Talk:Audio mastering

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1. April - July 2007

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[edit] 16 bit/44.1khz

I think a little bit on the role of mastering in sample rate and bit reduction/dithering to CD quality would be good information in this article now that 24 bit recording is a big deal. Any thoughts? Gamiar 23:37, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I think it is critical to suggest that bouncing or recording mixes to as high a sample rate as possible and a minimum of 24 bit word size is critical for allowing mastering algorthyms the additional samples and bits for rounding and processing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pbr (talk • contribs) .
There's legitimate doubt that high sample rates are as important. Some processing, such as compression or EQ, can benefit from a somewhat higher sample rate like 96K, but 'as high as possible', probably 192K, is very likely unnecessary. I've seen people saying 192K converters sounded worse than lower sample rates. Besides, among professional MEs you are more likely to find them using analog chains and certain popular converters like Lavry or Prism, particularly those who make a practice of driving the D/A converters hard to produce apparent loudness- in other words, distorting them. Also note that fancy methods of wordlength reduction are not invariably chosen by professionals- simple TPDF dither remains popular due to a percieved lack of coloration. -Chris Johnson —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.136.232.46 (talk • contribs) .
Especially EQ and filtering tend to misbehave when approaching the nyquist frequency. This often happens gradually, which is why i think it does in fact make sense to go all the way up to 192 khz. Notice that this will only take the problem two octaves out of the hearable range. A typical example of the algorithm problem can be seen in the Sonic Timeworks equalizer, which actually reveals this issue on it's visualizer. I think the increased processing power in the future will raise the interest in having some headroom in the time domain. This will most likely be an important step in overcoming some of the differences between analog and digital sound processing in general. JoaCHIP 10:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, I went ahead and wrote something. Feel free to hack it up in any way you see fit! Gamiar 15:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Loudness War

Any issues with merging Loudness war into this article? It's not really it's own topic and is really a mastering issue. --Jgritz 22:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It should be linked (and it is), but it's a big enough topic to have its own article. Merging is normally done when two articles contain the same information, not when one article is a subtopic of the other. Mirror Vax 22:50, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with the above posting. Loudness war should be merged with audio mastering, however, it is not a dire issue. I do urge whoever has power to merge two articles to do so as soon as possible.--68.194.238.91 00:44, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
Please keep seperate. Loudness war is a bad enough issue that it deserves it's own article. That article needs some work, eg examples and a couple of helpful waveform images, not reducing to part of an article on a much larger issue. --Spod mandel 02:58, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Spod, the loudness war is notable enough to deserve its own article by the same logic that car and car accidents are seperate articles. -- Dept of Alchemy 21:50, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Dept of Alchemy and Spod too. Merging the rather large loudness war article into this article might confuse the reader more than benefit. Linking to an external article seems more appropriate. -- JoaCHIP 10:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
In theory, were there no loudness war there would still be an Audio Mastering article. The topic can have much more to it than simple loudness, for instance the need to produce audio that translates to many types of playback systems pleasingly, and the practice of sequencing (in some cases) album tracks or producing suitable timing for the pauses between songs, not to mention inserting ISRC codes, which is not a form of watermarking but a method of putting a unique ID on a CD track which can be read by some playback equipment to help in assigning royalties for airplay. -Chris Johnson —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.136.232.46 (talk • contribs) .

I did a comment on the discussion page for Loudness war... anyone read that? Please feel free to rip me a new one if I'm out of bounds. I'm not a real wiki kinda guy. Wamnet 15:12, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with some other editor who said that you should write an article about clipping on various players, or at least you should incorporate some points here. I think the Loudness war article should also be part of Audio mastering article or at least we should have some cross references. And your point about using articles as sandboxes is right on the money. For example the whole RMS discussion is just sketchy. People don't realize that a straight line DC signal at 0db will have a maximum RMS but it will be inaudible, other then the initial loud pop. So here you go, maximum RMS but total silence :). Also what is louder a square wave at 0.001Hz and 0db or square wave at 1Khz and -60 db :). It amazes me that some people attempt to edit encyclopedia and have no knowledge on the subject. (This last sentence is just my rant and not addressed to you). Looks like you have spent a lot of time in broadcast environment so your point of view may be in contrary to some of the statements in the article and many comments posted on the talk pages, well...gooooood. --Mike Sorensen 09:02, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Bass punch, kick drum, bass drum, frequencies, waveform

Add pictures. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.238.233.138 (talk • contribs) .

