Why Mastering Sucks in the 21st Century

This is a rant. If you don't like rants, don't read it.

The first argument goes like this:

1. Mastering is just a matter of balancing tracks with each other using EQ, compression and limiting
2. I can get mastering EQ and compression plugins free with a pint of beer, nowadays
3. Why would I pay someone else to do my mastering ?

The second argument goes like this:

1. No-body buys CDs any more
2. Nobody listens to albums any more
3. Everybody uses mp3 players and crappy earbuds nowadays
4. Why would I pay someone else to do my mastering ?

The third argument goes like this:

1. I sent my last CD off to be mastered, and it came back sounding no different
2. I sent my last CD off to be mastered, and it came back sounding the same but a bit louder
3. I sent my last CD off to be mastered, and it came back sounding absolutely terrible
4. Why would I pay someone else to do my mastering ?

Case closed, right ?

When I started out as a trainee mastering engineer, over 15 years ago, one of the toughest jobs was explaining to people what mastering actually was. In those days it truly was a dark art, costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gear just to obtain admission to the club. Nowadays you rip a few tracks into iTunes, burn a CD and you're a mastering engineer, right ?

Hmm.

My first set of replies goes like this:

1. That's some of what mastering involves, yes. I wrote more about it here.
2. You can buy plugins that say they allow you to do mastering EQ and compression, yes. Why don't the top engineers use them ? Leaving that aside for a minute, do you know how to use the ones you have ? Are your speakers good enough to hear what you're doing with them ? Do you have the experience to know exactly what things should sound like in your genre ? Do you know when it's a mix problem and when it's a mastering problem ? Let's try another tack. As a musician or record label, releasing your music to the world is a bit like having a really important job interview, and you need a new suit. Do you buy the cheapest, or the best you can afford ? Given the choice, would you have one hand-made by a master tailor using the finest quality material to fit and flatter your exact build and body-shape, or would you order one over the internet and hope for the best ?
3. Why would you want someone else to do your mastering ?

My second set of replies goes:

1. Actually over 75% of the music-buying public still want CDs. And soon all downloaded music will be losslessly encoded anyway, so it will sound the same as (or better than) CDs.
2. True, no-one listens to albums any more. Instead, people listen to all their music on shuffle. Before long, all albums will be played at the same average level, as it is on Spotify, so you won't have those annoying jumps in volume, except where you're meant to for loud or quiet tracks. So it will be just as important to have your music correctly balanced in comparison to everything else as it has ever been, if not more so.
3. mp3 players will soon sound as good as CD players - see above. And, crappy speakers or earbuds make everything sound crappy. As did AM radio. As poor-quality vinyl and record decks did. As analogue cassette did. As does DAB radio, and as do mobile phones. What's your point ? If recording high-quality audio was important then, why isn't it important now ? Do you WANT you music to sound crappy ?
4. Why would you want someone else to do your mastering ?

My reply to all three parts of the third argument is:

That's because lots of people who call themselves "mastering engineers" have absolutely no right to the title. Putting it bluntly, they don't have a clue what they're doing, and they fuck it up on a daily basis.

For the last fifteen years, customers from every genre and at every level of the industry have sat and watched and listened to me work, asked questions, and offered opinions. 99% of the time they are delighted with the results, and come back again and again. Some of them have ears every bit as good as mine, and the equipment and skills to do the same things that I do to their music. Why don't they ? Other times I have sent people samples, and heard nothing back. Months later they book in for a session because they found it wasn't as easy as they thought to get the results they wanted, even with my example to copy from.

Who am I, Derren Brown ? Is mastering really the world's most elaborate confidence trick ?

Why would you want someone else to master your music ?

This post was inspired by a thread on the Sound On Sound Mastering Forum. Thanks for listening, I feel better now.

Twitter Interview - An introduction to CD Mastering

Yesterday I did a short Twitter interview with @DIY_Musicians about mastering - it was slightly chaotic but good fun, and the people reading seemed to enjoy it. It may or may not have been the second ever such interview in the UK, if @neil_mccormick's really was the first.

Here is the complete text, in case you missed it.

***

DIY_Musicians: Let's jump straight in, Ian. Q: What is mastering ?

ianshepherd: Mastering is turning a collection of songs into an album - by balancing them, not matching them. Also http://twurl.nl/m8bwvo 

DIY_Musicians: Great link, thank you... I was wondering how you would answer that in only 140 characters :o)

ianshepherd: [Grin] Cheating, technically, I suppose !

