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  #11  
Old 03-12-2021, 05:05 PM
climber climber is offline
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Default Re: 2 schools of thought in a mix

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Originally Posted by JFreak View Post
If it is coming back too bright, then maybe you have something wrong in your monitoring?
^ this
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  #12  
Old 03-12-2021, 06:08 PM
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Ben Jenssen Ben Jenssen is offline
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Default Re: 2 schools of thought in a mix

Schools of thought in a mix…
I can't see why anyone would think; I'd better do this or this because it's going to get mastered. It makes no sense, 'cause as Janne says; mastering is about "translation". You mix to make it sound good.

I have about four decades of recordings that I made on anything from two-track reel-to-reel and four-track cassettes, via 2" reels, DATs and adats, to modern digital and they all still sound pretty good. Only "mastering" was usually a bit of volume and fade outs, things like that. I put it down to having relatively good monitoring along the way.

Closest I came to using a professional mastering was probably when my band and I made a vinyl single in '89, and we had no influence over it. Mastering in the old sense; translating from one medium to another.

I had a lively semi-pro studio for over a decade, mind you, recording live bands and having a lot of fun, but I never needed "mastering". Just a little level and limit, and my clients were mostly happy with their CDR copies.
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  #13  
Old 03-12-2021, 06:42 PM
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JCBigler JCBigler is offline
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Default Re: 2 schools of thought in a mix

I don't know why anyone would send out anything less than their absolute best. Granted everyone's mixing skills are all at different levels and a younger engineer may not have the experience that older engineers have, but there's no reason to be lazy with your mix and hope to rely on the mastering engineer to fix all your laziness.

Do the best you can in whatever skill level and situation you are at.
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  #14  
Old 03-13-2021, 03:51 AM
midnightrambler midnightrambler is offline
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Default Re: 2 schools of thought in a mix

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Originally Posted by jcbigler View Post
i don't know why anyone would send out anything less than their absolute best. Granted everyone's mixing skills are all at different levels and a younger engineer may not have the experience that older engineers have, but there's no reason to be lazy with your mix and hope to rely on the mastering engineer to fix all your laziness.

Do the best you can in whatever skill level and situation you are at.
^^^^^^^^^^^
this
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  #15  
Old 03-13-2021, 04:29 AM
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JFreak JFreak is offline
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Default Re: 2 schools of thought in a mix

Quote:
Originally Posted by JCBigler View Post
I don't know why anyone would send out anything less than their absolute best. Granted everyone's mixing skills are all at different levels and a younger engineer may not have the experience that older engineers have, but there's no reason to be lazy with your mix and hope to rely on the mastering engineer to fix all your laziness.

Do the best you can in whatever skill level and situation you are at.
I can only think of someone wanting to have some special processing to single stem -say drum kit for example- and does not have the tools or experience to do it. Delivers stems to mastering and asks ME to do the trick instead of doing half baked job.

Of course, that would be the absolute best of that mixing engineer.
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  #16  
Old 03-13-2021, 06:23 AM
Pete Gates Pete Gates is offline
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Default Re: 2 schools of thought in a mix

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Originally Posted by bonzerboy View Post
Great feed back. From all the info out there and reading things i thought i would ask. here is a follow up question. because most rooms as mine is home I have seen IK has a system you do mic placement and it is supposed to calibrate your system to the room i think. Is this hocus pocus or do these things work.
I have no horse in the race about mastering as I only work in Post (where we essentially are our own mastering engineers). As to systems like IK's ARC though... definitely Not snake oil, it's very good. In an ideal world it should be used in addition to acoustic treatment rather than as a substitute, but I think most domestic studios are compromised acoustically due to size/shape/budget/practicality. I tried ARC and bought it straight away.

Pete
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  #17  
Old 03-13-2021, 12:43 PM
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Default Re: 2 schools of thought in a mix

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Originally Posted by bonzerboy View Post
Great feed back. From all the info out there and reading things i thought i would ask. here is a follow up question. because most rooms as mine is home I have seen IK has a system you do mic placement and it is supposed to calibrate your system to the room i think. Is this hocus pocus or do these things work. Another thing i have seen lately is these plug in supposedly you can mix with head phones to emulate abby road or ocean way studio. Seems like a lot od snake it out there.?

Hi,


These monitor calibration tools can only do so much. You still need some great monitors to start with. it does nothing for reflections and reverb in your room (RT60) and your listening position is going to be very small.


Headphone emulation to me sounds crazy but people are buying it. I guess the current state of the industry is 99.9% of users are now working from home and not in treated rooms!


Work at making your mix sound good without trying to think about mastering and volume and try and find some unmastered references if possible! its difficult but they are out there, as some courses provide unmastered multi's and stems



Chris
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  #18  
Old 03-15-2021, 07:56 AM
Bookerv12 Bookerv12 is offline
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Default Re: 2 schools of thought in a mix

Hi,
I master stuff.
One of the common misconceptions among newer folks is that you put out a mix as best you can and a mastering guy will make it sound spectacular.
If that were the case......
I have been fortunate enough at this point, to be able to only work for people who are pretty darned good at mixing....
Not that I want my job easier, but a lot of common beginner mistakes are eliminated:
#1. Dull, lifeless mix where the guitars are way too loud.
(It is virtually impossible to convince a new guitar player that the level and placement of too many guitars is kind of 4th place in the importance of a song)
#2. Mix was done in a terrible room where mixer has no idea how much boom and overbearing 320hz he/she has.
(Same goes for headphone mixes)
#3. Mixer trying to dazzle master guy with how loud he can make his/her mixes with a chain of limiters that they saw on YouTube. (Usually a he)
(That has not worked yet in any galaxy)
#4. Terrible use of phase based "wideners" in the mix.
(You know you're in trouble when your customer says, "I just discovered a new way to enhance my songs....MS processing")


No....We do not add arbitrary boom and fizz to anything. Our job is to make it
sound good across multiple playback formats. Sometimes, make it loud.
Depending on preferred playback format, you may need a few different versions.


Quite often, I get mixes from people that need no mastering stage.
That's where you want to be.
It is very difficult and there is a lot of planning involved, but you find that the people who do it really give a damn about the song, not the guitars.
They also give the mixes time and listen in different places.
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