[edit] The other loudness war is on FM radio!

The other loudness war is happening in FM broadcasting. There are dedicated FM processors that would be of little use for CD production. See for example http://www.omniaaudio.com. Therefore, I do not think that merging loudness war into audio mastering would be appropriate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.238.233.138 (talk • contribs) .


Jeffason's comments:
You gotta be kidding. Who created the movement to merge the two. They are totally different. PLEASE REMOVE THIS REQUEST TO MERGE THE TWO. It is blasphemy! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jeffason (talk • contribs) .

[edit] External links

Please refer to Wikipedia:External links before adding external links. I don't doubt that Artmastering and audioplexus are legitimate companies, but I'm sure there are 100s or 1000s of legitimate audio mastering companies and Wikipedia is not the place to list them all. Moreover, the links do not add useful information that cannot be covered in the article. I will give the article on MusicBizAcademy the benefit of the doubt - for now - but I think it is more helpful to use the information in MBA article to improve this Wikipedia article rather than merely linking to it. The MBA link could serve as a legitimate reference to facts in the Wikipedia article rather than just sitting there as a bare link. Han-Kwang 18:31, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

From Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Art_Mastering:

Additionally, in the entire article about Audio_Mastering, this is the only section that actually has some support in the press as well as publically accessible pictures and references. Everything else has been contributed by various members based on their opinion rather than on notable facts or evidence and is placed there without any supporting evidence or references. If we follow your reasoning, then the entire Audio Mastering section should be deleted as "not notable", which would be a terrible waste! R. Watts
This is a valid point. This article could use some references. Han-Kwang 21:29, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I suspect it would be considered generally valid to provide some links to Bob Katz's 'Digido' site. Bob is a mastering engineer who has written a largely well-recieved book and has some decent online material which I believe would be generally considered acceptable. The danger here is from the number of MEs who would like to present themselves as innovators. I myself have stuff up on the web, but I don't think my content is anywhere near as mainstream and doesn't belong on Wikipedia as written. It is at airwindows.com and if I see stuff from there up here as if it is authoritative I'll edit it out myself, or at least pull it back to commonly accepted information without any inferences or propagandizing. -Chris Johnson —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.136.232.46 (talk • contribs) .



