Hi, I'd call myself fairly new to the whole technical audio scene - I can learn things, but there's several things that I'm sure are possible (to a degree).

Firstly there's "Mastering" or "Re-mastering". Can anyone explain exactly what this is, how it affects quality, etc?

Next, there's basically the stages of production - what sort of things are done to a sample to really bring out the sound - for instance System of a Down's latest album - it has a really unique sound, and if you compare it with their first album, you can see that evidently some serious processes have been done to the audio to make it really deep and clear sounding.

Lastly, there's the whole thing of how to make a bad recording sound good - obviously you cannot do it perfectly, but surely there are things you can do that can seriously help it.

My main problem is not knowing where to stary - I don't know what the processes are, and therefore don't know what to search for.

What sort of things are done with hardware (those huge things you see all over with sliders and knobs blah blah) and what's done with software (and what software is used?).

Cheers - I can probably find some bad recordings that I'd like to be able to enhance past just jacking up the treble in an EQ (which sucks anyway).

Thanks

Edit: Oh, and how would I be able to refine a muffled sound in order to get words that sound real (for instance a clip of someone talking behind glass).

Let's see if I can explain this without having to go into too much detail I am sure a few other members can explain it more thoroughly. Mastering is the process of making adjustments to the audio dynamics, equalization, tone balance control, noise reduction, etc. The mastering engineering get's most of his input from the producer. He makes a record "sound" a certain way shall we say that the producer is looking for. He might use a noise reduction filter to remove any white noise or cracks from a recording, adjust the dynamic range to meet a certain standard (something which the recording industry lacks for better choice of words), apply compressor to compress the peak's or make quite section louder on certain instruments (vocals should be louder than guitar or vice versa). A classical piece for instance sound have much larger dynamic range than a pop song. Quality is most certainly affected in the case of clipping (digital form of distortion) when certain instruments and recordings are much louder than they should or need to be . The word remastering next to record tends to scare off several members around here




Mixing board is actually a piece of cake to use once you get the hang of it ;-D (even though it looks tricky). The knobs are their mostly to deal with multitrack recording in studios, etc. This particular mixing console I observed had 16-track recorder ( it was an older magnetic tape recorder) meaning you can fit 16 seperate instruments on one track, etc the digital audio workstation was getting it's line-input from the mixing console. Mixing console was also hooked up to some external hardware DSP like Compressor, Delay, Reverberation, etc if you wanted to use them. Usually studios like to use DigiDesign Protools in the commercial world to do editing for software, but I know of few folks who have used open-source editors such as Audacity! .

Ah, thanks for that. So how much does the quality of equipment of studios vary? I've heard some semi-large band's CDs sound not amazing quality, yet smaller bands having amazing stuff (like haste the day).

Have there been any recent advances that have brought this all foreward.

Cheers a bundle for the know-how though

Equipment really doesn't make a difference to be honest with you in my opinion. You don't really need any expensive 2,000 dollar microphones to have your recording sound good. In fact a lot of people in this day in age design their own home recording studios. Magazines like EQ are pretty good source of information for stuff like that though.

The techniques of "remastering" and "enhancment" are high fidelity and usually subtle.

The techniques for forensic audio are not hi-fi and are usually quite brutal, since there is only one goal: to understand what is spoken.


There are things that need to be known about a forensics recording.
Is it mono or stereo? Is there extraneous noise? Is it truly random noise (like traffic sounds), is it continuous noise (like hiss), is it harnonic noise (like a power supply or an engine)? or is it non-random like a radio/tv/stereo? is the glass vibrating in resonance with the speaker's voice?

I am of the opinion that skill of the audio engineer is the most important factor in the production process. One can have all of the expensive gear in the world and not know how to use it. Expensive gear is nice because it usually works 100% of the time with less hassle than cheaper equipment. Inexpensive gear is usually more unreliable, but a skilled engineer can exploit less expensive gear and make quite good sound productions from it.

Foobar2000 playing: 02 - B.Y.O.B..mpc (178kbps | q5 | -11.19 dB) 4:15

It's basicly just REALLY loud, maybe that's why you think it sounds better

http://www.netassoc.net/dougspage/Interviews.htm

Read through almost everything on that page, especially the audio lessons. Steve Hoffman is a renowned mastering engineer, and though he tends towards a few unfortunate "audiophile" lapses (speaker cable upgrades, etc), he certainly knows how to make a pleasant sounding CD.

Its the clarity, the general sound of it, not the fact that is loud, the effect of the audio.

