to meter and analyse your audio properly during mastering and for this you might want to use Live’s own Spectrum or some good third-party analysis plug-ins, such as those from Blue Cat Audio or Waves. There are even some good free ones floating around the internet. Since analysis plug-ins look at your audio signal while it is still inside the computer and before it has been passed to your speakers and fired out into the room, they are much more accurate in telling you about phasing and frequency response than simply relying on your ears, where factors like room shape and monitor quality come into play. You may spend much of your time in Live looping and recording, but you can see that it’s also a capable mastering tool, if you know which of its plug-ins to employ and how best to use them. With a little knowhow your tracks can sound radio-ready. MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Assigning Macros

Live’s plug-in system is great but the layout can make it a little fiddly when it comes to making continual small changes to parameters, as you are likely to do during mastering. Many preset Racks have Macros already assigned, and these are a great way to make changes without having to keep going back into the plug-ins and finding the relevant controls. Take a Rack and click on the Show / Hide macro Controls button.

You can use a hardware MIDI controller or enter Map Mode to quickly make assignments. Click on the Map Mode button and the assignable parameters of your plug-ins will gain green outlines. Move to the Compressor and right click on one of the parameters, say for example the Threshold control. From the resulting menu you will see the option to add it to a Macro.

Choose Map to Macro 1 and the Threshold control will be assigned to Macro slot 1 in the Macro area. You can do the same to add other parameters to other macros. So here for example we have mapped the Attack control of the Compressor to the second Macro slot. Come out of Map Mode and you will see that the Macro controls when moved now affect those parameters on the Compressor.

Another parameter that can be useful to have instant access to when mastering is the limiter’s Input Gain control, since this controls the overall level of the finished master. Returning to Map Mode, scroll across to the limiter and right click on this dial to assign it to one of the Macro slots. Remember that with any mapped control you can unmap it by simply right clicking and choosing “unmap” instead of map.

In the top left corner of Live’s window you should have seen a Macro Mappings section appear as soon as you entered Map Mode. Here you can view all currently assigned Macros for the selected chain and make edits. For example you might want the limiter’s input gain to only be switchable up to a certain level and not beyond. You could set this by going to the Max box for that parameter and entering a value.

You may even want to map hardware controls or the controls from a wireless device like an iPad running controller software to the mastering Macro controls. So you could for example tweak the settings while walking around the studio. To do this you would go into the MIDI Preferences and set up your remote device. Then right click on a Macro control or any other control and choose Edit MIDI Map and assign a hardware controller.

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MTF 25 Pro Tips Compression

Pro tips for

Compression

Compression is a vital part of everyday music-making and production – and recently the subject of much intense debate as the Loudness Wars continue to rage. So how and when is it best to deploy it? Hollin Jones gives you the lowdown… USE WITH CAUTION Compression should not be seen as a way of squeezing elements of a track too hard, but rather as a means of keeping things controlled and smooth within a mix. Settings are very much project and genre-dependent, but on a typical guitar track you might want to look at using a ratio of around 4:1 for moderate compression or perhaps 8:1 for heavier stuff like lead guitars. Compress drums individually if possible rather than as a whole, as different parts of the kit require different treatments. Bass often requires a little more compression than other tracks because of the large difference in volume and energy between low and high bass notes.

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SPLIT THE BANDS Consider using a multi-band compressor in situations where you are dealing with audio material that is more complex, such as an entire mix. You can have three or four bands, and each has its own set of gain controls, enabling you to shape each band separately. The bottom end of the track, for example, could have slow attack and release times and a smooth amount of gain reduction. The top end, on the other hand, could require faster attack and release settings so that it is more reactive to peaks. A benefit of multi-band compressors is that no single frequency controls the amount of gain reduction applied to the whole track, so you can push each one harder (or, indeed, leave it more natural-sounding) but treat other parts of the frequency spectrum differently.

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ROUND THE SIDE An interesting use for compression can be found if your compressor supports sidechaining. This enables you to use one signal to control how much compression is applied to another signal. For example, you could feed a compressor’s external sidechain input with a copy of a kick drum track and

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rather, you could use some kind of rhythmic source (such as a MIDI-triggered instrument or a sample) to apply a rhythmic feel to the way that another part is compressed. BLEND IT IN You can achieve some interesting effects by blending compressed and uncompressed versions of the same signal. For example, you could try taking the lowest things in a track, typically the bass and the kick drum, and bussing them to a stereo compressor. Apply a relatively large amount of compression to these so that they are squeezed – the exact amount will be up to you – then route them back to a new channel and blend that with the uncompressed signal. This can help the bottom end sound controlled while still leaving space for other sound sources, such as guitars or vocals.

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then feed a bass track to the compressor’s processing input. If you use a very low attack alongside a low or medium release value on the compressor, the result should be that the volume of the bass part is pulled down more or less instantly every time the kick drum sounds and then released just as quickly. This can avoid the overwhelming volume that can result from two very bass-heavy sounds occurring at the same time, but leave the bass louder when it isn’t coinciding with the kick drum part. SIGNAL PATH When compressing bass guitar, consider placing the compressor before any EQ in your signal chain. If you do this the other way round, the frequencies you boost with EQ will be compressed more and you might lose, for example, highs

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Sidechaining a compressor is a great way to achieve advanced dynamics control and mids. If you compress the signal prior to EQ’ing it and then use EQ to add bottom end, you will end up with a more even, weighty and accurate sound. You can use compression pedals but it’s sometimes better to add the effect as a plug-in so that it can be freely modified after recording.

MAKE-UP GAIN Remember to pay attention to the make-up gain control, which your compressor will almost certainly have. This is especially important in the case of multi-band compressors, since compression effectively turns down the signal, so you could end up with certain frequencies being controlled but too quiet in relation to the rest of the track. Bands that have been more heavily compressed may therefore need more make-up gain applied to bring them back up. Be careful, however, since what you are doing is almost re-mixing or re-EQ’ing the track by doing this. You should be using only a few dB of difference when making up gain. Many compressors have an auto control for this, which can be helpful.

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MASTER BUSS COMPRESSION Stereo buss compression can be useful, but remember that it affects the whole mix. Producers sometimes add a dB or two of compression when mixing down to add some punch or clarity to the mix. This is fine, but how much you add depends on how the track is going to be mastered. Usually, mastering engineers will add compression and limiting to a track during the mastering process, so it may not be necessary to add it at the mixdown stage (at least, not across the whole mix). Radio and TV broadcasters also add their own form of volume boosting during transmission, so you can see that it’s easy to get a little carried away with compression.

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TAKE CONTROL Sidechaining your compressor – if this feature is supported – is a great way to achieve advanced dynamics control without the tedious business of automating compressor settings repeatedly over the duration of a track. You don’t even have to use an actual element from your track as the sidechain input source –

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MTF 25 Pro Tips Compression

MASTERING COMPRESSION If you are compressing at the mastering stage, it’s helpful to know if compression has already been applied across the stereo buss (and if so, how much). Compression settings in mastering range from around 1.5:1 and 3:1 and thresholds can be around -20 to -10. If you’re unsure about how these kinds of settings will affect your masters, try loading up a preset in your mastering plug-in; look at its settings and how these are changing the sound. Try different presets and you’ll quickly start to understand how different settings will affect that particular track.

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BE SELECTIVE The amount of compression you apply depends greatly on what you are working on. 6dB or less of compression is considered moderate and is useful for controlling peaks and dynamics rather than imparting any specific colour to the sound. Higher levels, such as 15–20dB of compression, can be used on elements such as drums and electric guitars. In the case of snare drums, for example, you can set the threshold of your compressor to either compress every hit or to compress only those hits above a certain level, which will maintain a more natural feel.

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PARALLEL LINES To compress during mastering, consider using parallel compression. Take one version of the track and apply moderate mastering processing (compression, limiting and EQ). Duplicate the audio file to a new audio track – perfectly in sync with the first – and dial in some more extreme settings. Use the mixer faders to slowly blend in a small amount of the heavily processed track with the original and see how this affects the overall sound.

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HARDWARE COMPRESSION If you’re recording live sources such as guitars, drums or vocals, it’s possible to apply a little compression between the source and your DAW to control any unexpected peaks in the signal. This works best, however, when the effect is inserted between the two end points and as such is rather easier to achieve with hardware effects. It’s also common to record a bass, for example, through a compressor pedal to give a more consistent sound. Remember that any processing applied during recording can’t be removed later.

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LET IT BREATHE The best way to get compression to add punch to a track is to allow the attack of the sound through and experiment with release times to tweak the effect. Faster attack times will reduce the amount of punch that the signal has; slower release times can cause an unwanted ‘pumping’ effect as the compressor takes too long to ‘let go’. The ideal setup, which you can find by experimentation, is to make the compressor seem to breathe at the same pace as the track. For hardcore dance music you might actually want to encourage the pumping effect.

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COMPARE AND CONTRAST If you compare, for example, an old jazz record with a modern pop song you will hear a tremendous difference in the dynamic range. The old record will almost certainly sound much quieter and more natural, while the new one will be consistently very loud. This is thanks to compression – and also limiting – being applied to squeeze the pop song very hard and make the ‘quiet’ parts as loud as the loud parts. In general there’s a balance to be struck between these extremes for many genres of music. Compress to give it lots of body, but not to crush or destroy the dynamics.

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MIX CONTROL Some compressors have a Mix control, which enables you to feed a certain amount of the dry signal back into the wet signal path, giving you more control over the way in which the compression is working. This is not dissimilar to the way that parallel compression works, only it’s rather easier to set up. Also remember to periodically mute effects such as compressors to remind yourself how they are affecting the sound – it’s easy to forget after prolonged periods of listening.

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SPLIT THE FREQUENCIES Percussive sounds contain more energy than sounds that occur continuously over time. If you are using a multi-band compressor, consider applying more gentle compression to the higher frequencies – higher threshold and lower ratio settings – which should have the effect of letting the transients of the percussive sounds through while

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COMPRESSION VS LIMITING Although compressors and limiters both affect volume, they must be used in different ways. Compression changes a sound more than limiting does – compression is best thought of as a tool for changing the dynamics of the music in a way that is more subtle and musical. Limiters are best when they are more transparent, not colouring the sound too much but adding loudness without significantly altering the character of the sound. A side effect of limiting can be to add punch and clarity, which is often desirable.

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SIMPLE COMPRESSION One of the most gentle forms of compression is to use it simply for controlling the peaks in recorded material, leaving the majority of the recording untouched and unaffected. To achieve this you would usually set a threshold level that is slightly above the average level of the track. By using this technique only the peaks will be compressed; you could compress them more heavily by raising the ratio setting, up as far as 8:1. Consider an upper limit of around 10dB of gain reduction as a rule of thumb.

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retaining a punchy effect on the sustain of the continuous sounds. Experiment with the crossover points of your multi-band compressor to suit the makeup of the track you are working on. CHOOSE YOUR WEAPONS Compression can be used to bring out elements of a mix, but should not necessarily be applied to every track (at least, not heavily). Some elements need to be in the background for the track to work, while others are best kept in the foreground. It’s easy to over-compress and suddenly find that everything’s fighting with everything else. A good

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Compression is best thought of as a tool for changing the dynamics of the music rule of thumb is to decide what needs to live where in the mix and in the soundstage, then use light compression more generally and heavy compression more sparingly. SUB SONICS Very low frequencies can cause problems for compressors (and especially limiters) as they force such effects to work harder to process them, potentially resulting in too much gain reduction being applied across the whole mix and leaving your master quieter than it could otherwise have been (and with less dynamic range). Try using a high-pass filter to filter out any sounds below 30 or 35Hz and see if this frees up more headroom for the track as a whole.

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DE-ESSING A de-esser is basically a compressor with a very specific frequency target. You can use the Threshold setting to determine how much of the sibilance is removed through compression; sometimes there’s also a Frequency control, which enables you to target a precise area. De-essing is almost always best used with caution, since over-application very quickly starts to sound unnatural and squashed. It’s better to take precautions during recording – by using a good popshield – than try to fix problems afterwards.

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BACKGROUND NOISE Compression can amplify the noise in the sound being treated because when a signal is below the threshold, the compressor raises the gain. It’s possible, therefore, to accidentally raise the volume of hiss and other background noise during compression. It’s important, however, not to obsess about removing all of this, as in doing so you will almost certainly lose part of the music that you wanted to keep. A little hiss is a natural part of recording, so be gentle in your efforts to eliminate it.

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TOTAL EFFECTS Another way in which to use a compressor is to process an entire track. In this case you might want to set a low ratio of between 1.1:1 and 1.5:1 and a threshold of around 30–35dB below the peak level of the track. You will need to play with the levels a little until your specific track sounds right to you, but this is a good way to help sounds blend into a mix better, gently evening out the differences between quiet and loud passages without dramatically reducing dynamic range.

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LESS IS MORE If you are applying master buss compression when mixing down whole tracks or stems, err on the side of caution. The idea during mixdown isn’t to squeeze loads of volume out of the track – that can be done with a limiter at the mastering stage. Instead, aim to make the track gel together properly; to sound like it’s musically finished, if not really loud as yet. Also bear in mind that any tracks in the mix that have heavy compression applied to their channel might sound over-compressed when further compression is applied down the line, so take care.

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CROSSING OVER When using a multi-band compressor, be aware of the crossover points – many models let you set these manually (within certain limits). Listen to the track and identify where the different frequencies intersect. Admittedly, this is easier in dub than in rock, for example, but you can use multi-band compression to gain better control over the overall dynamics of a track (providing that the crossover points are correctly set). Remember that your mix should be correct prior to mixdown – don’t rely on multi-band compression or mastering to fix it. MTF

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Miles Showell Interview MTF

“There’s something about the vinyl medium when you go direct to a disc. It captures the sound of the room’’ The MTF Interview Miles Showell

MTF meets Metropolis Mastering’s Miles Showell and discovers how old techniques are bringing a new, pure sound into a world dominated by digital. Photography by Zen Inoya

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astering veteran Miles Showell started his career at Utopia in 1984. Before this, his musical background came from working at his father’s record shop, which exposed him to a large range of musical styles and artists. Since those days he has kept this musical open-mindedness, as a glimpse at his discography will show. He gained his first job, with Utopia, by means of a fluke when he saw an ad for a trainee disc-cutter/tape-copier in a music trade mag . He only happened to be reading through this due to his father’s absence from work that day. Miles recalls how luck was on his side: “I was the first to call, on the day the mag came out, so I wanted to make sure I was also the first to be interviewed so they’d remember me. I was one of four who got an interview from 48 applications… then it came down to two of us and I got the job by the flip of a coin!” Although digital gear was already starting to appear within Miles’ first year at Utopia, he luckily managed to get fully trained in the handling and setting up of analogue tape, which would prove handy for the rest of his career. After five years at Utopia he went on to work at Copymasters (now Masterpiece); nine years later he moved to Metropolis, where he works to this day.

The first cut At Utopia, the first thing Miles cut on a lathe was the Live Aid single in 1985. As junior boy, he didn’t master the track itself: his job was to cut 43 seven-inch acetates from the mastered tape. These were crucial in getting the track to the various radio stations a week before the single was released to the public, as this was such a time-sensitive fundraising event. Miles tells us all about it. “Cutting acetates was the only way to get a track to radio stations without waiting a week for the pressing plant to produce the duplicated vinyl. For Live Aid, they wanted Radio 1 to have a copy, as well as the local commercial stations, for a week’s rotation before the release. I was shown how the lathe works, then told to just get on with it.” This was the first time Miles was left alone with the lathe, and the first of many cutting sessions to come. The first number one single he cut and mastered was the now infamous Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley. He recalls the specific moment: “I remember playing it at the start of the session and after the third play I thought, ‘This could focus Mastering Volume 4

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MTF Interview Miles Showell

be huge’ – it was really well done pop. It also went to number one on my 21st birthday, which was a great present for a young sound engineer!” We ask Miles about some of the kit used at the time for the job. “At Utopia we had Klein & Hummel parametric EQs. They were good in their day, which was really in the mid-70s, but they were used in many places until the late 80s until there was much better stuff on the market. Utopia had them everywhere, as they had the best of everything when they started. Neumann consoles were also used, which again were good at one point, but don’t sound great compared to what you can get hold of these days.” When asked why he moved to Copymasters he replies: “Utopia was a great place and I was really thankful to the owners for getting me started. But you could just see that things were starting to get a bit tatty. Mastering made money but the recording studio lost it, so there wasn’t much around for the investment in new gear. I thought to myself, this isn’t really sustainable… and I then got approached by Copymasters, who wanted to expand from duplication into proper mastering.”

The vinyl paradigm Miles is one of just two engineers in the world offering the half-time vinyl cutting technique dubbed ‘the paradigm process’. He’s keen to tell us all about it. “In the 60s, before Decca moved to stereo, they had a mono cutting head they developed themselves. It was a product that came from research in the Second World War – it could cut radar signals! To do this, it had to cut at a fantastically high quality – this was all part of the FFRR [Full Frequency Range Recordings] period. But the world’s record

“Rick Astley went to number one on my 21st birthday, which was a great present for a young sound engineer!” people at the time got together and decided to go with the stereo vinyl system we use now, not Decca’s own stereo system. So Decca’s engineers were forced to use the Neumann heads and cutting gear. They weren’t very happy with the quality of the high frequencies so they developed the technique to cut at half speed. “This would involve running a master tape at 15 IPS if it normally ran at 30, and the lathe would be set at half speed too. This means all of that difficult-to-cut high end information becomes midrange while it’s being cut, then it will play back at normal speed afterwards. So they did this in the 60s, until the general cutting technology had improved to the extent that they abandoned the process.

Miles’ best-of...

Four classic Showell cuts

1994 | Portishead – Dummy “Really ground-breaking and different in its day. Beth’s vocal performances on that album are some of the most emotional I have ever worked on.”

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MTF StudioEye Miles’ mastering suite at Metropolis NEUMANN SAL 74B “This runs 500W per channel into the cutting head like a speaker in reverse, etching the groove into an acetate disc. Thankfully, Neumann built these to military specifications so they were over-engineered: that’s why they’ve lasted over 35 years.”

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PMC BB5 and XBD “The most important pieces of equipment in the room! I love the sound of them, which is effortless, natural and unforced, even at low levels. They can be a bit cruel at times: if there is anything wrong with a mix, they will show it up in all its ugly glory!”

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“Then in the late 70s, Stan Ricker from Mobile Fidelity Sound Laboratories would do it for licensed classic albums, creating small runs of very high-quality pressings which were also pressed on very high quality vinyl in Japan. I’ve got a few of them at home and they sound incredible.” Miles always wanted to try cutting this way himself, but it wasn’t until he worked at Metropolis that his interests were encouraged. He recalls their first attempts. “We first did a very crude mock-up, which involved bypassing some of the circuitry in the lathe, and it sounded good enough for us to pursue the technique further.” The next stage was to build custom equalisers for the process, as all records impose their own EQ curve which has to be accounted for with EQ beforehand, to get the frequency balance you expect upon playback. To test if people would be interested in using the service, they sent out double-sided acetates to potential clients with one side cut at normal and the other at half speed. Miles recalls some of the feedback: “They all said that they loved it, but they thought the half speed had been treated with extra high-end EQ. It was actually that the record just sounded more like the master tape or file it was cut from, not how it normally sounds when changed for the standard cutting techniques.“ Miles points out that they’ve managed to add to this technique, using technology from the last 30 years to iron out weaknesses in the original system. “When Decca did it, they used tape machines that didn’t have a great bass response.

2003 | Dido – Life For Rent “I doubt I’ll master another album that sells 13 million copies! It was a long, drawn-out mastering process, but Dido and her brother Rollo are a joy to work with, so despite the hours, it was a breeze.”

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Miles Showell Interview MTF

NEUMANN VMS-80 “This lathe was made around 1981, and it’s had various custom tweaks made to it. The cutting head is incredibly expensive, at around £8,000 to repair, so I have to be really careful with it.”

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AMPEX ATR-100 “This beautiful-sounding machine is fitted with extended bass-response tape heads and modified with both transformerless transistor electronics and valve electronics. These are switchable, so I can have either transistor or valve amplifiers in the signal path. Utopia and Copymasters had Studer units and although they are built better, they don’t sound as good. We used this unit to cut Layla directly from the tape masters.”

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CUSTOM CONSOLE “The central section is all custom equipment that’s either been made in-house or externally built to our own specifications elsewhere. For instance, there are EQs that were built in-house, and a custom stereo manipulation processor that was made for us by Maselec.”

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SONTEK MES-432 “The most musical EQ I’ve ever heard. If you want to add 12dB at 16kHz or higher, it won’t ring or sound ‘processed’. Even a rotten recording will be better for going through this EQ, and if you’ve got a great recording, just a minor tweak will make it sound even better.”

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MANLEY VARIABLE MU “I had this modified by Simon Saywood at Analogue Tube. He had JJ Electronics develop a new generation of the 6368 triode valve, which offers me far more limiting and sounds way better than the off-the-shelf unit.”

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Playing them at half speed then halved the frequencies, making matters worse and resulting in very clear but bass-light cuts. We don’t have that problem.” Underworld’s Barking was cut this way and pressed in a high-quality plant in Holland. Miles says this is an important point to note: “We tell people not to skimp on their pressing costs. If they do, they might save some money per disc, but they’ll throw away all of the extra money they’ve spent with me cutting this way, because you just won’t hear it.”

Direct to disc Another older technique that Miles has given new life to is the art of cutting a live performance straight to acetate. This is how things were done before multitrack tape arrived, and

“Direct to disc brings a nervous energy to the process and this generally works in your favour, like the buzz of a live gig” 2010 | Underworld – Barking “Their best album in years. It sounds great, too, as we avoided excessive digital limiting. The vinyl version was cut at half speed and sounds superb.”

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brings back the direct connection between the performance and what the consumer will hear. It was while Miles listened to a Thelma Houston album called Pressure Cooker that he got the idea to try out this almost forgotten process. “I heard that album about five years ago and it just changed my attitude to recorded music,” he says. “It sounded incredible.” After suggesting the idea in passing to Duke Special, they went on to successfully record The Anniversary EP. Miles also recorded various artists this way for the Channel 4/Seat project On Track, including Ellie Goulding, Tinchy Stryder, The Bees, Robyn, The Coral and many others. The process requires Miles to be ready at the lathe in his mastering suite while communicating with the mix engineer and performers. Start times have to be very precise as the disc will go into duplication exactly as cut, so it can’t have any unnecessary silence at the start, background noises, false starts, etc. Miles explains the set-up: “It’s an allanalogue process, using high-quality tie lines between here and the studio. There’s just something about the vinyl medium when you go direct to a disc: it captures the sound of the room like no other recording medium since, more so than tape and a lot more than digital. We don’t know quite what it is, but it could be because the sound hasn’t been chopped up, like digital, or passed through various amps and then to magnetic pulses, like tape. Direct to disc brings a nervous energy to the process and this generally works in your favour, like the energy and buzz of a live gig.” MTF

2011 | Derek & The Dominos – Layla “The vinyl lacquers were cut all analogue, no digital, from the original masters, so it sounds really musical. There was no false digital ‘enhancement’ applied whatsoever.”

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Cubase Walkthrough MTF

Cubase Step-by-Step

Master your tracks

in Cubase

Cubase has some excellent mastering tools included with the software – in fact it has everything you need to get great masters, as Hollin Jones reveals…

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ith its VST format, Steinberg helped to kick start a revolution in music technology by bringing studio grade processing tools to the personal computer, where previously they had only been available in hardware form. This was also the start of the “home” mastering revolution, making it possible for tracks to be mastered somewhere other than a professional mastering facility. That’s still a great place to go if you can afford it, but it’s good to have the option of doing it yourself if budgets are an issue, as they are for most people. In the last decade or so, software audio processing tools have increased dramatically, both in number and in fidelity, and computers have become much more powerful and so able to run more, higher quality plug-ins. And while mastering doesn’t generally require high plug-in counts, the ability to run processor-intensive effects, potentially at very high sample rates, is important. Cubase comes with some excellent tools of

its own as well as being able to load any third-party VSTs, so you won’t be short of options.

Getting started One of Cubase’s more helpful features is the Project Assistant which appears when you first boot the software. This contains project presets and amongst these you will find one called Stereo Mastering, which is set up for you to import a stereo audio file and get to work straight away. You can create your own template

The ability to run processorintensive effects, potentially at very high sample rates, is important files and place them in the file directory path displayed in this window, which is where templates live. Do this and they should appear in your Project Assistant list. You can also save any project as a template quickly by choosing File > Save As template, at which point you are presented with the option to add metadata for easier searching. The mastering preset places a couple of plug-ins into

MTF Navigation Mastering in Cubase

COMPRESSION Compression is a vital part of the mastering process and Cubase’s own Compressor has handy points that you can drag around to set the Ratio and Threshold, making compression quite intuitive.

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INSERT SLOTS The Insert slots are where you layer up your plug-ins to process your master. This can be done per track or, if you are only mastering one track, they can be placed onto the master channel.

On the disc

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LIMITING Limiting helps to squeeze a powerful overall level out of your tracks and the bundled Limiter module is straightforward and easy to use.

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c STUDIO EQ Cubase has a dedicated parametric EQ called StudioEQ and this is great for fine tuning and sweetening your master prior to export.

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MTF Walkthrough Cubase

MTF Step-by-Step Building a typical mastering setup

In this example we have a short section of a mixed down track that hasn’t been mastered yet. Import it onto a new stereo audio track, making sure that your project settings match those of your imported audio. You can check this in the Project Setup menu. Set up a loop around your track with the left and right markers and activate looping since you will be listening back for a while during this process.

Start by adding a compressor. Here we have chosen Cubase’s own Compressor plug-in from the Dynamics submenu, applied as an insert on the audio track. We have dialled in a mastering preset but these will always need changing to suit your track, so modify the Threshold and Ratio knobs or their corresponding points on the grid to achieve a nice, even compression. Your aim here is to sweeten the sound, controlling any peaks.

The makeup gain may be set to Auto by default but you can change this if you like. Deactivate the Auto button and you can dial in some volume boost manually to make up for any overall volume reduction that may be resulting from the compression. Worry about absolute overall level later when you limit, but add some here if the track seems particularly quiet. There’s also the option to use soft knee compression.

You can use a multiband compressor if your mix is more complex and a single band compressor isn’t cutting it. Cubase has one and you can use up to four bands, dragging the boundaries between each one to alter the crossover points and dragging each one’s top surface up or down to apply more or less compression to any band. Multiband compression is more complex but helpful if a single band model is missing or accentuating frequencies that it shouldn’t be.

Next you can add EQ and here we have chosen Cubase’s own StudioEQ. Activate its four bands and dial in frequency and gain settings for each one. This is more intuitive to do if you use the mouse to drag the EQ points in the main part of the display. The Q control for each band can be used to determine the width of the area around each point and thus the amount of signal that is affected. Aim to sweeten and balance your sound with the EQ.

Finally you can apply some limiting and you will find the Limiter inside the Dyanmics subfolder on any standard Cubase installation. Presets can be helpful here, so try loading up one that sounds similar to the kind of stuff you’re working with. The idea is to set the output gain at or very slightly below zero and then drive the input gain to squeeze maximum volume out, being careful not to over-crush the sound or introduce distortion.

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insert slots on the master output channel, though you could also place them in insert slots on the audio track that contains your file. When mastering multiple tracks in one project, avoid inserting plug-ins on the master buss. If you are starting from scratch, import your mixed down file into a fresh project, making sure the project settings as determined in the Project Setup menu match the characteristics of your audio file. You don’t want Cubase to be resampling or otherwise altering your original file so be sure to match up the settings. Also, there’s no real advantage to be gained by mastering using higher settings than you used when mixing down, as this will only add file size and not audio fidelity. This is why it’s so important to start a project using high quality settings, mix down at the same settings and if possible also master at those quality settings. Only when you export your mastered track or think about converting for CD or the web do you need to begin downsampling new versions. It never hurts to maintain a “gold master” at the highest quality resolution, and use that as the basis for any subsequent copies.

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PRO TIP In Cubase’s export window there’s a box at the bottom that allows you to specify an action to take place after processing is finished. The options include opening a file in Wavelab 7 if this is installed on your system and also uploading it directly to your SoundCloud account. Both of these are possible manually, but using the Post Process tool saves a little time, especially if you’re working with lots of files.

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Signal chain Mastering in Cubase is much the same as using a wave editor, only it employs the interface and tools that you are already familiar with. The first things you may want to apply are EQ and compression, and the order is largely a matter of preference. Some people however do prefer to compress first and EQ second, since otherwise the changes you make to EQ can be cancelled out or harder to distinguish because they are being fought by the compressor. If you compress first then EQ, you are tweaking the compressed signal, not compressing an already EQ’d signal. There are some good bundled dynamics plug-ins that you can use as a starting point for your master. VSTDynamics is probably the best all-round model and contains gate, compressor and limiter sections, though at this stage you will probably only want to activate the compressor section. If you prefer, there is a smaller effect called simply Compressor, which omits these other two processing stages. As well as a number of instrumentspecific presets this one has patches for mastering

Cubase Walkthrough MTF

which can provide a good starting point for working with your sound. In addition to regular dials for making compressor settings, the Compressor plug-in has a handy grid display with a couple of handles that let you set the Threshold and Ratio in a more natural way, and help you to see how much attenuation is being applied to any signal that passes the threshold. There’s a makeup gain section that can be used to add a little gain if your compression is subtracting some energy from the overall level, though be careful to use this only sparingly here: absolute volume can be dealt with later at the limiting stage. The main thing to ensure is that things aren’t made too quiet by the compressor, which they shouldn’t be if you are setting it up properly. There’s an Auto button on the makeup gain control if you want Cubase to handle this for you. Cubase has a good built-in equalizer on every track in a track’s VST Audio Channel Settings window, but you will probably want to use a slightly more advanced model,

PRO TIP Third-party plug-ins can lend a particular sound to your masters. Yamaha’s Vintage Open Deck is a tape simulator with interchangeable models of recording and reproduction modules you can swap out and tweak to get a vintage sound. Some tape simulation is possible with Cubase’s soundset, but a specialised tool makes it easier.

perhaps the StudioEQ that comes bundled. There are also 10 and 30 band graphic equalisers, though these tend to be less useful and not as precise for mastering due to their lack of Q controls or band type options. The StudioEQ only has four bands but this should be sufficient for most mastering EQ tasks. Indeed, sometimes having more bands just encourages you to play around more when there’s actually nothing wrong with the sound.

Boosting frequencies Dialling in EQ for a master is a very subjective thing of course, and every track will be different. Having said that, when mastering you often find yourself boosting frequencies rather than cutting them, adding sweetness in certain frequency ranges rather than trying to back things off. The only exception might be applying a low cut to the very bottom end of the sound, to remove any unwanted sub bass frequencies. You’re not restricted to using one EQ module, but do try to keep setups simple.

MTF Step-by-Step Building a plug-in chain

If you are working on a number of tracks or clips, you might typically spend a while getting the processing chain sounding right, then save it in order to be able to use again in future or call it up quickly for the next task. Cubase makes this easy. First let’s say you have already done the work and have a plug-in chain that fixes the audio you are working on. It might be easiest to view it in the project window or the VST Audio window.

There are several ways to create a Track Preset. From the Track Inspector in the Project window, go to the Track Preset area at the top and click on the tiny box icon to the left of the text. Then choose Save Track Preset and the Save window appears. Here you can create a new folder, if you like, and enter a preset name. Clicking on the Expand button at the bottom lets you add other metatags for easier searching.

You can access the same Save option by right clicking on a track’s control area in a Project and from the resulting contextual menu, choose Save Track Preset. It’s worth giving things detailed names if you intend to use a lot of presets, since using vague naming schemes means they will be harder to identify down the line. Using meta tagging can help greatly with this.

You can manage track presets on a global level by opening the MediaBay browser from the Media menu and then navigating to the VST Sound > User Content > Track Presets section. Here you can view and edit all your saved presets as well as right clicking on any one to perform tasks like write protection, revealing the file on your hard drive and copying and pasting settings. You can also create a track using a preset from here.