DIY_Musicians: Q: What do you actually do ?

ianshepherd: I listen to music, and change it so that I like it better :-) Luckily, my customers agree with me, almost all of the time ! 





DIY_Musicians: Q: What are the most important tools of a Mastering Engineer ? 


ianshepherd: My ears, my experience, the monitoring (speakers), the room, the audio equipment (EQ, compressors, DAW etc) 


DIY_Musicians: Q: What's your favourite piece of audio equipment ? 


ianshepherd: My monitors ! B&W 801s - and I use the TC Electronics System 6000 on nearly every job - great converters, great processing

DIY_Musicians :Anyone interested can find out more via... @tcelectronic

ianshepherd: B&W loudspeakers - @Bowers_Wilkins, More info on mastering monitoring here: http://twurl.nl/pr0hjm)

DIY_Musicians: Q: Why is it so important to have great monitors in a great room ? 


ianshepherd: Because you need to be able to hear *everything* - accurately. Otherwise you risk doing something unnecessary or detrimental 

DIY_Musicians: Knowing what you're listening for is essential. Q: Is DIY mastering possible ?

ianshepherd: It's possible, but hard ! It's difficult to be objective about your own material, and hard to get a good setup on a budget 


DIY_Musicians: Q: But, aren't there lots of mastering plugins now ?

ianshepherd: Yes, but it's all about hearing the music clearly and objectively, and having a vision. You need knowledge as well as tools. 


DIY_Musicians: Q: That's something you can learn, right ? 


ianshepherd: Yes, to a certain extent, but personally I think it's also an instinct. I wrote about it here: http://twurl.nl/gnkiki

DIY_Musicians: Thanks for the link - that's great 

DIY_Musicians: Q: Do you have any hints and tips for people who want to have their music professionally mastered ?

ianshepherd: Yes ! Never let digital meters clip (hit zero). Don't use too much compression. Provide 24-bit files where possible...

ianshepherd: ...leave the tops, tails (fades) and gaps for the ME. Always use dither when processing. Use high-quality converters




DIY_Musicians: Excellent advice. Q: Where can people find out more about mastering ?

ianshepherd: Follow me on Twitter ;-)  http://twurl.nl/b3aohf And, here are two great mastering forums: http://twurl.nl/xb2vhr & http://twurl.nl/xm57pc 


DIY_Musicians: Some cool links to take away for further reading - we like that. Thanks for your time, Ian. We really appreciate your support. 

ianshepherd: You're welcome, thanks for asking me ! 

DIY_Musicians: @ianshepherd also runs the Production Advice site, helping you get a better recording & mix http://twurl.nl/jzxdde

***

If you found this interesting, you might also like to check out this interview I did with Pete Whitfield from the Manchester College.

Feel free to tweet me any questions you may have as a result of this interview, or in fact any questions at all about mastering.

Does Rick Rubin Deserve the "Producer Of The Year" Grammy Award ?

It just had to happen.

I knew it would happen.

And then it happened, about an hour ago, right there in my Twitter stream:

What may surprise you, though, is that I'm perfectly happy with this decision. 

Even though Rubin produced Metallica's "Death Magnetic" - arguably one of the worst-sounding records ever made.

Even though some may use this as evidence to say he was right to do so, or that "Death Magnetic" actually sounds OK (It doesn't).

And even though he also produced albums for Weezer and Ours, both also pointlessly loud and crushed, in the mistaken belief that this sounds better on iPod headphones, in cars or on computers. (It doesn't)

Why ? Because being a Producer is much more than deciding how an album sounds.

A producer also works with the band on:

• Composition
• Performance
• Arrangement
• Subject, Feel, Mood, Motivation, Pace, Atmosphere...

- and many many other, less tangible aspects of the recording process. 

I'll be talking about issues like this in much greater depth on my new site (coming soon !) but as far as this particular producer is concerned, it's also worth saying that Rubin is not an engineer. It has often been commented that his input into a record is much more about things like those in the list above, than how the record actually sounds. (In fact, the engineer responsible for actually pushing "Death Magnetic" into the red is Greg Fidelman, chosen by the band, not Rubin.)

