Need help mastering this song

[GordyR]

Hi all,

First of all I would like to explain my situation. I am a 24 year old singer/songwriter from London, England. I have been lucky enough to have attracted the attention of "Polydor" the record label. In my last meeting with one of their A&R guys he asked me to provide him with two new songs. He is also coming to see me live later this month.

Anyway I have been busy writing and have recorded three new songs. One of which I feel is particularly strong and is the track I would like him to hear first. The song is called "Daddy". It's about my alcoholic father and the way his alcohol abuse affected me as a child. I recorded it in my bedroom with a cheap microphone, a copy of Cubase SX and some Waves plugins.

The song is mixed and I am relatively happy with my production (considering I am by no means a professional producer and only produce my own material because I cannot afford studio time)

I purchased a copy of Harbal to help with my mastering. Mastering is something I have never quite managed to get to grips with. Obviously due to the fact that my possible career hangs on the line I want to learn how to make the most of my songs, and quickly.

I have made several attemps following the mastering guide from this website (I have Waves LinMB and L3 limiter) in Wavelab. Unfortunately no matter what I do I seem to lose some of the magic of the original recording in order to get the RMS up to a competitive -12 to -11. The problem may be in my mixing but my I am too inexperienced and my ear is not honed enough for me to be able to tell.

Therefore I have decided to come here for help. I was hoping that some kind soul with far more experience than I, might possibly be willing to take on the job of doing a quick master of my song and then providing me with the finished master along with a description of what they did in order to achieve the sound. Or perhaps even save the mastering settings as presets and send them to me so I can analyse what was done and why.

I feel awful for asking this and sincerely hope that people don't mind me doing so. If it is not appropriate then I apologise greatly.

Here is the link to the completely untouched version of my song....

http://www.btinternet.com/~james.rankin7/Daddydry.mp3

If anyone has any comments on the mix I would love to hear those also. If there is anything I can do to make the mastering process more sucessful I would love to know about it.

I can provide a 96khz or 44khz, 32bit wav file also in order to maximise quality should you wish.


Hopefully I can soon learn this mystical art of mastering. Many thanks to anyone who is willing to take the time to help me out.

Cheers!

[brian770295]

I'm an Independent Artist, who also has a Web Site that is dedicated to providing fellow musicians with Mastering Resources and help. I do this because I am a Music Fanatic
and get great satisfaction from making Musics sound it's best. Without you having to fork out a small fortune and invest countless hours trying to find the perfect sound...I've been recording for 14+ years and love to share my experience and save others the mistakes. Give me a shot.... Check out 5beeproductions.com and follow the Mastering links for a Free Mastering Sample of your Song and helpful feedback.

Thanks, Brian.

[GordyR]

Thanks Brian...

I followed all your directions and am currently uploading the song to you in FLAC format. I'm extremely anxious to see what you can do with it. Many thanks!

If anyone else would like to have a go, please feel free. Let me know if you need the original WAV file and I shall provide it.

Also, one quick question. Can anyone give me a rough idea of how much a professional mastering house would charge for a 4:51 minute track?

[HarBal]

Hi GordyR,

I'm certainly curious enough about the track to want to take a look at it. I'll have a look tonight when I get home.

However, I was just wondering if your aims in mastering this track are a little mis-placed. I would have thought that if your aim is to convince a major label to sign you, they won't be listening for "comercial loudness" but quality of music and performance. After all, if a major label signs you it is inevitable that they'll want to re-record your work in a professional studio. If I were you I'd preserve as much dynamic content in the recording as possible and just concentrate on getting the tonal balance right. I'd just use a minimal amount of limiting to tighten things up a tad.

I think you should be aiming for no higher than -14 to -15dB in terms of loudness. As you've no doubt found, making things commercially loud can decimate quality. It also masks good musical performance. By that I mean that a good musician who can control their dynamics and use it to benefit will have that aspect of their musicianship taken away by over-compression.

Regards,


Paavo.

[GordyR]

Having had time to reflect on your comments Paavo, I have to agree. Obviously I want the track to be as impressive as possible but perhaps you are correct when you say that "loudness" is not the important issue.

I think the most important thing is that I make the best sounding recording my limited production skills allow. Obviously part of that process is in the mastering. But also the mixing. Maybe I should be more concerned with getting the mix "spot on"?

If you feel that is the case then are there any comments or feedback you can offer with regards to the mix as it stands?

I would like to give my recording as much professional "sheen" as possible while reaching a "reasonable" RMS level. As far as I am aware mastering is not only about raising the RMS but also adding that "quality" touch to bring an otherwise dull recording to life. Be it through EQ, the use of aural exciters, careful compression/limiting and so on. Do you think there is much that can be done to improve on it in that area?

As I said... After reading your comments I am convinced that I should not be aiming for that -12 to -11 RMS level and should be more concerned with just making it sound good by getting the "tonal balance" perfect. This is my new aim and any help you or anyone else can give me with regards to this would be invaluable.