Compare it to SOAD's earliest album (self titled) and you'll hear the audio sounds pretty undefined and dirty. The new album really cuts.


Thanks cyaneyes - will definately check that out. I'm getting Cubase SX3 and a bunch of VST filters - think that will surfice for now?

Ozone mastering guide -- good general advice, even if you don't use Izotope Ozone for mastering. (but for the record, I do recommend ozone :))

Just have good monitors (i.e. speakers) and be familiar with them. Have an understanding of the tools you're using and how to employ them (if you've never used a "multiband compressor" or whatever before, read the documentation and experiment to understand what it does). Simply use your taste to determine if the adjustments you're making are actually benificial -- test your test-masters on a lot on different headphones and speakers and stuff... you're bound to find some improvements you want to make (or change your mind about something you've done). Don't get too hung up on what people say about the rights and wrongs of how to do it cuz they all have their own methods and carry their own paranoia/voodoo/superstitions (audio is like that in general). Don't get hung up on things like EQ charts, cuz you can just turn the knob and experiment to hear what happens instead, and let your taste guide the way. Just do it a lot and get better, blahblah.

Lastly don't go crazy with enhancement/fx. There's a virtue to the sound of the dry, original un-mastered mix, and you might destroy that by trying to wash it over with mastering tools/effects.
last edit: aim for balance :)

As an audio engineer, I would have to say that mastering is absolutely the function of having experienced ears. If you aren't experienced, don't know your monitoring equipment perfectly, or your room isn't tuned right you will have a hard time not making things sound worse.

The best mastering engineers know what not to do.

I would bet you that the reason your System of a Down CD sounds so good is primarily a function of the tracking and mixing engineers. A mastering engineer can make a great sounding record sound unbelievable, but a bad sounding record sound can only sound... less bad.

None of the "true" audiophiles at HA prefers new masters over the old ones. Maybe the old master sounds worse, but only because it's mastered from a different worse mixdown. The "clean" sound comes from the studio equipment, which has been improved and changed to digital in the 90s. The new master is still much worse than it could and should be.

Anyway, I'd like to listen to unmastered audio only - why is it neccessary at all ? I understand that mixing adjustment is neccessary, because the single instruments overlap in frequency and space. But what do they do during mastering besides squashing the audio to death ?

That is probably it


Okay I turned off my sound card EQ and my Foo DSP eq, and now my audio sounds terrible.

There are way too much midtones, it is all a mess, and there is almost nothing in the high band frequencies. Why does all my music sound like this?

I have Creative Inspire 4.1s and nForce Sounstorm soundcard.

Also, does anyone have a really high quality "test" sample that generally puts a sound system through its paces?

Tonal adjustments, EQ. Touch of reverb maybe. Basically making the songs sound like they belong together. It's especially necessary when mastering a CD assembled from disparate sources.

This is a slightly wacky program that purports to be capable of tradition analogue mastering techniques, just a problem with the documentation and it wasnt all working the last time tried it - but interesting.

SoundEngine Free

What is Mastering?

http://www.mrtoads.com/html/audio_mas_whatis.shtml

http://www.drtmastering.com/faq2.htm

http://www.musicianassist.com/archive/arti...RT/a-0298-1.htm


etc. Just google 'what is mastering".


remember, too, that mastering arose during the LP era....when you could not simply copy a master tape to vinyl. You *had* to do stuff to it, in order for it to be able to sound good , on a playback device that consisted essentially of a pointy rock tracing the wiggles engraved on a piece of plastic.

Thats another thing that confuses me - people preach about LPs but they have like...no high frequencies :S

A lot of mixing/mastering topics are covered on Bob Katz website:
http://www.digido.com/

(or buy his book 'Mastering Audio - The Art and Science', if you really want to get started with producing bands)

Wrong. If there's one thing LPs actually do have it's the ability to reproduce a larger spectrum of frequencies than 16bit 44.100hz PCM.

In theory. In practice: 16 -18 kHz for the best vinyl, and the position on the disc mattered too. And in practice -- that is, to make records that most people could actually play and that had more than a few mintues of music on them -- they don't have a flat frequency response over the range, as CDs do. Low frequencies are usually rolled off to reduce groove size, highs boosted to fight sufrace noise, RIAA curves used to try to make it all sound right during playback.

*this* is one of the most fun threads I've ever found about analog vs digital . You get all the usual vinylphile nonsense tossed in ,and each claim gets batted out of the park .

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/10/8/134958/152