On these musical terms, fans and critics alike are unanimous that "Death Magnetic" is a huge success. Rubin coaxed some of the best songs and performances in years from Metallica, making it a true return to form, and a huge commercial success for them as a result. In this sense his award is fully deserved.

And clearly he knows Good Sound when he hears it - he is a self-professed audiophile who listens to a startlingly wide range of music. Just take a listen to two other albums he produced in 2008 - Neil Diamond's "Home Before Dark" and Jakob Dylan's "Seeing Things". Both sound fantastic (not at all distorted!) and are also highly acclaimed - along with a string of other albums through a long and very successful career.

So I would like to take the opportunity to be one of the first to congratulate Rick Rubin on his Grammy, and to say again that I fully support the decision to award it to him.

I just hope his next album doesn't sound like "Death Magnetic".

Edit to add - I just noticed that Nigel Godrich was also up for this award, for his work on "In Rainbows". Did Rubin deserve to win over and above Nigel ? Hm...

The Ten Most Distorted Tunes In Music History

Distortion is the Jekyll and Hyde of recorded music. Strictly speaking it's a fault, but the terrible truth is - we love it.

Don't believe me ? Open your ears and listen around - the evidence is everywhere.

Here's a list of ten highly distorted songs -

 some sound great, some don't. Some are deliberate, some may not be. What is certain is that not everybody will agree about which is which...

Where possible I've linked to online previews of each song, so you can hear them for yourself.

The Beatles "Revolution" - The Beatles didn't invent distortion, but they sure as hell brought it to the masses, most famously in this scorching track from the White Album. Instead of mic-ing up an amp as they usually did, in this case George's guitar was plugged straight into the desk - a technique now commonly known as direct injection, or DI-ing. However it overloaded the sensitive input and distorted wildly. This fantastic, powerful sound combined with Ringo's heavily compressed and limited drums, drives the song along at a frantic rate. Listening to it, it's hard to believe that the same band had released "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yesterday" only two years before.

Oasis - "Some Might Say" - From their massively successful album "What's The Story Morning Glory", which is one of the first heavyweight casualties of the modern so-called Loudness Wars - in fact, some might say (hah!) it was the tipping point at which the trend for loudness at the expense of audio quality began to accelerate out of control. Ironically, even though at times it is just as loud as Metallica's "Death Magnetic" - arguably the current benchmark of crap sound on CD - it often sounds less blatantly distorted.

Primal Scream "Accelerator" from "Xtrmntr". This is the most distorted song I know. If you know better, please tell me ! It's incredibly, unbelievably, fantastically, extraordinarily distorted. And it's great. It's a deliberate, inspired artistic choice, (as you can tell from the relatively clean vocals) and the way it actually gets even more distorted as the song progresses. Many will find this unlistenable - it just makes me giggle.

Iggy & The Stooges "Search and Destroy" - from 1973's "Raw Power". Often cited as the loudest CD ever made, the 1997 re-master of this classic album divides opinion - Iggy was unhappy with the sound of the original 1989 release and supervised this one himself; critics say it's worse than the original. What's certain is - it's very loud and VERY distorted.

John Mayal & The Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton - "Key To Love" from "Bluesbreakers". This album is often cited as the first time anyone heard what has now become an "industry standard" guitar sound - a Gibson Les Paul, heavily overdriven through a Marshall amp. In fact we are so used to the sound of distorted electric guitars these days that many people simply don't realise the sound is distorted at all - but the beautiful crunchy, warm valve amp sound is unmistakable, and still impossible to emulate by other means, even today.

The Wildhearts "Why You Lie" from "Endless Nameless" - Legendarily nasty-sounding, the reasons for this album's distinctive sound are unclear. Every interview with the band seems to bring a different explanation, ranging from claiming it was "the sound of drugs [and] frustration at how dysfunctional our band was", through through stories that it was deliberate sabotage as revenge on their record company, to a simple "we were sick of hearing limp-wristed rock albums, and ...we went completely over the top". Certainly it's true that they "destroyed a few when mixing, and usually used the f**ked up tracks "...

Underworld "Rez" (Single) It was only when I heard the rendition of this track on the live DVD "Everything Everything" that it hit me - the signature lead synth sound of this track, the thing that makes it what it is - is pure distortion. Right at the end of the live version, the amazing, fuzzy, glittering sound gradually softens, smooths and clears into a pure, soft, flute-like synth sound, bearing no relation whatever to the rest of the track. They've turned it down, so it stops distorting. Without distortion, this tune would be nothing.

