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Author Topic: Remaster my recording?  (Read 7623 times)

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Offline Scooter123

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #15 on: September 28, 2022, 04:46:29 PM »
If you have a list of your DATs, please post them!  There are 3-4 folks here who will transfer them digitally for you for free, depending on the band. 
Regards,
Scooter123

mk41 > N Box  > Sony M-10
mk4 > N Box > Sony M-10

Offline morst

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #16 on: September 28, 2022, 11:00:07 PM »
i have asked this question on another forum in the past. i would think you need a flat response monitor(s). what speaker(s) does everyone use? on the other site, someone used headphones instead of speakers.
I prefer a "front loaded" three-way speaker system without ports or horns (soft dome tweeter), or alternately a two-way system plus subwoofer, but I was not satisfied with my ported subwoofer so I went back to the three-ways.
Mine are a/d/s "monitor" speakers, model M-12.
I also compare with headphones using the Sony V6 (my second pair but I got my first pair in 1990!) and I find them to sound very much the same as my speakers, inasmuch as I know what part I am hearing is the speakers and what part is the signal.
You could get acclimated to *any* full-range system, but it's a good practice while learning to test your mixes on many kinds of playback devices until you figure it out. Everything from a mono cube speaker, to a car stereo, to a laptop, to an audiophile system... boom box, check one of your favorite recordings on EVERYTHING, so you can really hear what you are getting.
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Offline daspyknows

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #17 on: September 29, 2022, 02:03:23 AM »
You guys are awesome, I learned so much (and now have a reference for when I forget).  I miss the days where I could skip class and spend all day on trial and error.  For now, I have a replicable process to get these recordings out and shared before I forget about it or get too busy.  Thanks!  One day I'll go through my closet of DATs and finally share some of those. 


https://archive.org/details/twod2022-09-26

Thanks again!

Great band.  Need to give this a listen.  Caught them at Hyde Park and Rock Werchter this past summer.

mountainhop

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #18 on: September 29, 2022, 04:36:22 AM »
not a bad recording. has a distant sound. assuming it was taken near FOH per the pic, i would prob try mk41s or absent those, a PAS pattern vs whatever was used there (which sounds to be 90 degrees or more)

in any case, you are at the mercy of the FOH engineer. GIGO.

Offline rumbleseat

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #19 on: September 29, 2022, 07:27:57 AM »

This is an excellent point and you are right, I’m really just talking about raw file processing, not true mastering.  I just want to efficiently spend an hour after a show normalizing, eq, etc., cutting tracks and uploading to archive.org.   I’m in no way qualified nor have the ear to do much more…..

There are two schools on posting shows - You're leaning toward what I call the "cut and post" school.  That can be done in an hour.  But some other folks labor for hours to make the recording sound as good as possible.
I'm in the latter school and typically burn about 8 hours getting the show to where I want it.  To do so, you'll need either sophisticated software or Audacity and a raft of plugins such as a spectrum analyzer (e.g. Voxengo SPAN), variable single channel delay (Voxengo Sound Delay), compression (Reaper Tools Reacomp and Reaxcomp), notch filters for feedback (Reaper Reaeq), bass centering (Tone Projects Basslane or Sanford Bass Tightener), stereo flipping (MAAT 2GusControl) and  maybe more.
If you go this route, you'll need a good listening setup as others have pointed out.  It's best to check on several different playback systems.  Don't laugh, but if a recording doesn't sound good rolling down the road in my 2013 Dodge Grand Caravan, then it isn't finished.

How about picking one of the songs from your TWOD show and have a mastering bakeoff?
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Offline krowllaw

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #20 on: September 29, 2022, 07:51:36 AM »
not a bad recording. has a distant sound. assuming it was taken near FOH per the pic, i would prob try mk41s or absent those, a PAS pattern vs whatever was used there (which sounds to be 90 degrees or more)

in any case, you are at the mercy of the FOH engineer. GIGO.
Thank you.  Yes, that was the mk4 in XY.  Would love a pair of mk41s!  I put it where I could (corner of the soundboard) but this venue has noise ordinances and a curfew so it isn't that loud and closer would have been much better.