[edit] Lack of references for 4 years

This article was created almost 4 years ago on June 29, 2003, and in all this time we were not able to cite reliable references. The main reason for this situation is that most books and texts on this subject are written by mastering engineers themselves, or point to some mastering lab. Therefore, whenever any reference is being cited someone deletes it because it doesn’t fit his/her interest or agenda and presumably advance business of a competing audio lab or engineer. We have heard irrational arguments that all mastering engineers should get a link here or nobody does, but I hope that common sense and a little bit of courage will prevail. Since every editor that tries to propose a source here, is being continuously attacked as having hidden agenda, then please take this fact under consideration when analyzing proposed reference and distance yourself from shouting and accusation and focus on the subject. By no means I'm trying to indicate that the sources that I proposed, or any other for that matter, should be accepted for granted, just the opposite, they should be discussed, but they definitely should be examined with a calm mind before being dismissed. This is just an opening step in this discussion. Maybe in a few months :) we will be ready to have a vote on this subject and pick at least one reference for this article (most likely by a majority vote...). And on a personal note, if you don’t like any suggested sources, then propose a constructive alternative, rationally discuss it and let others decide before going on a rampage.--Mike Sorensen 05:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree, that citable references are lacking in any diatribe concerning this subject, not only here... I will say (and I do not work for nor endorse) Bob Katz's book. I do feel his is the most unbiased but still, he does make opinions as to his beliefs. So again it becomes an issue as being citable. On another note, stub mixes that allow a mastering engineer the ability to process sections of a mix should be considered. I realize that it's a a fine line between mixing and mastering... a topic for discussion. Wamnet 16:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Hey Wamnet, nice disclaimer :) ,don't worry real editors will never attack you for speaking your point of view and the trolls are ignored anyway. As far as Katz is concerned I also think his book is valuable, and yeah he does speak out his point of view so one can call it biased, though this doesn't take away the value of the information that is being conveyed. And I think that in cases like this, where the reliable sources are hard to find, the spirit of wikipedia is to give us, the editors, a power to make some judgement calls and decide the value of the resources as to their inclusion. As far as mastering of stub mixes is concerned I also see no problem, it is a technique that was used for a long time, probably all the way back in the eighties, and it should be at least mentioned in Audio mixing article or here.--Mike Sorensen 22:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Yea stem mixes (why i call them stub's got no clue...) I tried it a few times with some recent acts (also tried it with the latest Twisted Tower Dire CD but never used it). I recall back in the day at Blue Diamond and Alphastar in Pgh. we did this for something.. went to 1/2" 4 track and 1/2" 8 track (that was noisy) with stereo subs for shipment to a mastering house the clients used. We just called it "mixing to multitrack" (real inventive)... No clue what happened after that. We'd always have a 2TR running tho...
But in my experience, it does allow for some nice things, such as fixing drum mix/rhy track balance after the fact (wish I'd have done Deadly by Desire like that back in 1988.. I just remastered that) as well as being able to process individual mixes in Wavelab using the individual effect bins, then glam it all together with processing in the main effects chain. Wamnet 21:27, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
I think it all started when the first mixing boards with sub-groups came out. They allowed groups of instruments to be assigned to the sub-group faders as stems. Then engineers quickly discovered that they can also process the stems (sub-groups) individually, and compress them, EQ them and so on. Just like you described, many pro-studios use this approach in one or another way either for mixing and sometimes for mastering. I play classical so I don't have much use or experience with stems, but I can easily see that guys doing rock, pop or anything with drums, could find a good use for that. --Mike Sorensen 22:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
I noticed someone has a wiki for Separation mastering. How to handle it in wiki-dom I dunno... link to it? Wamnet 00:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
There was a controversy over this a while ago. Someone spammed this page with separations. I don't know enough about it, as I don't use it, so I'm a wrong guy to comment. At first glance though it sounds like a new term for an old concept of stem-mixing/mastering and I personally don't see a need for a new name. But maybe there is a difference. Maybe other editors know more on the subject and can comment. Also the article on separations doesn't have any resources either.--Mike Sorensen 03:07, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
After thinking about it maybe someone should create an article on stem mixing and mastering. Unless someone bits me to it I will do some research and write an article on stem-mixing and stem-mastering.--Mike Sorensen 03:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
This will remain a highly debated topic at WP for a few good years to come. As modern audio mastering progresses, new theories will continue to emerge. I am hesitant to say this, but Maximum Delivery Potential (MDP) a term made up by EdXXXX VinXXXX around 1995, which was mocked and ridiculed by other members at WP and dismissed as just spam, will emerge someday. I know this "MDP" techniques are for real, as much as Mike Sorensen, who swore and obsessively advocated for "Artmastering". I think artmastering and his creator are alright. The problem is, these are emerging theories and it will take many years too catch on and be notable. So for now, it only looks like editors promoting or trying to spam Wikipedia. If these new theories are any good, there will definitely be an "Artmastering" and a "Maximum Delivery Potential" or "MDP" section at the Audio mastering page. For now, I suggest and advise all members, to refrain from bringing controversial mastering theories whether or not are proven and tested, and also from making great claims, or the same thing that happened to me and Mike Sorensen, will happen again (Read the incident at the Community Sanction Notice Board).