Metallica "The Day That Never Comes" from "Death Magnetic" What, you thought I wouldn't mention it ?! I've already written and said far to much about this album and it's heavily distorted sound - suffice to say it's not big, not clever, and sounds rubbish, in many people's opinion. Moving swiftly on...

Take That "Patience" from "Beautiful World". Pointless. Just ridiculous. "Death Magnetic" was a production decision, and in my opinion a bad one. I've no idea where the level was pushed too far on this album, but it's just inexplicable. Take That make polite, well-crafted, clean, classic pop tunes. So why does this album sound thick, fuzzy, and smushed ? [Shakes head]

The Beatles "I Am The Walrus" From the frankly ridiculous back to the simply sublime, and also where we started; with the band whose output almost forms a textbook of production techniques and creative recording for modern music, and another example of how distortion can be exactly what a song needs. As Ian MacDonald describes in his outstanding book "Revolution in the Head", this apparently playful nonsense song can actually be seen as desperate, defensive satire, and the distorted lead vocal fits this perfectly - even though it is probably mic distortion and so may have been a mistake. But there is other distortion here, notably on the electric piano at the start, backing vocals later and finally the gorgeous, quintessentially analogue detuning fizz and sweep of the live radio overdubs during the outro...

Distortion can literally make or break a track, but in the right hands it can be a delicate, beautiful thing. What songs are are your favourite distorted tracks, and why ?

( Thanks to the people who helped with suggestions and info for this post way back in November - Simon, @robgoldie, @fakesensations, @solarosa, @dperis, @ihatemornings and others. If I've forgotten you, remind me ! )

 

Happy Christmas !

Just a quick post to wish everyone reading this blog (who celebrate it) a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year !

I'm excited at the moment because I'm working on new project which some of you may be interested in - it's early days yet but you'll all be the first to know when it goes live.

It's challenging and exciting, which is just the way things should be.

Let's hope the New Year brings plenty of great music, mixed and mastered at sane levels, and sounding fantastic !

I'll be off-line for most of Christmas, but I have several posts in the pipeline - watch this space. See you all in a couple of weeks !

The Future Of Music Composition ?

Get this widget!

How does realtime video collaboration with hundreds of contributors all around the world sound ? Could this be the future of music composition ?

Well, perhaps not quite yet, but it certainly made for an entertaining evening's viewing - and will continue to on future evenings, until the 24th of December.

I'm talking about the current Christmas Special run of internet show Rise and Shine TV - 

"a live show, in which songwriters face the daily challenge of writing a song based on news and current events. The songwriters get to choose what song they are writing - but audience suggestions are always welcome. It’s a tough ask, writing an original topical song from scratch in under three hours, and we need all the help we can get."

This evening, Ben Walker (him what wrote The Twitter Song) got plenty of help from his live audience, via the Mogulus chat interface, as over the three hour running-time, the initial concept of a song called "Christmas Volcano" gradually morphed into soon-to-be-christmas-hit "Magma Lady" - click on the play button in the widget above to hear it yourself.

The brilliance of this concept only really becomes apparent when you watch the show itself and start to interact - Ben, admirably simultaneously wielding guitar, keyboard and macbook while fielding comments and writing a song, would pause in mid sentence and mutter something like "a name, he needs a name", at which point suggestions would come flooding in, (along with links to Wikipedia articles on volcanoes) and you just can't help chipping in yourself.

It's addictive stuff, remarkably slick, and very high-tech - the show's producer Dean Whitbread (him what does John Cleese's podcasts) can choose to switch between multiple camera angles at the location, and also to himself or a live presenter - Christophe Delire, based (of course) in Belgium. Although, in pleasingly "live TV" fashion, nuts 'n' bolts are still in evidence - both Ben and Christophe received phone-calls while the show was on air. (Ben's was from his Mum, who may also be his manager. "Hi Mum, I'm live on the internet...")

My favourite chat suggestion of the evening was for the potential refrain "hot magma mama", which somehow got lost along the way, regrettably, along with my idea that the song's subject, a lonely geologist, would discover Santa's grotto while drilling for a magma chamber in Iceland. Or, at one point, Hawaii. 

