Gear / Technical Help > Post-Processing, Computer / Streaming / Internet Devices & Related Activity

Order of applied effects in the remastering process

(1/5) > >>

fandelive:
Hello,

I've been trying to remaster my own live concert tapes within the last couple of years. So far I've gently experienced with a bit of EQ, Compressor, Hard-Limiter and De-clicker (hand clappers; can't blame them), Normalizer, ...
I also surgically applied a volume lowering effect (can't remember the name of that effect, please help!) on the woooooooo-ers to limit (wait, is that effect called a limiter?) their negative impact on the music.

I know the quality of the final product also depends on the order in which you apply each of those effects within the post-processing chain... and that's where I'm a bit lost.
So, how would you proceed? What effects do you like to use and in what order in the chain?

Thanks!
-fandelive

opsopcopolis:
There’s sort of an accepted order of operations, but not necessarily a right or wrong way to do it. My personal preference is EQ first, then dynamic processing (compression/limiting), then normalize if you want to. You can think about it in terms of how each process effects the next one; you don’t want to be compressing based on frequency content that you’ll be removing (hence dynamics after EQ) and you don’t want the normalize algorithm to process based on peaks that will be removed by comp/limiting/de-click (hence normalize at the end.)

All that said, if you’re using a limiter correctly, you shouldn’t need to normalize after. Set the out ceiling to something like -.1db and push the input gain until you’re limiting the stuff you’re hoping to limit.

nulldogmas:

--- Quote from: opsopcopolis on June 18, 2022, 10:18:52 AM ---There’s sort of an accepted order of operations, but not necessarily a right or wrong way to do it. My personal preference is EQ first, then dynamic processing (compression/limiting), then normalize if you want to. You can think about it in terms of how each process effects the next one; you don’t want to be compressing based on frequency content that you’ll be removing (hence dynamics after EQ) and you don’t want the normalize algorithm to process based on peaks that will be removed by comp/limiting/de-click (hence normalize at the end.)

--- End quote ---

Yep, same here. De-clicking can take place pretty much anywhere in the process, but I prefer to do it first only so that if I end up re-EQing, I don't have to re-de-click, since that part is the most time-consuming.

And I always do EQ while leaving some headroom, so that I don't have to worry about some frequency boost leading to clipping, then normalize after. I usually apply extremely light dynamic compression for just the loudest stray peaks before normalizing — just eyeball the range that 99% of the music is within, then do like a 4:1 ratio for everything over that.

vibrioidxire:
Always EQ before any type of limiting/compression. If you EQ a frequency that was limited in a compressor, the audio can sound super trapped in a way.

nassau73:
Personally, I prefer to make a copy of my master recording first.

Then, I go through and track each song as I go - at the same time, working on processing the screams and clapping as I go. In the end, I have a "tracked and cleaned" copy that I can now try various EQ or whatever post processing I want to try.

Thing is - when I come back a day or two later, if I don't like the way my post processing effort sounds, I just go back to the "tracked and cleaned" version to try again.

For me, this saves alot of time since now I have a base copy to work with that's pretty much the original master track with the basic cleanup already taken care of. In the past, I'd get all the processing done, then track and clean and decide I didn't like the result and then go back and do everything all over again.

At this point once I believe I’ve repaired any perceived shortcomings in RX, I’ll switch over to Ozone to try various post processing.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page