separation mastering

[Yram Hossoo]

Whilst were at pulling wavefiles through this magic filter, I ve been wondering
why nobody has talked about "separation mastering"by now.
I am sure a few people have Harbalised individual instruments and vocal parts prior to a stereo mix with close attention to the positions and frequency spectrum these instruments occupy..

[HarBal]

Yram,

There are plenty of Har-Bal users who actually use it to EQ mono tracks prior to mixing although I wouldn't refer to that as seperation mastering. That is simply more sophisticated tracking EQ.

Seperation mastering, from my understanding, is the process of producing a master composed of sub-mixes that the ME then can process seperately to produce the final master mix. I have mixed feelings about the whole process because it essentially hands part of the mixing job over to the ME. I can certainly see a point to it if you are an ameteur mixing in a non-ideal environment but if your acoustics are very good then I don't see a point to it because the mixing engineer should be able to hear and fix the problem there and then without compromising production intent. If you submit a pre-master as sub-mixes you may end up receiving a master that is totally different in mix to your original intent. That really isn't the job of the ME.

For bad material I can see a benefit to it but would not the results be better if the mixing environment was good enough in the first place so that the mixing engineer could get very close to the perfect mix and sound and if so there is no need for it. I've always fealt that people pay way too little attention to fixing up their acoustics and that to me would be far more fruitfull and appropriate than seperation mastering.

Cheers,


Paavo.

[har-bal]

Yram,

There are plenty of Har-Bal users who actually use it to EQ mono tracks prior to mixing although I wouldn't refer to that as seperation mastering. That is simply more sophisticated tracking EQ.

Seperation mastering, from my understanding, is the process of producing a master composed of sub-mixes that the ME then can process seperately to produce the final master mix. I have mixed feelings about the whole process because it essentially hands part of the mixing job over to the ME. I can certainly see a point to it if you are an ameteur mixing in a non-ideal environment but if your acoustics are very good then I don't see a point to it because the mixing engineer should be able to hear and fix the problem there and then without compromising production intent. If you submit a pre-master as sub-mixes you may end up receiving a master that is totally different in mix to your original intent. That really isn't the job of the ME.

For bad material I can see a benefit to it but would not the results be better if the mixing environment was good enough in the first place so that the mixing engineer could get very close to the perfect mix and sound and if so there is no need for it. I've always fealt that people pay way too little attention to fixing up their acoustics and that to me would be far more fruitfull and appropriate than seperation mastering.

Cheers,


Paavo.

I am in agreement with Paavo. I am absolutely against separation mastering. If I receive a job that has not been properly mixed I will always return the mix and ask that it be redone. This is just a new term in the industry that folks have jumped on.
The role of a mixing engineer is worlds different from a mastering engineer.

Cheers

Earle

[zumbido]

Seperation Mastering... hmmm.

Sounds like yet another way to pump up the cost of mastering.

I do Har-Balize (is that a word?) individual mono and stereo tracks.

This is why I requested that Har-Bal have the ability to sync to an external source. I could HB on the fly with the rest of the tracks. When I have the perfect EQ I can send it back 'live' or process it in HB,

A big giant Har-Bal EQ plug-in.

[lucky]

Seperation Mastering... hmmm.

Sounds like yet another way to pump up the cost of mastering.

I do Har-Balize (is that a word?) individual mono and stereo tracks.

This is why I requested that Har-Bal have the ability to sync to an external source. I could HB on the fly with the rest of the tracks. When I have the perfect EQ I can send it back 'live' or process it in HB,

A big giant Har-Bal EQ plug-in.

Not sure I'm ubderstanding you. How do you get it to sync to an external source?

Thanks,

Lucky

[HarBal]

Hi Lucky,

As you seem to have guessed, you can't. Sync'ng to an external source is on Zumbido's wish list and his application has convinced me to look into the possibility. The ASIO interface provides mechanisms for sync'ing to external sources so it shouldn't be too difficult to come up with something through the ASIO I/F. Guess it'll also mean the PT7 issue will need to be fix as Zumbido uses a Digi rack I believe!

Cheers,


Paavo.

[lucky]

That is interesting. Will it make that much of a difference?

I need to work on my Spelling! Ubderstanding???

Thanks,

Lucky

[Yram Hossoo]

"For bad material I can see a benefit " OK Paavo let us back up a step here.
Let us assume a single mono track, with no clipping, good level, no effects, you even sent it through them wavelabs for verification, and some one says "hey send me those files so that i can pass them through a multi band$3000 Manley or the rest of it's cousins, wont you get worried and curious?
Unfortunately I am a newby with harbal so I get this word through this forum as a way to bolster my confidence, that the path I have taken is worthwhile.
The following probabilities keep haunting me
1.)I am very sure Harbal will have a different behavior pattern if it came as an outboard gear.
2.)The loudness problem still pertains, and people still wish they had some great analog solution to get plus 85db for their mixes.
So basically I feel welcome by the way you and our forum members have started dropping hints to help alleviate my pain.
I use a motu 828 mkII, record/mix at 96khz with cubase,dither with ozone,
then inspect each and every track individually with Harbal,because though I have 3 megs of ram, but i almost don't process during final mix down as i have lost faith in the processing power of PCs, and end up edit with wavelab5.

[shanecgriffo]

with regard to submixes.. if i had a song that ,say was half soft then got heavy for the second half ,say ,from a pop sound to a rock sound, would it be worth splitting the stereo wav file and harballing the two sections seperately and then rejoining, does anyone do this at all?

[HarBal]

Yes, absolutely! That is the ideal way to do it though with the current implementation of har-bal it is a bit of a pain to do properly because you need to create overlapping files and then do a cross fade from one to the other, ottherwise you'll most likely end up with an audible discontinuity when you switch from one part to the other. This is something I mean to cater for in future releases but I need to do a complete re-write to properly support it (along with a heap of other stuff).

Cheers,


Paavo.

[zumbido]

"Guess it'll also mean the PT7 issue will need to be fix as Zumbido uses a Digi rack I believe! "

NO! I use Har-Bal on a PC.

My PT Mix 24 (ver.5.1.3cs11) is on a Mac G4 - OS9. I send out sync, from PT, to the PC and run Cubase, Melodyne, BFD, DrumTools and GS3.

It'd be nice to also sync up HB. Maybe even multiple instances of HB.

[Hitmaker]

Hi ,

I'd agree with both Earle , and Paavo ..
From my perspective , this technique sits somewhere between a classical stereo mastering , and HBing each individual track ( differing to that , by HBing individual GROUPS )
Altering the tonal nature of each group ... or worse, altering their relative levels is ( should be ) the domain of the mixer .... although in defence of masterers who use it , I'd guess it allows them to make more drastic changes without requesting a remix ... thus saving time ( ??? embarressment ?? ) for the client ...

Cheerz guys ....