[edit] Stem mixing and mastering

Thanks to suggestion by Wamnet and a few hours of reading, learning and work I created yesterday an article on Stem mixing and mastering. I managed to find a reference for it :) which wasn't easy. It turned out nicely and it may be a potential supplement for this article. There is still the question of separations whether they are really a new different technique or just a new marketing term for an old stem-mixing/mastering technique. Other editors may be better equipped to answer this question. Comments are welcome.--Mike Sorensen 09:03, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Wamnet, Mike Sorensen is temporarily absent and I would like to continue this discussion. How would you like to have a new section called "Mastering by Separations" or "Stems Mastering". If Mike Sorensen never comes back, it would also be a good tribute to his contributions. Although, I doubt that he won't come back to this forum. Anyway, I am studying with a mastering guy who told me that, it is another technique, but that he thinks it will probably never replace mastering from HD stereo interleaved audio files. What do you think?--Jrod2 13:50, 9 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Article's Introduction Needed Correct Wording

I'm not sure the following sentence makes much sense:

A mastering engineer may be required to take other steps, such as the creation of a PMCD (Pre Mastered Compact Disc), where this cohesive material needs to be transferred to a master disc for mass replication.

"This" cohesive material? It's too far away from the beginning of the second paragraph, where this term is (loosely) defined. Also, this sentence has logical problems: steps -> creation -> needs to be transferred?

  1. An engineer may be required to take steps; (Okay, this is fine.)
  2. Which steps? Steps, such as creation of PMCD; (This is fine, too.)
  3. What is the creation of a PMCD? It's where this cohesive material needs to be transferred... <- Flaw in logic here.

Do you think it should be rewritten to sound more English and make more sense? UMRK 17:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Point well made. No opposition here, and unless someone else does not object to it, go ahead and revise it, Sir. BTW, I did try in the past to bring up a new page called "PMCD" (Pre-mastered compact disc) so as to reference it to the mastering page, but as some people know, I was viciously attacked and accused of having a hidden agenda to promote my studio with "keywords". That just killed my desire. Thus, the reason why it reads so disconnected. But, if you are interested, we should work on that. Cheers. Jrod2 18:23, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
A separate page on PMCD would be great. I'd be delighted to help, although I don't know much about PMCD, apart from the fact that not all disc burning apps follow the standards that are mandatory for creating a valid PMCD (such as Pre-Master cue sheet that specifies the number of channels, pre-emphasis, copy protection bit, ISRC, UPC/EAN, and so on). Right now I'd love to have the sentence fixed so it makes some sense. Problem is—I'm not sure how (i.e. I don't know what the author was trying to say). Any suggestions? UMRK 12:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I was the author. Some users reverted it and added several things (Some of which it was nonsense), I countered, and it went back and forth, etc. Bam! That's what was left. I will try a new revision and let you know. Is that OK? Thanks for your feedback! .Jrod2 19:06, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Oooh! I knew something was wrong here. So, something went wrong during "mixing and editing" that cannot be fixed by "mastering," eh? ;) Looking forward to your revision, Jrod2. UMRK 23:16, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi UMRK, I apologize, but I don't entirely understand your question. I would like you to start the PMCD page and then I will join you. What you said before about PMCD: as Pre-Master cue sheet that specifies the number of channels, pre-emphasis, copy protection bit, ISRC, UPC/EAN, and so on, would be a good start. Thanks for the feedback . Jrod2 14:20, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I just meant that the reason the sentence in question doesn't make sense is because whoever was editing it after you wrote it (even if you edited it yourself) lost a few bits. I know how it happens: you delete a word here, move another part there, and sometimes you just forget to reread the edit. This results in an (unintentionally) garbled text. I'd appreciate it if you would just reword that sentence, and we'll be done with it. Meanwhile, I'll start a new page on PMCD. Deal? UMRK 00:28, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Dear UMRK, sorry I didn't have time to respond before. I like what you are doing so far, and I will try to bring in a contribution to that page. If you want to reference it with links, please read my recommendations below. That said, there is the first link, "Greendot", that should be taken out. The reason is, we don't like to give companies free promotion. I'll be in touch. Regards. Jrod2 08:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Digital Mastering Section (talk section deux)

I altered the new information added a little bit, and took that unverifiable bit about getting the Grammy winning sound out, also provided references to prove notability. I re-added the information about new analog technology; that was interesting. I did however, take the company names out; they didn't seem exhaustive or necessary, but if you disagree go ahead and put them back in. What I would really like to see is some information about engineers that do in fact prefer DSP for mastering, to get both sides of the story. Maybe it's in that Mix article; I might check later. Illuminatedwax 04:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