However, I did leave one indelible mark on the evening's proceedings - I contributed the geologist's name: Derek.

The show got a great reception, and I for one will be eagerly tuning in again tomorrow evening to see what lies in store, and I recommend you do, too. The shows start at 7pm GMT - Twitter users can follow @riseandshinetv for updates and a heads-up when the show starts. Meanwhile there is an archive of the first series of Rise and Shine's TV output here.

*Stop Press* Watch the show again here: http://riseandshine.tv/ben-walker/ (but it's not the same without the live chat ;-)

 

The Loudness War Is Over - If We Want It

The Loudness Wars are over. The tide has turned. The massive backlash against the crushed, distorted sound of Metallica's Death Magnetic has had exactly the impact we all wanted.

Want proof ? Guns 'n' Roses' new CD, "Chinese Democracy", has been mastered by industry legend Bob Ludwig, who offered the producers three different masters, and they chose the most dynamic version.

In an article on his website, Bob says

I was floored when I heard they decided to go with my full dynamics version and the loudness-for-loudness-sake versions be damned.

and goes on to explain:

I think the fan and press backlash against the recent heavily compressed recordings finally set the context for someone to take a stand and return to putting music and dynamics above sheer level...

...I’m hoping that Chinese Democracy will mark the beginning of people returning to sane levels and musicality triumphing over distortion and grunge. I have already seen a new awareness and appreciation for quality from some other producers, I pray it is the end of the level wars.

Bob isn't the only one to see a change, though. Mastering engineers have been commenting on the Gearslutz Mastering forum and elsewhere that since the publicity surrounding the release of "Death Magnetic" more and more people are asking

"Please don't do a 'Metallica' on my record"

I've seen it myself too - recently I called a long-time customer to suggest that his latest CD would sound better with a few dBs more headroom - I said "I realise you'll probably disagree with this, but in my opinion it's too loud" - and he replied "I know" !

That had never happened before.

But it will happen more and more, from now on. Despite Metallica's unconvincing insistence that they are happy with the way Rick Rubin produced "Death Magnetic", over 80% of fans responding to a poll on their forums think that it should be remixed. Over 18,000 people have signed the online petition. Only a handful of the 280,000 who have viewed the YouTube comparison video say they prefer the CD version.

And what about "Chinese Democracy" ? One of the most expensive and anticipated rock albums in recent years ? Against all expectations, it has been produced and mastered with dynamics, punch and power. The average A-weighted RMS loudness is around -16 dBFS, and as a result it "jumps out of the speakers" at you in a way that "Death Magnetic" never will. Check out a preview of the first track on Last.fm - listen to the way the guitars pile in at 1'26" and then again at 2'10" and then again at 3'36" - you just can't achieve that kind of buzz and build with an RMS of -4 dB.

Here are some predictions for "Chinese Democracy":

• It will sell by the bucket-load (head?!) even though it hasn't been smashed to hell
• No-one will complain that it's too quiet
• It will sound fantastic (and loud) on the radio, because it's dynamic and punchy
• No-one will start a petition to have a crushed and distorted re-release made

Hats off to Bob and the team behind Guns 'n' Roses, and here's to a future of better-sounding music.

Turn It Up

Please use the Digg or Stumble buttons below if you enjoyed this post and would like to publicise the issue of the Loudness Wars !

How to shoot a film for free

For a blog whose blurb claims to be about a "Mastering engineer and DVD Author" there's been very little about DVD and films here! Here's a post to redress that balance slightly.

One of my favourite DVD projects of recent years is Greg Hall's magnificent cult triumph "The Plague". SRT created a new 5.1 upmix and re-master of the original stereo soundtrack, plus a new upscaled master tape for the film's digital cinema debut in Covent Garden, and later the authoring of the DVD, all under the watchful eye of Tom Swanston from WYSIWYG Films.

Originally shot on mini-DV for only £3500 (!!!), "The Plague" is a fantastic mix of black humour, social commentary and improvised drama, and has won awards and garnered praise from all corners, not least none other than Mike Leigh, who said

"It's anarchic, crazy, kind of rough-edged and raw, but it's got an amazing energy, and it embraces white kids, black kids, Asian kids, kids up to no good, boys and girls out on the street. It's a full length film, made low budget, so it's absolutely a gang of people getting together with great imagination and wit, and a bunch of talented actors. It pulsates with energy."