It’s also possible to search for track presets from this menu using specific criteria. Right click on one and then choose Search For and from the resulting menu, select a criteria. You could use this to find another preset you had created on a specific day for example, but whose name you may have forgotten in the meantime.

If you want to create a new track based on a track preset simply right click in an empty area of a project and select Add Track Using Track Preset. From the Choose window you can filter by multiple criteria or use a simple text search field to jump straight to the preset you want. Then hit Add Track and your track is loaded complete with plug-in chain.

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MTF Walkthrough Cubase

Cubase also has a limiter and this is very straightforward, letting you drive the input signal without clipping by keeping the output set just below 0dB. Applying some light to medium strength limiting should give your sound a boost and more overall power. It’s not supposed to colour it particularly, just make it louder. There’s also a Maximizer, which includes a Soft Clipping option. You wouldn’t use both of these on a track since they produce very similar kinds of effects, so it’s better to stick to one, probably the limiter.

Track Presets You can save your mastering plug-in chain in Cubase as a Track preset by right clicking on it in the project window and choosing Save Track Preset, at which point you can enter all sorts of metadata that will be picked up by MediaBay. There are a few other interesting modules that you might explore while mastering in Cubase too. In the Spatial submenu of the Inserts list for example you will find a model called StereoEnhancer and this has presets

PRO TIP Cubase comes with a Soft Clipper plug-in. Soft clipping is where peaks are brought down in level so they do not cause distortion at the ceiling: they are not allowed to square off. This can add softness to a mix in the digital domain because you can avoid the harshness that ordinary limiters cause when they are squaring off the peaks at the clipping level.

for mastering, adding stereo width to the soundstage. Use this sparingly however, if you use it at all, because adding a lot of width to a signal can quickly start to play havoc with the mix, as instruments are pushed out to the sides of the soundstage. If you are ready to export your master, in the Mastering subfolder of the inserts you will find the UV22HR dithering plug-in, which is able to convert bit rates during export accurately without adding any unwanted noise. We have mentioned Cubase’s own plug-ins but it is of course able to load any third-party models you care to add to your setup, so you shouldn’t run short of tools. When you’re done, use the File > Export Audio Mixdown command and choose the Stereo Outs as the channels to include, making sure that your sample rate and bit depth are either the same as the project you have been working in, or at least set to the highest quality you’re going to need for distribution, such as 44.1kHz, 16-bit for CD. Use Cubase’s built-in mastering tools and you will be making radio ready tracks in no time. MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Mastering multiple tracks

In many cases you will want to master more than one track and there are various tips and workflow tricks that you can employ to make this faster than loading them one by one. We have looked at saving Track Presets of chains of plug-ins but there are also other ways to quickly move plug-ins between tracks. If you go to the Mixer and reveal the Inserts view for example, you can hold Alt and drag a plug-in from one mixer insert slot onto any other in a project.

To quickly solo or mute tracks in a project, select a track then use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move up and down, and press the M key to mute a track or the S key to solo it. This is a great way to compare the relative volumes and treatments of a number of tracks in a project, say for example if they all need to end up on the same album and thus have a similar overall gain level and sound.

It’s actually possible to perform actions on tracks that are not even shown in the Project window, as long as they have been imported into your project at some point. Open the Pool window from the Project menu and locate any track in the Pool. Right click on it and from the resulting menu go to the Process submenu. Here you can normalize, fade and perform other processing tasks on one or more files quickly and easily.

It’s a very good idea when mastering to A/B your tracks with other, commercially produced tracks in the same style as those you are working on. This can give you a good indication of whether you’re processing enough or not enough or indeed too much. You can drag and drop many kinds of digital audio file straight into a project and also use the Import from Audio CD command to rip directly from a disc for this purpose.

You can set Cubase’s mixer to show you a range of different views and for mastering, one of the most useful is the big meter view. By setting the track and the master output channels to show this view, you get an idea of how close you are coming to zero, as well as if any clipping is occurring. The meter can be set to remember peaks and you can click on them to clear them if you have subsequently made adjustments.

When you output your final master you can choose a single channel export if you have just worked on one file, or a channel batch export if you have worked on more than one. This should export each file separately complete with its own mastering treatment and provide you with a folder full of freshly mastered and great sounding tracks.

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Our MeldaProduction Adjustable Slope Filter (MASF) technology gives you natural sounding, versatile filters that are free of the resonance associated with other equalizers. Inspired by the analog world, but taking advantage of the digital! Each highly adjustable and dynamic band let's you fix problems easily, whether you are putting together a mix, or, tackling compression, expansion or de-essing tasks. MeldaProduction Filter Adaption (MFA) technology can actually perform your equalization for you based on an analysis of your recording, another recording or even your own 'drawn-in' spectral content! We've included a whole host of other useful features too. Our integrated analyzer and sonogram lets you quickly see the structure of your audio material, while our high-pass and low-pass filters offer slopes from 6dB/oct up to 120dB/oct. There's also soft-saturation that adds a character normally only associated with analog consoles. And of course there is mono/stereo processing, upsampling, A/H presets and much more! MAutoDynamicEq even comes with 4 advanced modulators, just in case you feel like being creative...

MTF 10MM Key gating

Minute Master

Key gating techniques

Key gating illustrates that there’s more an audio gate can do than simply reduce unwanted background noise. Mark Cousins unlocks its secrets...

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ust like a compressor, a noise gate is a far more versatile tool than you might imagine. While most of us are aware of the device’s ‘corrective’ properties – particularly in regard to noise reduction – a noise gate can also be used to perform several unique takes on dynamic control. One of the most popular of these is the effect of key gating, which became a staple component of record production in the 70s and 80s and is still extensively used is genres such as dance. But what is key gating and how can the effect be configured in the modern-day DAW?

Heaven’s gate Before we explore the intricacies of key gating, let’s first consider the principles behind a traditional noise gate. Like a compressor, a noise gate is a form of dynamics processor that adjusts gain in response to the input’s signal level. In the case of a compressor, gain reduction is applied above a given threshold, with the net result being that ‘loud’ signals are attenuated and the overall dynamic range is restricted. A noise gate works in reverse, applying gain reduction when an input falls below a given threshold (turning down quieter signals, in other words). As the name implies, noise gates were developed as a means of controlling background noise in the days when

INPUT

Tech Terms ● GAin-reDuCTion CirCuiTry The gain-reduction circuitry is the ‘muscle’ behind the noise gate, usually taking the form of a Voltage Controlled Amplifier (or VCA) that is used to attenuate the input. ● rATe-leVel enVelope GenerATor Complicated envelopes that fall outside a conventional ADSr shape can be created with a rate-level envelope generator. The envelope has multiple steps, with each having its own rate and level parameters. ● BreAKpoinT A rate-level envelope can be seen as a series of breakpoints, with each step defined by the relative position of a given breakpoint.

Assuming that your DAW supports sidechain routing in its plug-in signal path, you should be able to explore the wonders of key gating even if you don’t have the necessary hardware.

mic preamps and tape recorders had less than perfect recording specs. However, to achieve satisfactory noise reduction, noise gates require more than just a threshold control. Firstly, the amount of gain reduction (or the noise gate’s range, in other words) applied as the signal falls below the threshold is crucial for transparent control. Complete attenuation is too brutal, whereas a range of about 10dB or so makes the overall output proportionately cleaner without the ear being too aware of its application. Another point to consider is the movement in and out of gain reduction. On the one hand, the gain-reduction circuitry needs to be quick to respond as an input triggers the threshold to ‘open’ the noise gate, so that transient information isn’t lost. The same isn’t so true when the noise gate needs to shut, especially as a slow decay on the input will often make the noise gate ‘chatter’ (rapidly open and shut, in other words) around the threshold. The solution to the problem is, of course, fully variable attack and release controls. The attack time sets the movement of the noise gate as it moves in and out of gain reduction – ideally, set fast enough to preserve transient detail but not so fast that the gate opening becomes audible. The release is suitably graduated, accounting for the decay characteristics of the input as well as allowing the movement into gain reduction to be smooth enough so that it’s relatively transparent to the ear.

Keys to the kingdom Threshold

0dB Gain Reduction Release

Range Attack -96dB

Adjusting the various parameters on the noise gate contours the key gating effect, moving between an almost percussive-like effect and a subtle pulsing.

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Although they were obviously primarily designed for the purposes of noise reduction, engineers subsequently started to investigate how a noise gate could be turned to more creative ends – not simply removing noise, but actively shaping the volume of the input to create a new dynamic envelope to the sound. The key to this process is the facility granted to sidechain the noise gate. Sidechaining enables an engineer to make a distinction between the audio input being used to drive – or ‘key’ – the gain-reduction circuitry, and an external source (unrelated to the input) being used to control the noise gate’s movements. A classic example of a sidechained noise gate is something like a bass guitar track being ‘keyed’ by the kick drum. With a suitable amount of range established (6dB, for example), the bass guitar is attenuated when

Key gating 10MM MTF

the kick isn’t playing. When the kick is playing, though, the gate opens, effectively accenting the bass guitar. As a result of this ‘keyed’ noise gate, the bass guitar gains a new degree of tightness, locked in with the movement of the kick drum.

Key gating makes a distinction between a sustained signal fed into the noise gate’s audio input and a percussive trigger fed into the sidechain input.

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Gate keeper Key gating, however, takes the concept of a sidechained noise gate to its logical – and more extreme – conclusion. The defining ingredients of the key gating effect are the two signals used to feed the noise gate – one acting as the audio input to the gate, the other running into the noise gate’s sidechain input (external key). In the case of the audio input, we need a sound with plenty of sustain, which could be anything from a heavily distorted electric guitar to a rich sawtooth pad coming from a synth. The external key, though, should be a short, clipped sound following some form of rhythm – the hi-hat, for example. Returning to the parameters mentioned earlier, it’s interesting to see how these become key components of the gating effect. The basic effect, of course, is defined by the interaction between the two forms of input: the external key (hi-hat) opening and closing the gate in a rhythmic fashion over the sustained input, effectively creating a new, staccato-like sound. Given the different durations of the two hi-hat sounds – open and closed –

AUDIO INPUT NOISE GATE HI HAT

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Key gating became a staple component of record production during the 70s and 80s it might also be that the effect is given extra rhythmic interest, producing a ‘duh-duh-dah’-type sound. In the case of the range parameter, we have control over the intensity of the effect and, therefore, the amount of staccato. At the maximum range, the key gating effect will be extreme, with silence between each of the hi-hat hits being fed into the external key. Decreasing the range will let more of the pad sound through, softening the effect and making it closer to a subtle ‘pulsing’ effect. Attack and release in the context of key gating have an immediate and intuitive effect on the output, enabling you to shape the dynamic envelope each time the gate opens

and shuts. Fast attack and release will lend a spiky percussive-quality to the effect, which is favoured for its ability to create sequencer-like lines from any sustained synthesizer. In much the same way as decreasing the range, slowing down the attack and release softens the edges of the effect, giving it more of a pulsing quality.

Chain gang The ability to execute a key gating effect in your DAW falls down to its ability to utilise sidechaining (the extent to which varies from DAW to DAW). Failing that, there’s always the possibility of using a software synth’s amplifier section, feeding the pad elements into the audio input then opening and shutting the amplifier using a MIDI input. In Reason, for example, you can use the Matrix pattern sequencer and feed its gate output to a suitable Amp Env Gate input on Subtractor. To achieve internal key gating effects, many software synths now feature complicated rate-level envelope generators, which allow you to embed key gating effects directly into a patch. A good example of this is Omnisphere’s Envelope Zoom page, which has an almost limitless number of breakpoints that can be used to create complicated ‘rhythmic’ envelope sequences. By routing the desired envelope through to the amplifier you can create the classic key gating effect.

Dynamic delights Although there’s a variety of ways of achieving the effect nowadays, the sound of key gating remains an everpresent part of music production. Whether you’re creating the effect using a sidechained noise gate or by using one of the various options in software, the distinctive tempo-sync’ed movement that key gating can add to a piece of music is always a welcome addition. Dynamic processing, therefore, offers far more than just compression, with a variety of techniques and possibilities at the engineer’s disposal. MTF

Many software synths feature rate-level envelopes, arguably negating the need to use a noise gate for key gating effects.

FURTHER INFO ● For more on gates and expanders: www.musictech mag.co.uk/mtm/features/gates-and-expanders ● For more on envelopes: www.musictechmag.co.uk/ mtm/features/10mm113-modulation-with-envelopes FOCUS Mastering Volume 4

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Ozone 5 Walkthrough MTF

Ozone 5 Step-by-Step

Make better masters

On the disc

using Ozone 5

Thanks to accomplished software from the likes of iZotope, mastering is now a perfectly feasible task in the project studio. Rob Boffard gets you started…

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revious versions had a decidedly old-school feel, with chunky buttons and a science-lab look, but the latest version of iZotope’s mastering plug-in looks gorgeous, with sleek graphics and a clean feel. And in the battlefield of home mastering, Ozone has become something of a howitzer. It’s a great all-in-one system, and ideal if you’re looking to put an extra sheen on your tracks but don’t have enough cash to send them to a dedicated mastering studio – or you just want to take a crack at it yourself. That said, Ozone can be a little overwhelming, and that’s what this guide is for. We’re going to show you how to get the best out of Ozone 5, running through some of the key processes you’ll be using to make your tracks sound crisp and loud – both ones established in the plug-in and brand-new ones. This is everything you need to know to not only get up and running, but also to achieve some great mastering. We can’t cover absolutely everything – for all its compact charm, Ozone really is an

MTF Navigation Ozone 5 key features

incredibly deep plug-in – but all of its major parts will get a full workout. Let’s start with the first link in the Ozone signal chain: the equaliser.

All things equal Ozone 5 actually has two EQs. They’re both fundamentally similar, but have different roles in the signal chain. The first – simply labelled Equaliser – lets you make broad-brush adjustments to your track right at the start of the mastering process, while the other – Post

In the battlefield of home mastering, Ozone has become something of a howitzer Equaliser – is positioned at the end of the process, enabling you to fine-tune any frequencies affected by the other processing modules. There are two main modes for Ozone’s EQs: Analog and Digital. The former is for when you want a little colour, while the latter is for when you need things to be a little more transparent. In general terms, you shouldn’t need to

MAIN WINDOW Most modules have the same format: controls at the bottom, visual window at the top. You can usually choose how you want your sound to be displayed, too.

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CONTROLS a GLOBAL Ozone’s modules all have the same controls next to them: a big square button to select your module, an on/off button, and a little arrow for the preset menu.

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SLIDERS b AMOUNT Not just wet/dry controls – they’re a very subtle way of controlling how much each module affects the mix. You get a global slider, plus individual ones for each module.

d METER CONTROLS Nice little combo here: zoom buttons, a mid/side monitoring switch (the blue/ orange number) and buttons to lock the left and right channels. Handy.

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MTF Walkthrough Ozone 5

MTF Step-by-Step Mid/side processing

One of Ozone’s most potent weapons is its mid/side processing, which enables you to separate the main parts of the stereo field and treat them separately. This will allow you to make your tracks seem wider and have more depth. To access it, click on the button labelled Stereo on the bottom-left of Ozone’s main screen. Cycle through the options until you get to Mid/Side. To the right, you’ll see little section coloured blue and orange. This is your main Mid/Side control.

You have M/S processing in all Ozone modules except the Stereo Imager and the Maximiser. It’s reasonably straightforward to work out: you can access the mids (orange) or the sides (blue), and you can solo or bypass either side. The two joined circles in the middle is a link button, enabling you to control both at once. Load in a track and play around with soloing the mids and sides to get a feel for what’s happening.

We’re going to do some mid/side EQ’ing on our track. For starters, make sure that the Digital and Linear options are selected (this will help prevent any phase problems). Select the side option – you’ll notice that the EQ curve turns blue to match. The sides of a stereo mix often benefit from a little boost in the upper frequencies, so raise it a few dB at around 5kHz. This will give your track a little extra ‘air’ – solo the sides to see what we mean.

Select the mids and you’ll have an orange EQ curve that remains separate from your blue one. Try boosting the mids a little at around 1kHz – this will give the track a little more body. As with all mastering, the key is to be very gentle, and keep A/B’ing (using the History tab) to make sure that your changes are doing good things to the mix. You’ll see that there are two EQ spectra: one each for the mids and sides.

By now, you’ll have noticed that certain instruments are dominant in the sides (vocals, hi-hats, lead synths) and others tend to be concentrated in the mids (bass lines, kick drums). You can use M/S processing to make sure that they don’t stray out of their zones – just apply a couple of shelving cuts at the extreme top and bottom ends to, for example, remove bass frequencies in the sides.

Be aware that M/S processing can often have unexpected results when you start playing around with the other modules, such as reverb or compression. As a general rule, if you use it once, activate it for every subsequent module in your signal chain to hear what’s happening in the different parts of your mix. If necessary, use the Post Equaliser to correct any unwanted changes you’re hearing in your song.

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use EQ to make huge changes to your track: think soft, shallow slopes as opposed to deep spikes. If you need to be precise, pick the Digital option, select your preferred style of EQ (linear is a good choice for complete transparency) and cut/boost to your heart’s content. There are a few other useful tools. Click the little ‘+’ icon on the bottom left and some tabs will pop up. Alongside the standard EQ Bands tab you’ll notice two others: Snapshot and Matching. Snapshot is a seriously handy little widget. Select how long you want it to capture for, press play and hit Start Capture. Ozone will provide a freeze-framed version of your track’s frequency spectrum, making it easy to see where the dominant areas are. And by the way, see the little Guides tab, just under the Capture section? The 6dB and the Pink option might seem a little strange at first, but what they let you do is put a guiding line over your track, so you can try to match your EQ to it. And since these guide lines represent a common EQ profile for mastered songs, you might want to use them (Pink, by the way, doesn’t refer to the pop singer – it’s a 3dB guide line).

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PRO TIP Ozone 5 comes in Standard and Advanced, which costs more. Advanced gives you things like a meter bridge, spectrum analyser, component plug-ins for use on individual tracks in a mix, stereo reverb split and more. If you’re looking for fine-grained control, the Advanced edition could be worth the investment.

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Then there’s Matching. Let’s say you’ve heard a song that has fantastic mastering on it, and you’re thinking, “I want to make my track sound like that!” Matching is a good first step. Drag the ‘target’ song into your DAW, placing it on the same track as the one you’re mastering. While it’s playing, use Ozone to take a snapshot of it, and it will store itself next to the capture window. Click Matching and you’ll see your target snapshot displayed on the right. Select it and use the Amount slider to determine how closely you want Ozone’s EQ to try to match the sound. Used sparingly, it can be a useful tool.

Reverb nation Working out how much reverb to apply is one of the trickiest bits of the mastering process. After all, if you’ve spent ages getting a crisp, clean mix, why muddy it up with reverb? But when used correctly, it can give some wonderful colour, and can be a real asset to your track. First, click the Solo Wet button under the mix controls to the left. Ozone separates the ‘verb into early reflections and late tails: the Mode and Pre-delay

Ozone 5 Walkthrough MTF

selectors (and Early Reflections, if you’ve got the advanced version) control the former, while the various Decay controls sort out the latter. The key to getting a great reverb sound – as with the EQ – comes in being very gentle and listening very closely to exactly what the reverb is doing. Pick a reasonably gentle mode – Room, say – and start raising the faders one by one. In the View window above the faders, click the Impulse Response button (which looks like a sloped hill). This will give you a visual representation of your reverb tail – handy when you’re looking to make fine adjustments. The button above it gives you access to a rudimentary EQ with low and high cut-off filters – handy if you don’t want your reverb to muddy up your carefully crafted bass.

Maximum boost This is the fun bit. Remember how, in your mix, you restrained yourself from trying to make it loud, taking pains to watch your headroom and making sure that the

PRO TIP Ozone’s default signal chain is reasonably sensible, but it does give you the option to switch it around. You can do this by clicking on the Graph button then clicking and dragging devices around to change their order. Try, for example, swapping around the dynamics and the exciter modules to change the quality of the sound.

little red clipping icon never illuminated? Well, the boring bit’s over. Time to make this sucker loud, and that’s the job of Ozone’s Maximizer. First, you’ll need to select a Mode for it. The IRC (Intelligent Release Control) modes are designed to be used when you want completely clear, transparent limiting. Pick plain IRC for your normal limiting needs, and select IRC II or III when you really decide to blow some speakers. Be careful, though – the IRC II and III can leave you with some latency issues, and can put some strain on your computer. Hard and soft limiting are reasonably self-explanatory, but you’ll notice that the controls change slightly when you select them. For now, we’ll stick with the IRC options. Your main tools here are the Threshold/Margin controls – think of it as working like a compressor. The Threshold tells the Maximizer when to kick in, while the Margin tells it what to push the gain up to. Bring the Threshold down until the central red meter kicks in, and then bring the Margin down accordingly. While we’d

MTF Step-by-Step Multi-band compression

Multi-band processing is something you’ll see pop up a lot in Ozone. The compressor, however, is where it’s at its most powerful. Select the compressor and look in the View window at the top. You’ll see a default four bands across the frequency spectrum. You can bypass and solo individual bands, change their width by dragging the lines, and even remove bands by rightclicking on the window. Helpfully, clicking on a band changes the Ozone colour scheme.

You can control the different parts of the compressor visually (using the nodes) or by adjusting the sliders on the left. Each band can have its own separate compression, limiting and gate options, enabling you to craft a compression curve for each part of your track. Note the threshold sliders on the far left: start playing with your ratios and you’ll see the red compression indicator start dropping down between them.

We tend to start with the limiter, and when you’re using it, it’s best to make a global change to the bands first. To do this, click on the Show All button below the View window, which will give you a detailed readout of your compression values. Click the little stereo link button to the left of it, then adjust your limiter values accordingly. This will give you a good base to work from; you can always dip into the individual bands if you want to make fine adjustments later on.

As a rule, you’ll want to put slightly heavier compression on the middle and lower bands than the upper ones. This will give your mix some real body and still let it retain some dynamic range. In mastering, the attack and release values can make a real difference; we find a medium attack and a reasonably quick release often has the desired effect, but spend a little time finding out what works best.

The gate is among Ozone’s most subtle effects, and it can often be hard to tell if it’s making a difference. At a ratio of more than 1, it starts reducing the volume of all sounds below the threshold, but push it the other way and it acts as an expander, boosting everything below the threshold. We’d suggest experimenting to find out what it does to your sound, as it can have different effects depending on what is passed through it.

There are a couple of other bits worth looking at. Firstly, when you’re A/B’ing, make sure that you’ve selected the Auto Gain option under the Mix and Gain faders, so when you bypass the compression, Ozone raises the volume, giving a clearer mix picture. Secondly, you can switch between RMS and Peak monitoring via the button under the Threshold control. If you’re using heavy compression, choose RMS. If you’re just taming the peaks, well, Peak is the one to go for.

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MTF Walkthrough Ozone 5

always suggest using your ears to judge, Ozone provides a handy visual aid. In the View window up top, select the uppermost button (Gain Reduction Trace) and hit play. You’ll see your waveform scrolling across and, above it, a bold line indicating the limiting. Bring the Margin down until the bold line just touches the waveform. It’s not a concrete rule by any means, but it will help give you natural limiting. When Hard or Soft modes are selected, you’ll get access to a Release slider for the limiter. You can fine-tune your loudness by adjusting the Character fader (in other words, how fast it kicks in, and how smoothly) and choose to work on the left and right channels separately by selecting Stereo Link. There are a couple of final tricks, too: the Intersample Detection button (essentially a nifty tool for when you make the levels really hot and want to avoid distortion) and the Transient Recovery fader, which you get in the advanced version and which helps to sharpen the transients in your track – useful if you’ve got a song with a lot of percussion elements in it.

In a dither When Ozone was first released, it came with two guides: one for how to use the program, and an equally long one that focused just on dithering. We’re not going to spend too much time on dither – mostly because if we did, you’d be bored to tears. What the dithering process actually does is add a very low, virtually inaudible layer of noise to your track, which helps to maintain the sound quality when the track is subsequently converted to a lower sample rate – for example, if you want to export it in a number of different formats. You’ll find the controls for it located on the far side of the Maximizer. If you’re not au fait with the complexities of dither it can initially seem like gibberish. Don’t let it scare you too much, though – if you know that you’re going to be dealing with lower sample rates, then MBIT+ is generally considered to be the most suitable option, and more often than not you can usually leave the other options untouched. MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Stereo imaging

Widening your mix is one of the main reasons for doing mastering in the first place, and a few tweaks can really help separate it from the crowd. Look at Ozone’s Stereo Imager with your track playing. The first thing you’ll notice is the funky-looking vectorscope, available in a bunch of flavours via the button on the top right. The different displays give different information about your track, but in practice they’re showing the same thing: its stereo spread.

You’ll also notice meters alongside and below the vectorscope. The horizontal one – the balance meter – tracks which side of the mix is the most dominant, while the vertical one – the correlation meter – tracks how similar the sides are (the closer it is to +1, the closer the sides are). You can use this to make informed decisions about how to spread your sound: if an instrument has unwanted dominance in one side of the mix, the meters will let you know.

The stereo imager is multi-band, so you can control the spread at different points in your mix. The clever bit here is that you can make things narrower as well as spreading them out: a common trick is to draw in the bass sounds in your mix by pulling down the first two Width faders, while pushing the second two up make the highs spread out to the sides. That way, you get a wide stereo field without sacrificing the punch of your mix.

Because of the way Ozone is laid-out, it’s easy to think that the Width faders and the Offset controls (click the Offset tab under the vectorscope) are the same thing. They’re not. The former just widen the fields of a given band, while the latter introduces delay. Using the Offsets to introduce a couple of milliseconds’ delay into each band can really help to give the impression of depth, and they sound particularly good when applied to the highs in a mix.

Phase cancellation can become a problem when expanding a stereo field, especially if your track has live elements in it, and Ozone has a couple of tools to help you watch for this. Select the bottom button on the top left, by the View window, and play a track. Anything in red indicates that something is dipping out-of-phase. The phase and channel options below the vectorscope also give you some insight, including the ability to hear your track in mono (always worth checking!).

If you’ve got the Advanced version of Ozone you’ll also have access to something called the Stereoizer, which is a godsend if you have a narrow-sounding or even a mono recording. What it does is add width to these recordings by introducing delay. The effect is quite a subtle one, but if you’re looking to add some shine to a track without too many stereo elements, it’s well worth using.

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MTF Workshop T-RackS 3

T-RackS 3 Workshop

Mastering with IK T-RackS 3 IK’s suite was the first solution for mastering using software, and today it’s better than ever, as Hollin Jones explains…

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hen you look at the way music technology has evolved there have been a number of milestones in the last couple of decades. The first was probably the sampling of digital audio in the mid 1980s. This was followed by digital multitracking, plug-ins and virtual instruments in the 1990s. There’s a strong case to be made that at around the same time, the release of IK Multimedia’s T-RackS mastering suite had almost as big an impact on the way that the production process was being democratised. Even though mastering as a technique remained little understood at the time, among many working in home studios, the advent of affordable, software-based tools that let you do it for yourself was incredibly important. Now at version 3, T-RackS has of course since been joined by many other software mastering solutions and computing power has increased immeasurably in the intervening years. Nonetheless it remains one of the easiest to use and most flexible sets of tools out there. This is due in part to the fact that it runs both as a

On the disc

standalone application and each of its component modules can be loaded individually inside your DAW, so they can be used not just for mastering but at any point in the production process. There are great features, like the ability to load multiple files, which is handy for mastering whole albums, and metering systems that can be tailored to show, amongst other things, the optimum levels for specific genres of music. The Standard version has four processing modules and the Deluxe version comes with nine, but otherwise they work in much the same way.

Making tracks PRO TIP Using the Show Chain button helps you to understand how your signal is being processed by T-RackS. It passes from left to right and there’s the option to process in parallel as well as in serial configurations by using the “B” slots available in the first four module slots. Parallel and serial processing can often yield significantly different results.

The Standard version has four processing modules and the Deluxe version comes with nine

Running in standalone mode, T-RackS presents you with a number of sections and the first thing you’ll need to do is load an audio file. You can do this either by dragging and dropping one or more files into the main part of the window, or by using the Load button at the bottom left hand corner to navigate to some compatible files. Your mixdowns will almost certainly be in WAV or AIFF format and should have been exported at the highest quality to match the quality you were working at in your DAW. 1 You can load MP3s and other compressed file formats, but by mastering them and exporting from T-RackS as higher quality formats you aren’t actually adding any quality, just empty file size. Your master is only as good as the quality and fidelity of the file you import, which is why it’s so important to maintain full quality settings throughout mixing and mastering. T-RackS should automatically detect the settings of the file you import but if for any reason you wish to change settings you can go to the File menu and choose Project Properties. Here you can set the file format,

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3 Load multiple files into T-RackS for processing, ensuring that they are of the highest quality, matching that at which they existed in your DAW. Then you can start to load processors…

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T-RackS 3 Workshop MTF

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7 Load global or per-module presets and add compression to start to smooth out your mix and add punch.

T-RackS has two ways of loading processors, to be found at the top left of the window resolution up to 64-bit float, sample rate up to 192kHz and choose to add dithering. There’s an option to link T-RackS’ processors to the imported file, which is sensible to leave switched on. 2 Again you can upsample here, entering higher settings than your original file possesses, but although it won’t do any harm it won’t add any fidelity either.

Loading processors You should see your file load into the waveform viewer at the base of the window and if your mixdown was performed using broadly the right settings your file will probably look fairly solid but will retain some dynamic range, meaning that you’ll be able to spot plenty of transients. 3 The waveform shouldn’t look really small nor should it be squashed up against the top and bottom of the display, which would mean it was too quiet or too loud respectively. T-RackS has two ways of loading processors and these are found at the top left of the window. If you click on the Global button, the presets menu will display presets containing multiple processors along with their settings. If you select Module, you will see presets grouped by individual module. To get started let’s load a compressor, which involves selecting the Module option and then going to the preset menu. I’m going to choose a Model 670 compressor with a “warm” preset. 4 Since you will be doing a lot of listening during mastering you may also want to set up a loop over a specific section, which you can do by activating looping in the Transport panel and then dragging the Loop markers. 5 Depending on the source material you may find the compression preset you have chosen is a little too hot and is pushing your material a bit hard. You will be able to tell this from looking at the Peak meters and seeing if they hit the red. If they are, back the compression off a little by lowering the input channel gain knobs for the left and right channels. 6 Do this until the levels stop peaking. You can deal with absolute levels later when

PRO TIP The waveform view at the base of the window has some useful tricks of its own. As well as letting you set loop points it also has Fade In and Out handles that are draggable or can be set by clicking and dragging in the time display boxes. You can even set curve types for the fades using the curve chooser boxes for each fade. This saves you topping and tailing files in a wave editor app afterwards.

you are limiting, but for now your focus should be on smoothing out the sound and adding punch but not sheer volume, even though some gain will be added. The right and left Threshold controls set the amount of compression. Fully clockwise means maximum compression and fully to the left means no compression. The left and right Time Constant dials set the compressor release time; positions 1 to 4 are quick to slow, with 5 and 6 being dual time constants which work better on mixed stereo material. 7 With the AGC dial set to Left or Right, the compressor will work on unlinked stereo channels. Set to Link, which you will probably want to leave on, it works in linked stereo mode with both channels having the same settings to help with image stability. Set to Lat / Vert, the compressor works on the middle and side portions of the stereo field, with Lat being the centre and Vert being the sides.