Thank you.

[HarBal]

Hi GordyR,

I've had a chance to listen to your track. It's pretty much all there except I think you should bring down the kick bass in your mix. In my opinion it is anywhere between 3 & 6dB too strong in the mix. It will sound fine on speakers that don't deliver much bottom end but on ones that do it will muddy the mid range. You could fix it to some degree with EQ but you'll end up tacking the warmth out of the vocals and bass. The other thing you could try if you want the kick bass to be high in the mix, is to take some energy out of it with a high shelf prior to mixing.

I had a go at doing some other stuff to it without the remix. EQ wise, apart from the kick bass issue, it is pretty much spot on. I did a minor tweak with HarBal but only through my dodgy headphones so I think the top end modification I did is probably unwarranted. In any case, you can see what I did with the filter file by looking at its frequency response in HarBal. You can download it and a snapshot of the final track here:

http://www.taquis.com/mp3

Appologies for only having a subset of the final song but my web site has limited storage space so I couldn't up load the entire track. The other thing I did, which is the main thing it probably needs, is added some ambience to the track. The way I did that was to contruct a new stereo track which had the difference of L & R in each channel and then feed that through a stereo reverb unit with zero feedthrough (that is, it only has the reverb component coming out). In other words:

L new <- L-R
R new <- R-L

Then you can take the dry track and the stereo reverb track and mix them to taste. I just mixed them as is without changing the overall level. The reason I chose to do it this way rather than just apply reverb is because I didn't want to swamp centre stage with reverb. Basically anything that is close to the middle will be low in amplitude in the reverb signal and anything far left or far right will be high in amplitude. This ends up making the reverb a bit more 3d like in the sense that it leaves the parts that are centre stage up front and pushes back the parts on left and right. Also, if you make sure the negative component of the difference is always on the opposite side (ie. L new = L-R rather than L new = R-L) then you'll get a widening of the stereo image, owing to the phase anomally between left and right that that introduces. Finally, I boosted the level of the track by 7dB with a hard limiter.

That's it. Well done. I like your track and your production work.

Regards,


Paavo.

[GordyR]

The excerpt sounds fantastic Paavo! I couldn't ask for more!

I really can't thank you enough. I'll take on board your comment about the kick drum. I'll have a play around with the mix. I think the problem is my monitors/room. It certainly seems to be a recurring issue. I always seem to have trouble retaining energy in the kick drum when I try to compensate by turning it down. Therefore it tends to remain high too high in the mix.

Perhaps the loud kick drum was one of the reasons I was having trouble mastering the track satisfactorily?

I have downloaded the Harbal filter file you kindly hosted and i'll have a look at it tomorrow (It's gone 2am here in England).

The tip about mixing a reverbed track with the dry one is fantastic! You are definately correct with your assertion that the track needs some ambience. I have since listened to my mix on some different sound systems and have too noticed this issue. Again I imagine this is due to my room having no form of dampening whatsoever. Something I hope to take care of soon!

I'll see what I can do myself now that I am armed with your comments. Your experience and feedback has been invaluable to me Paavo. I am deeply indebted to you. Also, I am very intrigued to hear what Brian comes up with!

I guess this is the best way to learn... Having experienced people point out the issues enables you to know exactly what it is you should be listening for. Which to me seems to be one of the biggest factors in training your ear. And then of course there is knowing how to remedy the problem once it has been identified. Again, this is where you have shined


My sincerest thanks. Both for the effort you have put in and for your kind comments regarding my song and production.

[HarBal]

Hi GordyR,

I'm glad you feel that it's an improvment!

It really isn't a negative issue that your room is acoustically dead for recroding instruments. It can be beneficial as you have more control when adding in ambience later (electronically). It just makes everything sound a bit dull and lifeless while you're in the process of mixing. Given you have access to the source it may well be better if you add ambience to each track seperately so you maintain full control of the spatial positioning of the instruments.

As to the bass issue, it is a pretty common problem. Your monitors may not have enough bottom end on them to judge properly and if they do, you may have a speaker palcement issue to deal with. If your speakers are sitting in a room anti-node then any sound corresponding to that room resonance will just be cancelled out by the room and you'll have a whole in you base response. Maybe something like that is going on.

By the way, I'm actually not experienced at all with the process of mastering. I've never done it professionally or in an amature capacity, except in the case of tweaking existing commercial recordings that I have issues with. I guess I've learned to recognise various aspects of recordings through listening over the years though.

Cheers,


Paavo.

[GordyR]

It certainly was an improvement.... Most noticable to me was the extra ambience you added. It really was what the track needed.

However, I am having a little trouble emulating the effect you described myself.

I wonder if you would be so kind as to briefly talk me through the process. The whole L-R thing is a little confusing to me at the moment.

How can I accomplish this in Wavelab/Cubase

Also what sort of reverb setting did you use? I have the Waves Rverb and IR1. Any particular settings that you think might be suitable?


Thanks again!