We were all proud to be involved with it (and had a great time at the premier!)  Meanwhile Greg went on to direct "Kapital" for the Man

chester International Film Festival, a bold collaboration with composer Steve Martland, and is currently working on "Bash The Rich", an autobiography of Ian Bone, as well as numerous smaller projects. I highly recommend his blog, Broke But Making Films as a great, inspiring read for any would-be indie film producer, but his latest venture will be particularly exciting to follow, I think.

After his "naive" success making the Plague for such a tiny budget, Greg has decided to make his third feature film for no money at all. No, I don't know how this is supposed to work, either! As he says it's a "slightly mad" idea, but if anyone can do it, Greg can - he has "the equipment, the crew, the actors, the determination and the mad glare in my eyes to be able to do this" - and my bet is that the results will be inspirational.

Best of all, he will be blogging it for our education and enjoyment. As he says in his latest post:

I will blog and keep a video diary of the whole journey. We will show the improvisation period that is often kept secretive, the madness of shooting on no money, the turbulent editing process and the possible festival circuit and uk cinematic release of the film. Everything you need to know on how to - or possibly how not to - make a no-budget feature film.

As anyone who has checked out the fantastic extras on the DVD of The Plague will know, coming from Greg this is no idle claim. I for one will be keeping a sharp eye on his RSS feed in the coming weeks and months, I hope you will too.

And you could do worse than rent or buy a copy of "The Plague", while you're at it, too!

Radio 4 discussing Death Magnetic and the Loudness War

I will be taking part today in BBC Radio 4's consumer affairs show, "You and Yours". They are doing a short item discussing the controversy over the distorted sound of Metallica's "Death Magnetic" CD and the Loudness Wars, focusing on the unprecedented reaction of the fans who are unhappy about the way the disc sounds.

I'll be wearing my "boffin" hat and providing technical background and there will also be audio examples and interviews with fans, I believe.

Update: Just got back from recording my interview - it was basically done live, so I heard the whole "item" from beginning to end. I managed to say most of the things I wanted to (I think, it's a bit of a blur !) and the interviews with the fans were excellent. It's a hell of a lot of information to pack into 10 minutes of radio, but I think it really gets the message across, I hope all the fans agree.

Updated update: Well, having listened to the programme I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. I said more of what I wanted to than I remembered straight after the recording ! Thanks to Joel Moors at the BBC for doing such a sterling job putting the piece together, and to John Waite (the presenter) for making it such a painless process.

Update #3: Click play to listen to the clip here:

The show will be also available for a week on the "You and Yours" website here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/

Look for the "Listen Again" section on the right-hand side and choose Friday's programme. Drag the slider to around 42 minutes to hear the item.

Find Interesting People On Twitter

Something a little different. You may have noticed the link on the right-hand side of this blog saying Follow Me On Twitter. If you already use Twitter that will make perfect sense to you, but if not here's a great article on what Twitter is, and why you might want to use it:

Making The Most Of Twitter

Anyway at the moment I'm quite addicted to Twitter, but like many people I found it tricky to get started, because I found it difficult to know who to follow. With millions of people using the service every day, I found finding people with common interests a little like hunting for a needle in a haystack, and to some extent I still do. However I've picked up some clues along the way, and decided to share them with the world on a Squidoo lens page:

How To Find Interesting People On Twitter

- which includes what I hope is a clever idea to make it easier to find people with common interests in future. Please check it out and let me know what you think.

Normal service will resume shortly...

What is Mastering ?

The art of mastering for CD and DVD evolved directly from the process of "cutting" a lacquer for vinyl pressing, and involves many of the same concepts. But what actually is it ?

Here are some possible definitions of mastering:

• Creating a production master for replication
• Achieving an optimal balance of tone and level
  
• Gaining the benefit of an experienced, impartial ear
• Top/tailing and sequencing
  
• Fixing any outstanding problems from a mix
  
• Making your music sound the best it can be
  
• Making it f-ing loud !
  

So, which one is right? Well, all of them, to varying degrees - except the last one. My favourite explanation is this one:

Mastering is the art of making a collection of tracks into an album (*)

(*) or single, or compilation, or podcast, or catalogue...