Modular system You can change presets or indeed swap the module out for any other, including the other model of compressor,

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MTF Workshop T-RackS 3

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You can chain compressors together to allow parallel processing and then bring in other modules like EQ.

by using the menu system at the top. The first four slots feature A/B options for parallel processing so you could, if you wanted, load a different compressor or preset into slot B and then toggle between slots A and B and change settings to process the signal through two compressors at once, perhaps one using the left side of the signal and the other the right. 8 If you wanted to see how the chain is set up, you’d simply click on the Show Chain button at the top right hand corner. 9 As you might expect it’s possible to mix and match as many modules as you like but a typical mastering setup might next include an EQ unit, say for example the Linear Phase EQ. Again this can use stereo, dual mono or M/S modes and is essential during mastering for sweetening and balancing the mix to account for any changes introduced by compression or other processing that is taking place. 10 Presets are available for this as for other modules, though EQ tends to be highly specific to any given track. So a preset might sound okay but it’s almost certain to need changing to get optimum results. Activate up to six bands and choose a band type using the button next to the band’s power switch. Then, set the frequency using the Frequency dial and the Q value using the neighbouring Q dial. Q is the width of the band, so a lower Q value will produce a smooth curve, taking in more frequencies around your EQ point. A narrow / higher Q value isolates a much more specific

frequency and so is better for cutting or boosting individual sounds or groups of sounds with very similar frequencies. If you found for example that a guitar, vocal or horn sound was “sticking out” of the soundstage during mastering, you could try to isolate the offending frequency by sweeping around and then using the EQ point with a narrow Q to cut it. Or do the reverse to boost it. 11

To the limit PRO TIP Any of T-RackS’ modules can be loaded as plug-ins inside your DAW, which means they’re great for tracking and mixing as well as mastering. In addition to the processing modules you can also load its metering section by itself, which is particularly good for getting a handle on how your soundstage is behaving. If you already own the software it’s a bit of a bonus to discover this.

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Up to six bands of EQ let you isolate offending frequencies, while two models of limiter help to squeeze maximum power out of your signal.

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The last stage of most masters is limiting, and here you have a choice of two models. The Brickwall Limiter can be used to squeeze more overall gain out of your tracks, and you will want to set the Output Ceiling dial somewhere just below 0dB then drive the input to squeeze the signal without it clipping. It can be sensible to use an output value of -0.1 to -1 dB, depending on how hard you want to push it. 12 By raising the input gain you can drive the signal harder, monitoring levels to see how much gain reduction is being applied to the signal, and how consistently close to 0dB the output level is being pushed. 13 The key is to get a good, powerful level without over-squashing the sound, so your Output meter shouldn’t be showing solid signal, but strong signal. Your ears should also tell you when the audio is being driven too hard as it will sound forced and perhaps also distort a little. The limiter also includes Attack and Release controls, and multiple Styles, each of which affects the character of the sound.

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T-RackS 3 Workshop MTF

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15 Your ears are your first measuring instrument but your eyes are important too.

Multi meters Your ears are a great guide to how T-RackS is processing your master but your eyes need to be used as well. The Peak meter will show you overall levels, but the Perceived Loudness meter is important too. In the Settings menu you can go to the Loudness Suggestion section and choose what kind of material you are working with. 14 This is more than just a novelty, since what it does is switches the Loudness meter to show different safe zones. The signal should be spending

You can of course save setups as presets and apply these quickly to other tracks in your track list most of its time in the green area, straying only occasionally into the red zone. 15 With folk music, for example, the perceived loudness should be lower, and for metal, higher. The display changes to reflect your settings and if it’s consistently too low you should probably be driving it a bit harder. Too high, and you should probably back it off a little. These aren’t absolute rules, but they’re very handy guidelines. You also get Phase, Phase Correlation and Spectrum analysers, each with parameters that can be set using their sections in the Settings menu. 16 Underneath these are four slots, A to D and these can be used to

store up to four temporary treatments of any track. Click on a slot to select it, and use the Copy To button to copy settings between slots. This is great when for example you want to try two or more setups with slightly different settings, but don’t want to have to keep modifying the one preset. It’s perfectly possible of course to save setups as presets and apply these quickly to other tracks in your track list. It’s also useful to periodically use the Compare button at the top right to mute all processing and hear what your original sounds like. You will probably be surprised by how much of a difference the processing is making. Tracks can be processed using the Process button at the bottom right hand corner, which reveals an Export window. Here you can choose to process either the current file or all open files, which is good for batch processing. 17 The export settings will reflect the settings you made earlier in the Project Properties menu. As well as having some excellent modules, T-RackS simplifies the mastering process by giving you all the tools you need in one easy-to-use suite with advanced metering, four slots for comparing treatments and flexible routing options. Keep things simple with basic mastering chains or get into great detail by splitting left and right channels, middle and side and applying multiple compressors and EQs if that’s what your project calls for. Use it in your DAW or on its own and you will find your tracks sounding sweeter and punchier than ever before. MTF

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Four slots are available to store treatments, while setups can also easily be saved. Finally, process and export!

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MTF Walkthrough Audio analysis

Audio Analysis Step-by-Step

Analysing audio

On the disc

during mastering

Analysing your audio during the mastering stage is vital if you are going to achieve the best possible results. Hollin Jones takes a reading…

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hen you are mixing and mastering music you need to trust not only your ears but also your eyes. As good as you may be at listening, variations and inconsistencies in monitors, speaker placement, and room size and reflections can all lead to a situation where what your ears perceive is not quite the full story. The most commonly encountered problem is with bottom end, which can appear artificially loud or quiet, depending on where your speakers are and what the shape of the room is. This is where audio metering and analysis come in. Sitting between your audio and your ears, analysers look at the signal before it has passed to the speakers and so before it has been affected by any of the physical characteristics of the room or your monitors.

read an analyser is critical to tracking, mixing and mastering, as well as general studio troubleshooting. Most DAWs will have some sort of analysis plug-in or feature in addition to the level meters we take for granted, and there are some excellent third-party models on the market that take audio analysis way beyond what the stock plug-ins can offer. It can be worth investing in a dedicated analysis tool because they tend to offer more controls and greater flexibility than the models that come bundled with all but the higher end DAWs.

Understanding how to use and read an analyser is critical to tracking, mixing and mastering Before getting into the details, it’s well worth asking why audio analysis is so important, and how it can help you. We are all used to working with level meters during mastering, and their function is fairly obvious: to show you the volume of a track and whether it is too loud or quiet. They are, however, only one way of analysing audio. In a perfect world, your ears would be the only guide you

The idea behind analysis Some people imagine that since audio analysis tools don’t process or generate sound, they don’t really ‘do’ anything, and yet understanding how to properly use and

MTF Navigation Audio Analysis

DYNAMIC RANGE Dynamic range and correlation meters are useful for understanding how much headroom is left in your mix as well as how hard you are pushing the signal.

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PLUG-IN CHAINS Analysis plug-ins don’t actually change the sound, they merely analyse it and give you visual feedback. So they can be safely added to plug-in chains and mixed with plugs that do process audio.

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INCORPORATED Analysis plug-ins that come as standard with DAWs can be a little more basic but they’re still useful for getting a handle on things.

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LOUDNESS METERS Some manufacturers offer free loudness meters as additional downloads for users, as is the case with Steinberg’s SLM 128.

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Audio analysis Walkthrough MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Audio analysis with T-RackS

You don’t need to load any modules to analyse tracks in T-RackS, even though you will probably have at least a couple running for the purposes of mastering. For a start you will get to see the waveform of the track, which will give you an idea of its current volume. The middle section contains the metering tools, and you can alter any of their settings using the Settings button located under the spectrum analyser display.

Start with the Peak meter. You can set this to various scales based on how you prefer to meter. Move on to the Perceived Loudness meter. This combines averaging and frequency weighting to give you a good idea of how the song will be perceived by the listener. Absolute volume values are not always a guarantee of how a track will actually sound; this can vary depending on the kind of material you are working with.

Under the Settings section you can choose a musical genre that most closely corresponds to yours. On this meter you want the level to be around the lower end of the green zone most of the time, straying into the red zone only for the very loudest parts. The Phase Correlation meter should be moving between 0 and 1, with the Phase Scope meter displaying values that don’t stray too close to being flat on either axis.

The spectrum analyser can again be tweaked using the Settings section, and switched between Peak, RMS and Average display types. If set to respond quickly in Peak or RMS mode, it is good for identifying parts of the spectrum that need to be altered with EQ. When set to react more slowly in Average mode, it is better for keeping the overall balance of the track you’re working with under control.

The idea is that your master should be pushing 0dB on the Peak meter but never clipping. If you have set limiting up correctly, this is what you should be seeing. If you are driving the input too hard you may hear some distortion, in which case you need to drop it down a little. Remember that you can set the Peak meter to display wider settings than -60 to 0, if you are mastering for vinyl, for example.

The metering section of T-RackS is also available as an individual plug-in, which can be strapped across a track or across the master buss of your DAW or wave editor to be used independently of the rest of the suite. Here it can be seen across a track being mastered in Cubase, and offers more insight into the characteristics of the signal than Cubase’s own metering plug-ins.

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needed to tell you what was going on inside your mixes. And while your own judgement is critical, in reality, most music setups are far from perfect in terms of the listening environment and the equipment in use. The most common problem is inaccurate bass response, something that can lead you to deliberately mix the bass too low or high to compensate for the room, or to get it wrong entirely if you’re not aware of the idiosyncrasies of the space you’re working in. By placing an audio analyser across a mix, you can see exactly what the bass is doing while the signal is still inside the computer, before it gets out into the room and ‘fools’ you due to poor acoustics, or, indeed, poor monitors. In addition, modern setups contain a labyrinth of level controls. There’s the master fader in your DAW, the monitor level on your audio interface or amp and possibly also volume controls on your powered monitors. If any of these is set too low or high, your ears will not give you a true impression of the volume of a track. Only an audio analyser running inside the computer or, if you are more hardware-based, the meters on a large mixing desk, can

PRO TIP Wave editors like Wavelab and Sound Forge tend to have more advanced built in metering and analysis tools since they are designed with this kind of thing in mind and aren’t trying to be all in one music creation packages. The metering in WaveLab for example can be extensively tweaked and there are multiple meter types to help you better understand your master.

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give you an accurate picture. One other thing worth remembering is that you can get a better idea of how the professionals work by analysing the various waveforms, levels and stereo characteristics of tracks that you rip from CD and, in the process, better understand how to improve the sound of your own masters.

Types of analysis There are multiple types of audio analyser, each with a different function. Level meters are perhaps the most common way to analyse audio and modern digital metering is extremely accurate. Although it’s often possible for software to display levels with great speed, this can be difficult for the user to follow or understand and so in many cases an averaging system is used to take small sections of the audio and display an average volume as it plays back. This makes the display smoother and easier to look at and in some ways gives a similar experience to traditional, needle-based VU meters, which take time to rise and fall with the volume of the signal. Unlike analogue kit, digital systems are scaled so that FOCUS Mastering Volume 4

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the maximum value is shown as 0dBFS and anything over this brings the possibility of clipping or distortion. Most of the time your levels should be below zero on a digital meter. This is why when mastering, people often set limiters to -0.1dB, to ensure that zero is not reached. Spectrum analysers display the relative strengths of different frequencies and are also a commonly used form of audio analysis. Typically working on a graph system with lower frequencies on the left and higher ones on the right, they can be used in simple or advanced ways to measure the overall frequency characteristics of audio. Many are able to display peak values and the more advanced models can take snapshots, zoom in on specific frequencies, show stereo channels separately and so on. Phase meters are perhaps a little more opaque; they meter the coherence of the phase between the left and right channels of a mix. This is particularly important for ensuring mono compatibility and can also help you to understand why sounds might ‘disappear’ when panned

PRO TIP WaveLab can analyse audio clips globally too. Here, it has analysed a file for loudness and found that since it has not yet been mastered, the left and right channels only have a maximum loudness of around -7dB, which is normal for a mixdown. Post-mastering you can expect this to be between -1 and 0dB.

to certain points. Phase problems can arise when a source has been recorded using two or more mics, perhaps onto multiple audio tracks, such as guitars, pianos or drums. A phase meter can help you to identify and correct these problems. A phase meter ranges from -1 to +1, with the +1 setting meaning a signal that is perfectly in phase. Zero means perfect stereo and -1 means two channels that are completely phase-inverted. A signal should usually live somewhere between zero and +1 to avoid phase problems.

The whole spectrum A spectrogram is a more modern kind of audio analyser, and these are a little like spectral analysers in that they show the intensity of different frequencies. Where they differ is that they use colour values rather than graphs, and a scrolling interface so that the recent frequency history is always visible. The advantage they have over spectral analysers is that you can get a picture of how a track is behaving over time, which is very hard to discern

MTF Step-by-Step Working with Blue Cat Audio’s analysis tools

Blue Cat Audio makes some excellent, advanced audio analysis plug-ins. Here we have loaded up a stereo audio file and inserted an instance of FreqAnalyst. Using the controls we are able to show or hide the left and right channels, maximum values and an average. This is quite a full and rich sounding track, which you can see from the display. There’s plenty of signal filling up the main part of the window.

Swapping the plug-in for FreqAnalyst Pro, you have many more options. Here we have switched from Spectrum to Spectrogram view and chosen a 3D view. As the track plays back, it is displayed using colours to represent frequencies and amplitude. You can use the threshold slider to display only values above a certain level. It’s a particularly interesting way to get an overview of your sound.

In 3D mode, you are able to pick the display up using the mouse and spin it around in three dimensions. Here for example we are looking at it from the front rather than the top and have isolated only the loudest sounds. During mastering or mixing, you could at this point adjust EQ, compression or limiting to deal with any overly loud or quiet parts of the track. The feedback from the changes will be reflected in the display.

Next we have loaded up the Stereoscope Pro plug-in, which lets us analyse the stereo characteristics of our track. Signal that displays in the red areas is beyond 100% left or right and so out of phase. Again, you can use the Curve selector section on the right to choose which values to display. It’s a more advanced way to look at stereo than you tend to get as standard with a DAW.

At the top right, click the Stereogram button to switch view types. Here the 3D view is even more useful because if you pick up the display you are able to rotate it so that you can see which parts of the sound are most centred and which frequencies have the most stereo width. You could then use panning or stereo widening controls to alter these if you wish, monitoring using this plug-in as you go along.

Finally,theDigitalPeakMeterPro shows you both peak and RMS values at the same time. Along the bottom are Envelope graphs which display the evolution of selected envelopes over time, which is handy when using this plug-in as a sidechain source. The Digital Peak Meter provides extremely accurate level monitoring either on individual tracks or more likely across a stereo buss during mixdown or at the mastering stage.

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from a constantly changing graph. If you are compressing a mix, for example, a spectrogram would make it easier to understand how changing compression settings would affect different frequencies as a track played back. Advanced audio analysers like iZotope’s RX use spectrogram modes, amongst others, to give you an extremely detailed view of the frequency spectrum of a piece of audio. Stereo analysers help you to see where your signal is being distributed spatially within the stereo field. Some advanced models, such as NuGen’s Visualizer and Blue Cat Audio’s StereoScope, feature advanced tools like 3D visualization, analysis of multiple tracks in real time and stereo spectrograms. Such plug-ins can be used to give an overview of the left/right balance of a track or project, ensuring that it stays largely around the centre, unless you have some specific need to make it otherwise. Advanced stereo analysers that also show frequency can be helpful in giving you a visual idea of where certain frequencies sit in the stereo field, and thus where they

PRO TIP In most wave editors and DAWs it’s also possible to tweak the behaviour of level meters. Here in Peak, for example, you can set the meter resolution, peak hold time and clip indicator hold time. These determine how quickly the meters respond and how soon after clipping or peaking they release the indicator. If your material is clipping a lot you may need to set your meters to be more responsive.

may be colliding and where space can be made to help bring out specific elements.

Analyse this Audio analysis is a complex subject and you can read in great depth about the make up of digital audio and the theory behind its analysis. In practice though, it’s maybe more important to understand how you can use this technology in real world applications, to help you get a better grasp of what’s going on inside your tracks and ultimately achieve better mixes and masters. It may not seem like the most exciting subject in the world but it is an important one, both in terms of overcoming the problems inherent in home studios and recording setups and also in improving your mixing and mastering techniques for better end results. With so many free and inexpensive models around, as well as most DAWs coming with their own analysis tools, you can get straight to work analysing your masters to gain a better understanding of the production process. MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Audio analysis with Logic Pro

Logic Pro has some analysis tools of its own that can help you understand your signal better. The most basic way in which you look at the amplitude of a signal is to view it as a clip in the main project area. If this display is very large or very small, your track may be too loud or too quiet already. Before deciding to make any changes, click on the button with the waveform icon by the horizontal project zoom slider. This resets the waveform’s zoom level.

Go to the track’s Insert section and locate Logic’s own Metering plug-in submenu. Load up a Multimeter plug-in and you should see both a stereo Peak / RMS level meter and an analyser view of the signal. Using the View controls to the left you can set the range of the analyser and also its top value. By default it’s set to a top value of +5dB, which is pretty good for checking for any overs.

If you click on the Goniometer option button you can switch the analyser view to a phase correlation view that’s related to the simpler phase bar running along the bottom. This will show you how your track is behaving with regard to its middle, left and right characteristics in the stereo field. Ideally you want the track to be sitting mostly in the middle and not spending too much time firing off to the outer reaches of this display.

You can also look in the Metering folder and find a BPM counter plug-in. This isn’t necessarily an analysis plug-in that you would use during mastering, but it can be really useful when trying to discover the tempo of existing material, perhaps for remixing purposes. It analyses transients in the sound and is able to pick out beats and other hits, and usually gives you a good idea of the tempo.

Double click on your audio file in the Project area to open it in the Sample Editor view. Here you will find a number of View options, including the ability to switch between Amplitude Percentage and Amplitude Sample Value. Percentage is the more useful since it shows you how the smaller transients relate to the maximum ones, and thus how much dynamic range is currently present in the track, at least at a glance. A heavily limited track will probably show near-100 per cent values.

In Logic’s Mastering template, accessible from the File > New menu option, there are some screen sets, one of which is set up specifically for analysis. With your project open, go to the Screenset menu and choose 2 > Analyze Mix, or press the 2 key on your keyboard. This switches to a streamlined view with your MultiMeter already in the foreground and the mixer arranged to show you track levels, with the track itself displayed along the top edge.

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MTF Workshop Logic Pro

Logic Pro 9 Workshop

Mastering with Logic Pro Logic is Apple’s flagship DAW with a host of great instruments and effects. It’s also an excellent mastering tool, as Hollin Jones explains…

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ogic is arguably the leading DAW on the Mac platform and the choice of many professionals as well as home users. Since Apple bought the software from eMagic it has continually improved it, most notably when it took the remarkable step of bundling every instrument and effect plug-in that used to cost extra in for free and then dropping the price significantly. As a result it’s one of the most affordable ways to get yourself a top-flight DAW on the Mac, and get access to all its many excellent audio processing tools. The chances are that if you have Logic then you will have recorded, edited and produced your track in it to begin with, but you should perform your final mixdown and then ideally wait a day or two before you begin on the mastering. This is because your ears are very likely to be worn out from decision making and endless listening and you really ought to approach mastering with a fresh perspective. Start a new project and import your stereo mixdown to a new track. From Logic’s Template list you may even

PRO TIP Logic supports the saving and loading of Channel Strip Presets, which you access by clicking on the Setting field at the top of a track’s Inspector panel. It makes sense once you have spent time setting up a great mastering plug-in chain to save it for future use. Although as we have noted no two tracks are the same, it may be that subsequent tracks require only moderate tweaking if they are in the same style.

Logic is one of the most affordable ways to get yourself a top-flight DAW on the Mac 1

want to load up the Stereo Mastering preset, which already contains most of the elements you will need.

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Plug-in chain If you do load up the mastering preset you will find that all the effects that exist as inserts on the track are currently bypassed. This is because every mastering job is different so there would be no point in having settings already dialled in since they would almost certainly not suit the particular track you were working with. You can enable plug-ins by opening their GUI and disabling the Bypass button or by simply holding the option key while clicking on their name in the Insert list. Try activating the Multipressor first. Again you might want to start with a preset to fill in some of the basic settings, and then tweak them from there. Here for example we have chosen a preset called Final Hip Hop Compressor, which dials in some settings broadly suitable for this track. 2 This is a multiband compressor and so it allows you to control the compression levels on different frequency bands independently. This can be good or bad depending on how you use it and whether you know what you’re doing. If a mix is quite complex or perhaps not the best mix in the world, it may be that a single band compressor won’t cut it. You can get problems like an overly bright midrange being pulled up too much by a single band compressor, or a bass end being pulled down too much. In cases like these you might reach for a multiband model since it offers more control. There’s also more scope to mess it up however, so be careful.

A band apart You can move the band markers here by simply dragging them left or right so that each one affects a larger or

2 Set up a new project or choose the Mastering template and start adding plug-ins to process your stereo mixdown. Logic has very flexible multiband compressors within its presets.

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Choose single or multiband compressors depending on how complex your mix is or how well or badly it has been mixed.

It’s all too easy to remove the sparkle from the signal with an errant EQ point smaller frequency range. You will find that changing the crossover points makes a big difference to the overall shape of the sound, so proceed carefully. Crossover frequencies are displayed beneath the band display. 3 The actual Threshold and Ratio for each band are set in the lower part of the window, with the Threshold set using its number field or its slider, and the Ratio set using its number field. 4 Other settings are made by dragging with the mouse in number boxes, and you can bypass any band to reduce the number that are active. So you could in fact use this as a three, two or even one band compressor, though the latter is a bit pointless. More interestingly, it’s possible to solo each band up to hear exactly what signal is passing through it by using the relevant Solo button. If you are not clear about how each band is being split, solo one up and then move the crossover boundaries, which will give you a much better idea of where the signal is being split. 5 This should help you to get a more accurate setup for your master. You can add make-up gain to each band to compensate for any reduction in gain caused by compression, and this can be done by raising the level bars on the band displays. There’s also an Autogain button which automatically adds as much gain as it detects is necessary to compensate for the compression, and programmable lookahead for more accurate results. 6

PRO TIP WaveBurner is a CD authoring application that comes with Logic Pro but it is also able to load plug-ins and plug-in chains. As such it is quite capable of mastering your audio files natively. It’s true that you may be more familiar with the interface of Logic if you spend a lot of time producing in it, but it’s well worth knowing that WaveBurner can do the job too.

gentle compression, your aim being to add some audio “glue” to the sound, creating some punch and clarity but without squashing the signal too much and making it sound flat or squeezed. 8

The Equalizer After compression you will want to add an EQ to your signal chain to deal with any frequencies that need adjusting. You will almost always need to use EQ while mastering, since compression can have the effect of subtly changing the balance of elements within the mix, perhaps accentuating or dulling things that weren’t a problem previously. This is nothing to worry about and easy to fix. Load up an EQ such as the Channel EQ module and you will see eight bands. 9 The first and last bands are disabled by default as they are shelf filters, cutting the very lowest and the very highest frequencies respectively. It’s very unlikely that you will want to use any of this shelf filtering at the top end when you are in the mastering stage as it’s all too easy to remove the sparkle from the signal with an errant EQ point. At the bass end, however, you may want to apply a low cut to the very bottom if you are worried that any subsonic frequencies may have crept into your mix. 10 This isn’t always necessary and doesn’t take the place of properly

The Compressor It may be that you don’t want to use multiband compression and that a simpler, single band compressor will suffice. In that case you can find one in Logic’s Dynamics effects folder, such as the aptly named Compressor. This has switchable circuit types and can be made to behave in different ways, such as modelling VCA, FET or Opto compressors. 7 If your mix is decent you should find that a single band compressor works well, and you can deal with any frequency oddities using EQ in a moment. Dial in some FOCUS Mastering Volume 4

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Single band compressors work well on a decent mix after which you will want to add EQ.

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EQ’ing the bass sounds you want to keep, but it’s worth knowing about. The other bands can be modified by picking each one up in the curve display and dragging it with the mouse, or clicking on the individual parameter’s number field and dragging up or down to change values. So for example you can easily set the frequency and gain of each band in either of these ways. The third option on each band is Q and this determines the width of the area around the EQ frequency point that is affected by your changes. A point with a narrow Q value (a high number) will affect only a very specific frequency. Conversely a wide Q value (a low number) produces a much more gentle curve and hence affects more of the frequencies around the point. 11 This EQ module has some presets suited to mastering, in a folder appropriately called Mastering, though no two tracks are the same so what you’ll get is a good approximation of the kind of treatment that your style of music might need, but that will need a fair amount of tweaking to suit your project. 12

distributing a selectable number of frequency bands from the middle frequency range to the left and right channels. This is done alternately, so middle frequencies to the left channel, middle frequencies to the right channel and so on. This greatly increases the perception of stereo width without making the sound totally unnatural, especially when used on mono recordings. It’s advisable to leave the low frequencies more or less where they are because the bottom end carries almost all of a track’s energy and this can be lost as soon as you start to split it off to the sides.

To the limit Last but not least in the signal chain is limiting, and Logic has two native models, the simple Limiter and the Adaptive Limiter. Here we have called up an instance of the Adaptive Limiter which is a great tool for controlling the perceived loudness of sounds. It works by rounding and smoothing peaks in the signal, producing an effect similar to an analogue amplifier being driven hard. Like an amplifier, it can slightly colour the sound of the signal. You can use the Adaptive Limiter to achieve maximum gain without introducing generally unwanted distortion and clipping, which can occur when the signal exceeds 0 dB. 14 Use the Input Scale dial to drive extra power into the signal while ensuring the Out Ceiling is not set above -0.1dB and that no distortion is occurring. Use the Gain knob to set the amount of gain after input scaling has taken place.

Go wide You may want to add some stereo widening to your file during mastering, if it is sounding like it lacks scope. This should always be done carefully because it can quickly start to mess up the soundstage, but using a little widening can sometimes be a good thing. Inside Logic’s Imaging plug-ins folder is one called Stereo Spread. 13 This works by extending the stereo base by

10 11 EQ is a vital part of any mastering process and is used to draw out or rein in any frequencies that may be slightly off due to the effects of compression and other processing. EQ setups are generally fairly gentle for mastering.

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After EQ-ing, choose from Logic’s limiters and perhaps also apply some stereo widening if you feel your track needs it. Aim to get as close to 0dB as possible without clipping.

Your ears are a good guide to how your masters are going but they’re not infallible The Limiter plug-in is more transparent and can be used to much the same ends. 15 It has a configurable lookahead control and setting this to seek further ahead should make for more accurate limiting since it will not be surprised by any peaks it encounters. In addition to the regular Gain, Release and Output Level controls there’s also a Soft Knee option, which when pressed means the signal is limited only when it reaches the threshold. The transition to full limiting is nonlinear, producing a softer, less abrupt effect, and reducing distortion artefacts that can be produced by hard limiting.

The final analysis As well as all this audio processing it’s a good idea to analyse your audio during the mastering process. It’s safe to insert audio analysers into your plug-in chain because they don’t actually alter sound, they just analyse it, so there’s no danger of colouration. Your ears are a good guide to how your masters are going but they’re not infallible. Factors like room shape, speaker placement, acoustics and other variables can all

PRO TIP There are several ways to achieve the same thing in Logic. For example, in Preferences > General > Editing you can set the behaviour of the right mouse button – to open the Tool menu, the Shortcut menu or both. Depending on how you prefer to work you might want to specify one or the other. It’s also possible to manually set the number of undo steps, which is handy.

strongly influence the way you perceive a sound. Since analysers are able to look at your signal while it is still inside the computer and before it has been passed to the speakers and hence the real physical world, they are highly accurate. Try adding an instance of the MultiMeter plug-in from Logic’s toolbox to your plug-in chain. 16 This will provide you with a number of useful views of what’s going on. The Analyzer can show you where the energy lives in your master and whether any frequency ranges are particularly strong or weak, enabling you to go back and make tweaks if necessary. The Stereo Peak / RMS level meter should indicate how close to 0dB you are getting and how consistently, so you can adjust your limiter accordingly. The Phase Correlation meter running along the base of the window and the Goniometer that can be on show both offer an idea of your track’s phase characteristics. The meter in particular can display how much signal exists towards the centre of your stereo image and how much exists off to the sides. 17 When you are happy with the sound of your master and everything is in order, and you have checked through the analyser plug-ins, you can safely export the processed file, making sure to apply any dithering if you are converting down to a lower bit rate. You can also open the resulting files in WaveBurner, the CD authoring application that comes with Logic Pro, to compile albums and add all the relevant metadata. MTF

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17 After limiting, analysing audio is important in understanding how it is actually behaving. Your ears can give a false impression due to room acoustics and other factors.

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MTF Interview Stuart Hawkes

‘‘I’d be doing my normal mastering work during the day and then cut dubplates in the evenings’’ The MTF Interview Stuart Hawkes

After nearly 30 years in the business, this legendary cutting engineer has worked with some of the biggest names around. MTF learns more... Photography by Zen Inoya

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inyl is a format still loved and bought by many hardcore fans and enthusiasts, and Stuart Hawkes is a man who’s had a huge influence on the use of vinyl as a DJ format for electronic music. He’s cut dubplates for the majority of drum and bass artists and DJs since the early 90s. A dubplate is an acetate record that the mastering engineer cuts a track onto to enable a DJ play tracks in a club that night. However, they can be played only 20 or 30 times before the audio quality degrades too much, but until relatively recently, this was how you got exclusive tracks into your DJ sets for club or radio play before the actual vinyl was produced and released. We ask Stuart what it was like to cut and master so many tracks for the main DJs of the drum‘n’bass scene. He recalls: “Jungle and drum‘n’bass started in the early 90s and I was at Masterpiece then. It all really started kicking off with DJs getting dubplates cut. That’s what really got me into it. I remember a very young LTJ Bukem and Peshay turning up wanting us to cut some dubplates. They’d tried a few other cutting houses and wanted to try us, so I cut them three or four dubs each and then it completely snowballed and I was cutting loads of people’s dubplates. I was cutting so many that I had to go to hospital due to exhaustion. I’d be doing my normal mastering work during the day and then cut dubplates in the evenings. I’d start at 10 o’clock at night and as word spread I’d be working until about seven in the morning. So I’d be doing nearly 24-hour days, cutting and mastering, which was all a bit too much. But once I’d recovered and got a sensible balance of work, the experience had gained me almost all the DJs on the scene.”

Logical progression Stuart has mastered tens of thousands of tracks during his career. We ask him for a brief overview of his progress over the years: “I started at Tape One in 1984 and worked there for about four or five years. I’d started to work as a cutting engineer at that point. Then I went to Copymasters, which later became Masterpiece Studios. Miles Showell – who I share this room with – worked there too. Then I started at Metropolis in 1996.” Stuart has been training in studios since the tender age of 16. He initially gained a tea boy/runner position after sending out CVs to multiple studios and one did indeed come back with an interview and subsequent job offer. Stuart

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already played drums and was quite a hi-fi enthusiast at the time. This all contributed to his choice to work with music, but he recalls his thoughts on his first day: “I got to work in the morning and they showed me a room that looked like the one I’m in now. I looked around thinking it looked like a recording studio, but wondered where the band would record as there was no live room. It was then that they told me it’s a mastering room. I then asked, ‘what's that?’. That was the start of it all really.”

MTF StudioEye Metropolis Studios Mastering Suite ANTELOPE ISOCHRONE TRINITY Both of the clocks I use have a different sound to them. This one sounds poppy, with a sparkly type of sound. I mainly use this for pop tracks.

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PRISM DA-2 This is a digital-to-analogue convertor but the clock on it has a phatter sound than the Antelope’s and nicer bass end. So I’ll go for this if I’m doing something when the bass end is quite important.

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Training days Most people when asked will have a definitive list of influences, and Stuart does recall the time he read an article about a producer called Jerry Boys who worked out of Livingston Studios. He thought that working in a recording studio sounded really interesting, which drove him to apply to the various studios. We then ask him how his mastering skills came about. Stuart replies: “I first started as a runner, then a librarian, then doing cassette duplication, then tape-to-tape duplication. I was then told that I was going to shadow a mastering engineer. I started with Jack Adams for a bit, then went on to shadow other engineers. “I think it’s a bit like a car, really. The instructor tells you how to pass the test, but it’s only when you pass and start to drive on your own that you really start to learn. Then you learn how to work with clients. So the shadowing showed me how to press the buttons but it’s only when you start working with actual clients that you start to really learn what they want and how to achieve it.” We ask if his mastering approach has been influenced by anyone in particular: “No one, really. I guess because it’s so client- and market-driven. You’re in your room all of the time,

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working with your clients. From time to time I’ll listen to other people’s mastering projects, but generally I’m only listening to my work in this room.”

the years – as they do with many genres – so we ask Stuart how much this might have contributed to tracks getting louder as well as his techniques. He shares his experiences: ‘It’s a bit of both. I suppose it’s mainly due to the production of the tracks. I’m delivering what’s there as well as I can, so the production is a large factor. Nowadays it’s getting so dense-sounding – as if everything is turned up to 11 in the mix. The earlier tracks were mainly bass, a clear snare and other sounds peppered around the track. Now, all of the sounds are kind of the lead focus. Because they’re so dense, they’d be too much energy in the tracks to cut them to the same loudness as the earlier, more sparse-sounding stuff. In fact, five or six years ago I made the decision to start cutting stuff a little quieter because heads were starting to blow again and there were other technical issues. But it’s a lot more about getting it right for the digital formats now, with DJs playing stuff using software or CDJs.”