There are two schools on posting shows - You're leaning toward what I call the "cut and post" school.  That can be done in an hour.  But some other folks labor for hours to make the recording sound as good as possible.
I'm in the latter school and typically burn about 8 hours getting the show to where I want it.  To do so, you'll need either sophisticated software or Audacity and a raft of plugins such as a spectrum analyzer (e.g. Voxengo SPAN), variable single channel delay (Voxengo Sound Delay), compression (Reaper Tools Reacomp and Reaxcomp), notch filters for feedback (Reaper Reaeq), bass centering (Tone Projects Basslane or Sanford Bass Tightener), stereo flipping (MAAT 2GusControl) and  maybe more.
Thank you, I'll check out the audacity plugins!

I've learned a lot in this thread, thanks!


Offline Scooter123

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #21 on: September 29, 2022, 11:49:06 AM »
I have a couple contrary thoughts

First, given the OP's desire for a quick and dirty master to upload, an 8 hour session by a guy with gobs of experience on this type of software and plug ins, probably means 50+ hours for the OP.  My plug ins often have multiple versions of the same type, like 3-4 EQs, 2-3 Compressors and Limiters, not to mention RX7's Spectral program, which takes 25+ hours just to figure out. 

Second, like others, I go with headphones for most of the process, because I honestly do not want the room or a specific speaker to add color to the mix.  As for a Dodge Caravan, well funny you should mention that--I have a pair of Auratones, little 4" drivers in my stack.  I know if the mix sounds good over those rascals and sounds good on headphones, it will sound pretty darn good.  These under appreciated speakers have a storied history as mixing monitors, often as a primary speaker for mixing.  See:  https://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/111/5c-super-sound-cube-speaker/    https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/auratone-5c-super-sound-cube  Indeed Tom Dowd mixed Layla with these little speakers, and some help from  JBL Monitors. 

Anyway, not to make any one's opinion wrong, there are many ways to accomplish a mix, and no single "right" way, but I thought I would offer a contrary opinion. 
Regards,
Scooter123

mk41 > N Box  > Sony M-10
mk4 > N Box > Sony M-10

Offline krowllaw

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #22 on: September 29, 2022, 11:59:23 AM »
I use the BeyerDynamic DT 770 pro 250 ohm headphones and have been very happy with them.  They work fine for some simple EQ, normalize, etc. for me. 

Again, appreciate the helpful dialogue!

Offline Scooter123

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #23 on: September 29, 2022, 12:08:50 PM »
Yep, most headphones have a very flat response
Regards,
Scooter123

mk41 > N Box  > Sony M-10
mk4 > N Box > Sony M-10

Offline capnhook

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #24 on: September 29, 2022, 12:40:32 PM »
Yep, most headphones have a very flat response

Very FLAT?  I call bullshit.

Sennheiser HD600, one of the de-facto monitoring cans.




Here's a great resource, with graphs for hundreds of headphones....

https://crinacle.com/graphs/headphones/




« Last Edit: September 29, 2022, 12:49:36 PM by capnhook »
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mountainhop

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #25 on: September 29, 2022, 02:06:39 PM »
Yep, most headphones have a very flat response

Very FLAT?  I call bullshit.


yeah "flat" is a poor choice of words for headphones. all of them exhibit responses like those above

speakers/ monitors as well, for what its worth

i dont think people understand the amount of engineering correction that goes into designing microphones that have flat frequency response. Particularly in regard to directional mics which are a compromise in range. as the selection of the upper frequency response affects the lower frequency response

Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #26 on: September 29, 2022, 03:06:55 PM »
Headphones have a notoriously non-flat response, partly on purpose!  They actually cannot be flat if seeking to provide something that emulates flat response, due to close-coupling with the ear.. complicated by the fact that everyone's ear shape and ear-canal resonance is different.  No single headphone on its own could work for everyone.. and that is true to a degree far greater than any one pair of speaker monitors (where there exists plenty of subjectivity in which may be sufficiently accurate and right enough to do the job).