The new analogue "technology" sounded a bit too much like marketing-speak IMHO. Too much effort put into hi-fi when 24/96 or even 24/44.1 would be enough... --Kjoonlee 06:09, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Kjoonlee wrote that 300Khz and 120V technology is unsourced. He was right, so I found some sources:
references for 120V signal rails with dynamic range of 150dB: [1] [2]
references for 300Khz frequency response: [3] [4]
And Here is an EQ with 450Khz frequency response: [5] There are at least 6 manufacturers of mastering and recording equipment that I know of that make devices with frequency response of 300Khz or more. This may be overkill but that is where the technology is going and digital boxes can't keep up with it at this moment. --VinylJoe 17:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

That's OR. Are there sources that describe these efforts? --Kjoonlee 18:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Please take a look at the following wikipedia articles,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasonic_hearing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustic_model There are references at the bottom of these articles. The hypersonic effect is what is driving this trend of making audio devices that have a frequency response wider then human hearing range. --VinylJoe 22:50, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

You people continue to make the Audio mastering page into a showcase for mastering studios, "celebrity" mastering engineers, their equipment, and basically a handbook for mastering. Many of you maybe correct about the equipment used and the specs on them. But having the need to mention so many engineers, will only start a spam frenzy as we saw it between February and December 2006. This isn't a page for discussing digital and analog technologies, in the first place, and nor to discuss who is been nominated for more Grammy's. This page was created to explain the meaning of mastering and its most common procedures for achieving the end result: "the mastered source material". We could never possibly teach mastering or tell people what to buy to do so on this page, no matter how much we try. There are many audio pages already debating all these new emerging technologies, therefore, stick to the subject, PLEASE! Jrod2 14:52, 4 June 2007 (UTC)



[edit] Audio mastering page's first image

This one is very important, I feel, as too many rookie studio engineers provide their artists, extremely loud mixes and thus, impossible to master. I tried to use layman's terms to the parameter descriptions. But, if someone thinks there are better or easier terms, please, let me know so that I can modify the image. Hope everybody approves that this image is very necessary. Jrod2 00:40, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nice article

Nice article folks! I liked it! Geir 07:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mastering studio picture

Some of you may have a problem with this addition, but it's time that the general public knows the look of a serious mastering studio. Please, refrain from deleting it if you suffer from uncontrollable jealousy, or if the look of your project studio where you do mastering looks like a dwarf by comparison (no offense to those people). The one thing that may need tweaking is the size of the pic which is at 500px right now. May be a little bigger or smaller? Let me know. Thanks. Jrod2 (talk) 22:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Many of you know that the audio mastering article is very close to my heart and I've been defending it passionately against spammers and other engineers that were just trying to promote their studios almost from day one (ironically I was accused of that as well). I want to thank users: Ap, Omegatron, Gamiar for starting it back in 2005 and Mirror Vax, Binksternet, Illuminatedwax, Kjoonlee and everybody else for making sure it stayed spam-free and keeping it real. I am proud of you guys, the article is beginning to take shape and pretty soon should be ready as a "featured" article at WP. I know many complain about citations and references, but come on, you know who you are and know what sounds true to you. The references are out there, it's just the articles that are hard to find sometimes. Thanks to all of you, again. Jrod2 (talk) 22:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Audio mastering tools

This section lists both mastering software like Samplitude, software plugins for burning CDs (CD architect) one hardware compressor (the Avalon) and some very early development linux software that is hardly used in very many real life situations (Ardour).

  • Shouldn't we be a little more critical and only list software actually being used by a significant portion of the mastering industry?
  • I think this section should be divided into sub sections, if it really is meant to list both complete software solutions, software plugins and hardware devices.

JoaCHIP (talk) 14:38, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Remasted not always better than original

Please mention why the remasted version is not always better than original. E.g.,

  1. Too much detail: now we can hear the singer's disconcerting breathing nuances.
  2. The engineer has now shifted emphasis to instrument A to the detriment of instrument B, thus tossing out the former balanced situation.

Jidanni (talk) 00:12, 24 May 2008 (UTC)