Charting the changes

On record

From mastering early classic hardcore tracks such as The Exorcist, Stuart’s discography reads onwards like a Who’s Who and What’s What of the drum‘n’bass scene – Urban Shakedown’s Some Justice ’95, LTJ Bukem’s Logical Progressions, DJ Krust’s Warhead, Bad Company’s Planet Dust, Pendulum’s Slam, Chase and Status’ No More Idols album and many more timeless tracks from the scene. The production aesthetics of drum‘n’bass have changed a lot over

It’s just after our conversation about the changes in music that he makes us aware of a lost and seemingly unnoticed element of vinyl DJ’ing that hasn’t been re-created – yet. He informs us: “The thing with vinyl is that it’s brighter at the beginning of the record and slowly gets duller through to the end. So it comes in and everyone is like ‘wow!’ in reaction to the introduction of a new record. But then, slowly, without anyone noticing, the top end slowly tapers off. When the next

‘‘It’s a lot more about getting it right for the digital formats now, with DJs playing stuff using software or CDJs”

Notable works..

A few of Stuart’s career highlights

1995 | Goldie Timeless It was great to be part of this. A very well puttogether and intelligent album. I still think this takes some beating today.

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2006 | Amy Winehouse Back To Black I remember hearing the first demos of Rehab. I instantly thought it was going to be quite special and got more and more excited as the new tracks rolled in.

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MASELEC MMC-2 The Stereo Width control on this custom build lets me open out the stereo width. I can boost the sides and get things sounding a little louder. It also lets you split off the mid and side to process them separately.

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NEUMANN SX 74 HEAD When I was cutting a lot of dubplates for drum‘n’bass DJs I’d be pushing these heads up to +8 or 9dBu. This wasn’t the way I was told to do it. I was told that the lathes cost around £200,000 and the heads were £15,000, so it was quite scary when exploring how much I could push things. I remember blowing two heads at Masterpiece so the worry of that happening was a constant scare.

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e UNITY AUDIO THE ROCK I use these as a smaller reference speaker so I know what the music sounds like when you’re not getting quite as much bottom or top end. I mainly use the PMC BB5 XBDs as they are full-range and I can go loud or quite without any ear-fatigue.

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MASELEC MEA-2 This sounds very warm so I use it a lot of the time when doing the bass end of things. I’ll often use this and the Sonteq in series – one before the other to get the best of both.

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SONTEK MES-432C This is a very old piece of classic kit these days – very hard to come by. It’s got a lovely top end to it that you can never get from digital. It just sounds wider and taller. A real 3D feel to it. Digital, to me, just sounds very linear and one-dimensional.

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record is mixed in, it lifts the set up again and so on. So it’s a subliminal dynamic tool that is lost with digital formats. If I was to design a piece of DJ’ing software, I’d have that available as an option to keep the interest there for each new tune being mixed in.” Stuart also tells us a little more about how digital and vinyl differ: “You can get a lot more intensity from the digital format, but to me that’s a weakness as it can soon get a bit harsh-sounding. Vinyl is lovely because it behaves in a similar response to your ear as they both work in the analogue domain. You can turn up vinyl loud and it doesn’t start to hurt like a digital signal does.”

Modern mastering Although Stuart’s reputation is very big for his drum‘n’bass work, he does actually work on a variety of genres; more recently he’s been mastering some dubstep, notably the famous supergroup Magnetic Man. We ask him if there’s much difference to his approach with this slower-tempobased child of drum‘n’bass. Stuart says: “To me there’s an obvious synergy between dubstep and drum‘n’bass. I don’t understand why some people say there isn’t. It all feels kind of similar to me: it’s got a big bass end with a big snare and likewise it’s what a bulk of the tracks are built around. When I started to master dubstep the clients were all about not having it mastered to be loud – never going hard with limiting or anything else that’s going

2010 | Magnetic Man Magnetic Man This sounds fantastic and has some great collaborations. I think it’s a very significant album and it sounds so good on a big system.

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to change the audiophile quality of the track. But then, pretty quickly, it became volume-driven. Now dubstep is as loud – if not louder – than drum‘n’bass. I get some ridiculously loud dubstep audio files sent to me for mastering, which is a horrible problem. When someone gives you a track and it’s ridiculously loud, if you’re going to add anything to it you’ve got nowhere to go as you’ll be instantly hitting a ceiling somewhere. So you’d have to take the volume of the whole track down in order to get some bass in. In that case, if you give it back to the client there’s a good chance they’re gonna complain that it’s quieter than it was. So whereas I’ll usually try three or so limiters to see which is best for the job, if someone’s already limited the track there’s no undo button I can use. So I’m stuck with the way they’ve done it. I quite often ask clients to give me the file they’ve applied limiting to so I know how far they want to push the track and what they’re hoping to arrive at in the end. But I’ll want the unlimited version too as I can probably arrive at the same levels as the version they’ve done but with a better-sounding limiter. But before doing that I can also add that bit of bass that I can’t on the pre-limited version. It just comes out a lot nicer-sounding when I’m not dealing with squared-off waveforms as a starting point. It’s better when I’m dealing with more analogue, round waves.” Check out the DVD for our Pro Technique video with Stuart, in which he takes us through his approach to mastering a typical drum ‘n’ bass track. MTF

2011 | Chase and Status No More Idols

2011 | Katy B On A Mission

Very clever songwriting and production. A real joy to work on. It’s really nice to see how the public react to certain tracks on the album when I’m out.

I think Katy B should be up there with the likes of Jessie J in terms of public awareness. She’s a real talent.

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MTF Workshop Ozone 5’s Meter Bridge

Ozone 5 Workshop

Exploring Ozone 5’s Meter Bridge Producing a professional sounding master requires informative, easy-to-read metering. Mark Cousins takes an analytical approach to sound…

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lthough our ears should always be the final judge of any process we carry out during mastering, there’s little doubt that some effective metering is an invaluable tool in the mastering process. Indeed, given the detailed and almost forensic attention to detail most mastering engineers take with audio, you can see why Ozone 5 Advanced’s Meter Bridge function has propelled the plug-in out of the home studio market and into various professional mastering facilities. In short, Ozone 5’s Meter Bridge function is one of the most informative audio analysis tools available, making it an ideal part of anybody’s mastering workflow. Just having access to good metering, though, doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll improve the sound of your masters. As you’d expect, the skill lies in interpreting the meters correctly; understanding what they’re telling you, and how they can direct you in an appropriate way. In this workshop, we’ll explore the thinking behind the Meter Bridge and how you can practically apply it in your own mastering tasks. Even if you don’t have Ozone 5 Advanced, many of the metering features can also be found in equivalent areas of the main plug-in, like the Vectorscope in the Stereo Imaging section, for example, or the FFT Analyzer as part of the Equalizer page.

PRO TIP Even if you don’t have Ozone 5 Advanced you can always download a demo version from the iZotope site to try the metering features out. Users of the standard Ozone 5 might also want to check their General Preferences, as it’s possible to audition the enhanced version under the Auth & Updates section.

Although most users will be familiar with Peak + RMS metering, the K-System and BS.1770 Loudness modes are less familiar. In essence, both solutions are designed to devise new standards in light of heavy peak limiting and a need to properly assess loudness. In the case of the K-System standard, the change in display is largely in relation to the ballistics and scaling of the meters, showing a greater bias towards averaged RMS values, and a better colour coding to indicate acceptable amounts of dynamic range. Try moving between the three different K-System settings (K-20,

Ozone 5’s Meter Bridge feature works as a floating window in addition to the main plug-in interface, giving

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you a detailed and informed view on areas like signal levels, loudness, timbre and stereo width. You can access the enhanced metering functionality by clicking on the Meter Bridge button positioned immediately below Ozone 5’s main Input/Output meters. Once open, the default setup shows all four sections of the Meter Bridge – including Spectrogram, Spectrum Analyzer, Vectorscope and Level meters – all of which can be freely resized as you see fit. 1 Of all four metering options you have at your disposal, it’s arguably the Level Meters that address the most important information contained in the Meter Bridge, namely signal amplitude. As with all the sections, you can move over to an expanded view by clicking on the small ‘boxes’ icon in any of the four metering sections. When you move to an expanded meter section you will also get access to a series of meter settings that are to be found under the Options tab on the bottom of the interface. In the case of the Level Meters, one of the most important settings is the Metering Mode, moving between Peak + RMS, K-System and BS.1770 Loudness. 2

Feeling peaky

Under the bridge

The meter bridge includes four different types of metering: including a Spectrogram, Spectrum Analyzer, Vectorscope and Level meters.

On the disc

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Ozone 5’s Meter Bridge Workshop MTF

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4 Both the K-System and BS.1770 Loudness modes provide a more informed overview of the perceived amplitude of your master.

K-14 and K-12), noticing how the 0dB calibration point changes with each mode. 3 In essence, the K-System method is an attempt to move away from the absolute Peak readings that tend to dictate sound levels in the digital universe, and instead focus on an averaged level of sound. Try using the K-12 or K-14 system with a limiter and note how you get a far more meaningful reading of the perceived loudness, arguably setting your final levels around the 0dB calibration point on the RMS reading. 4 The BS.1770 is arguably the next development from the K-System method, giving an even more in-depth reading of the perceived loudness. In this case, the key meter readings are in the centre of the display covering Momentary (M), Short-term (S) and Integrated (I) levels. Between these three readings we can form a more rounded understanding of loudness, seeing the cumulative effect of signal levels on the track’s perceived amplitude. The Momentary levels might vary over a relatively wide range, although not a greatly as a Peak meter reading. As we move up through the meters – using the S and I readings – the movements are more sluggish, but arguably just as informative. Ultimately, it’s about understanding how amplitude works over time, which with experience becomes far more important than the Peak readings. 5

PRO TIP Although it marginally steps out of the realm of mastering as such, the Spectrogram’s Meter Tap function is well worth exploring. Place the Tap plug-ins at various points in your mixer, then open the Spectrogram and activate the Meter Taps function, and assign each of the channels to a different Colour option.

timbre and harmonic structure behaves over time, arguably identifying any particular frequency peaks that might be dictating our overall signal levels. Hovering over the peaks with a mouse will allow you to identify the exact Hz reading (found in the bottom right-hand corner of the window), allowing you to set a corresponding parametric notch to tame the aggressive frequency peak. 7 To get a broader insight into the timbral properties of your track, try moving over to the Spectrogram. The Spectrogram is arguably less of a ‘forensic’ tool, but it is much better at decoding some of the wider spectral movements and patterns within a track – seeing how the bass moves with a kick drum, for example, or how a high-hat pattern cuts across the top of a mix. The settings largely relate to the display properties of the Spectrogram – use the 2D mode in situation where you want a precise reading of frequency (especially if you’re using the Spectrogram to assist your equalisation moves), whereas the 3D mode probably delivers a better understanding of the shape of the track. 8

The colour of sound Understanding the timbre of your master comes down to two types of meter: the colourful Spectrogram and the Spectrum Analyzer, which are both based on FFT analysis. The Spectrum Analyzer should be familiar from Ozone’s Equalizer, although in this example we get a few extra useful tools to play with. One beneficial feature is the different Display options, which usually defaults to the Left/Right stereo mode. Rather than just viewing the Left/Right display option, it’s also interesting to take a look at the Stereo Average (Mid) and Stereo Difference (Side) plots. Arguably, the aim here is to identify any bass-heavy movements in the Side channel, as these can affect the tightness of the bass in the final master. 6 Another useful feature of the Spectrum Analyzer is the Peak Hold feature. Try enabling the ‘show peak hold’ option and setting the peak hold time to Infinite. In theory, the peak hold setting allows us to see how the focus Mastering Volume 4

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MTF Workshop Ozone 5’s Meter Bridge

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Use the Spectrogram to gauge broad timbral qualities of your track, while the Spectrum Analyzer offers a display that better suits precise frequency readings.

Stereophonic sound Decoding the stereo information contained in a recording might not seem that important at first, but once you’ve seen the power of the Vectorscope you’ll appreciate the clarity of information it delivers, from the precise panning of instruments, through to the width of the soundstage and, of course, the all important phase relationship. The Vectorscope works with three different display modes: Polar Sample, Polar Level, and Lissajous. Broadly speaking, all three modes display the same information, so the preference is largely down to what you feel most comfortable reading. 9 To understand how the Vectorscope works, it’s best to experiment with a series of audio files – mono, panned mono and true stereo, which we’ve included on the DVD – and seeing how the meter changes in response to those signals. Starting with the mono signal, we can see a line planted firmly down the centre of the display. What’s interesting here is that we can see the difference between a signal that is completely mono – a straight line, in other words – and one that has a minimal amount of stereo information, something that can be difficult to discern 100 per cent accurately by ear. 10 Moving on to the panned mono recording, we can initial see a display that indicates that the signal is in mono – again, we see a straight line – but the line has been marginally offset to indicate its relative pan position. Things get slightly more complicated when we have a number of concurrent mono signals panned

across the stereo image, as the display takes on a greater amount of ‘stereo divergence’, although it’s still possible to deduce the basic panning information. 11 What’s particularly interesting is when we start to consider the addition of some ‘true stereo’, in this case, an output from a reverb unit. In this example, the reverb level increases throughout the duration of the file, so we can see how the width of the soundstage almost seems to flower outwards from the centre. In theory, points beyond the 45-degree safe line represent out of phase components, which either indicates a degree of mono incompatibility or a ‘super-wide’ stereo soundstage, depending on your stance on phase. For additional reference, the meter along the side also aids the assessment of phase, moving between +1, for in-phase audio, and -1, for out-of-phase audio. 12

Look, listen and learn Although we’ve covered all the essential principles here, the best way to understand the Meter Bridge is to spend plenty of time reading the meters in relation to known ‘audio entities’ – whether it’s a test file, for example, or a recording you know as being trusted source. What’s interesting is that a good mix or, for that matter, a good master, meters in a logical and defined way, whether it’s a reasoned balance of dynamics, a wide uncoloured frequency response, or the use of the stereo soundstage, all of which supports the important scientifically objective view that good metering can provide you with. MTF

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10 Try feeding a variety of different stereo and mono signals into the Vectorscope to better understand the unique way it can decode a stereo soundstage.

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Pro-Codec Version 2 Real Time Codec Auditioning

Master directly for iTunes The revolutionary Sonnox Fraunhofer Pro-Codec plug-in enables the auditioning, encoding and decoding of audio with codecs such as mp3 and AAC, making it possible to produce online-ready mixes in real time! Now with the inclusion of Apple’s iTunes Plus codec you can mix directly for the “Mastered for iTunes” programme, monitoring the same clip behaviour as the iTunes encoding chain – saving you time and ensuring high quality output during the mixing process. Also new in Version 2: • 64-bit compatibility • Additional codec – Fraunhofer MPEG Surround • Additional codec – Apple AAC iTunes Plus (Mac only) • AAC-LC support for 256kbps VBR • AAC-LC and HE-AAC support for 96kHz sample rate • HD-AAC support for 16-bit files

www.sonnox.com

MTF 25 pro tips Audio editing

Pro tips for

audio editing

Audio edits are a vital part of the production process – and mastering them will help you turn imperfect tracks into perfect ones. Hollin Jones reveals the experts’ tips… Work non-destructively Most DAWs are non-destructive in the way that they deal with audio edits, meaning that when you cut a file, for example, you are not actually cutting the original but merely referencing the original file differently. In some cases – such as when an edit fundamentally changes an audio file by reversing it – your DAW will automatically create a new version of the file, leaving the original untouched, and reference the new file instead. It is sometimes possible to switch Preferences to keep fewer copies of files – typically it’s in the ‘undo level’ section or similar – but it’s worth keeping lots of undo files as they give you maximum flexibility.

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to set up a fade manually. Typically they are extremely short crossfades and will smooth out the transition, getting rid of any clips. To get rid of multiple glitches where a loop has been copied and pasted several times, select all instances of it and perform the crossfade function.

cut at zero crossing points If you zoom right into an audio waveform you can find the exact point at which it hits zero – where it goes from being positive to negative. If you can manage to make your cut at this point you will avoid clicks and pops in your audio at the edit point. If, on the other hand, you cut midwaveform, you may get a nasty glitch when the playhead passes the edit point, as the waveform ends abruptly. Note that it is not always possible to edit at the zero crossing point, though many wave editors can snap to it for you.

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use crossfades Where two loops or sections of audio come together, if they have not got perfect zero start and end points or silence, you can get a clipping sound as they cross. Most DAWs are able to crossfade between audio clips to get around this problem, either automatically or by enabling you

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Audio editing 25 pro tips MTF

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edit before Mixing While it’s possible to automate tracks on and off or automate faders up and down to knock out sections of tracks where there’s supposed to be silence, it’s often better to edit out the bits that aren’t supposed to be there. That way, you can be sure of silence where you need it. If you export a mix as separate stems, your DAW will simply insert silence into the blank areas anyway, so you have nothing to lose and everything to gain from this approach.

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CoMp your pArts In recent years, DAWs have got very good at comp’ing, which is the process of combining several takes into one perfect take. Imagine you are playing or singing a part and go around it in a loop, recording four or five versions. You might like your playing on the first half of the second take and the second half of the fourth. By comp’ing the take together and with careful use of fades – often done automatically, depending on your DAW – you can fairly easily create the perfect take in a few minutes. There is often an option to then bounce the take to a new file, making it permanent.

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use voluMe hAndles This doesn’t relate to editing waveforms, but in most DAWs you can use volume handles on audio clips both to set live start and end fades and also to set the clip’s volume individually. This is a really good trick to use when you have one or more clips whose volume is out of step with the other clips on the track, but you don’t want to move them to a new track. Rather than automating the volume fader, use volume handles to set a clip’s volume to bring it into line with the rest of the track (or, indeed, to make it quieter or louder, if necessary, than the rest of the track).

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Cut rAther thAn gAting You can use gating to cut off unwanted sounds when a track is supposed to be silent, such as between words on a vocal track or while a guitarist is waiting between playing two passages. Gating is fine, but unless set correctly can cut off too much signal or miss some background noise. A better solution, if you have the patience, is to simply cut out any parts of an audio clip where there is not supposed to be any sound – being careful, of course, to avoid lopping off anything you meant to keep.

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use gentle fAdes When you edit an audio part you can sometimes end up with sounds at the start or end – such as a breath sound on a vocal part – that are too close to the start or end of a word to safely cut off without it sounding strange. A good way to deal with these is to apply a very short fade to the affected area, which will quickly fade the sound in or out more smoothly than you could manage with automation or with a cut. Some DAWs have an ‘auto-fade’ feature that will do this for you.

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Move regions Digital audio affords us amazing flexibility, and you can copy and paste it freely. If a passage has been played really well at one point but badly at another, then providing it has been recorded to a click you can usually copy and paste the good take in place of the bad one. You may have to deactivate snapping to precisely nudge the new part into time with its new location, but again, if a click is involved this should be relatively easy. You can even move smaller sections such as snare hits to deal with minor annoyances such as a quiet hit elsewhere in a track.

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up 07 double A good trick for making parts sound beefier is to simply double-track them. While there are plug-ins that emulate the effect, it’s just as easy to duplicate an audio track so that vocals or guitars, for example, exist twice in the mix. Left as they are these can sound a little strange, so it’s common practice to pan one or either of them slightly to differentiate them, or perhaps to add a small amount of effect to one of them, such as chorus or phasing. With some tweaking you can achieve a fuller sound.

Audio wArp Most leading DAWs now feature some sort of flexi-time technology for audio, meaning that it can be edited almost as flexibly as MIDI. By analysing an audio part and inserting beat markers, DAWs enable you pick up part of a waveform and move it without affecting the overall length of the clip or the audio around it. Using this technique you can quickly time-correct or quantize audio parts or change their feel. By groove-quantizing audio parts you can match their feel to other parts or to MIDI files. Again, you can usually bounce down a version to make it permanent.

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MTF 25 pro tips Audio editing

MAke your own sAMpled instruMents By recording individual notes or hits and then editing them you can build up a collection of samples that can be used as the basis of an instrument in something like Kontakt or Reason’s NN-XT. The key when editing these is usually to get the start point of the sample exactly right, and also allow some tail to account for any sustain (but not so much that the note holds on for too long). Software samplers usually enable you to tweak parameters such as start and end times as well.

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use your eyes Wave editing makes it pretty easy to see what’s going on in an audio file. Smaller sections mean quieter audio and larger peaks mean louder sound. If you are looking at an audio file and spot some huge peaking transients, it’s likely that you might have an issue with clipping (or at the very least inconsistent volume at that point). At the other end of the scale, zooming right in to an audio file at sample level enables you to identify any digital glitching, which can look like right angles in an otherwise smooth curve.

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Audio snApping When quantizing audio – or even just when moving it around the timeline in your DAW – you must be aware of the snap settings. When you have loops with perfectly edited start and end points at the project tempo, things are pretty easy. When you have clips of imperfect lengths you may be more reliant on lining up waveforms with grid markers to set start points. In these cases, regular snapping might not help you much, so you can try deactivating snapping or switching it to a very precise value (eg, 1/64) until your audio is lined up, then reactivating more regular snapping (eg, 1/16).

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use speciAlist Audio repAir When there’s a rogue element in an audio clip, simple wave editing won’t be able to get rid of it because these things generally occur at the same time as other sounds and so can’t be erased through cutting or EQ. A tool such as iZotope’s RX, on the other hand, is able to give you a spectrographic view of an audio file, which will make it much easier to identify and ‘paint out’ a sound such as an audience cough on a live recording. It’s remarkable how effective this technology is in everyday situations.

A tool such as iZotope’s rX is able to give you a spectrographic view of an audio file

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process Audio Sometimes you want to make changes to an entire audio clip, such as altering its volume or reversing it. In cases like these the quickest way to do it is usually to use audio processing, which all wave editors and DAWs have in some form. Select the clip or section of a clip and then choose the function to apply to it. You may, for example, process silence over part of a clip to get rid of a sound without cutting the clip. Or reverse part of a clip, creating a special effect while leaving the rest of the clip intact.

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Quick AnAlysis A number of DAWs and wave editors have analysis tools that can scan audio for peaks, clips and other issues. This can be a good way to quickly search for problems when they might be harder to pick out one by one. You also usually get tools and options to fix these problems with a couple of clicks, or you can go in and manually paint them out yourself.

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Audio scrubbing Sometimes, problems in audio files can occur so quickly (and for such short bursts of time) that they can be tricky to deal with even when you set up a loop. In these situations, using a Scrub tool to scrub through the waveform in slow motion will enable you to hear exactly where a glitch or problem is occurring. You can then zoom in and deal with it as appropriate. This is a useful way of finding clipping in audio parts.

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Audio editing 25 pro tips MTF

Stuck like glue When you have made lots of small edits to audio parts, you sometimes end up with many small sections of sound dotted across a track, often very close to each other. These can be fiddly to work with and difficult to move all at the same time, so you can select them all and then use a Glue or similar tool or command to collect them all together into a single part. This enables you to treat them as a single entity for the purposes of moving, copying and pasting, while the individual sections remain editable.

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edit audio aS flexibly aS Midi There are some incredible tools on the market that enable you to ‘reach inside’ polyphonic audio parts and play around with the notes. Among the best is Melodyne Editor, which works by sampling a section of audio, analysing it and then giving you access to individual notes – even notes inside a strummed guitar chord – so that you can change them. So it’s easy to turn a major chord into a minor one, for example, or change the timing of notes within a chord. Audio can be edited with as much flexibility as MIDI.

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While some genres require absolutely perfect audio edits, others (like hip hop) do not Slice your loopS Using ReCycle you can turn audio loops into REX files, adjusting their tempo and feel in the process. This will make them adjust their tempo to the tempo of any project they are loaded into. The same applies to ACID, and ACIDised files are able to be read by most applications. An advantage of using REX files in a program like Reason is that the slices are very easy to play with and re-sequence – easier than audio clips that have been sliced on a regular DAW audio track.

extreMe Stretching Timestretching is commonplace these days, and you can stretch audio parts with ease. Consider extreme stretching – to 500 or even 1,000 per cent of a clip’s original length – to create something totally new, like a texture or a pad sound from something that started life as a vocal or a drum hit, for example. Digital audio is inherently very flexible, so there are no limits to your creativity. MTF

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get creative There are a number of plug-ins available that are able to take audio input and mangle it based on settings that you choose or on MIDI input. iZotope’s Stutter Edit is one of these, enabling you to create totally new sounds, effects, rhythms and loops from a regular audio part without actually making any edits to it at all. You always have the option of rendering or bouncing down the effected signal to create a hard copy of the mangled sound.

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keep it gritty While some genres (such as pop) generally require absolutely perfect audio edits, others (such as hip hop) do not. If you listen to some classic hip hop albums you can clearly hear the joins where a sample has been looped, or hear loud plosives on the vocal track. Whether they are there by design or by accident is somewhat academic – it all goes to show that sometimes a little imperfection can add character to a sound.

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create new fileS In most software packages you are able to open a clip to view its waveform, select a part of that waveform, then create a new file from it. This is placed into your computer’s memory until it is saved somewhere. This is a quick way to take a word, riff or sound from an existing clip and get a new copy of it to start altering or editing without having to do any cutting up of the original file.

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MTF Round-up Hardware

Round-up Mastering hardware

Mastering with hardware might use more space than doing it in the box, but it offers rewards in terms of sheer sonic quality. Many of the units that are suitable for mastering can also be used for everyday tracking and mixing tasks, so investing in hardware can be a great idea…

1 PRISM MASELEC MLA-2

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Price £2,600 Contact Prism Sound 01353 648 888 The MLA-2 is a stereo or two-channel compressor with stepped drive, ratio, attack and release time and output gain controls. The MLA-2 is a very special compressor that has been designed to provide effective but subtle compression and uses the principle of a fixed threshold, with adjustable drive or input gain. This makes for more intuitive operation than an adjustable threshold – turn the drive control clockwise and increase the compression depth. The MLA-2 is used extensively in mastering but it also works well on an insertion point in recording or mixing, as demonstrated with a rear-mounted range control switch that adjusts the threshold range to suit either mastering or recording/mixing applications. Web www.maselec.com

Price £1,562 Contact Sonic Distribution 0845 500 2 500 This unit delivers the rich warmth that is so revered in Mr Rupert Neve’s classic designs; two channels of musical sounding dynamics as well as ultra-transparent “brickwall” limiting in a half rack 1RU space. It embodies two independent Compressor-Limiters (Channels A and B) that can be used independently or connected in sequence to provide two separate control slopes. Multiple 5043s may be daisychained via the rear panel jacks, and it offers extremely low distortion and noise levels. Web www.rupertneve.com

3 TL AUDIO IVORY 5052 MK2 STEREO VALVE PROCESSOR

Price discontinued Contact MSLPro 020 7118 0133 A high quality ‘channel strip’ product, only doubled, making this the ideal system front end, and the perfect stereo mixdown and mastering device. The 5052 provides two channels of each with independent stereo linking of the compressor, EQ and limiter sections. It comes in to its own by offering full stereo linked EQ and dynamics, allowing unparalleled processing of the stereo buss while mixing and mastering. Web www.tlaudio.co.uk

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2 RUPERT NEVE DESIGNS PORTICO 5043 H COMPRESSOR / LIMITER DUO

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Hardware Round-up MTF

4 TC ELECTRONIC FINALIZER EXPRESS

Price £828 Contact via website Costing a little less than its bigger brother, the Finalizer Express nonetheless has tons of bang for your buck. Run your mixed track through it and out to some form of recording medium and dial up presets or settings to add punch, clarity and sparkle to your music. It has a multiband compressor and limiter, spectral balance controls, a soft clipper, lookahead facility, a matrix to create variations on your treatments, automatic makeup gain, 24-bit resolution and 16- and 20-bit dithering capability. The Finalizer Express is a fast and cost-effective way to enter the world of pro mastering.

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Web www.tcelectronic.com

5 DBX 1046 QUAD COMPRESSOR LIMITER

Price £551 Contact Sound Technology 01462 480000 The 1046 provides four channels of smooth classic dbx OverEasy or Hard Knee compression that are perfectly suited for use on individual tracks of your multitrack recorder, and in most cases the separate channels can be individually interfaced and used for entirely independent purposes like mastering. Additionally, the newly developed PeakStopPlus is ideal for protecting your system from the oppressive peaks that can take out valuable drivers in your sound reinforcement rig or studio monitors. The Stereo Link feature allows you to link channels 1&2 and 3&4 for two channels of true stereo compression. Web www.dbxpro.com

6 API 2500 STEREO BUSS COMPRESSOR

Price £2,400 Contact Source Distribution 020 8962 5080 The API 2500 Stereo Bus Compressor allows adjustment of sonic qualities to alter the punch and tone of the stereo mix. One of the 2500’s more notable qualities is its use of API’s patented Thrust circuit for a chesthitting, punchy bottom end. In addition to this, the output stage exhibits an auto-makeup gain button that permits the user to vary the threshold or ratio while automatically maintaining a constant output level. Furthermore, the 2500 ensures fidelity with its all-discrete, fully balanced design with two front panel VU meters showing input, output and gain reduction levels. Web www.apiaudio.com

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MTF Round-up Hardware

7 MILLENNIA NSEQ-2

Price £3,400 Contact SCV London 020 8418 1470 For the more serious mastering engineer, good outboard EQ is a must. Millennia’s custom-built NSEQ-2 offers four bands of EQ with a range of 20Hz to 20kHz, each with a Q control ranging from 0.4 to 4.0 for a precise control over each band. There’s an extremely high build quality internally, with only one active stage in the audio path, gold relays, connectors, switches and tube sockets and a choice of all-triode 300V vacuum tube or all-discrete J-FET solid state signal path. It’s a fully parametric stereo EQ with amazing sonic purity.

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Web www.mil-media.com

8 PRISM MASELEC MEA-2 MASTERING EQUALIZER

Price £4,641 Contact Prism Sound 01353 648888 The MEA-2 Precision Stereo Equalizer is designed for recording and mastering applications where ultimate sonic performance is required. With four separate equalizers per channel, all controls are stepped for accurate recall of settings and you get completely overlapping frequencies in parallel bands for total creative freedom. There’s great channel-to-channel phase compatibility for better stereo imaging, interactive Gain and Bandwidth controls and 84 discrete frequencies per channel. All sections are switchable between shelving and five different bell bandwidths and the unit has a dynamic range of more than 110dB. Web www.maselec.com

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9 DRAWMER MX30

Price £350 Contact Drawmer 01709 527574 The Drawmer has several great features for mastering on a budget. There’s a soft knee auto compressor that deals with large and small transients differently to produce gentle compression. Peak Limiting sets an absolute limit that the output signal will not be permitted to exceed. The limiter is ‘zero response time’ and controls peaks without any audible distortion. For transparent ‘peak protection’ the output gain control should be set to ensure that the Peak Limiter operates only occasionally. Alternatively, the unit can be driven into heavy limiting for creative effects. Web www.drawmer.com

MTF Walkthrough WaveLab

WaveLab Step-by-Step

Mastering music

On the disc

with WaveLab

WaveLab is Steinberg’s premiere wave editor and it’s just as good at mastering as it is with other aspects of audio production. Hollin Jones rides the wave…

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aveLab is Steinberg’s flagship mastering, wave editing and audio analysis application and comes in a number of versions with different feature sets. Although it has some similar features to Cubase, it is much more focused on working with digital audio files than actually creating music. Its strengths include batch processing, advanced audio analysis, audio montage for things like creating radio broadcasts and podcasts, surround sound and detailed wave editing. It can also record audio in high quality, though again in this regard it’s better suited to voiceover or overdubbing tasks than it is to multi tracking, for which you’d probably be better off working with Cubase. WaveLab has long been Steinberg’s go-to application for mastering, and for many years existed only on the Windows platform, with a Mac version being produced a couple of years ago. It relies heavily on tabbed windows, making it easy to maintain multiple open documents as

well as different views of your material. It’s amongst the most comprehensive audio applications when it comes to metering, with a wide range of built-in tools to help you see how your audio is behaving. And if its interface feels a little confused graphically, this can be changed using Themes from within the Preferences section.