This is achieved by one or more of several techniques. As well as technical tasks like ensuring the best transfer from the source and creation of a suitable master, these may include:

• Level adjustments, often using a limiter or compressor
• Equalisation (EQ) to achieve a natural, balanced sound - broadly speaking the right amount of bass and treble, but also much more detailed adjustments, for example to remove unnatural resonance or build-up at certain frequencies, or perceptually improve limitations of the mix. Common examples might include adding "air", or "punch", or adding "edge" to guitars, for example
• Correction of faults - for example removal of clicks, pops or thumps, buzz, hum etc.
  
• Detailed sound restoration - usually only necessary on "vintage" sources, can include removal of vinyl clicks, hiss & distortion etc.
• Stereo image adjustments - this is less common, but may involve widening the stereo image, or (occasionally) adding reverb

Exactly which of these is needed varies from album to album, and even track to track. Some jobs need major surgery, a very few I've ended copying flat from the source. In the later case, did I actually master them? Yes - because I listened carefully, in a dedicated studio using exceptional monitoring, and used my ears and experience to determine that nothing extra was needed. (Actually, more often than not we can spot a source this good within a few minutes of beginning to listen, in which case we contact the artist and offer them the chance of a Direct Transfer instead, so they don't pay for something they don't need.) Deciding to do nothing at all on one or two tracks is just as valid a mastering decision as any other.

However there is still lots of room for confusion and debate. Should mastering engineers:

• Use the minimum possible processing, and keep everything as close as possible to the original material
• Preserve the artist's original vision
• Pull out all the stops to transform a source into what it always "should have been"
• Preserve the original's dynamic range and impact
• Use EQ and compression to achieve major increases in level
• Make everything fit their "trademark sound" ?

Once again my answer is "all of the above" except the last one. This may seem contradictory - surely some of them are in direct opposition to each other ? Not really - because an element of the mastering engineer's skill-set which doesn't often get talked about is intuition. With almost every source I play, I can hear where the artist or engineer was "trying to get" within minutes or seconds. I can hear what they're trying to achieve, and I see my job as trying to help them get there. Using minimal processing, if possible but if not by throwing the kitchen sink at it, and all combinations in between - always staying true to the original mix.

The issue of levels and compression is a good example of this - there are lots of easily available limiter and compressor plugins now, but many of people complain that they ruin the sound. Mastering engineers use very similar tools to achieve their results, and claim that they make things sound better. How can both be true? Partly because there is still a distinction between the tools - mastering studios typically spend thousands of pounds on a single compressor, whereas for the same money you can buy an entire suite of plugins - but also because we are constantly honing our skills to use the tools transparently, and our listening environment to be able to hear when it's working. To some extent, the skill of a mastering engineer is to achieve an appropriate level for every track , sometimes reducing the dynamic range in the process, but make it sound as if the final result is actually more dynamic. Or to make major EQ adjustments, without changing the essential qualities of the original.

So, you might ask - what's the point of paying for something that can be so subtle ? There are several answers to this:

• Often it's not that subtle ! If I'm doing my job, the mastered version will simply be better than the original, while retaining everything that was good about it.
• Where the difference is less obvious, it will only be difficult to hear when level-matched. The importance of increasing the level of a track to it's own particular "sweet spot", without pushing it over the top, is hard to over-emphasise. Doing this for all of the tracks in an album, and getting them balanced perfectly against each other in their final sequence is even more important and valuable. This needs to be done with great care and skill though - it's almost impossible to achieve this simply by pushing the level up into a plugin.
• Ideally, the differences should be subtle. A truly great mix only needs the slightest of tweaks, but even these minor adjustments, over the course of a whole album, add up until the sum is greater than the parts.

As I type this I'm struck again by the inherent contradictions of the job. It requires you to be entirely humble - I start every session by listening carefully to the source and thinking "what's good about this ?"; but also supremely arrogant, making changes to a mix that someone has sweated blood over for perhaps weeks or months. It requires deep technical knowledge, but many of the judgements made are largely aesthetic and artistic. It means knowing when something ain't broke and not trying to fix it, but also knowing when to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty...

What is mastering ? Has this post helped explain it at all ? Who knows...

CD & DVD on the same disc

Richard Durrant's DAVD discs arrived today - CD audio on one side, DVD on the other of a single disc. This is a format I've been wanting to promote for years, back when the only option was DualDisc, but manufacturing costs plus licensing and compatibility issues put paid to that.