[HarBal]

I don't know exactly how you'd do it in cubase or wavelab. I did it in Adobe Audition.

The easiest way to come up with the L-R and R-L thing is to have two stereo tracks in your DAW, one your orignal mixdown, the other with channels reversed and amplitude inverted. Then you just mix them together with 0dB fader setting. When you play the combination back it will be obvious if it is correct by the sound. You should hear the ambient content of your recording and your vocal track and anything else set in the middle should be largely inaudible and you should also hear the phase difference between left and right.

Does the waves Rverb have the possibility of creating a reverb response without feedthrough of the original? Chances are this may be where you are going wrong. All you want is the reverb tail of the impulse response convolved with the difference signal. If you can't figure out whether it does let you suppress feedthrough you should be able to get the same effect by feeding the difference signal through the reverb and subtracting the difference signal from the reverb output. Note also that you must have a stereo reverb effect and if it has a crossover impulse response from L ot R and visa versa it must be different from the L to L, R to R case. If it isn't everything will cancel (because left and right are the same but anti-phase) and you'll get nothing on the output.

I know Earle has experience in the tools you're using and has them so I'll ask him if he can shed any further light on it. By the way, on second listening I don't think the kick bass level was that bad. A shade high but more importantly I think it could benefit from a bit of low shelf or high pass filtering to tighten it up a bit. If you want to sacrifice a bit of the dynamics for loudness you could probably use a couple more dB in the limiting stage, say 9dB gain instead of 7dB that I used. That should still sound pretty dynamic cos the 7dB case only clips a handfull of peaks leaving virtually all in tact.

Regards,


Paavo.

[HarBal]

By the way, the reverb setting you use isn't that important so long as it is a reasonable reverb simulation and has the "size" you want. The one I used was the reverb effect bundled with Adode Audition using a preset called "medium hall" I think.

Regards,


Paavo.

[har-bal]

It certainly was an improvement.... Most noticable to me was the extra ambience you added. It really was what the track needed.

However, I am having a little trouble emulating the effect you described myself.

I wonder if you would be so kind as to briefly talk me through the process. The whole L-R thing is a little confusing to me at the moment.

How can I accomplish this in Wavelab/Cubase

Also what sort of reverb setting did you use? I have the Waves Rverb and IR1. Any particular settings that you think might be suitable?


Thanks again!

Gordy

Use these settings if you are using Waves Rverb

Predelay 18.2-23 msec
Time 1.67
Size 71.4
Diffusion 0
Decay Linear
Early reflections -40.0 dB
Reverb -0.0 dB
Wet/Dry Mix 6-13% (Too taste)
Gain 0
Decorrelation 0
Damping f=256, r=1.00; f=3329, r=0.20
EQ f=331, g=0 dB; f=1000, g=-11 dB

I will also place the technique used by Paavo in layman's terms in a short while. I have been busy mastering a huge project.

Cheers

Earle

[GordyR]

Fantastic, thanks guys. I was away over the weekend so didn't have a chance to reply earlier. I'm going to have a good shot at mastering the song tonight with all the valuable lessons and feedback I have aquired from yourselves.

I am very interesting in reading your "laymans" guide to the technique Paavo mentioned.

Thank you so much... Both of you!

[har-bal]

Fantastic, thanks guys. I was away over the weekend so didn't have a chance to reply earlier. I'm going to have a good shot at mastering the song tonight with all the valuable lessons and feedback I have aquired from yourselves.

I am very interesting in reading your "laymans" guide to the technique Paavo mentioned.

Thank you so much... Both of you!

The LR Thingy

Basically you are creating a track that moves to the front and captues all the ambient properties of the track and gives it a real 3d sound.

Here are the steps using Sound Forge and Nuendo. You can use any other software that has similar tools.

1. Open your original song.
2. Click on Process and then "Channel Converter"
3. Choose the preset "Stereo to Stereo - Swap Channels/click ok
4. Now click on Process again and choose "Invert/Flip"/click ok
5. Save the file under a different name such as songname1.wav

Open Nuendo

1. Choose File "New project"
2. Open 2 empty stereo tracks
3. Import the original track
4. Now import the track you created in Sound Forge
You will notice now that when you play these two tracks together they seem to cancel everything out but the middle. (Only the ambient remnants of the track remain)

5. Export these two tracks as stereo interleaved and give it a name songname2.wav
6. Close your work window and choose File "New Project"
7. Open two blank stereo tracks
8. Import the original untouched track
9. Import the newest track songname2.wav
10.Play them together and notice how full the vocals now sound.
11. Mix to taste keeping at 0.0 or lower.
12. Export as stereo interleaved and you are done.
13. Add compressor and/or limiter and sweeten to taste.

Cheers

Earle

[GordyR]

Thanks so much Earle.

I feel a little stupid that I wasn't able to work out the process completely on my own. I am eternally grateful that you took the time to post the detailed instructions that you did.

Now... Time to give it a try!

Cheers!