Getting started WaveLab is able to work with almost any kind of audio format, from the conventional AIFF and WAV through compressed MP3 and AAC to stuff you’ve probably never

WaveLab is much more focused on working with digital audio files than actually creating music heard of, like OSQ format. Its interface is so configurable that your copy may very well look different to that of the next user, but window layouts can be easily saved, loaded and managed using the Workspace > Layouts menu. The first thing you will want to do is load one or more audio files and this is generally done using the File Browser, which can be set up to auto play compatible files if you

MTF Navigation Mastering with WaveLab BATCH PROCESSOR Create and edit plug-in chains to process your tracks and also take advantage of an excellent batch processor.

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AUDIO DATA You can view your audio data in a number of ways including viewing as a waveform, a Spectrum view and also a Loudness view.

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AUDIO MONTAGE Load one or more audio files into separate projects or into an Audio Montage. Almost any audio format you can think of is supported.

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ADVANCED METERING Advanced metering is available including customisable VU Meters. You also get spectrographic displays, Phase Scope and Bit meters to help you understand the mastering process.

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WaveLab Walkthrough MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Creating mastering presets

Open a project in WaveLab and load up an audio file that you need to master. If it is not already visible, reveal the Master Section from the Workspace > Shared Tool Windows menu and expand the Effects tab by clicking on its maximize button. This is where you will load your effects chain. Left click on the first effect slot and you will see a list of the plug-ins installed on your system.

WaveLab has a number of plug-ins bundled and these are aimed largely at mastering. You can see them named in the lower part of the effects menu. The others are VST plug-ins and there’s also an ASIO option where you can choose to use an external audio channel to process hardware effects as part of the signal. This is great if you have a specific piece of outboard that you’d like to incorporate.

For now, choose a third-party plug-in. If you don’t have many of these you can download a number of free ones, or install some inexpensive alternatives. If you have a good selection already, so much the better. Start with a compressor. Here we have opted for the Steinberg Portico 5043, which is an excellent compression unit. We carefully dial in some settings to help glue the sound of the master together.

Next try adding an EQ module. Here we have the Maag EQ, which lets us dial some sweetness into the middle and top of our sound. You could also use a parametric EQ but will probably want to avoid graphic equalizers since they are less precise for this particular set of tasks. Mute or solo plug-ins using their power buttons periodically to see how your processing is affecting the sound.

Finally we add a limiter. If you look inside the Steinberg folder in the plug-in list you should see all of the bundled Steinberg plug-ins, including any that come with Cubase if you happen to have that installed. Here we have loaded up a limiter and pushed the input drive so that our track gains some power and boost. Keep an eye on the VU meters at the top right of the screen.

With your plug-in chain created you may want to save it and then load it again later, making tweaks for the track you happen to be working on at that point. Go to the bottom of the Master section and click on the preset name field, then choose Save or Save As. In the resulting window, assign it a name and select options for which plug-ins to include. Then recall this preset at any time.

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like, helping to save time. Once a file has been loaded it appears in the waveform view and can be scrolled, zoomed and viewed in various different ways. It’s worth mentioning that WaveLab has many functions beyond mastering and there isn’t room to touch on them here, but they should be fairly clear to you as you work your way around the application. You can for example start a new, blank audio recording, audio montage or podcast directly from the main window. Your waveform display should give you a good idea of how your mixdown is looking and by judging the size of the peaks you will get a sense of how loud it is already and what might need doing to it during mastering. Ideally, the mixdown should have a healthy level but should not be coming close to the 0dB mark displayed in the waveform view margins. There’s the option to switch the view to a spectral or loudness display, both in the smaller overview and the larger one that sits underneath. Spectral can be more useful in diagnosing problems like clicks and clips, though loudness is good for mastering. Incidentally, it is possible to customise the appearance

PRO TIP In WaveLab’s Preferences section you can tweak the way it looks, responds and operates. You may prefer an alternative theme, wish to turn tooltips on or off or activate auto folding of menus and window sections. Parts of the interface can be docked and undocked and window layouts saved and recalled. This helps you set up the application for mastering, audio editing, creating podcasts and various other tasks.

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and behaviours of any of these views by clicking on the tiny wrench icon underneath the display.

Read the meter You can invoke other meters by using the Meters dropdown menu in WaveLab and these include several that are handy for mastering. The Phase Scope can be used to check for phasing problems with your signal, and the Bit Meter displays the resolution of the audio file as it plays back in real time. This can be helpful for understanding whether dithering is necessary or not. For example, if you are mixing down to 16-bit for CD but the Bit Meter shows that more than 16 bits are being used, you should apply some dithering. Perhaps the most useful display type in WaveLab for mastering is the VU Meter. This is used to display the peak and average loudness/decibel level of your audio file and also displays the pan, or the balance between the left and right channels in a stereo file. During mastering you pay close attention to the levels of your track and the aim is to end up with a loud track that is FOCUS Mastering Volume 4

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MTF Walkthrough WaveLab

consistently up near 0dB but without losing too much dynamic range. The VU Meter is indispensable in achieving this and, like other meters, has advanced behaviour settings like zoning, release rate and peak hold that can help you get a handle on how your processing is working. It can also be flipped to work horizontally or vertically, depending on your preferences, and can store up to five sets of preset display settings. So you might for example want to master for several different media and meter accordingly for each one. This could be done by using VU Meter display presets.

Parts of the process All manner of audio processing tools are available in WaveLab but this is not something that is usually done during mastering, with the possible exception of fades in and out, sample rate conversion or topping and tailing an audio file. Under the Process menu are normalizers, phase inverters and time stretching tools but they need not concern you during mastering. Normalization may

PRO TIP The Audio Montage feature in WaveLab lets you essentially multitrack with existing audio files. Let’s say you wanted to run or fade tracks together during mastering for an album, instead of having them all as completely separate entities on the disc. You could do this by using Montage and then either fading clips together on the same track or fading them over different tracks.

sound attractive but it actually pulls up not only the audio signal but also any noise present in the file. So unless your signal is extremely quiet, in which case you should try to do another, louder mixdown, you should be relying on compression and limiting to boost the signal, not normalization. Applying realtime processing in WaveLab works in much the same way as it does in Cubase, in that you use plug-ins applied as inserts or sends. Typically for mastering a single file you would use inserts in the Master section, where there are multiple slots available to load any of WaveLab’s own plug-ins or any third-party VST models. You will probably want to stick to conventional kinds of mastering processors, perhaps beginning with a compressor, either single or multi band, and then an EQ module. It may be desirable to add some stereo widening, perhaps sidechain another compressor if you are having problems with specific frequencies, and then end with a limiter of some description to squeeze maximum gain out of your signal.

MTF Step-by-Step Metering your masters

When you master in WaveLab, the main metering view that you use will probably be VU Meters, which you can reveal using the Meters menu, and generally sits at the top right of the screen. This displays the peak levels of your track and is invaluable in understanding how close to zero you are pushing the signal. A control to its left can be used to switch between horizontal and vertical display types.

Click on the VU Meter’s Functions window and you can customise the way it behaves by making changes in the Settings window. To the left you can set the release rate and peak hold time of the Peak meter, which helps you identify if you are pushing a master too hard, as well as customising the colours of each zone. You can set the lowest and highest dB values visible on the scale too.

In the central section you can set up the Ballistics of the meter as well as colouring zones and, to the right, set the visibility and characteristics of the Panning meter. When you have created a setup that you like, click on the Preset field at the bottom of this window and either choose to Save a preset or Save As to assign it a new name. You also have the option to assign it straight to one of the five display preset slots.

Also available from the Meter menu is the Bit Meter. This displays how many bits are being used in the audio, in real time. If it shows the bit rate going over into the red, this means you will need to add dithering when exporting, or change the project settings to match the bit rate of the file. There’s also a Settings menu here where you can set up display colours and the mode in which the meter operates.

The Phase Scope meter can help you to understand how phase is working in your signal and whether any part of the audio is going out of phase, which can cause a loss of energy and thus of volume. The central area displays a realtime view and along the base the numbered line shows whether the audio is in phase, in which case it should be shown between 0 and +1, or out of phase, in which case it is between 0 and -1.

Last but not least for mastering is the Spectroscope, which can give you a good overview of the frequency content of your master. Use the Functions menu to choose whether to show predominantly low, medium or high frequencies, and toggle between these options to get an idea of how things are behaving. This meter helps you to understand where the energy lives in your audio file.

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WaveLab Walkthrough MTF

All the while you should be keeping an eye on the VU Meter section to see how your processing is affecting the sound. The aim is to ‘glue’ a master together with some compression, sweeten and balance the mixdown using EQ and then eventually use limiting to create a clear, loud sound. As ever you should be careful not to overcompress or limit and risk squashing the sound, which can be tiring on the ears of the listener. It also depends on the kind of music you are working with. Jazz for example would require a much more gentle treatment than heavy dance music.

Mix to master When you have created a plug-in chain that works for your specific track you can save the chain as a preset so that it can be recalled. There’s also the option to create an Audio Montage – a multi track project where different audio files on different tracks can have different plug-in treatments. Or if you are mastering a number of tracks but don’t want to use the Montage feature you can load

PRO TIP WaveLab is adept at audio error detection and correction – useful if a clip or click has crept into a mixdown but it’s not possible to re-do the export before the mastering process takes place. WaveLab can analyse sections of audio and identify problems, then use customisable waveform correction tools to remove the errors and leave you with a clean and great sounding file ready for mastering.

them all up in separate tabs and then use multiple master effect presets to process each one differently. When you are satisfied with the sound you can render a track out through the effects chain, and this should be your finished master. The Render section actually has a number of options, including the ability to render regions or whole files and to bypass the master section, if you have set your project up to use plug-ins in Montage mode. There’s also an excellent batch processor that can be configured to process multiple files through any number of effects chains and output the resulting files to a destination of your choice complete with custom naming. Although mastering each track will require a slightly different treatment, batch processing can be great for performing parts of the process like sample rate conversion, renaming, limiting or low cut filtering on lots of files before you come to the business of making more detailed changes. WaveLab is an incredibly powerful tool for audio editing and mastering and will help you get the most out of your productions. MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Batch processing in WaveLab

Go to the Utilities menu in WaveLab and choose Batch Conversion of Audio Files. This opens a special window into which you can quickly drop a folder or a list of audio files. Click on the File Format menu and you will see a range of options, including the ability to change file type, channel number, sample rate and bit resolution. This is useful if you want to sample or bit rate convert a bunch of files.

For a more comprehensive set of processing options, go to the Global menu and choose New Workspace > Batch processor. This essentially opens a new project that is set up for batch processing complete with effects chain and other options. Using the File Browser section at the top left, navigate to your files and use the Select Audio Files button to choose to see audio files in the Browser.

Click on the blank file icon to create a new empty document inside the batch processor. Drag the relevant files from the Browser to the Files To Process area on the left. With the Plug-ins section revealed on the left, drag and drop a saved processing chain from the Master Section Presets section into the Audio Plug-In Chain area to apply it to the tracks.

Alternatively, go to the Master Section Plug-Ins list or one of the other plug-in collection sections and drag and drop plug-ins into the chain area one by one. Double click on any plug-in’s name to open its UI and make settings. It helps to have preset patches available or to have set up a dedicated plug-in chain in WaveLab’s main view first. Keep adding plug-ins until your chain is complete.

From the Output section at the base of the window you can click on Rename and choose a naming convention from the resulting window. For example you might want to choose to add the text “mastered” to all the files to save you having to do this manually. You can also choose to insert text at specific points in a file name, and also to remove or convert text at the same time. You can batch process text changes on export.

Choose an export location, assign as many cores as you want to the batch – probably all of them – and press the Start button. WaveLab will apply all the requested processing and changes to all the files and output them to the required location. You can save the batch as a project and recall it later, adding different files but retaining the same processing chain.

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MTF Workshop Pro Tools 10

Pro Tools 10 Workshop

Mastering with Pro Tools10 On the disc

Pro Tools is considered by many to be the industry standard for music production, but it’s also great for mastering, as Hollin Jones explains…

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ro Tools has always had a reputation as one of the best DAWs around, with particular strengths in the arena of tracking and mixing audio. The tools and features that make it so popular for those tasks are the very same ones that make it great for mastering too, with its advanced audio plug-ins and metering tools. In fact during the mastering process you’re unlikely to use many of the tools that Pro Tools offers, since what you are essentially doing is processing a stereo file through a relatively small number of audio plug-ins. Things like timestretching, comping and automation are not carried out at the mastering stage.

Tools of the trade Your first step should be to start a new, blank Session. From the New Session menu, choose a template Session, if you happen to have already set one up that is suitable for mastering, or create a Blank Session with parameters that match that of the audio you are going

PRO TIP When you bounce tracks to disk from Pro Tools, including tracks you are mastering, you have several options. You can choose various file format and quality options as well as opting to convert sample and bit rates during or after the bounce process. You can also add a track directly from here to an iTunes library, or upload it to SoundCloud.

During the mastering process you’re unlikely to use many of the tools that Pro Tools offers

to import. Your stereo mixdown may well be at something like 48kHz and 24-bit resolution, so set the Session up to reflect this. 1 With the Session started, choose File > Import > Import Audio and, from the file browser, navigate to your file. It’s worth knowing that if your source file does not match the settings of the project, it is possible to convert it during import. Pro Tools will warn you that a file at the wrong sample rate, for example, will play back at the wrong speed. Click Add or Convert, depending on whether you need to perform conversion, and double check the sample rate conversion settings at the bottom right hand corner of the window if this is necessary. 2 With your file imported and playing at the right speed, you can move on to adding processors to the track to begin mastering. During the mixing stage you should have spent time perfectly balancing the various elements within your track, but not necessarily worrying too much about its overall volume. Indeed, you should have left some headroom in the mix so that mastering would be easier. So ideally you will have a well mixed file that has a decent level but is certainly not squashed or over loud when you bring it into this Session. The conventional wisdom is that you begin with a compressor, and the aim of compressing during mastering is to add a coherence to the track, to glue the signal together and lend some punch and power especially to the lower and mid frequencies. This isn’t about sheer volume; that comes later with limiting. But you’re looking to add some character and a little boost, for certain. Go to the track’s Inserts section and click on the first slot. Pro Tools can see compatible third-party plug-ins on your system of course, but we’re going to

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Start a new, blank Session with the correct audio settings, plus sample and bit rates, and then move on to choosing your mastering weapons.

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Pro Tools 10 Workshop MTF

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Use gentle compression to add punch and warmth to a mix, being careful not to over-compress or pump the signal at this stage. Then it’s time to move on to EQ…

You shouldn’t need to apply too much compression at the mastering stage stick for now with the models that come bundled with Pro Tools 10. Start by trying a Compressor / Limiter unit from the Dynamics folder. 3

Take the pressure You shouldn’t need to apply too much compression at the mastering stage, and even less if your mix had some master buss compression applied at the mixdown stage. If you have some experience of production you will probably be able to detect from listening to the mixdown and looking at its waveform whether it has had any compression already strapped across it. If not, you’re safe to apply a little here. Start with a low ratio of somewhere between 1.1:1 and 2:1, and a Threshold set quite high so only the louder peaks get compressed. 4 You should only be looking at applying a couple of dB of gain reduction when mastering, otherwise your music can end up sounding crushed as you remove too much dynamic range from it. Remember that compression has the effect of reducing the differences between the loudest and quietest parts of an audio signal. Taken too far, this can result in a sound that is dull and lifeless. What you want to do is leave some dynamic range in there, unless you have a specific reason for really squashing the sound. Go for a fast attack and release time if your material is more upbeat and has lots of transients, or slower settings if it’s more sedate. If you find that compressing is sucking some of the level out of the overall signal you can use the Gain control to add some volume back in. Don’t go too far though, since you can deal with absolute level at the limiting stage. 5

PRO TIP There’s a digital store built right into Pro Tools and if you click on the AudioSuite menu you will see an option called Avid Marketplace. Select this and, as long as you are online, you will be taken to the company’s online store where you can purchase and download additional virtual instruments and effects as well as Pro Tools sound libraries and expand the functionality of the DAW itself with upgrades.

applying a filter to remove the very lowest frequencies in a track. We don’t mean bass frequencies that are supposed to be there but rather subsonic frequencies that may have crept in somewhere during the recording process. To do this, use the HPF control to cut somewhere between 30 and 20Hz. 6 You can do the same at the very top end, though it’s less common as you risk dulling the sparkle of the high frequencies and any hiss should have been dealt with during mixing. The use of EQ during mastering is intended to make subtle changes to the overall tonal balance of a track. You shouldn’t have to be pulling frequency bands up or down by too much, as that is indicative of a poor mix. More likely you will find yourself making gentle adjustments to the various bands, adding some presence to specific elements by boosting their EQ values. 7 By identifying where certain things live – vocals in the mid and upper ranges, also guitars and horns, and things like kick drums at the bottom end and cymbals at the top – you can start to shape the track just as you wish. If you get a setting that works particularly well, consider saving it for recall later. 8

Making things equal When you’re done with the compressor it’s time to move on to EQ. Add a seven-band EQ3 from the plug-in list. You could choose one with fewer bands, though since you’re going to be processing the whole soundscape, having more bands allows you greater control at this stage. One of the first things you may want to try is FOCUS Mastering Volume 4

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MTF Workshop Pro Tools 10

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EQ is vital to sweetening and fine tuning the overall sonic character of a track, and you shouldn’t have to be making any huge changes if the mix was good.

Order, order There is a good argument for ordering your processors in the way we have described, although not everyone chooses to do it that way. If you place the EQ first in the chain and the compressor second, the compressor is working on the EQ’d signal. Any changes that you make to EQ may be partially negated by the compressor that follows it reading that signal and absorbing a boosted frequency, resulting in little overall change – so you can find yourself having to push an EQ artificially hard to make any difference. If you compress first, however, this doesn’t happen. 9 By feeding the compressed signal to the EQ, you get a more accurate representation of how equalization is affecting the signal. It’s true that changing compressor settings will affect the way the EQ receives its signal, but the overall effect remains more accurate than if the plug-ins are connected the other way round. You will probably spend quite some time carefully tweaking the compression and EQ settings to get your master sounding sweet, punchy and balanced. You might also want to apply other processors, such as saturation or tape emulation, which can add a sense of warmth and gentle overdrive, and perhaps some stereo widening. These are non-essential to the mastering process but some people find that they can work in the context of a particular project. If you do use them, do so carefully and with restraint. Stereo widening in

particular can wreck the image of a piece of audio if used incorrectly.

Take it to the limit

PRO TIP Inside Pro Tools’ preferences you can set all kinds of parameters that determine how the software will behave, and customise it to your preferred way of working. One handy thing is the ability to organise plug-in menus by category, manufacturer or both, or a simple alphabetical list. This is great for when you have lots of plug-ins installed to help you navigate them more easily.

The final part of the chain is the limiter, and Pro Tools has the Maxim limiting plug-in, also found in the Dynamics folder. 10 The idea with limiting is to squeeze maximum gain out of your signal without squashing the sound too much and without ever going over 0dB. Limiting should be transparent: it shouldn’t colour the sound but simply add level. The character of the sound is dealt with by the compressor, EQ and other associated processors. Here, it’s just about level. 11 Your Output Ceiling control is where you set the level to which the signal will be limited and it’s best to set this around the -0.2 or -0.1 dB mark for a really strong sounding master, or slightly lower for a more gentle treatment. This will prevent the signal from being driven above zero, which would result in digital clipping and hence ruin your master. Use the Threshold control to set the level at which limiting kicks in, and monitor the attenuation meter to see how much gain reduction is being applied, shown in orange. 12 You shouldn’t be seeing loads of attenuation, as this means you are limiting the signal very hard, which will probably result in a “crushed” sound, possibly with some distortion. You can drive the input signal to increase the gain of the track, though the limiter will always stop it at the level you have specified.

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Use Pro Tools’ Maxim limiter to squeeze more level out of a track, being careful not to over-squash it. Some kinds of music need less limiting than others.

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Apply dithering if sample or bit rate conversion is required during export. Use Pro Tools’ advanced and configurable metering plug-ins to keep an eye on your levels.

It’s also possible to control the amount of limiting that is applied using Maxim’s mix control, located to the right. This controls the blend of processed and original signal and can be useful when you don’t want a fully limited sound but rather want to add some volume more gently. To the right there are also options to apply Dither and Noise Shaping, both of which control the

space in which you are listening, neither of which are generally completely perfect. So poor bass response in your room, for example, might lead you to incorrectly process the bottom end of a track, maybe adding bass that doesn’t need to be there, or taking it away when in fact the boominess is a result of reflections in the room.

Metering and analysis are really important because your ears may not tell the whole story

Inside the Other folder in Pro Tools’ insert effects menu you will find some analysis plug-ins. The Correlation meter shows you how your track’s phase is behaving. 14 If all is good the needle should be somewhere between 0 and +1 on this scale. If not you need to look at panning inside your mix. The Meter Bridge plug-in is able to analyse both sides of the stereo image and show RMS or Peak values. It can be calibrated to show different decibel ranges, which is useful when mastering different kinds of material. 15 Inside the Sound Field folder you will find a couple of other interesting bits, like the Stereo Width plug-in which can be used to add width to three bands of your signal. You would probably apply slightly more to the upper and mid bands and little or none to the bass, since this is where most of a track’s energy resides and thus it needs to stay centred. 16 Also inside that folder, a Phase Scope plug-in will give you a visual display of how the phase of your track is looking. You want it to be relatively centred and not pushing the sides too much unless you have a lot of panning going on. 17 Stick with the essential processors and you won’t go far wrong. MTF

adding of non-correlated noise to mask noise introduced by quantization of the signal during bit rate conversion. 13 Your aim with limiting is to get a really strong signal without pushing it over the boundary into distortion. Your output meters should be consistently up near the top, though not jammed permanently up against zero. This should be more or less it for your processing, but there’s another thing that you might want to consider. Indeed, this could be added at any stage in the process. Metering and analysis are really important when mastering because the way your ears perceive a master may not tell the whole story. The sound of a master is affected by your monitoring setup and the

Best of the rest

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Use analysis tools to get an idea of how your audio processing is working before the sound is passed to your speakers. This is more accurate than relying solely on your ears.

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MTF 10MM Mastering EQ

Minute Master

Mastering equalisation Arguably the most important process in mastering, EQ is often not given the attention it deserves. Russ Hepworth-Sawyer restores the balance…

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he EQ section of a recording desk is perhaps its most often-used feature after the faders and pan controls. But its role in mastering is no less important, as it’s capable of inflicting deep wounds on recorded material unless used carefully. Nothing should replace the ‘less is more’ maxim of mastering, particularly when a mix can be ‘repaired’ back at the studio before it reaches the mastering suite’s doors. The mastering engineer’s choice of EQ unit or plug-in is determined by a variety of factors – perhaps for its transparency; its character; its linear-phase attributes; or simply because it adds some valve warmth considered missing in the audio. This rich tapestry provides a welcome palette of resources to choose from.

Take to the slopes In the early days of the mastering engineer (or the [disc] cutting engineer as they were commonly referred to then) one of the primary tools for making tonal adjustments would be a simple tone control, the curves for which were invented by Peter Baxandall. Baxandall’s curves were gentle, continually sloping slowly but steadily, unlike the steeper steps offered by shelf equalisers. These tone controls later found a home in the domestic hi-fi system, and Baxandall’s curves are still frequently dialled up by mastering engineers today to give a little ‘air’ to the high frequencies or to gently tame boomy low-frequency recordings.

Tech Terms ● bAndS bands describe the way in which the available frequency range is divided. For example, a parametric equaliser is typically four-band, comprising low, low-mid, highmid and high-frequency bands. ● pARAMETRic EQ parametric EQ was invented by George Massenburg in the mid-1960s and is considered to be the most musical and powerful of EQs.

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Another role of the cutting engineer was to ensure that a stylus would reliably remain in a record’s grooves during loud and sudden transients that could cause jumping. These were dealt with via the tone control, attenuating any larger than normal low frequency. For more specific management, filters may have been adopted. Devised by George Massenburg in the mid-1960s and presented at the 1972 Audio Engineering Society Convention, his concept of parametric EQ now represents a powerful and flexible solution, and is the backbone of many well-regarded units, such as the Prism Maselec EQ.

EQ to taste Mastering engineers tend to covet their EQs and rightly so, as each has its own unique character and, therefore, purpose. For example, one engineer might instinctively

The mastering engineer’s choice of EQ unit or plug-in is determined by a variety of factors

The MEA-2 is a stereo (two-channel), four-band precision analogue equaliser with stepped Q/shelf, frequency and cut/boost controls on each band.

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With real-time EQ graphing and vintage-modelled filter curves, Waves’ Renaissance Equalizer is a versatile paragraphic EQ.

employ Prism’s Maselec EQ for precision repair work because of its stepped controls, while others might reach for Millennia’s NSEQ-2 unit to treat a sterile mix, as it’s capable of injecting a touch of pleasing warmth into recordings thanks to its valve circuitry. In a similar way to a seasoned recording engineer mentally

Multi-band compression can unintentionally alter the perceived ‘EQ relationship’ between bands.

Mastering EQ 10MM MTF

cataloging a microphone to reflect its most suited applications, so too might a mastering engineer with his outboard gear.

Keep in line In analogue EQ circuits, a very small delay is caused as a band’s signal is subjected to, for example, the gain control. This character is one of the ‘covetable’ aspects of many equalisers as the phase distortion gives a little ‘something’ to a record. However, the widespread adoption of digital audio workstations (DAWs) now offers an alternative through phase-aligned equalisation. Linear-phase EQ doesn’t demonstrate the phase shifts that analogue EQ does (and many digital emulations) and as such can be considered more neutral than the original (see the Ten Minute Master No133, Music Tech Magazine Issue 65, August 2008, for more information). Whether or not you should apply linear-phase equalisation will depend on the effect you’re intending to have on the music you’re mastering. For tasks such as restoration or preservation (as in the case of album re-issues) it might be prudent to make any remedial changes to the audio using a linear-phase equaliser. However, in the throes of mastering a new rock album, you may choose to engage in some character-altering analogue EQ.

On the side Many mastering engineers live by the motto that ‘less is more’ and will make their EQ adjustments accordingly using gentle slopes, aiming ultimately to preserve the integrity of the music. However, with multi-band processing it has become possible to make broad changes to the tonal balance of any audio material, which can happen unintentionally through neglecting to rebalance the make-up gains, or intentionally by altering the bands’ relationships. Processors such as an aural exciter can alter the perceived relationship between bands. Employing an exciter can give some much-needed body to a track in certain bands, but it too can alter the tonal balance of the material. Care needs to be taken to rebalance any relationship between bands that may have been altered.

The Baxandall curve shown here illustrates how gentle and forgiving the slope actually is by comparison to a more traditional shelf EQ.

Tech Terms ● lInEAr PHASE linear-phase EQ avoids the attributes of phase distortion added to a signal by standard analogue EQ. ● BAxAndAll curVE Electronics engineer Peter Baxandall developed the tonecontrol circuits widely adopted by early audio engineers and domestic hi-fi manufacturers.

Applying even seemingly simple treatments during mastering can have a dramatic effect on the material at hand, so care is paramount. Choosing the right EQ application is the most important first consideration, and each engineer will have their own solution. Have a listen to as many plug-ins as you have access to and hear how different they sound even with the same parameter settings. You will appreciate quite quickly the character that each algorithm provides and its potential best use. For tracks that appear to be lacking high frequencies across a wide area of the frequency spectrum, employ a high shelf with a very wide Q setting emulating a Baxandall curve (plug-ins such as the Waves Renaissance EQ have faithful Baxandall re-creations).

Applying even seemingly simple treatments can have a dramatic effect on the material

If you’re after analogue character, Ozone 5’s Harmonic Exciter can add tube or tape saturation, accentuate harmonics or bring punch and sparkle to a project.

Adding 1dB boost to a curve like this can have a dramatic impact. The same treatment could be applied to the bass end, too, but tread with caution as you may boost low frequencies that your monitors cannot reproduce, though zap whatever dynamic range is available. A common trick is to employ a high-pass filter set anywhere from 25–50Hz depending on the material. This will result in unwanted low frequencies being set aside, but take care not to cut off those frequencies that your monitors can’t re-create but a club’s subwoofer would eat for breakfast. It is often necessary to enhance a vocal portion of a track that might appear a little dull or lacking in focus. To enhance this, choose a relatively wide Q setting and add a small boost around the 3–5kHz range. You’ll notice the ‘presence’ lift in the vocal, but as with all EQ changes in mastering, you’re likely to affect other instruments occupying the same band. In this frequency range we might over-enhance some of the cymbals, for example. While mastering, it is often necessary to be a little more surgical when removing sharp-sounding frequencies in a mix. For this kind of task a parametric EQ is probably the best bet, choosing a fine Q setting, honing in on the offensive frequency and removing it. But, as always, be aware of anything else in the mix that you might simultaneously affect. All too often it’s necessary to compromise. MTF FurTHEr InFO ● For more details on Peter Baxandall, see: www.aes. org/aeshc/docs/jaes.obit/JAES_V44_9_PG796.pdf ● For more details on parametric equalisation, visit: www.massenburg.com/about_george focus Mastering Volume 4

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MTF Round-up Software

2

1 T-RACKS 3

Price €160 (Deluxe version) Contact IK Multimedia 0800 0934066 IK Multimedia’s T-RackS was the first software mastering suite on the market and, at version 3, is still going strong. The Standard version comes as a standalone application and its four processors are also available as individual plug-ins inside your host DAW. The application itself has advanced metering tools, including Peak, Perceived Loudness, Phase, and RMS meters, plus a Spectrum Analyzer with Peak, RMS and Averaging indicators. You can A/B between setups and queue up tracks to compare mastering settings. It’s very easy to use and you can upgrade to the Deluxe version if you like, which features more modules.