Headphones are great for hearing detail and doing initial editing stuff, and can work fine for the "cut and post" school of recording processing as rumbleseat refers to it.  Great for aligning, hearing problematic stuff, making fades, placing track markers, etc. All the things that basically translate automatically to any other listener using any other playback system.

If you learn to "know them" well enough, headphones can work okay for general EQ correction (addressing obvious problems) and dynamics, but be careful going too far with those. Those things do not automatically translate to other listeners and systems.  EQ correction is the most powerful and generally useful tool tapers have available to them, capable of turning something meh or even yuck, into a wow.  Yet for the reasons mentioned, headphones make it difficult to really dial that in objectively.  Its really temping to keep going with what you are doing until it sounds awesome.  But at that point one actually ends up compensating for the headphones, and headphone listening itself, as much as correcting the recording itself.  This is one reason why checking in the car, various speakers, and other playback systems becomes so important.

If you can avoid that trap by sticking only with the "cut and post" basic fixes and tasks, headphones can work great. Same goes for most speaker monitors, actually. I like the better open-backed Sennheiser headphones: HD600, HD650 (the masdrop HD6xx is similar), HD700.  The Sony, Beyerdynamic mentioned already, and other headphones are good candidates too.  But more so than choosing speakers, when choosing headphones you really, really need to listen to them carefully yourself to determine which sounds natural and might work well enough for you in this role.

There are ways of correcting headphone frequency response, even ways of emulating speaker listening to the extent that one can make proper soundtage decisions, but for them to really work well enough for this kind of work involves measuring and correcting not only the headphone response itself, but also measuring your own Head Related Transfer Function or HTRF (crucially unique to each listener) and applying that in addition to correcting the raw headphone response, usually via a special plugin in the DAW output.

Really good monitoring with speakers makes EQ, dynamics and soundstage decisions more universally applicable and easier.  Best speaker monitoring these days similarly includes DSP correction based on measurements made with a mic at the listening position.  There is some convergence going on with both headphone and monitor speaker correction toward a "monitoring you can truly trust" level in that way. Speakers in your room corrected in such a way will work for anyone sitting in the sweet spot, where as headphone correction is unique to each listener.

That kind of DSP correction is what we really need to get accurate enough monitoring sufficient to make "mastering like" level decisions.  It is analogous to putting most of your investment toward really good microphones on the recording equipment side.  All the other gear mostly just needs to work in support of the microphone output.

The only thing more important than the microphones themselves are where you place them and how you arrange them.  Same goes for headphones and speakers used to make decisions on the opposite end of the recording chain.  The acoustic transducers at either end of the signal chain and how you implement them have more influence than any other piece of equipment.
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Offline Scooter123

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #27 on: September 29, 2022, 03:43:43 PM »
I stand corrected.  I thought headphones were made to be reasonably accurate, e.g., flat. 

So is there any headphone or speaker that is reasonably flat? 

Beyerdynamic DT 770, Sony MDR 7506, and Sennheiser HS 600 are three popular demands with studios here in Los Angeles, if you ask Coffee Sound aka Trew Audio which supplies many of the local studios.  Sony seems to have the edge, Trew sells more Sony MDR 7506 than any brand by far, and they come back for repair most often.  By coming back for repair, I mean the owners thought enough of the cans to replace pads and cords rather than tossing them out.  Yes, pads and cords wear out. 
Regards,
Scooter123

mk41 > N Box  > Sony M-10
mk4 > N Box > Sony M-10

mountainhop

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #28 on: September 29, 2022, 03:53:26 PM »
I stand corrected.  I thought headphones were made to be reasonably accurate, e.g., flat. 

So is there any headphone or speaker that is reasonably flat? 

no as they are designed for the human ear, the response of which is not flat

mountainhop

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Re: Remaster my recording?
« Reply #29 on: September 29, 2022, 03:55:16 PM »

Thank you.  Yes, that was the mk4 in XY.  Would love a pair of mk41s!  I put it where I could (corner of the soundboard) but this venue has noise ordinances and a curfew so it isn't that loud and closer would have been much better.

try PAS (or very slightly wider), and failing that, get closer

 

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