But all that is history now, and you can get a DAVD pressed up for only 60% more than a normal CD. That's incredible value, compared to a 2-disc CD and DVD package which costs more than twice as much, including the packaging. And as a format it beats Enhanced CDs hands down, if you ask me.

So, what are you waiting for ?!

And, speaking of Richard, here is a video of his single-handed live performance of one of my favourite things, Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint, a piece for 12 guitars... prepare to boggle.

Next post DIY Mastering #4 - Speakers

Discroom - a new DVD site

Just a quick post linking to Discroom - a new site with help and information for DVD authors, put together by my good friend and fellow DVDAfterEdit user Jake Russell. It's just getting going at the moment but it's certain to become a treasure-trove of useful information as time goes by. I met Jake at the NAB show in 2004 when we were both demoing DVDAE v2, and we've stayed in touch ever since. Discroom is concentrating mainly on DVD Studio Pro, part of Apple's Final Cut Studio package, which we use at SRT for many of our DVD titles. I think I'm going to keep things here focused pretty tightly on mastering, but anyone interested in DVD authoring on a Mac should definitely check Discroom out - for example, his latest post is about authoring a simple "play and stop" DVD.

Galactic Symphonies - Kaoss Pads and Poetry

So, Richard's session proved to be even more fun than I expected ! The project was a collaboration with unique 60's poet-lyricist Stephen Kalinich, and comprised a fascinating improvised mixture of Kaoss Pad manipulated soundscapes, gentle acoustic guitar numbers and full-on almost-rap sections. Where things got really interesting is that the release is to be a double-sided disc - CD on one side and DVD on the other, so we had a studio recording to master, plus a live performance for the DVD.

Initially Richard had thought of the live version as more of a bonus to the CD release, and anticipated spending less time on a "rough cut" master. However since the recordings were made he had started to enjoy the live performances more and more, and decided to spend more time on them. At the end of mastering the studio version I gave him a brief demo of how the live performance would sound if we converted it to surround-sound using the System 6000's "unwrap" capabilities, and he was hooked. The processing he uses on the live guitars, especially the Kaoss Pad (*), worked fantastically well with the unwrap, creating a really convincing 3D soundscape. So an extra day was booked and now there will be 3 versions on the disc - studio stereo on the CD, and live stereo and surround-sound on the DVD.

(*) Richard uses two of these while performing - "playing" them with his toes !

Where I'm At

So here it is - my first post - written while copying sources for a new Paul Weller box set one of our customers is putting together. Sadly it all comes from 16-bit CDRs rather than hi-res files or original tapes, but it's still a pretty cool project. I probably won't get to master it, unfortunately, since we have some DVDs coming in which need authoring and I'm commited to a large Interactive Whiteboard CD-ROM as of next week, but I know Simon will do a great job. On the other hand, once the sources are compiled in the right order they'll get sent away for approval by Universal, and that will take a while, so perhaps I'll be free by then. I'll have to fight him for it...

Looking forward to Richard Durrant's session on Monday - it sounds very different to the bonkers "Horse" album he produced for John Douglas Clark, which we worked on before Christmas. ( "...half album, half sound installation... described variously as 'Ivor Cutler meets Pink Floyd' and 'John Shuttleworth meets Prof. Stanley Unwin' " ) And, I'm really looking forward to working with Christine Tobin again next month - I was really pleased with the way her fellow artist and partner Phil Robson's album "Six Strings and the Beat" turned out last month, despite both of us struggling with the after-effects of flu. And looking forward to getting copies of the Opeth "Still Life" DVD - progressive Swedish Black Metal wouldn't necessarily normally be my listening material of choice, but Jens at Fascination Street did such a great job on the new 5.1 surround mixes, the band play really well and the menus came out nicely, though I say so myself. Plus I'm sure the packaging will be highly decadent, which should be fun.

So that's "where I'm at" at the moment - I think future posts will have updates on these and other interesting or enjoyable projects, plus ramblings on subjects like Mastering and DVD authoring - for example Blu Ray's so-called victory in the "Format Wars" and what it means for our customers who want to release in hi-def - and indeed if HD on disc is going to be a success at all, or go the way of SACD and DVD Audio...

Currently I am listening to "Seventh Tree" by Goldfrapp and loving it...