2 WAVES GRAND MASTERS

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Web www.ikmultimedia.com

Price $1,560 Contact Sonic Distribution 0845 500 2 500 Waves has an excellent pedigree when it comes to software audio processing and Grand Masters is a complete set of precision mastering software processors that gives you the mastering muscle you need for subtle or surgical manipulation of your mixes. Including the complete Masters bundle (L2, LinEQ, LinMB) plus 13 new plug-ins, the Grand Masters expands upon the legacy of the original, delivering the world’s first truly all-inclusive mastering toolset in one collection. There is a wide range of tools supplied to help you get the best sounding master possible. Web www.waves.com

Round-Up Software

Mastering with software is space efficient and can be more cost effective than using hardware. And doing it yourself is an increasingly popular option for many producers. With modern computers more than capable of running pro-quality plug-ins and effects suites, there’s never been a better time to explore the world of software mastering…

3 BLUE CAT AUDIO ANALYSIS PACK

Price €199 Contact via website Audio analysis is an essential part of the mastering process and Blue Cat makes a range of tools to do it. The Peak Meter Pro plug-in will tell you everything about your audio levels; FreqAnalyst Pro and FreqAnalyst Multi plug-ins provide extremely smooth spectrum and frequency content analysis; and the StereoScope plug-ins series lets you visualize the stereo image of your audio content in details. While the ‘Pro’ plug-ins offer unique possibilities to create your own signalcontrolled effects, the ‘Multi’ versions have unique multiple instances features to perform the analysis on several tracks, or anywhere in a signal chain. Web www.bluecataudio.com

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4 IZOTOPE OZONE 5

Price £145 Contact via website iZotope’s Ozone suite has always been one of the most capable software mastering solutions around and, now at version 5, it’s more powerful than ever. It comes in Normal and Advanced versions, with the latter adding detailed audio analysis tools like the Meter Bridge and various spectral analysis tools, as well as the ability to load each processing stage in your DAW as a separate plug-in. Both versions have a range of excellent tools, including a maximizer, EQ, reverb, dither, exciter, multiband dynamics, stereo imaging and limiting, and each section is highly configurable. Web www.izotope.com

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5 PSP MASTERCOMP

Price $249 Contact via website PSP’s MasterComp is a stereo dynamics processor that offers transparent compression even at extreme compression settings and high sample rates. It features double sampled processing, low distortion thanks to a Smooth Level Detector algorithm, optional automatic attack and release times, advanced side chain filtering, channel linking and compression tilting controls, as well as a brickwall limiting mode and advanced PPU / VU meters. It runs on Mac and PC in all major formats and is just as good for compressing during tracking and mixing as during mastering. Web www.pspaudioware.com

6 MMASTERING BUNDLE

Price €199 Contact [email protected] MeldaProduction makes a huge range of audio processing plug-ins and many are available as bundles targeted to specific tasks. The MMastering bundle contains a suite of 22 effects which will more than cover all the bases you need to master quickly and accurately. To pick just a few, there’s the MaudioDynamic EQ, a parametric equalizer, MautoAlign for dealing with phase problems, Multiband Dynamics and Spectral Dynamics for controlling compression, three separate limiter effects and an eight-band linear mastering equalizer. There are multiple types of each category of effect to choose from and they can, of course, be used in everyday tracking and mixing as well. Web www.meldaproduction.com

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MTF Round-up Software

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7 SSL DUENDE NATIVE

Price £179-£199 each Contact [email protected] SSL has brought the faithfully modelled characteristics of its legendary hardware to the computer with its Duende Native series of processors, suitable for mixing and mastering. The SSL Stereo Buss Compressor is the secret behind many great sounding recordings, a simple unit with a simple purpose: it makes complete mixes sound bigger, with more power, punch and drive. It brings cohesion and strength to your mix without compromising clarity. The X-EQ is a 10-band parametric EQ where each band can be set to provide a different EQ type, for almost limitless possibilities. Web www.solidstatelogic.com

8 PSP VINTAGEWARMER 2

Price $149 Contact via website The PSP VIntageWarmer is a high quality digital simulation of an analogue-style, single- or multi-band compressor/limiter. It combines rich, warm analogue processing with a straightforward user interface and comes with a comprehensive library of presets. The plug-in processor is highly flexible and can be used for both softknee compression and brickwall limiting, making it a useful tool for mixing and mastering engineers. Careful attention has been paid to its overload characteristics with the processor being capable of generating saturation effects typical of analogue tape recorders. PSP Vintage Warmer also incorporates professional VU and PPM metering together with accurate overload indicators thereby assuring professional quality results. Web www.pspaudioware.com

9 STEINBERG RND PORTICO PLUG-INS

Price £647 Contact Yamaha UK 0844 811 1116 They might seem pricey for two plug-ins but these are personally approved by Rupert Neve himself and based on the legendary hardware units of the same name. The 5033 is a world class five-band parametric EQ with high and low shelf filters as well as three bands with filter width regulation. The 5043 is a high quality compressor with input and gain reduction metering, feed forward and back modes for different compression characteristics and is based on Neve’s own compressor / limiter. Both use Yamaha’s VCM technology and can bring a gorgeous sound to mixes and masters. Web www.steinberg.net

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MTF Walkthrough Mastering for free

Mastering for free Step-by-Step

Mastering with free

On the disc

and shareware tools

Getting a great master doesn’t have to cost the earth. There are some free and inexpensive tools out there that can really help. Hollin Jones looks for bargains…

W

hen times are tough it’s nice to have alternatives to commercial software when it comes to music production. There are of course lots of excellent commercial products out there and there’s generally a reason why they cost money: because they sound great and work really well. If you have a budget to build a mastering setup, that’s fantastic. But not everybody does, and thankfully there are other options around in addition to buying the big name applications and plug-ins. These are all software, of course, since we’ve yet to hear of anybody giving hardware away for free. The developer community is very active in producing free audio processing tools, and commercial developers often release free or lite, cut-down versions of their tools as appetisers. There’s no reason to think that these are in any way inferior; they probably just have fewer options or are feature-limited. You will get some plug-ins suitable for mastering included with your DAW of course, but we’re

not going to touch on those here since they are covered in the DAW-specific workshops elsewhere in the issue. Free plug-ins might lack the finesse of a top end product but, ultimately, if you’re not flush with cash, it’s better to master on a budget than not at all.

Doing it on the cheap Once your mixdowns exist as stereo files, as they almost certainly will as you approach the mastering stage, you need an application to load them into so you can start

The developer community is very active in producing free audio processing tools applying processing. If you don’t have a full version of a DAW you may be interested to know that it’s perfectly possible to master in a wave editing package, as long as it supports plug-ins. There are some full-fat ones out there but also some great free ones. The best known is Audacity, which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and, after many years in development, is becoming a

MTF Navigation Mastering for free

WAVE EDITORS Free wave editors can be used for mastering, though you’ll often find much more elegance and refinement if you spend a small amount on a commercial one.

a

a b

OS X OPTIONS Apple provides a number of Audio Unit plug-ins that can be used for mastering with OS X. These should show up in any AU-compatible host.

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FREEBIES AND DEMOS Some developers release free plug-ins, like the excellent FreeComp from FXpansion. Others provide demos or lite versions for you to try.

c

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APPLE EQ Apple’s Parametric EQ plug-in, though not particularly advanced, is another free AU provided with every Mac.

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Mastering for free Walkthrough MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Mastering for free with Audacity

Head over to http://audacity. sourceforge.net and download the latest version of Audacity for your platform. It is available for Mac, Windows and Linux. Installation is pretty simple. The first thing to do when you fire it up is assign it to use your audio outputs. You can mix and match devices for input and output; on most systems it should easily pick up all available I/O options.

Drag and drop your mixed down stereo audio file into Audacity or import it using the File > Import Audio command. Audacity will prompt you to choose how to reference the file. You can make a copy, which will preserve the original, or edit the original directly, which is quicker and uses less space but isn’t as safe. Once imported, your file’s waveform should appear in the main part of the window.

You can choose how to view the track by clicking on its name field in the panning area to the left. Probably the most useful view for mastering is the Waveform (dB) option as this shows you the track’s amplitude relative to 0dB. In the Preferences > Interface section you can set the meter range to a different sensitivity if you are working with specific kinds of material, such as mastering for vinyl.

Audacity isn’t able to run plug-ins in real time but it can preview and process them, and if you don’t like the results you can always undo it and have another go. It has some plug-ins of its own that can be found under the Effect menu at the top of the list. One of these is compression, so try applying a little gentle compression across the track to even it out.

From the same menu you will also find an EQ unit and you can draw in EQ points to the grid to sweeten your master. Again you can preview or process this effect onto the track. You may also want to apply some limiting; for this you will have to seek out a third-party limiting plug-in. Find and apply one from the list of third-party tools and then process that effect onto the track.

When your master is done, choose File > Export and you will be able to output your mastered track to the format of your choice. You should stick with full quality, uncompressed versions here, and then compress to other formats like MP3 or AAC later if you need to create smaller versions of the audio file. Audacity can export to some of these formats, or you could use iTunes.

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surprisingly capable piece of kit. A modest download, it comes with some of its own plug-ins plus some optional extra ones and it can see any VST plug-ins you have installed on your system, which helps greatly when you are mastering. It also supports plug-in instruments and although that’s not necessary for mastering, it is handy to know for when you are making music. It has some helpful modes like spectrographic views to help you get a picture of what’s going on in your audio file, plus an effect chaining feature so you can set up and save your own mastering plug-in chains. If you are after something slightly more refined, Amadeus Pro for the Mac is a smooth wave editor available for around £40 (the Lite version is £18) that also supports VST and Audio Units plug-ins, though without MIDI functionality it’s for audio only. Windows users could look at Wavosaur, an audio recording and editing app for Windows only that supports VST plug-ins and is available for free. It has some good features for mastering such as support for up to 32-bit audio files, effect chain support, audio analysis and audio statistics.

PRO TIP MDA free plug-ins have been around for years and are all still compatible with the latest versions of VST hosts on both Windows and the Mac. They are simple but useful, and the free bundle includes distortions, amp and speaker simulation, delays, loudness, multiband compressors and much more. Among the models on offer there are some good free units that can be employed for mastering.

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Keep it light For a modest outlay you could get a budget DAW, which would suitable both for making the music in the first place, as well as mixing and mastering. Many of the leading DAWs have an entry level, lite version with most of the essential features. Steinberg’s Cubase Elements, for example, is surprisingly well featured for just £63.20 and runs both on Windows and Mac OS X. Cakewalk’s Windows-only SONAR X2 Essential also goes for around £80. Again, like other DAWs, it supports plug-ins so you’re not restricted to the ones that come with it, good though they are. Apple’s Logic Pro for the Mac is only £140 and comes with over 70 audio effects as well as some great instruments. It’s the only version of Logic still around, with the Express version having been discontinued. Avid’s Pro Tools M-Powered can cost as little as £80 with a compatible audio interface. FL Studio Producer Edition is also capable of mastering and can be yours for around €150, while Cockos Reaper is a remarkably powerful DAW that costs as little as $60 for an individual license. FOCUS Mastering Volume 4

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MTF Walkthrough Mastering for free

Plug it in Once you have chosen the software you’re going to use, you will need to think about the plug-ins that will do your mastering. Plug-in suites like iZotope’s Ozone are excellent, but they also have a price tag attached. There are a number of excellent free alternatives, the only caveat being that they are individual plug-ins rather than an all in one solution. Despite that, the ability of most DAWs to save plug-in chains means that once you have set up a mastering chain you can recall it instantly in any project anyway. Compression is the glue that binds your mix together and creates a coherent and balanced sound. There are many good free compressors available that are suitable for mastering. MeldaProductions’ MCompressor, for example, has signal maximization for mastering purposes, hard, linear and smooth knee shapes, sidechaining, randomization and the ability to process up to eight channels of surround sound. The mda Multiband is a multiband compressor that lets you selectively

PRO TIP MeldaProduction makes an almost bewildering array of plug-ins and amongst these are lots of free ones, encompassing a range of modulators and special effects as well as compressors, EQs and other suitable effects. They come in all major formats and actually have an amazing depth of features, if you care to dig under the surface.

compress up to three bands – low, mid and high. This is especially useful for mastering tasks, when you might need to apply different levels of compression to different frequency bands instead of using one catch all setting for the whole signal. The C3 Multi Band Compressor looks a bit basic but can be used to selectively compress different bands at the mix and mastering stages; and Blockfish is another well liked compressor plug-in. SSL makes the free LMC-1, a listen mic compressor as well as the X-ISM intersample peak meter, and you could also check out the GVST GComp compressor / limiter with soft knee features. Stardust VST is a multi stage channel processor that includes a stereo enhancer, multiband and wide band compressors and detailed VU meters for monitoring. T-Sledge is a multiband compressor for mastering, equipped with peak limiter, level maximizer and four compressors/expanders/limiters. And it is equipped with two kinds of dividing filter, IIR/FIR so, it also operates as a dynamic EQ.

MTF Step-by-Step Mastering for free with Wavosaur

Go to Wavosaur.com and download and install the latest version of this free audio recording and editing package. Select File > Open or drag a WAV file into the main part of the window to have the application open it. You will see information along the base of the waveform window about its sample and bit rate. It’s preferable to use uncompressed WAV files for mastering on Windows.

There are tools that you can apply and these are located in the Tools menu. Select part or all of the waveform of your track, and choose from various analysis tools. By choosing the Spectrum Analysis tool for example, you can get an overview of the characteristics of your track. The 3D analysis tool will provide a similar view only in 3D. There’s also an input or output oscilloscope.

To make Wavosaur see the VST plug-ins on your system, click on the button with the spanner icon, which reveals the Editor Configuration window. Here you can point it at your VST plug-ins path. Select the folder in which you store all or most of your plug-ins, which will probably be your DAW’s VST folder. If you don’t have a VST folder you can create one manually.

With a plug-in folder assigned you can begin to apply processing. Press the VST Rack button and then from the Rack window, choose a plug-in from the list to add. Its parameters will appear in a list and you can click each one, setting its level using the slider to the right of the window. You can load or save FX bank or patch presets using the FXB and FXP buttons running along the right hand side.

Try adding more plug-ins. Here we have added a free compressor to process the sound. Once you are happy with the chain, it’s possible to save it using the Save Chain button on the lower right, which lets you recall it at any time in the future. You can also manually load any VST using the Load VST button at the top right of this window, if it lives outside of your assigned VST folder.

Click on the Processing > Apply button and the plug-ins will be applied. In the Preferences you can set Wavosaur to suspend plug-ins from doing any extra processing once they have been rendered down. A notification at the bottom left of the window tells you that plug-in processing has been applied. When done you can export your file in multiple formats, but stick to uncompressed WAV files for now, and then compress later.

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Mastering for free Walkthrough MTF

The equalizer After compression you would typically use EQ during the mastering stage, with the aim of sweetening and tuning the overall sound of the track, making subtle changes across the frequency spectrum to enhance or tame specific parts of the track. Your DAW will have EQ built-in but there are many free alternatives, some of which are more flexible. The Kjaerhus Free EQ has seven bands and an analogue character to its sound, and Voxengo makes the EssEQ and Overtone GEQ, graphic equalizers offering linear phase equalization. The Linear Phase Graphic EQ 2 by Slim Slow Slider is a free linear phase EQ module that is very light on your CPU, and Blue Cat Audio makes the excellent Triple EQ, a free three band semi parametric EQ with detailed visual feedback. Electri-Q is a graphic parametric EQ plug-in that is simple to use, and Voxengo produces the free Marvel GEQ, a linear phase 16-band graphic equalizer AU and VST plug-in that offers a mastering grade sound quality.

PRO TIP FXpansion makes some excellent instruments and effects and even gives away a few freebies to people who set up an account on their website. The DCAM FreeComp is a great free compressor that can be used for mastering. A model of a console bus compressor, it is good for enhancing punch and definition as well as glueing mixes and masters together.

Sky’s the limit Whatever other processing you apply you will eventually need a limiter. Sweetboys Volcano Limiter / Maximizer combines a peak limiter and a level maximizer and is simple to use. Endorphin provides free dual band compression and an analogue style brickwall limiter, while TLs Pocket Limiter is a simple but effective limiting effect with low latency performance supporting sample rates up to 192 kHz. MeldaProductions makes the MMultiBand Limiter, an accomplished brickwall mastering limiter with minimal distortion and three limiting modes. It costs €149 but is much more advanced than many of the free models we have looked at. So there’s no shortage of free or at least inexpensive mastering software available online, and even where there is a charge there is also often a free demo or trial period, so you can try before you buy. Mastering is of course vital to producing great sounding tracks but, as we have seen, you don’t necessarily have to spend lots of money on the tools you need to do it. MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Mastering with Amadeus Pro for Mac

Amadeus Pro is an inexpensive but capable wave editor for the Mac. Drag and drop your mixdown into the app to open it. If you need to top and tail the file you can do this easily by selecting the relevant area then right clicking and choosing Cut to remove the area containing silence. You can also add fades in and out by selecting and using the Effects > Fading menu options.

Under the Analyze menu you will find some useful analysis tools, many of which work in real time. Here we have loaded the Real-Time Spectrum Analyzer and set it to work in stereo. It gives us a great overview of the frequencies going on in the track as it plays back. Other options include oscilloscope, sonogram and waveform analysers. They can be set up to respond extremely quickly to signals.

Under the Effects dropdown menu you will find some built-in effects, including equalizers. Perhaps most interestingly there’s a tool called the LP / 78rpm Equalizer, which lets you choose between a range of EQ types based on classic vinyl record types and the way that different labels used to master their releases. You can manually set low and high frequencies. It’s a little different from standard EQs, which are also available.

Amadeus Pro can see the VST and AU plug-ins on your system and these are also available from the Effects dropdown menu. If you have a DAW or other audio software installed, it should pick up any plug-ins that belong to them and these will appear as options. Here, for example, we have added an instance of the excellent Steinberg Portico EQ, which we can use to sweeten and fine tune the balance of our master.

Any effects that you add using the previous technique must be processed before they can be heard. However, if you click on the gear icon at the top right, you can reveal the realtime plug-ins section. Go to the plus button icon at the base of this section and click on it. You will be able to see your installed plug-ins and add any you like, and they are processed in real time.

To render the processing effects down onto the file, select Sound > Bounce Document, or Bounce Document to New File to create a new file inside Amadeus with the effects rendered down. Alternatively, use the File > Save A Copy As option to export to an uncompressed or compressed format for use elsewhere. Amadeus Pro native documents can also be saved and retain their editability.

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magazine January 2011

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MTF Interview Dan Austin

‘‘They had a huge collection of vintage synths and analogue gear: I was a kid in a sweet shop’’ .

The MTF Interview Dan Austin

From Maximo Park to the Doves, Dan Austin has been the mastermind behind many great guitar tones. MTF finds out more about the tricks of his trade. Photography by Zen Inoya

B

eing as MTF is a UK magazine, based in the city of Bath, this interview offered a perfect opportunity for us to visit a local yet famous location – Moles Studio. This is where our tea boy-turned-engineer and producer Dan Austin frequently books to work from. The studio lives above the equally famous Moles nightclub. The first floor hosts two live rooms, one that Dan favours for drums and the other for recording guitar. The floor above houses a large SSL E Series desk, racks of outboard and a vocal booth. Following the theme of many engineers who are working more and more in-the-box, Dan admits that nowadays he’s using only 16 channels of the SSL for mixing from Pro Tools, making it more of a summing mixer. But he tells us why this is still important: “I did a lot of shootouts with Gil Norton [Foo Fighters, Feeder] between eight-way and sixteen-way summing mixers. The Chandler summing mixer and SSL desk sounded much better than just coming out through a stereo output from Pro Tools. Everything was calibrated to make the tests as reliable as possible. The Chandler is really coloured, but in a similar way to a good desk. You get a heavy bottom end and a big openness to everything.” He also admits to using a lot of plug-ins – having waiting first until they proved they sounded up to the job. Dan also tells us that working in-the-box and easier recall are modern necessities due to the demands for recalls, different edits, stem exports for remixes and parts to use for live shows. He shares his thoughts on this: “It all makes sense to do the various exports and so on, but it’s also great for archive purposes as I can recall something from five years ago really easily. When it was tape it was a whole different story.”

On the up Dan’s vast range of skills were accumulated over the years during his gradual progression from tea-maker to recording, mixing, programming and production duties: “With some producers I’d just be sitting at the back taking notes, whereas others would give me the chance to set up things like the guitar or drum sounds in a session. I remember picking up lots of tips from Paul Corkett, who did many of the Biffy Clyro sessions. A big thing I learned from him was his guitar and drum sounds. They are just amazing and he dials stuff up so quickly. He wasn’t too fussy about things, he’d just make things sound really great, quickly. Before that I used to get a

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Dan Austin Interview MTF

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MTF Interview Dan Austin

little too picky about stuff and maybe spend an hour on a sound when the performer just wanted to play guitar. I learned not to think ‘is it right?’ all the time and instead gained the confidence to think that it’s good and move on. While Dan will take on all roles as a producer for some projects, on others he will be part of a team, with a more specific role. He gives us some examples: “On my own sessions I’ll do everything, like the records with Doves and Cherry Ghost. But Massive Attack is a good example of when I’ve had just one specific role, as they weren’t looking for an engineer, they just wanted a programmer. I played them some of my stuff and it went from there. “I was taken on to work on what became Heligoland, but during that time we also did film soundtrack work and adverts, plus remixes of older tracks and alternative versions for their Best Of. It was very different from the work I’d been doing because I’d never really just worked as a programmer. It had always been mixed with engineering or mixing. We all got on really well and generated an incredible amount of material. Some was set to a very specific brief, like the advert bits had to adhere to what the client wanted. Other days we’d start with a blank Pro Tools session and try out ideas, or get something out of the loft, where they had a huge collection of vintage synths and analogue gear. I had a programming room and was like a kid in a sweet shop, going into the loft to explore what there was. A lot of the work I was doing was creating atmospheres and noises, especially for the film work.”

MTF StudioEye Moles Studios, Bath, UK EMS VCS 3 This a fantastic-sounding synth but I use it for a lot of processing. If I’m recording drums I’ll always have a mic like an SM58 on the kit going through this so I can push the input stage for distortion; sometimes I use a bit of filtering, too.

a

NEUMANN U87 Unlike other condensers, this can take a ton of level from a cab while sounding open and not squeezed. Other condensers can sound good with lower, cleaner signals, but I like how this can cope with high volume. Its brightness also complements a dynamic mic.

b

a b

Making movies We wanted to know a bit more about how he might start creating sonic beds for film work. Dan happily shares some of his tricks: “Sometimes I’d start with a vocal or maybe a guitar

‘‘If we wanted to get width, instead of doubletracking we’d pan apart the separate amps from a single take” part, then heavily edit it to make single notes, or layer things and create harmonies. There was one track when I took a vocal and sampled it into Reason as separate notes, which I then turned into tiny little loops. This was linked up to a MIDI controller so I could control the volume of the different notes as they played – a bit like a Mellotron in the way you could play with it. We’d then take those sorts of things and stick them

Notable works

Dan and some of the career-defining moments of his years...

2003 | The Cooper Temple Clause Kick Up The Fire And Let The Flames Break Loose I’d started working freelance while still working at Moles. I’d engineered the first record and done a load of B-sides for them. They asked me to set up a studio with them and record their second record. This persuaded me to go freelance, aged 22. We built the studio around a Pro Tools rig and some Neves in a barn in Reading. I still get work off the back of this record. It was great for the label and the band to have the confidence to let me do it. This was a real game-changer for me.

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through kit like guitar pedals, the Arp 2600 or a Sequential Circuits Pro One. There was a lot of continual processing involved to get something that was unrecognisable from the source sounds. We used a lot of hardware but I also used Reaktor a lot, too. I still do; it’s an amazing tool.”

Tone meister When listening to the projects Dan has worked on over the years, noticeable differences in guitar tones and production aesthetics become apparent. Dan gives us an idea as to why, and explains how he created these sounds: “With You Me At Six, the sound is a lot more about precision and hugeness, with massive depth, whereas with Pulled Apart By Horses we were trying to retain the live energy they are renowned for. Everything on that record had to be repeatable so we didn’t do loads of layering, which is what we did for that big sound on You Me At Six. That type of sound usually involves three amps, with one take panned left, one right and one in the middle. For double- and triple-tracking it’s the guitars we’ll normally change to get different tones. Sometimes the middle channel will have a crappy combo amp added to get a

2009 | Doves Kingdom Of Rust I was a big fan of the band already and I’d engineered on some tracks from the Some Cities album before. It was great to work for a band that I’m a really big fan of and it’s a record I’m really proud of. It wasn’t the easiest to make, taking around 18 months on and off. Again, like Temple Clause, we recorded it in a studio we put together in a barn. It was received really well, which was good as we’d worked on it so long that we’d got a bit lost in it. The public reaction was really reassuring.

Dan Austin Interview MTF

TONEBONE JX2 PRO I run at least two cabs for any guitar sound and use this to split the signal. You need decent transformers, earth-lift and phase-reversal as you can get in heaps of trouble when running multiple cabs from one source.

f

d

SHURE SM7 If a vocalist is really giving it some, this mic manages to smooth out the inconsistencies created when singing really hard into a mic. It also manages to retain loads of detail.

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c f

g

e DOMINATOR c WEM BASS This is great for that classic valve input-gain sound. It’s just a volume control for more or less gain with some EQ. At full volume the distortion becomes obscene. It’s a lot easier to record than a 4x12 cab, which need to be really loud to get full tilt out of them.

KITCHEN d AUDIO LITTLE CHOPPER The clean sound on this is really glassy and open, then it goes into evil distortion, with everything in between. But its gain dial is so precise and the tone control is so wide. I pretty much use it on every guitar sound I do.

SRE-555 e ROLAND This is such an exciting effect and you can do so much with the delay. This particular model has chorus, sound-on-sound recording and a spring reverb. I quite often use the spring reverb for vocals and acoustic guitars.

more gnarly sound, and that’s how we get that huge width and depth. With Pulled Apart, if we wanted to get width, instead of double-tracking we’d pan apart the separate amps from a single take.”

add much in the way of compression as the distortion takes care of that. If it’s a cleaner picked part I’ll squeeze it a bit to make sure that none of the notes are disappearing.”

Microphones

We asked about the Pure Love album by ex-Gallows frontman Frank Carter. Dan says: “We recorded it in a studio with a big vintage Neve desk that sounded incredible. If I have a choice for a rock record, I go for either a big Neve or API desk; SSL mic pres are great, but there’s something a bit more magical about a Neve or API. It’s hard to say sometimes, though, as it can also be down to the wiring; this studio had Aurora converters, which could play a part. Everything that came through that desk sounded huge. Our aim was to get those classic rock tones using 4x12 Marshalls, big open drum sounds and so on. It was less about distortion, more about purity. We had a massive drum room so didn’t need to fake ambience like in smaller rooms, using reverbs, distortion or heavy compression. When you’ve got a large tuned room with just the right decay and the mic placement is right you’ll get a massive sound with minimal compression.” MTF

Microphones are obviously another consideration in shaping any guitar tone. We ask Dan how he determines which is the right one for the tone he is seeking: “Ordinarily I’ll have a condenser and a dynamic on every cab, occasionally a dynamic and a ribbon if I want a softer and less direct sound. Before we start recording any guitars I’ll line up all of the cabinets in a row, which can sometimes be five or six of them. Then I’ll go through each one and phase-align them. Next I’ll trial combinations of the amps with the guitar player actually playing up in the control room with me and find out what works best. So the final sound can be anywhere from two to four cabs together, which are summed into a group on the desk and then – if I’ve got one at the time – it’ll go through an API 550B EQ. Following that either a Urei 1176 or an Empirical Labs Distressor. If it’s a big distorted part I won’t

2011 | Bayside Killing Time This was the start of my working relationship with Gil Norton. We’re just about to start our seventh or eighth record together at the moment. I’ve been doing a lot more mixing with him and at the moment there’s a lot of stuff in the charts so I can turn on the radio and hear things I’ve been working on a lot. Starting to work with Gil on this record has been another defining moment for me.

Pure and simple

2012 | Pulled Apart By Horses V.E.N.O.M. This was done incredibly quickly. We recorded the whole album in 14 days and the band were awesome. We went into the studio and got it down really quick. It was really fun to do and the band are hilarious to work with. After recording we went to Gil’s studio, did a little tweaking and mixed it really quickly, trying to get it sounding good but without polishing it too much. It all came together really quickly – I think we mixed it in about ten days. It was great to do something as raw and as edgy as this.

2012 | You Me At Six The Swarm We actually recorded this here at Moles. It’s a one-off track that is used as the music for the ride at Thorpe Park. Gil and I really like the band and this was a chance for us to work with them. They came in with half a track on a Sunday afternoon, we did pre-production, got it recorded and had it mixed by Thursday night. I like doing the type of production when we think, ‘how massive can this be?’.

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MTF 10MM Inter-sample peaks

Minute Master

Inter-sample peaks With masters becoming increasingly hot, are intersample peaks an inevitable by-product of the Loudness Wars? Mark Cousins investigates…

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he phenomenon of inter-sample peaks is one that seems to scare and confuse budding mastering engineers in equal measure. Some audiophiles insist that they are one of the many degrading qualities attributed to the so-called Loudness Wars, constituting a completely avoidable form of distortion. Others insist that inter-sample peaks are such a rare and unnoticeable phenomena that they deserve little or no attention. So, what is the truth behind inter-sample peaks, and are they something that we should all be concerned about?

Feeling peaky To understand what is meant by an inter-sample peak we need to take a closer look at signal levels in the digital domain, and, in particular, the process of digital-toanalogue conversion. As we all know, signal levels in the digital domain are represented by a fixed series of numbers, with the loudest recordable signal denoted as 0dBFS (0dB Full Scale). When a signal is recorded in the digital domain at a level that exceeds 0dBFS the result is a clipped waveform, with a corresponding set of samples ‘squared off’ at 0dBFS. Of course, most digital source recordings are left with plenty of headroom – all engineers steer well clear of the dreaded ‘digital over’.

Tech Terms ● DIGITAL OVER As digital audio can’t exceed 0dBFS, a digital over seems a bit misleading. Instead, a digital over means a number of consecutive peaks have been read, indicating that the signal level has potentially exceeded 0dBFS. ● LOSSY AUDIO CODEC A lossy audio codec changes the original waveform so that it can be stored in a more data-efficient way. Lossless encoding, on the other hand, uses statistical redundancy, leaving the waveform intact but reducing its data size.

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When it comes to mixing and mastering, though, it’s increasingly common for engineers to run their final signal levels right up to 0dBFS. Indeed, a large part of the loudness attributed to modern music is created by aggressive brickwall limiting, which actively targets peak signals and pushes a master right up to 0dBFS without the waveform being audibly clipped. In a world in which level is everything, this approach makes complete sense, ensuring that your song is as loud – if not louder – than the competition. But is our fondness for pushing peak meters right up to 0dBFS a good strategy in respect to audio quality?

Over and above The problem with running masters up to 0dBFS is the assumption that digital signal levels are an absolute – in other words, nothing ever exceeds 0dBFS. However, there’s a whole area of our signal path to consider after we’ve set our final mix or master levels – that of the digital-to-analogue conversion process. As yet it’s impossible to stream digital audio directly into our

Much of the loudness attributed to modern music is created by aggressive brickwall limiting

The process of mp3 conversion can also introduce unwanted distortion on peak signals, which is why Sonnox’s Pro-Codec is useful as a means of spotting these problems early on.

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Ozone’s Maximizer avoids inter-sample peaks by considering the possible peak levels after conversion.

brains, so every piece of digital music needs to be converted back into the analogue domain before we can hear it. As part of this conversion, digital-to-analogue converters employ a form of reconstruction filter – rounding-off (or interpolating) the stepped digital waveform and creating a smooth final output. As part of the interpolation process, reconstruction filters tend to create some small differences in the eventual output levels. Of course, for a large part of our dynamic range these small level changes aren’t an issue, but on signals hovering near to 0dBFS even the smallest level change can be problematic. At this point the problem seems to vary between different grades of converters and the electronics that follow them. An audiophile D/A converter will allow for this headroom, but a cheap CD player won’t have the headroom for these inter-sample peaks. In short, your mix won’t sound distorted in the studio, but your peaks could sound decidedly clipped on a cheap hi-fi.

Inter-sample peaks 10MM MTF

Although not explicitly part of the inter-sample peak issue, it’s also worth considering what happens to mixes that have been mastered ‘hot’ and converted to a lossy audio codec such as mp3. To achieve the desired amount of data reduction, many codecs employ various forms of filtering to reduce the amount of audio information, with lossier codecs usually applying more brutal filtering. As with the reconstruction filters in the D/A conversion process, this codec filtering produces some degree of level discrepancy between the original uncompressed audio file and the final data-compressed version. As you’d expect, the greater the amount of data compression used, the easier it is for audio to distort.

Peak practice Having identified some of the causes and issues behind inter-sample peaks, what are the practical steps that you can take to avoid them? The most immediate solution, of course, is to allow some degree of headroom between the peak levels of your master and 0dBFS. The only issue here is differences of opinion between recommended practices, with some audiophiles insisting that -3dBFS is the only safe peak level, while others are happy to run the master up to around -0.3dBFS. The problem is that the appropriate margin of safety is hard to define given both the huge variations between CD players and DACs, as well as the inherent dynamic and timbral qualities present in the music.

Inter-Sample Peak OdBFS

-Inf. inter-sample peaks are created as part of the D/a conversion process, whereby a reconstruction filter creates signal levels that exceed 0dBFS.

tech terms ● inteRPolation Put simply, interpolation fills in the gaps between a series of data points. as a digital recording is a series of discrete samples, D/a conversion needs to fill in the gaps between these points.

Allow some degree of headroom between the peak levels of your master and 0dBFS Another relatively simple remedy to the problem of inter-sample peaks is improved metering, as found in plug-ins such as SSL’s X-ISM (www.solidstatelogic.com ) or, in the case of data-compression distortion, Sonnox’s Pro-Codec (www.sonnoxplugins.com). In the example of the X-ISM plug-in, a digital Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter is used to model the typical interpolation applied as part of a D/A conversion, which, in turn, is fed to an ‘analogue’ inter-sample clip indicator. In theory, the meter indicates when inter-sample peaks are likely to occur (although, of course, there’s no absolute way of telling), enabling you to set the final headroom in a more informed way.

Max headroom Given its ability to apply codecs in real time, Sonnox’s Pro-Codec also provides the option to identify any unwanted peak distortion before the final file is rendered. Of course, in the example of audio datacompression, you have the potential to negate the unwanted distortion by increasing the headroom, or by changing the amount of data compression applied (higher bit-rates produce less distortion). As with the aforementioned X-ISM plug-in, though, it enables you to make a much more informed decision about your eventual headroom and, to some extent at least, the amount of limiting applied, without any shocks occurring later on.

SSl’s X-iSM plug-in models the behaviour of a D/a reconstruction filter and indicates where inter-sample peaks might occur.

As well as increased headroom and improved metering, it’s also interesting to see a number of ‘inter-sample-aware’ products being released. iZotope’s Ozone, for example, includes an Intersample Detection mode as part of its Maximizer controls. With the Intersample Detection mode active, Ozone’s Maximizer effectively applies its brickwall limiting based on the post-D/A conversion levels rather than the current level of the digital sample. In short, it’s a form of intelligent limiting based on the eventual signal levels, making it a simple but effective tool for negating inter-sample peaks yet still achieving maximum loudness.

Room to breathe The issue of inter-sample peaks is an inevitable by-product of the Loudness Wars and the lack of regulation and standardisation in the music industry. To a large extent, the problem of inter-sample peaks could be easily negated by an accepted peak level of -3dBFS, following the lead of other industries such as film and TV broadcast, where prescribed final signal levels and loudness standards are strictly adhered to. The music industry, though, has a distinctly more cavalier attitude, with loudness seeming to be all that counts, and that audio quality is often the least important point on the agenda. The irony, of course, is that peak levels aren’t the principal component of loudness, but instead formed by the averaged RMS levels. As more engineers, musicians and listeners of music understand the phenomena of inter-sample peaks, though, it becomes increasingly easy to start making more informed choices about how our music sounds. Arguably, industry-driven initiatives such as ‘Mastered for iTunes’ illustrate that there’s a degree of reappraisal happening concerning issues such as loudness and data compression. In the future, therefore, there may well be a move towards less distortion and higher bit-rates, meaning that inter-sample peaks could become a thing of the past. MTF FuRtheR inFo ● For more information on digital audio, see: www.musictechmag.co.uk/mtm/features/10mm-182practical-digital-audio ● For more information on loudness, visit: www.musictechmag.co.uk/mtm/features/10mm128loudness-demystified ● For a free downloadable inter-sample peak meter, go to: www.solidstatelogic.com/music/X-iSM focus Mastering Volume 4

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SONAR X2 Walkthrough MTF

SONAR X2 Step-by-Step

Master with SONAR

On the disc

X2 Producer Edition SONAR comes with a formidable set of plug-ins, including some specialised tools for mastering. Hollin Jones dives deep…

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akewalk’s flagship DAW SONAR has been around for almost as long as it has been possible to make music with computers. A recent upgrade to the X2 version brought a number of new features relating to the refinement of the excellent Skylight interface introduced in X1, which did away with the old, cluttered interface. All versions of SONAR support third-party plug-ins but the Producer Edition comes with its own dedicated mastering plug-ins, which are fully 64-bit native. This means you can have a completely end to end 64-bit recording, mixing and mastering system with this version of the software if your OS, computer and drivers support 64-bit, as many do nowadays. Mastering is easier thanks to the new windowing system which means you can view lots of different parts of a project at the same time by docking, dragging and resizing windows. So you can see your audio track, a channel strip and your plug-ins all at the same time, for example. If you have two monitors you can even split

them across both screens for even greater flexibility, or manage window sets if screen space is at a premium.

Getting to work When using SONAR for mastering you will most probably be using it in a conventional way, loading a single stereo audio mixdown file of your track and then applying insert effects to that track while leaving the master fader at 0dB and monitoring the master VU meter for clipping. SONAR X2 Producer Edition has a quite amazing array of

The Producer Edition of SONAR comes with its own dedicated mastering plug-ins bundled plug-ins, some of which are dedicated to the task of mastering and that you can use to sweeten, boost and polish your mixes before they are released out into the world. The first is the LP-64 linear phase mastering EQ module. This can be made to work in one of two ways: traditional parametric mode or graphical curve mode.

MTF Navigation Mastering with SONAR

RECALLING CHAINS Add plug-ins for mastering processing either on the track or on the master buss. SONAR supports plug-in chains so it’s easy to store and recall presets.

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ANALYST There are plenty of third-party metering tools available but SONAR has a few of its own too, such as Analyst, which is good for understanding your master.

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LEVEL METERS Remember to keep an eye on your level meters at all times, since these are what will tell you if your track is peaking or clipping.

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TAPE SIMULATION As well as conventional processing you may want to add things like tape simulation at the mastering stage, to add character.

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MTF Walkthrough SONAR X2

MTF Step-by-Step Process with the ProChannel in SONAR

Load up a new project with your stereo mixed down audio track on an audio channel. Expand the Track Inspector section to the left of the main part of the project window and you should see the ProChannel window appear. By default it will have a blank preset loaded, though you can move to its name field and click the File icon to open the preset browser. Inside this you will find various channel presets.

Here we have loaded a Master Buss Medium Compression preset. To view its contents it’s necessary to reveal the right section, which you can do by clicking on the ProCh tab. The first thing you will see is the compressor and here you can make settings to help to glue your master together. Try some gentle compression with a ratio of around 2:1, a relatively low Threshold, fast attack and slow release for a more natural sound.

The compressor also has a dry / wet control and a makeup gain knob so you can control how much is applied. You may also want to swap out the compressor for a different model, which you can do by right clicking on it and then from the resulting menu choosing Insert to add a new module, Replace to swap it out or Remove to get rid of it. There are a number of compressors in the Producer Edition that you can try to see what works best.

Moving down to the EQ section you get four band sweepable EQ with Q controls as well as sweepable low and high pass filters. Rolling off the very bottom end with a high pass filter can be desirable when mastering to eliminate any subsonic frequencies. The EQ is switchable between hybrid, pure, E and G types, each of which behaves differently and so alters the outcome of your processing.

Scrolling down further still you will find a Tube section where you can dial in some drive and add some grit and bite to the signal. You may also want to add an extra module – say perhaps a Saturation Knob – and you can do this using the right click technique to add one to the chain. Again, this should be used carefully to add character but not over-colour your master.

If you have created a mastering processing chain that you feel works really well, why not save it as a preset? This can be done by clicking in the ProChannel’s name field and this time, using the Disk icon to invoke the Save Preset window. You will see the file save as its own ProChannel preset format and this can be called up at any time or even mailed to people you are collaborating with.

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The former means that an EQ point represents filter components that control frequency, gain and Q values. Graphical mode means that control points sit on the curves and allow you to manipulate those EQ curves. You can add up to 20 EQ points in either mode. The idea behind using EQ during mastering is to create gentle enhancements or cuts to the overall frequency balance of the track. You really shouldn’t be making any drastic cuts or boosts with EQ at the mastering stage, since your mix should have taken care of any major discrepancies in frequency. If you get to the mastering stage and find that you’re having to make big cuts to the bass or big boosts to the mid range, you’re probably better off going back and revisiting the mix. With mastering you should be looking to make subtle and fairly minor EQ changes. It’s usually preferable to use parametric EQs, since they allow precise and detailed changes to be made, such as setting the Q value of each EQ point and the resulting curves. Choosing from SONAR’s sonic arsenal, you can use the single band compressor at the mastering stage, but

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PRO TIP SONAR has a Bit Meter plug-in, which doesn’t actually process sound but tells you how many bits your audio is using. This should correspond to the bit rate of the project but if you find it is higher than you thought you should employ a dithering plug-in during export. This will help to deal with any noise introduced by the conversion of bit rates.

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in the Producer Edition you also get the LP-64 multi band linear phase compressor / limiter which can be applied to the signal. This gives you clean, uncoloured compression control over five bands, meaning that you can selectively compress from the low end through the mids up to the top. Multiband compression is something of a mixed blessing and must be used with caution. It’s much more flexible than single band compression, letting you focus on specific frequency bands that might need more or less compression than others – think of it as a more surgical compression tool. If you don’t know what you’re doing, however, it can cause more problems than it solves. You could end up with an overly compressed mid range but a top end that’s too loud. For producers with some experience, multiband compressors can be invaluable, especially where you have inherited a mix that is less than perfect. They will let you alter the mixed file to a certain extent by compressing different frequencies using different settings and, combined with EQ, this can be a useful tool. Ideally, you shouldn’t need to make dramatic changes at

SONAR X2 Walkthrough MTF

the mastering stage, so if you prefer you can always use the standard compressor plug-in, or a third-party model that works on a single band.

Adding warmth and drive Also to be found in SONAR’s toolbox is an effect that is not found in all mastering setups but can be used to add some drive as well as level to your masters. The TL-64 Tube Leveler is a line driving / leveling unit with analogue vacuum tube modelling algorithms powered by StudioDevil emulation. It can be used to add drive and saturation to the signal, either subtly, as you will probably want to use it, or in more extreme ways for special effects during tracking. It’s rare that you would want to use lots of drive during mastering, but you might want to use a little to add some character. Boost 11 is a relatively simple mastering limiter that can be used to give your tracks maximum volume and punch. Limiters always live at the end of the signal chain and are used to boost the signal to squeeze lots of gain

PRO TIP You can add dithering during the export of a master using a plug-in or the Dithering option in the Export window. You can also set an export format, sample rate and bit depth and choose to export the signal at various different stages. Not just the entire mix but also different tracks within a mix. Choose to use the 64-bit engine for extra precision when bouncing down.

out of it without ever going over 0dB. As ever it’s a balancing act between limiting enough to get good overall volume but not making the sound too squashed. Over-limiting can sound worse than under-limiting, so if in doubt, back off a little so you are driving the signal less hard. The Boost 11 plug-in provides lookahead limiting, which means that it can anticipate upcoming peaks in the audio and compensate for them, preventing any unexpected anomalies in the sound, and clipping. It also uses special algorithms to prevent a pumping effect, which is never particularly desirable when mastering.

Other options There are a few other interesting tricks up SONAR’s sleeve. The last of its mastering plug-ins is actually more of a general purpose module, but is suitable for the mastering process. The VC-64 Vintage Channel combines a number of different processors and is a channel strip, dynamics processor and EQ with de-essing, though you probably wouldn’t use that during mastering.

MTF Step-by-Step Working with mastering EQ in SONAR

Import your stereo mixdown file to an audio track in SONAR and set up a window arrangement that allows you to see the project area and the track’s fader complete with FX section. Right click on the FX bin for the audio track and from the resulting menu, choose the Audio FX menu and then drill down into it to see SONAR’s bundled mastering effects.

Start with an LP64 linear EQ module. You might want to start by loading up a preset but more probably you will begin to dial in your own settings. Play back the track and listen for where any frequencies need boosting or cutting. Double click to add an EQ point in the plug-in’s window. Clicking subsequent times will have the effect of adding more EQ points. The parameters of each point are displayed as you drag.

In normal mode, you have a lot of flexibility to pick up EQ points and affect their Q values, which means the amount of frequency around the point that is boosted or cut. Click on the Q button to have SONAR show you the exact Q values associated with each point. Q is important during mastering because it helps you to make very precise or conversely very broad EQ changes to a mixdown. Much more so than a graphic EQ, for example.

Click on any orange Q value and drag it up or down to alter the width of the Q. By using a lower Q you can create more gentle curves and with a higher Q a narrower and more defined frequency range. During mastering you will probably be using gentler shapes, meaning broader EQ curves. It may sometimes be necessary however to use narrower curves to isolate a frequency to boost or cut it, though this is not so common during mastering.

If you click on the Mode button you can switch the plug-in’s mode to Curve, which allows you to create more gentle slopes, which is often better for mastering. Drag the EQ points along the curves to subtly cut or boost wider frequency ranges. You can also choose to turn the grid off, if you prefer to trust your ears more than your eyes! This is an entirely personal choice.

If you have found a great sound, click on the VST menu and choose to save a preset. This can also be used to A/B between presets. Set up two or more EQ curves and then flip between them to judge which offers the best mastering effect. You could also load more than one of these EQ modules with different settings and then mute one then the other to audition multiple EQ treatments for your master.

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MTF Walkthrough SONAR X2

Powered by Kjaerhus Audio, it features two VCA / Opto mode compressors, serial and parallel compression and EQ stages as well as two four band parametric EQs with five filter types. By strapping one of these across a channel you could employ the compression and EQ stages to handle those parts of the mastering process, and then add a limiter afterwards for overall gain boosting. You probably wouldn’t want to use all of these plug-ins in a mastering chain, since some of them replicate functionality. But you could use them in all kinds of combinations, and in combination with SONAR’s other plug-ins and third-party models that you might also have installed. You will also want to take advantage of the ProChannel module, which is an integrated dynamic and EQ processing section that is built into every channel in SONAR. You can add custom modules to it, and there are some excellent ones available for mastering, including Softube’s Saturation Knob, which will add some warmth to your sound.

PRO TIP The new Skylight interface in the SONAR X series makes it easier to keep track of what’s going on. As well as a more streamlined interface and look you get clever features like the Smart tool, auto zooming, translucent windows and a highly customisable interface in which most sections can be resized, docked, shown and hidden with ease. You can also manage window sets.

Into the deep Once your mastered track is sounding just the way you want it you can of course save presets in each plug-in appropriate to that track and also save a plug-in chain for quick recall later, which saves a lot of time. Naturally each track will need a different treatment, but starting with a preset gives you the option of not starting from scratch on every project. Using the audio export dialogue window you can choose which effects to include as part of the mixdown and also export your audio at 16, 24, 32 or even 64-bit resolution. From there, they are ready to be converted to CD format (16-bit and 44.1 kHz) or compressed for distribution to digital stores. There’s even SoundCloud, Facebook and Twitter integration so it’s possible to fire your tracks directly to the web to share with your listeners. By using SONAR’s excellent mastering plug-ins you will find it’s possible to create great sounding masters by taking advantage of its excellent and pro-sounding plug-in set. MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Mastering compression in SONAR X2

Call up SONAR’s LP64 multiband compressor onto your audio track. There are a couple of presets that you might want to try out, called Mastering Stronger and Lighter. These might provide a good starting point. Multiband compression is more complex than single band compression but for an experienced producer offers greater control and flexibility.

Each band can be independently compressed using different settings and if you click on any of the five dots shown in the main window you will notice that the five dials along the bottom edge update to reflect the settings for that band. Whether you use the points in the window or the dials is a matter of personal choice since the end result is the same and one will update the other.

Pick up any point and drag it up or down to increase or decrease the amount of compression applied and thus the level of the frequencies in that band. Drag a point left or right to make the compression affect a lower or higher frequency band. You can see the crossover points in the display and the currently selected band displays in red, whether you pick it up manually or alter with its dial control.

Using the Solo buttons at the top of the plug-in you can solo up each channel and hear it in isolation. This is really helpful for figuring out exactly what is going on in each band. It’s also possible to solo up more than one band to hear just the lower and upper mids in isolation, for example, or any combination of the available bands. Any band can actually be disabled by clicking its E button, so you can use fewer than four bands.

To edit all the bands at the same time and by the same amount, click the All button to the right of the dials running along the base of the plug-in. Now when you change a parameter, that parameter will be set for each of the bands. This is very useful when you have achieved a good relative balance between bands but want to pull the level of compression overall up or down by exactly the same amount.

Finally, you could drive the input gain of the compressor a little if you’re not getting quite the amount of level you need out of the signal. Don’t worry too much about that though as it can also be handled later by the limiter. Remember that depending on the kind of music you are working with, your band setup may not look uniform, with some occupying less space and some using more.

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Whether you’re a keen newcomer thirsting for more knowledge about digital audio production or you’re already an experienced producer needing inspiration or a skills refresher, our Focus Guides will help you get the most out of your studio setup…

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MTF Feature From mixdown to airplay

MTF Feature Mastering Guide

From mixdown to airplay A COMPLETE GUIDE TO MASTERING

From finishing your sessions to hearing a track on the radio there’s a lot to consider. Hollin Jones guides you through the mastering maze…

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here are many reasons why music can end up not sounding as good as it could have. Every part of the production process is potentially one where you could mess up, and these mistakes are often not fixable, or at least not completely fixable, later in the process. You might get a bad guitar sound at source, or use a mic with some buzz or hiss on it. Your monitoring setup might not be great and so you end up mixing the bass way too loud or too quiet. Your synths might sound, well, terrible. These are all risks of course but they’re also things that experienced producers will skilfully avoid. We all go through at least a few disasters and that’s how we learn not to repeat mistakes next time. So once you have figured out a few things for yourself, with the aid of a good ear you should find yourself at the mix stage with a track that’s well balanced, orchestrated, arranged and edited. Even your mixdown has been exported, however, you’re not done. It might feel like you’ve spent an eternity on a project and you want nothing more than to get it out to the world but there is one last thing to do. This is where mastering comes in, the final but vitally important stage between mixing down and

You want nothing more than to get your music out to the world but there is one last thing to do

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From mixdown to airplay Feature MTF

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MTF Feature From mixdown to airplay

Tech Terms ● PREMASTERING The process of applying some master buss compression during mixdown, with the aim of adding coherence to the overall sound of a mix. If performed, less compression is usually required at the mastering stage. ● WAVE EDITOR A software application that is dedicated to working with digital audio. They do not generally support MIDI or instruments but are very good at audio editing, processing and analysis.

distributing your tracks. You may have an idea what mastering is without having ever actually done it, or you may have some experience already. It’s essentially the process of treating a track in a specific way with effects in order to add coherence to the track as a whole, sweeten and tune the sound and add power, punch and clarity.

SoundCloud is a great streaming service but, with additional apps that you connect to your account, it can also be used to sell your music online.

Mixing and mastering It’s important to understand that mixing and mastering are very different processes, even though they might appear to be similar. You use many of the same tools for both, but during mixing you are working with lots of individual tracks, perhaps also groups of tracks, and tweaking each one individually. The aim when mixing is to get the perfect balance of individual elements together with a healthy overall level, but not to produce a “radio ready” sound, at least not yet. In addition to levels, mixing can involve processes like automation and even tempo changes to a track and, although it’s technically possible to start strapping mastering processors across the outputs of your raw project, it’s rarely if ever a good idea. The reason that people separate mixing and mastering is primarily that a mastered track is supposed to be the final, definitive version and yet when mixing your ears tend to get very tired. It’s not

When you know your mix is good, take time out and come back and master it another day

uncommon to spend hours or even days mixing a track and lose so much perspective due to repetition that you can convince yourself that the mix is no good when in fact it’s fine. Now imagine throwing the mastering process in at the same time and you increase the scope for errors exponentially. Generally you find that if you have a break of at least 24 hours and come back and listen to your mix, it’s actually not nearly as terrible as your tired self had thought. So it’s for this reason that mastering should be kept separate. When you have decided that your mix is good, take a little time out again and then come back and master it another day. This approach can also save your bacon if your mix really was bad, since you can go back and fix it, and then move on to the mastering stage later.

Files and formats Your mixed down track can end up in a number of formats but more than likely these days it will be a full quality stereo WAV or AIFF digital audio file on a computer. People do still use other formats but since they often involve format conversion and computers are so ubiquitous, digital is usually the way to go. You can still use CD or digital tape, but such media are used less and less and generally they only end up being re-digitised at a mastering facility anyway. Printing mixes to physical media can introduce other issues too, like sample and bit rate conversion, that may be detrimental to the overall quality of your masters. Remember, these are supposed to be the real deal, the culmination of all your hard work. Of course, if you’re burning them as files rather than audio it’s fine to use optical media,

MTF Pro Technique Digital sales services When digital music stores first emerged as a serious way to sell music, it was virtually impossible for independent artists to get their music up there without the help of a record label. That has all changed and now, not only is it really easy to do, the whole process tends to be very streamlined. The approach tends to be broadly the same: send your music to us in uncompressed or lossless formats, we will encode it. Also send all the appropriate artwork and liner notes, and pay a fee. Then it gets distributed to a selection of digital stores that will vary depending on who you use. The biggest ones are still iTunes and Amazon but there are actually hundreds of online stores ranging from known names right through to obscure streaming services that run on specific mobile phone networks. All services offer slightly different deals and have different terms, though few ask for any rights to your music – and you should avoid those that do. The majority of deals

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involve paying a fee, either one off or recurring, and there’s often extra to pay if you want to change or remove anything later, so be sure to get it right first time. In no particular order, some of the leading digital distribution services include Ditto Music, MondoTunes, The Orchard, CDBaby and TuneCore. Each has different offers, though all are well established. CDBaby, for example, provides a lot of backup services like advice, physical distribution and website hosting. Ditto Music allows you to set up your own label. TuneCore has detailed accounting and weekly reports, though the site has put its prices up substantially in recent years and as such it offers poorer value for individual musicians than for labels. They offer a lot of services but they’re services that individuals don’t really need, and there’s no ‘basic’ package option. Big online stores like iTunes and Amazon make it easy for people to buy your music, although there can be setup costs involved for the artist.

From mixdown to airplay Feature MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Sell music online using bandcamp

SeT up aN accOuNT Go to bandcamp.com and set up an account. You’ll probably stick with the free option to begin with. Log in and go to the Add Music > Add Album option. On the front page you get multiple options so you can name the album, add a release date and set a pricing option. There are guides to tell you which pricing setups usually perform best.

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STarT uplOadiNg TrackS Click on Add Track and navigate to your mastered, uncompressed AIFF or WAV file. The free account doesn’t have batch uploading, so you’ll have to wait a little while for this part to complete. Once you have uploaded all your tracks you can re-order them, if necessary, by dragging and dropping them in the Track list. You’re also able to add credits, lyrics and enable individual track download as well as letting fans have a “pay what you want” option.

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but you’re probably better off burning to a DVD or using a high capacity USB memory stick or portable hard drive if the files need to be moved. You will probably be mixing down to stereo audio files but this isn’t always the case. Some people favour stem mastering, a process that involves exporting groups of files rather than a single one. This has some definite downsides as well as upsides, so it’s to be approached with caution and only considered if you’re really sure why you’re doing it. If you aren’t confident of getting a good mix in the location where you’re mixing, you might not want to glue the relative levels of the elements of the track down at mixdown. Ideally, you should export everything as stems and mix it somewhere better but, for reasons of budget or practicality, this isn’t always possible. Sometimes, if there is any money, it is reserved for the mastering stage. It all depends on how you are working. Some people might spend that money on mixing and try to master themselves. If you do export stems from your project for the mastering engineer, the idea is that they will attempt to do some mixing prior to the final processing of the master. Imagine that you gave them a bunch of stems, for example the drums as one stem, vocals as another, guitars as a third and so on, because you didn’t feel able to get a great overall mix. The engineer could load the stems up into a DAW or wave editor and then balance the relative levels of the different stems to achieve a more optimal mix, perhaps even adding some EQ to help mix them more accurately. In theory they could then print that and master the resulting stereo file as normal. So this could work well, but the potential downsides should also be fairly clear. For a start, it relies on your ability to submix stems accurately. If the drums are all out of whack with each other when you submit them, there’s not much an engineer will be able to do. More importantly, it takes a lot of control out of your hands, so you’ll really need to

Tech Terms ●  OuTbOard audio processing hardware that tends to be found in larger studios, often rack mounted. uses more space than software but some feel is of higher quality. Needs to be plumbed into mixing desks and patchbays. ●  radiO ready a slight misnomer, since radio stations tend to add their own local processing to tracks anyway when they play them. really means “a good, solid, loud master”.

using master buss compression prior to mastering can help to cut down on the amount of processing that is necessary later, but it’s entirely optional.

uplOad arT aNd publiSh Finish filling in all relevant information, such as scrolling down and adding cover art. This will make the page look much more professional and it will be embedded in the downloaded files. You can tag your tracks too, which will make them easier to search for. Hit Publish and your album will go live. Share it using widgets and see detailed playback and sales stats.

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trust the person you’re paying. Some producers don’t even like the idea of a great mix being mastered by someone else, let alone giving them extra control over the sound by providing stems. Stem mastering, then, is an option that’s open to you but is probably only suitable in specific cases. Most of the time you will want to go down the more conventional route.

Starting the process When you do get to the mastering stage there are yet more variables to factor in. If you’re at a professional mastering facility you might find that the setup looks nothing like what you expected. It could be various sets of monitors and a bit of outboard, perhaps with a few controls to affect the way the sound is processed. If, as is more likely, you are at a recording studio with mastering facilities, you may find various combinations of hardware and software effects pressed into service to perform the processing. If you are working at a home studio it might be a software-only chain of effects. Whichever of these situations you find yourself in, the mastering process is broadly the same, it’s just that you might use different tools. Your first task should already have been completed, and that’s to have the best mixes you can and also an idea of how you want the masters to sound. It can be a good idea to take some commercially produced tracks along with you on CD or as digital files, preferably not too heavily compressed as MP3s, for comparison. A/B’ing during mastering is an invaluable way of checking how your tracks are sounding. As with mixing, it’s easy to lose perspective when mastering as you listen to the same track over and over again. Periodically flipping to a commercial track for comparison will help to keep you on target and see whether you’re doing too much or not enough. You can master in a DAW, a wave editor, or even from physical media like tape if you like, though the standard method these days is something computer-

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Tech Terms ● MULTICORE Modern computer CPUs have more than one core per processor. Some Intel CPUs have two processors, each with two cores; some have one processor with quad cores. Logic is able to use these for better performance. ● 64-BIT 64-bit compatibility means that software is able to address far more physical RAM as well as processing more data per clock cycle. ● LOUDNESS WARS The idea that, over recent decades, music production has gone for ever-louder masters, culminating in some heavily over-squashed records. In some circles, it’s on the decrease.

Outboard hardware is used a lot for mastering in studios, especially for compression.

based. We have looked elsewhere in this issue at the specifics of using the leading software packages as well as the details of the different processing stages, so here we will simply mention the aim of each processing stage. The first is usually compression, carried out using relatively gentle settings and intended to lend some weight to the middle and bottom end of a track, as well as providing a sense of coherence or audio “glue” to make everything gel together. Some people like to apply master buss compression at the mixdown stage and this is indeed possible, often even desirable. Reason, for example, has a dedicated master buss compressor, and Waves and Yamaha make some excellent plug-ins that are designed to impart the gentle warming effects of hardware buss compressors to your track. SSL also makes some excellent Duende processors for this, and you may even be lucky enough to have access to a real hardware model. If you apply master buss compression during mixdown then you should really not have to apply much, if any, at the mastering stage, depending on how much was initially added. Compressing entire mixes isn’t so much about squeezing volume out of a track. A file that has been master buss compressed should come to mastering

MTF Pro Technique Do it yourself Submitting to stores like iTunes is easy but generally involves paying setup fees and once your stuff is up there it’s hard to modify or take down as this can incur extra fees. You’ll get more control with one of the increasingly sophisticated sites that let you manage everything yourself. We’re not talking about Facebook or the now rather less than prominent MySpace, since they Bandcamp is a really good site you can rely on add-ons and are not primarily use to get complete control over the way focused on music sales. Probably the best site your music is sold online. around is bandcamp.com, which works across desktop and mobile devices and lets you upload a fair amount with their basic, free package and allows users to download it in a range of formats from small files right through to big, lossless versions. You can even allow Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC). You can allow users to download tracks for free or name their own price, to set minimum pricing and to require an email address, and even to get detailed realtime stats on visits, streams and sales. There’s easy embedding with widgets. Bandcamp’s premium service adds download code options, batch uploading and Google Analytics. The other all-conquering streaming site is soundcloud.com and, though it’s mainly focused on playback, you can sell music through it by using add-ons that integrate with the website. These can be found at http://soundcloud.com/apps/ tag/Sell and there are some great options. With Getty Images Music, for example, you can get your music licensed for use in TV and film. CD Baby has its own add-on that ties in nicely, as do VibeDeck and YouLicense. Some of these do charge a fee so be sure to check out the terms and conditions.

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Queueing up material that’s destined for the same album and being able to A/B is important. Suites like T-RackS allow you to load multiple tracks at once.

already sounding relatively punchy. If you don’t know the history of a file you’ll have to use your ears and look at the waveform to try to guess. The more compression that has been applied, the smaller will be the difference between the quieter and louder parts of the track, which you should be able to see visually – it will have less dynamic range.

Feel the pressure When compressing you have two options, the first of which is to use a single band compressor. These are simpler and process the entire signal, usually with a fast attack and release time, a high threshold and a low ratio. You’re looking to gently pull the quietest and loudest parts of the signal together but not to squeeze it too much and make it sound artificial, except perhaps in the case of heavy dance music. If you find that single band compression is accentuating or defeating too much of one specific frequency range, you could opt for a multiband model, which most DAWs come supplied with. Multiband compressors can be set to work differently on different frequency bands and so will deal more effectively with tracks where, for example, the bass needs to be tamed but the lower mids do not. By adjusting frequency crossover points you will easily be able to control what gets compressed and by how much. They also make things easier to mess up by accidentally squashing one band too much, however, so be careful. After compression you will want to use some EQ with the aim of pulling specific elements up or down slightly in prominence. The more elements that exist in the same frequency range the harder this will be to do accurately, though using a multiband parametric EQ with Q controls can make this easier. EQ’ing during mastering is a little bit like doing some rudimentary mixing, as you are able to affect the volumes of specific instruments to an extent. Obviously it shouldn’t be relied on to fix a poor mix – it’s intended to increase sparkle, presence and clarity at this stage. Other processors that can be added to change the sound include stereo wideners and tape effect plug-ins, though neither of these is considered a staple of mastering and so their use is entirely a matter of personal choice. Remembering to periodically A/B, both with commercial material and with a dry version of your own track, you can move on to limiting. Limiting allows you to push the input gain of the signal, stopping it before it gets to 0dB, so typically you might use an output gain setting of between -0.1 and -0.5db depending on your needs. Some limiters have advanced features like middle and side processing options, lookahead and soft clippers, all of which can be used to change the way

From mixdown to airplay Feature MTF

they operate. Some developers even make multiband limiters. For many tasks a simple, transparent limiter is often enough, and takes care of boosting the level of your track to give it more power. As ever you should avoid over-limiting as this sounds artificial and tiring to the ears.

Tricks of the trade People rarely tend to master tracks in isolation, and it’s much more likely that you will be mastering several for an EP or an album, or maybe even a soundtrack. As such it’s really important to make sure that all the tracks that are going onto the album have the same broad sonic characteristics in terms of overall level. There’s no point in mastering one track really loud and another gently and putting them next to each other, as it will sound strange. Of course you can have loud and quiet tracks, but the key is in mastering them so that they sound like they belong on the same album. This is very much an art form, and relies on your repeatedly comparing treatments as well as possibly saving presets across tracks or even loading up a queue of tracks and processing them, as is possible in T-RackS. Some wave editors like Sound Forge or WaveLab have advanced features for creating audio montages, which allow you to blend different tracks together to create albums where, for example, one track will fade seamlessly into another. They also have handy tools like batch processors that can be useful when mastering. You’ll probably want to “top and tail” your files by applying fades, to get rid of any unwanted bits of sound. Once your tracks have been mastered, you can export them out to final digital files, after applying any necessary dithering or sample or bit rate conversion or again, printing to some kind of media. Always maintain full quality, full resolution versions since you can easily compress or downsample later, but saving a file to a higher quality version will add nothing in terms of quality, only file size. From here you have various options. To burn your own CDs you’ll need an app capable of doing this, preferably with the ability to add PQ codes and burn to Red

MTF Pro Technique Hardware vs software We have focused quite a lot on the software side of mastering but this is primarily because many people operating on a budget will go down the software route out of necessity. Software, after all, uses no space and is really very good these days, and so perfect for the independent producer. But hardware still plays a big part, especially in commercial studios. Anything that can be done in software was probably originally done in hardware – and very well too in most cases. Compressors and EQs, limiters, saturation devices and more can still be found in almost all bigger studios and are often used in conjunction with software. You might use a hardware compressor but a software EQ, with all the associated extra wiring that using hardware introduces to the equation. Another very important part of mastering is monitoring and this is something you can’t fake. A good set of monitors, properly calibrated is essential both to mixing and mastering. For some people the act of going into a professional environment to master is less about the outboard or the plug-ins and more to do with the finely tuned and high quality speakers and acoustic treatment that will almost certainly be present. These are worth their weight in gold, and most places will have multiple sets of speakers, which makes it much easier to try different mastering treatments in the same listening environments, and try to get yours sounding great on every set. Outboard is just as good for mastering as software, sometimes better. Dedicated units like TC’s Finalizer are not cheap but offer great results.

Tech Terms ● DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION Selling music online in any number of stores like iTunes, Amazon or streaming it on Spotify. Can also refer to simply giving music away through sites like Bandcamp or SoundCloud. ● GLASS MASTER A master copy of a CD or DVD made at a processing plant and used to press the hundreds or thousands of duplicate discs that will find their way to the shops. ● A/B’ING The process of comparing your master-in-progress with commercially produced music to which you think it should sound similar. Useful in guiding you during the mastering process.

Dedicated wave editors like WaveLab are perfect for mastering, and include advanced tools like the ability to write to optical media complete with detailed metadata.

Book standard. If you’re sending files to a duplication house they will want a master disc or a CD of files together with artwork.

Going digital Increasingly, music is sold and consumed digitally and so you can end up doing more distribution online than you do using physical media. There are a number of services that enable you to do this, and they are discussed in the boxes in this feature. Suffice it to say that you’re not stuck for options when it comes to selling music in online stores or putting it out there yourself. Another important point to make in relation to the explosion in the number of devices on which people listen to music is this: it’s sometimes asked how you master for iPods as opposed to CDs. The truth is that most producers simply produce the best master they can, test it on as many systems as they can find and go back and tweak until it’s as close to perfect as it can be. Mastering is supposed to produce a sound that is great on any system it’s played on and this remains as true today as it was when there were far fewer playback devices in existence. The only caveat is mastering for vinyl which is a little more complex, though anyone doing that will be approaching the process differently anyway. Mastering is no longer a dark art and is more accessible now than at any time in the past. A good master makes the difference between a track that stands out and one that sounds lacklustre, so between all the options available to you there’s no excuse not to get the best results you possibly can. MTF

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MTF Walkthrough Soundstage

Soundstage Step-by-Step

The importance of

On the disc

the soundstage

Getting a great master starts with a good mix and at both stages, it’s about more than just EQ and volume, as Hollin Jones explains…

a good soundstage for your mixes and masters can make the difference between a track sounding ‘big’ or ‘small’, and everyone will probably understand the difference between the two as it appears to listeners. The soundstage must be considered both at the mixing and mastering stages, and while some things like stereo placement of individual instruments or sounds must be done at the mixing stage when everything exists as separate, controllable tracks, you can also control the soundstage at the mastering stage, most commonly by using stereo widening to broaden the scope of the sound. As always it must be done carefully, since too much widening can easily mess up a carefully constructed mix or rob a master of all its energy as the bass end is pushed left and right and loses focus.

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here are many aspects of the mastering process that are relatively easy to quantify. You should be adding a certain amount of compression, you may want to boost a track at certain frequencies, and limit up to a certain dB value. But other things are more intangible that rely as much on your ears and your perception as any numerical values. One of these is the soundstage of a piece of music. The soundstage can be thought of as the way a piece of music is perceived by the listener, where the sounds sit in the mix and the ‘size’ of the sound overall. This is not necessarily about volume but rather about scope. Getting

The mix phase Before you start experimenting with stereo placement during mixing, you’ll need to get a decent working mix going, with all the levels more or less where you want them to be. Panning tracks will change their intensity in the mix and may necessitate volume changes later, however, so don’t try to perfect the mix before you get to this stage. It’s also worth panning everything to the centre to begin with, to get an idea of the overall balance of the track, and making a list of all the elements so you

The soundstage must be considered both at the mixing and mastering stages MTF Navigation The importance of soundstage

PANNING When altering panning and stereo widening in a track, be careful to keep an eye on the phase correlation to check no energy is being lost. Most DAWs have one included.

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PLUG-IN CHAINS Plug-in chains in DAWs or wave editors are the best way to apply multiple sets of processing to your tracks.

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PHASE Ideally you want a track to stay in phase and this will be denoted by a value between 0 and +1. The phase scope here also shows a centred image.

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STEREO WIDTH You can add some stereo width artificially by using a stereo widener across a track, though these should be used carefully and sparingly.

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Soundstage Walkthrough MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Using stereo reverb and panning to place a source in the soundstage

Insert a reverb plug-in with a delay control onto the channel you want to position. Here we’re using IK Multimedia’s CSR Hall. The first thing to do is set the basic reverb level and type as well as the reverb diffusion and time so that they are broadly in line with the kind of sound you want. Here, this can be done while staying in Easy mode. Since it’s a beat, we’ve chosen a fairly crisp reverb effect.

In the Advanced menu, you’ll find a tab called I/O. At the far right of the panel in this section are two knobs marked In and Out Image. By turning these you can alter the way the signal is summed inside the plug-in and thus the way the reverb sounds, as well as the position of the sound. At certain points when turning the knobs you will reach presets including stereo, left right inverse, surround and mono.

Moving on to the Reflections tab, you can set both the time in milliseconds and the level in dB for the reverb reflections for the left and right channels. As described in 02 this can have the effect of ‘placing’ a sound closer to or further away from the virtual ‘walls’ the sound is bouncing off, and thus give the illusion of the sound source being further over to the left or right of the soundstage, or closer to the back or the front.

Moving to the track’s Inspector panel you can see a panner. This can be used to place the signal anywhere on the left or right of the stereo field, though it will be centred by default. Although you probably wouldn’t pan a lead sound like a lead guitar or vocal, at least not by very much, you can pan things like rhythm guitars, backing vocals percussion and sound effects to level up the soundstage and add a sense of width to proceedings.

One good trick with panning is to duplicate a track, which you can do in any DAW with a couple of clicks, and then pan one copy to the left and one to the right. These don’t have to be panned by the same amount in each direction, though doing so does lend some consistency to the soundstage. You may also have to compensate with the faders for the fact that there are now two copies of the same thing and thus more signal.

You can also get creative by automating pan settings to move sounds around the soundstage. Be careful with this however, as too much swirling about can not only confuse the listener but detract from the coherence of your track as a whole. As a good rule of thumb it can be sensible to move things around the soundstage during periods of silence rather than when they are actually audible, so there’s not the sense of movement.

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can think about what might need to be moved around in the soundstage. Working with fewer tracks is always going to be easier and give you more control. An acoustic duo for example, with a couple of vocals and guitars, will let you place each element in a distinct space. A busier track, with multiple keyboards, drums, guitars, vocals and bass, will afford you less specific movement of elements on the soundstage since there are more instruments fighting for the same limited space. In these cases, positioning becomes a matter of making space for each element and ensuring that tracks in similar frequency ranges don’t interfere with each other. If this is the goal, EQ also plays a vital role in achieving separation. Remember also that we’re talking about panning left and right, which often involves starting with a stereo source. If your DAW only offers the ability to pan a stereo track left or right, you can split it into two mono channels by bouncing out and re-importing, or you can duplicate the track and then you’ll have two panners, though the first method is more accurate.

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PRO TIP The more elements you have in a mix, the more complex it can be to manage all the competing frequencies. If you can’t keep the number of tracks down, consider using panning and placement in the stereo field using reverb and other tools like EQ to separate parts of the image without adversely affecting the musicality of the track.

It’s generally accepted wisdom that low frequency sounds work best when they are centred in the stereo image. This tends to tighten them up and create a solid ‘core’ for the soundstage. The bottom end of a mix contains much of its energy, and this is reproduced best on a stereo hi fi system when it is spread evenly across both speakers. Bass is also far less directional than other frequencies and our ears aren’t much use at determining directional information about low end sound – if you’ve ever been woken up at 3am wondering where exactly in the neighbourhood that thumping bass is coming from, you’ll know all about this… Therefore, kick drums, basses and anything else below about 120Hz should be kept centred – and possibly even converted to mono or routed to a mono track. If a synth or guitar bass part has both very low and more middling frequencies, you could duplicate the track, and roll all the top and middle off one and the bottom end off the other, using EQ. You could then use panning or stereo effects to move the higher of the two parts around FOCUS Mastering Volume 4

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in the mix, while leaving the lower frequencies centred in the duplicate. Apart from leaving the bass at the centre of the stereo image, there aren’t many other absolute rules to creating a soundstage, except that you should trust your ears. Many hardware and software instruments have stereo outputs so it can be tempting to pan sources like keyboards, strings and synths hard left and right. This might sound good in isolation but, oddly enough, when you hard pan a stereo source like this it often ends up sounding almost centred in the stereo image. Do this with more than a couple of sources and you end up with a load of instruments apparently sitting on top of each other at the centre of the image, which defeats the point. The answer is to be more creative with the pan pots, placing them at points in between the centre and the extremes. Engineers refer to these positions in terms of a clock face, so panning a stereo piano to ‘10 and 2’ would mean rotating the left panner to the 10 o’clock position and the right panner to 2 o’clock.

Down the pan PRO TIP Most DAWs come with some kind of stereo enhancement tool and these can be used sparingly either during mixing or at the mastering stage, where of course they will be applied to the whole signal. To get a more advanced imaging effect consider using a dedicated third-party multiband imager like those from iZotope or Waves.

Effects are important too. Digital reverb in particular can be a powerful way of placing a sound in a virtual acoustic space. Modern impulse-based reverbs like Altiverb, Space Designer in Logic or REverence in Cubase are especially good at this, though less CPU-heavy models like IK Multimedia’s Classik Studio Reverb are too. These kinds of reverb techniques only work well when used carefully, because too much reverb makes it hard to pinpoint the location of a sound in the mix. Just like in a real space, the more something reverberates, the harder it is to tell where it’s coming from and so the less effective stereo positioning will be. It’s also unwise to use too many different kinds of reverb within a mix. Putting room reverb on the pianos, but concert hall reverb on the vocals for example might end up sounding odd. That’s not to say you can’t mix and match reverb types, but make sure they work well together. Use too many types, or indeed too much reverb ,and the overall soundstage will become muddled and incoherent.

MTF Step-by-Step Using stereo placement and EQ to manage a complex mix

Start by getting a good rough mix and identifying which elements of your track need to stay centred – namely the bottom end like the bass and kick drum. Any tracks you’re going to be panning may need to be split into left and right channels, depending on whether your DAW allows separate panning of stereo channels. It can be worth ordering tracks in a project to make them easier to identify quickly.

Let’s take this marimba track, which could be interfering with other sources in a similar frequency range, like vocals, guitars or other keys. Here we have solo’ed up the two competing channels and made EQ adjustments to each, cutting frequencies or boosting them as necessary so that the two parts work better together. This is a clever way to mix elements without relying on volume faders.

Dropping the two tracks back into the mix, it can become evident that the changes made that sounded good when solo’ed don’t necessarily work with the rest of the track playing. It may be necessary to make further tweaks to the EQ to account for this. You can always save effect presets to save time. Remember you can easily mute any EQ temporarily too to see what difference it is making.

Here, we have panned the two tracks equally, one left and one right. This has the effect of separating them in the stereo field and making it easier to hear them when they play at the same time. It’s important not to go too far though, because that can start to sound artificial. Using moderate panning equally one way and the other can yield some great results and help to separate sounds with competing frequencies.

Many DAWs also have stereo and surround imaging plug-ins available, like the Direction Mixer here in Logic. With a channel panned to the centre, load up the plug-in and experiment with the Spread and Direction controls to send the output of the channel to different parts of the stereo field, not just simply the left or right but a little more creatively. It helps to have properly spaced speakers to monitor on.

Logic also has an interesting plug-in called Binaural Post Processing which, applied across the master outs, can give you an idea of what the track might sound like played through various types of headphones. This is useful in helping you to make mixing and stereo positioning decisions when trying to perfect your mix for all playback situations. Mixing and mastering with headphones in mind is increasingly important with all the mobile music players in use today.

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Soundstage Walkthrough MTF

Many people strive for a wider stereo image for their mixes and there are many plug-ins that can help you to achieve this, though all should be used carefully. Stereo imagers and wideners, and of course stereo reverbs and delays, can all be used to make mono or narrow sounding tracks wider and give them more presence. Pads, strings and keyboard, as well as instruments like acoustic guitars and also backing vocals, can benefit from some processing in this regard. Some engineers favour treating one side of a sound with a simple mono chorus effect, which has the result of creating a kind of stereo movement between the speakers as well as adding some richness. In truth, these effects work best when added to specific tracks in a mix and used sparingly. Simply whacking a stereo imager across the master outputs of your DAW might superficially sound good but could mess up the mix in any number of ways. Some mastering plug-ins like iZotope’s Ozone have stereo widening tools built in and, working together with the other modules it has, can be a good way of increasing

PRO TIP Metering is important when widening tracks. Not just for levels but also for phasing and stereo correlation. You want to ensure that your track is not being pushed outwards too far, which will sound bad on the kinds of systems it’s likely to be reproduced on when it is released out into the world.

overall stereo width at the mastering stage. Again though, be careful not to overdo it. Purists often avoid spatializers and the like because they are perceived as a form of ‘cheating’ and people believe the mix should be good enough without them. While this is a strong argument, we don’t all have the benefit of top end mixing desks, monitoring and acoustic environments in which to work, so judicious use of plug-ins can be quite helpful, as long as you avoid awful presets that promise things like “3D stereo” but actually just mangle the stereo image beyond all recognition. Achieving a better soundstage for your mixes is, like the other elements of the mixing process, an art as much as a science and the precise techniques you use will depend on the kind of music you’re working with. But armed with some knowledge and understanding of how stereo panning and creative use of effects can help you to achieve better clarity, coherence and separation, you will find that your mixes and masters start sounding better than ever. MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Using widening and exciters in Ozone 5

iZotope’s Ozone has some great tools and amongst them you will find exciters and widening, both great to use at the mastering stage. You can use the entire Ozone 5 suite but here we have loaded a single module, since all the processing stages are also available as individual plug-ins. To begin with, skip through a few presets and see how they sound.

Setting the band crossover points for imaging is vital to controlling the soundstage of a master. Drag the boundary handles in the main display area to set the size of each band. Adjust the four band controls to add a different amount of widening to each one. You may want to reserve the higher amounts for the higher bands and use little or no widening the lower you go.

Click on Options to go into the Imager’s setup section and you can switch the number of bands anywhere from one to four. One is a bit restrictive and two is not all that flexible. However, using three or four bands should give you some better control over the sound. You can also set the crossover type to determine how rigidly or softly the frequency bands cross over.

Here we have loaded up Ozone’s Exciter module, though again this is also available as part of the whole suite. The principle is much the same as with the Imager except here you are adding sparkle and shimmer rather than stereo widening. Nonetheless it can be useful for increasing the sense that your master sounds big, especially when used in conjunction with other mastering tools.

Set the frequency crossover boundaries and make adjustments to the band faders to change the amount of excitation that is applied. Here you get not only amount but also mix controls, so it’s possible to get a greater degree of control over the way the signal is being processed. Consider adding more sparkle to the top end and the upper mids to liven up the signal.

The Mode menu to the left of the faders lets you set the kind of excitation that is used. These have quite different effects, ranging from retro through to tape and warm settings and can significantly change the overall sound of your master. Remember to periodically bypass the effect just so you can A/B with your original signal and get an idea of what’s being done.

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MTF Round-up Tuition

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1 SSR

Price £300 Contact 0161 276 2100 With offices in Manchester and London, SSR runs a mastering “crash course” over a weekend to give you an overview of and introduction to the mastering process. Taking place in the Neve recording studio, students are able to bring their own tracks to the second day and see how mastering using top quality plug-ins and pro analogue gear sounds on their own material. The first day covers the theory and the second is a practical mastering session. If you want to learn more about mixing, you can save £100 by booking both the mixing and mastering courses at the same time. Web www.s-s-r.com

2 GARNISH MUSIC PRODUCTION SCHOOL

Price Mixing and Mastering School from £449 Contact Garnish 020 3287 7734 London-based Garnish runs this course which they state is for everything in mixing and mastering you knew a bit about, but now want to fully understand and make a massive improvement to your music yourself. It doesn’t matter what DAW you use on your Mac or PC, or what genre of music you are mixing, the principles are the same. There’s a fair bit on mixing, and the mastering portion of the course covers using reference material, EQ, limiting, levels and phase, mastering for vinyl, metering and more.

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Web www.musicproductioncourses.net/mixing-andmastering-course-london

Round-up Tuition

Learning how to master is as much an art as a science, so it can really help to get some professional guidance and tuition when it comes to this vital stage of music production. And learning in a pro mastering facility is the icing on the cake. Luckily there are some excellent courses available…

3 ABSTRACT SOURCE

Price £480 Contact [email protected] Abstract Source is based on Brick Lane in London and its introductory mixing and mastering course allows you to bring your own multitrack project for mixing and mastering in their studio facilities. Specific training on the mastering process includes principles of premastering, mastering basics, PQ coding and album sequencing and delivery of a finished product. It’s a 12-hour course split into three-hour sessions and you’re also able to tailor-make your own course by selecting modules. Choose from balancing, EQ, dynamics, mastering EQ, compression, limiting and pressing plant delivery options. These “build it yourself” sessions are £35 per hour. Web http://abstractsource.co.uk

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4 THE GRAND MASTERS

Price $77 Contact via website As well as providing some online text-based guides to the art and theory behind mastering, The Grand Masters links up with OD Music Production, which offers 12 hours of music production tuition videos in HD. These cover the entire production process from setup and getting started, through musical concepts and understanding MIDI, to synthesis and recording. After you have worked through these you come to a series of extensive mixing and mastering guides and then an explanation of how to export and share your music. The Grand Masters itself offers competitively priced mastering services if you want to have someone else master your music. Web www.masteringtuition.com

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5 DUBSPOT

Price $2,245.50 Contact via website Dubspot’s online course offers mixing and mastering tuition to help you learn how to turn your mixes into commercial sounding masters. Using 30-40 hours of high quality online videos and three hours of instructor-led chat sessions per week, you also get direct video and audio feedback from instructors. As well as the basics of mastering you have the chance to learn specialised mixing and mastering techniques for different genres, including dubstep, house, trance, hip hop and more. It’s based in the USA but with a fast enough internet connection you can take advantage of this course from anywhere in the world. Web www.dubspot.com

6 ALCHEMEA

Price £440 Contact Alchemea 0207 359 3986 Alchemea’s training course explores the basic principles of audio mastering with a focus on achieving great quality results in a budget environment. Practical examples involve looking closely at, and dealing hands on with, problems and situations that a studio-mastering engineer would encounter. The principle aim of this course is to look at getting as close to a pro mastering reference as possible, in a budget set up. They aim to help you create your final product ready for market, get your music ready for radio play and live performance as well as making your demos stand out. Prior experience of production is helpful but not essential, and a mixing course is offered as well. Web www.alchemea.com

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MTF Workshop Reason 6.5

Reason 6.5 Workshop

Using Reason with Rack Extensions Reason has its own mastering tools and now, with Rack Extensions, you can add specialised third-party modules too, as Hollin Jones reveals…

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eason has had the MClass mastering modules for quite a while now, but it wasn’t until version 6 that it gained the ability to work with audio tracks. So although you had been able to master your Reason projects in previous versions of the software, it was always much harder to achieve the recommended workflow practice of separating the mixdown and mastering stages. Typically you would have had to apply mastering at the mixdown stage, or master elsewhere in another DAW or wave editor. Version 6 changed all that, however, and allowed you to import a stereo mixdown directly onto a new audio track. Version 6.5 adds even more flexibility in the form of Rack Extensions, which have been developed by other specialist pro audio companies but still have full Rack access. The list of Rack Extensions is always growing but at present there are a number of EQ, dynamics and dedicated mastering modules available, all with 30-day fully functional free trials available, so you can try them out before committing to them.

PRO TIP As well as using Rack modules for mastering you can of course use the mixer’s excellent channel strips, which have their own dynamics section as well as a very capable EQ on every channel. You might even want to use both, and mixer channel presets can be stored as easily as Combis, so you are free to recall settings at any point.

Version 6 of Reason allowed you to import a stereo mixdown directly onto a new audio track

On the disc

Separate the processes We have already noted that you can apply mastering processing at the same time as mixing a project out, but this isn’t recommended as it involves making too many important decisions at the same juncture. Instead, let’s look at mastering a stereo mixed down file. Start a new project and import the uncompressed WAV or AIFF into Reason. 1 The process is essentially the same as mastering in any wave editor, except that you get to take advantage of Reason’s great modules, which aren’t available elsewhere unless you get into ReWiring applications together. Locate the audio track in the Rack and click on its Show Insert FX button to reveal the insert area. Click within this area to select it and then add mastering effects using one of the following two methods. The first will be to use the Create menu; and the second is simply to right click in the area and find the Studio FX submenu, and then locate the MClass modules. 2 These modules don’t have presets of their own or patch save / load buttons, but you can load or save modules complete with settings by using Combis. Indeed, if you look in the Factory Sound Bank library under MClass Mastering Patches you will see a range of mastering presets, which can save time if you load one then tweak it to suit. 3

Squeeze the sound First up then, try loading an MClass Compressor module. You could use the regular rack compressor, but this one has been specifically designed with mastering in mind. The settings you are going to use will depend on your source material but in most cases you should probably be aiming for a fairly gentle amount of

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6 5 7 There are dedicated MClass mastering modules that help you compress, sweeten and boost your sound to get a great master.

Adding an MClass Stereo Imager can help to add some width to the soundstage compression – if your mixdown was done well you shouldn’t need lots of compression at the mastering stage. This track happens to be a fairly dynamic soundtrack piece, so a good choice might be a low-ish ratio of around 2:1, the Threshold set so that compression only kicks in a little, and with fairly fast attack and slow release settings. 4 You could also drive the input a little if you felt it added to the power of the signal. Don’t worry about adding lots of gain using the compressor; that’s the job of the Maximizer later on. The idea with the compressor is simply to even out the dynamics a little, adding some clarity and boost but mainly just bringing a sort of “glue” to your sound. It should be readily evident from tweaking the compressor’s settings whether you are applying too much. Be sensible at this stage and don’t go overboard.

PRO TIP The Rack Extensions store can be found on the Props’ website and contains an ever-growing list of add-on modules that you can try free for 30 days before you buy. As well as mastering tools there are all kinds of weird and wonderful beat slicers, filters and clever tools as well as instruments that go beyond Reason’s Factory set.

the top end sparkles if necessary. 6 Hopefully you won’t need to do extensive tweaking here, since that’s usually indicative of a poor mix in the first place.

Wide sound Your next step might be to add an MClass Stereo Imager as this can help to add some width to the soundstage, though stereo widening is always to be treated carefully since applying lots of it tends to radically change the character of a mix as instruments get pushed off to the sides of the stereo field. To begin with, set the crossover point of the low and high frequencies using the control in the centre. 7 You are going to want to keep the bottom end either in its original state or a little more mono, to maintain the energy that the bass adds to the sound, but perhaps also to widen the higher frequencies to add a certain sense of space. So try leaving the low frequencies mostly untouched after having set the

EQ curves Next try adding an MClass Equalizer to the track. This has five bands and is parametric. A Low Cut can sometimes be advisable to apply during mastering, which applies a cut at 30Hz to remove any subsonic frequencies that may have crept in. 5 You can also enable a Low Shelf curve, and then sweep around using the Frequency and Gain knobs to determine whether the low end is cut or boosted, where and by how much. Use the Q control for this and other bands to determine the width of the curve around the frequency. A low Q means a gentler curve, and a high Q a narrower one which is going to isolate a frequency much more specifically. Repeat with the remaining bands, again using the Frequency, Gain and Q controls to perform the necessary EQ adjustments. Some tracks may need a little treatment and some might require rather more, but your aim here is to sweeten the overall soundstage, making sure that the bottom end is full but controlled, the mids are sufficiently audible and bright, and that FOCUS Mastering Volume 4

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8 After you’ve spread your soundstage it’s time to add a limiter for extra volume.

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crossover point. There are Solo controls to the right to help you with this. 8 Solo the lo and hi bands and set the crossover, keeping the bassy stuff more isolated. Solo the hi frequency and raise the dial a little to add some widening, if necessary. 9 The final component in a typical mastering chain is limiting and this comes in the form of the MClass Maximizer. This is where you deal with squeezing more volume out of the signal, so activate the Limiter section and also the lookahead button, which helps to provide more accurate limiting. 10 Again you will need to adjust the speeds of the Attack and Release to account for your material. If you’re making loud electronic music for example, go for a faster setting. If it’s more mellow material, go a little slower. 11 There’s also an Output Gain knob and this should be set just below 0dB, using the Input Gain to drive the signal. Your aim should be a consistently strong signal which you can see in the level meter, without clipping into the red. 12

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The excellent master buss compressor in Reason’s mixer can provide a great audio glue Extensions available for mastering, such as the Softube Saturation Knob, which can be used to warm up an entire mix. 14 Others, like the Ozone Maximizer are dedicated to mastering and this one in particular has the pedigree of being descended from iZotope’s excellent Ozone family. 15 Once you’re done you can export your master using the usual File > Export Song As Audio File command – if for any reason you want to export multiple versions of the track with differing processing treatments, use the Bounce Mixer Channels option. It’s worth, for example, exporting a version that bypasses the main mixer if you have not actually used any of the mixer’s controls to shape your sound. This can avoid problems with gain that might arise if you have accidentally set the master fader too low or too high. Remember also that there is an excellent master buss compressor in Reason’s mixer and when this is activated it can help to provide a great audio glue to the master, so you may want to look at using that instead of, or in conjunction with, the MClass compressor. However you proceed you’re sure to find that mastering your tracks in Reason gives them that radio ready sound, provided you spend a little time getting them just right. MTF

Rack ‘em up You can of course add more than one of any MClass module and indeed add other Reason modules into the mastering chain. If you happen to hit on a great sound, save it as a preset by going to the track in the main mixer and locating its Patch Save button, represented by a disk icon. Save the patch to your hard drive and it can be recalled at any time. 13 We mentioned earlier than you can now add new Rack modules and there are some great Rack

Add third-party Rack Extensions to broaden your range of tools.

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MTF On Your DVD

Whether you’re looking to master your tracks using your DAW, or with bespoke plug-ins and hardware, there’s plenty of pro mastering tips on the Mastering Focus DVD. You’ll find over two hours of video tutorials, demos and freeware of the latest mastering software and tools, promotional videos from Universal Audio, iZotope, Focusrite and more, plus over 600 MB of royaltyfree samples and loops from Big Fish Audio, Prime Loops, and Zero-G. You’ll also find highresolution screenshots and files to accompany the workshops and walkthroughs. MTF What’s on the disc Over two and a quarter hours of Pro Video Tuition

MUSIC-COURSES.COM Producertech and Zeitgeist Mastering join forces for a new Mastering course on Music-Courses.com. We’ve got an overview plus three videos on tape saturation and analogue warmth, MaxxBass and LF Punch plug-ins, and preparing a track for mastering.

MACPROVIDEO The experts at macProVideo have provided 11 videos of mastering tips. Learn EQ and dithering in Logic Pro, adding reverb sends and Master Tracks in Pro Tools, and the Master Fader Clip Light, insert FX, dither, and mixing down high bit rate files in Cubase.

IAN SHEPHERD ON METERING One of the simplest yet most essential parts of your mastering setup is metering. Mastering engineer Ian Shepherd takes a look at how to balance loudness levels using a range of metering plug-ins, and also at new standards in loudness measurement.

SONIC ACADEMY MASTERING COMPRESSION Sonic Academy and Conor Dalton from Glowcast Mastering explore parallel and glue compression techniques, plus how choosing different attack and release times can affect the transients of the compressed signal.

LOOPTV James Wiltshire from The Freemasons discusses the subject of K-metering and setting the right levels in Logic to improve the definition and dynamics of your mix. Plus, Dom Kane takes a look the BCA Digital Peak Meter Pro and Flux Elixir plug-ins.

PLUGIN BOUTIQUE A round-up of high quality mastering plug-ins courtesy of the Plugin Boutique, including software from MeldaProduction, Vladgsound, Blue Cat Audio, 7Air Media, Sinevibes, and Distorque. All this and more is also available at PluginBoutique.com

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On Your DVD MTF

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MTF DVD 27 Mastering Volume 4

MTF DVD 27 Mastering Volume 4 USING OUR WORKSHOPS

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We’ve got workshops covering a whole range of software from DAWs to specific mastering suites. You’ll find hi-res images, project files and audio on the disc so you can follow along at home. Be sure to copy all the files to your computer before opening a project.

AUDIO SAMPLES

You’ll find over 600 MB of professionally recorded and polished samples from Big Fish Audio, Prime Loops and Zero-G, including laid back jazz riffs, live drum beats, deep and soulful keys, warm analogue basslines, aggressive electro synths, and lively percussion grooves. Each sample has been finely crafted and offers an excellent insight into pro production techniques.

DEMOS & FREEWARE

We’ve got a range of demos from iZotope, FabFilter, FXpansion and more for you to try. You’ll also find a massive freeware bundle including Molot and Limiter No6 from Vladgsound, Depthcharge from 7Air Media, Vitamin C from Distorque, Filther from Sinevibes, plus plug-in bundles from Blue Cat Audio and MeldaProduction, all compiled courtesy of the Plugin Boutique.

For PC & Mac

MTF DVD 27 Mastering Volume 4

PROMOTIONAL

Whether you’re looking to get a new audio interface, or expand your plug-in library with bespoke mastering software, we’ve rounded up a collection of videos showing the latest kit in action. You’ll find hi-end interfaces from Apogee, UA, Focusrite, Roland, and M-Audio, plus mixing and mastering software from Sony Creative Software, Slate Digital, and iZotope.

COPYRIGHT ANTHEM PUBLISHING © 2012 FAULTY DISC? Check www.musictechmag.co.uk for known issues Return to: Anthem Publishing (disc returns), Suite 6, Piccadilly House, London Road, Bath BA1 6PL, UK

On the disc

YOUR DVD CONTENT FILES

ZIP FILES To maximise the amount of content we can bring you on each DVD, the video, Workshop and samples files are supplied compressed (‘zipped’). Mac users should be able to decompress zip files simply by double-clicking on them; PC users may need to download a utility such as WinZip (www.winzip.com). WORKSHOP FILES The software Workshops that feature in each issue of MTF are almost always accompanied by files and audio so you can work through them on your system. These files are zipped to reduce the space they occupy on the DVD.

Download them to your hard drive and unzip them to access the individual files (remembering to eject the DVD to prevent your computer from slowing down).

WHAT IS ROYALTY-FREE?

Any MTF DVD content marked ‘royalty-free’ can be used in your own original compositions (even commercial ones). You may not, however, resell these samples in any other form.

DEFECTIVE DISCS

endeavour to supply you with a replacement disc immediately. Please note that we’re unable to provide technical support for the software on the MTF DVD – please check our website at www.musictechmag.co.uk for any known problems.

MISSING YOUR DISC?

If your disc is missing, contact us at [email protected] with your full postal address and the issue number.

In the unlikely event that your disc is defective, please return it to: Disc Returns, Anthem Publishing, Suite 6, Piccadilly House, London, Bath BA1 6PL. We will focus Mastering Volume 4

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