Preparing a mix for a mastering engineer.

[Bigduggieface]

Originally Posted by newkid

clipping in digital happens when you hit 0 dbFS

So much for not belaboring my point.

What you say above is correct, newkid. But the issue of 0dBFS pertains more to multitracking than for mastering. Like a good boy, of course I always leave plenty of headroom when tracking, especially at 24 bit depth.

But this thread is about submitting a final 2-track mix for mastering. I question the validity of dogmatically submitting a mix at -12dB in every situation. Here's why:

Say I submit an UNcompressed mix at 24 bit that peaks at -0.2dBFS. This fixed 24 bit mantissa has a dynamic range of around 144dB. Sure, that's a lot. Too much, perhaps. But I'm sure we would all agree that by submitting a hot mix, we have the potential of utilizing the entire 144dB. There's nothing wrong with that. Especially if it's say a classical recording (not so much for a metal song). With me so far?

If we submit this hot clip to a mastering engineer with a 24-bit floating-point digital workstation, it is virtually impossible to clip. The floating point calculations add an additional 144dB of headroom above this. If the engineer does any boosting anywhere in the chain which clips the outputs, he would simply pull down the master bus. Thus, when he exports the project to a final PCM audio file, it will not clip.

This scenario is only true if the engineer is using a floating-point system. If the system is fixed-point, then yes, I would completely agree to leave some additional headroom for processing.

If the mastering engineer is using ANALOG processing gear and the hot mix clips the input of his hardware, he can simply pull down the outputs of the mix a dB or two until the hardware is comfortable. No problems.

Having said all that, I would certainly agree that in most situations, this massive amount of dynamic range is unnecessary. We can't hear the noise floor or even quantization errors most of the time.

I'm not arguing with anything anybody has said here so far. My point is that, as I've said before, if the engineer is utilizing a floating point system, headroom is virtually a non-issue. It is therefore largely unnecessary to leave -12dB above your mix.

Will anyone hear a difference if you leave extra headroom? It's doubtful. I'm just trying to shine some light on this pedantic issue.

I think my points are valid and true, even if, in the final product, it is largely inaudible. Sorry to over-analyze.

[Danny Danzi]

Originally Posted by venuestudio

Danny, it is the normal practice in writing to credit the person you are quoting when you write something. This is lifted all but verbatim from Bob Katz book "Mastering Audio, The Art and Science", Chapter 5, page 72. Bob is a smart guy and deserves to be credited for the work he has done. That is why I put quotes and the name of the person in my post above. Please be mindful of others intellectual property.

My apologies venue, that is correct. I've posted several times on here that I have worked with Bob personally and owned his book. If you've read my posts, I've used his name several times giving credit and borrowed 2 small excerpts from the book and chapter you have referred to, to try and explain something. I should have added "Taken from Bob's book" but I didn't think anyone was here trying to find me out to be a fake.

Have you seen my posts on this board? Have you checked them against other books you own or information on the net? Didn't find anything else, did you? Start searching if you choose. I just tried to further explain a point to Dug due to not maybe giving a good explanation on my own.

The real thing for you to have done if it bothered you THAT much was to ask me to see if I would have tried to own up to that particular information as my own. If I checked posts I read from people that use google as their source of information, I could degrade them publicly too. I'd appreciate the same respect. Or better yet, why don't you take over here and tell us like it is and I'll gladly shut up. Floor is yours.

Dug, I'm sorry for not stating that 2 passages I used to further explain what we were talking about, were from a book written by Bob Katz. I figured the information may be helpful and didn't realize it would be something someone would use against me insinuating I've not given credit or was not mindful of others intellectual property. Please forgive me for the error in my judgement.

[venuestudio]

As an Electrical Engineer I was curious how you determined that a 16 bit recording fits in the bottom 91dB of the 24 bit. Since math is interesting to me I googled it and up comes Bobs book as the source. Simple as that.

You seem upset that you are being held up to professional standards. If you publish in a professional journal/magazine you would expect people to quote you properly. I am sure that Brandon would expect people to correctly quote him out of his work. This has nothing to do with trying to "find me out to be a fake". Your words, not mine. I don't work that way. If I was going to tell you that I thought you were a fake I would not do it in a back handed way, I would come out and say it. This simply is a matter of courtesy. Someone new to this forum might be interested in where the information is coming from so they can read the rest of the book.

[Bigduggieface]

Originally Posted by Danny Danzi

Dug, I'm sorry for not stating that 2 passages I used to further explain what we were talking about, were from a book written by Bob Katz.

No probs, DD. We all know you're working to provide good information, not to intentionally plagarize for your own benefit.

One good thing came out of this for me, however. I own a copy of Katz's book, but its a first edition that I've had for several years. It's rather outdated in some respects.

Thanks to venue's sleuthing, he has shown me that there exists a second edition of the book. I'll need to get my hands on it.

Thanks for all of your opinions, guys!

[venuestudio]

I don't own his book, but it is on order.

[Danny Danzi]

Originally Posted by venuestudio

As an Electrical Engineer I was curious how you determined that a 16 bit recording fits in the bottom 91dB of the 24 bit. Since math is interesting to me I googled it and up comes Bobs book as the source. Simple as that.

You seem upset that you are being held up to professional standards. If you publish in a professional journal/magazine you would expect people to quote you properly. I am sure that Brandon would expect people to correctly quote him out of his work. This has nothing to do with trying to "find me out to be a fake". Your words, not mine. I don't work that way. If I was going to tell you that I thought you were a fake I would not do it in a back handed way, I would come out and say it. This simply is a matter of courtesy. Someone new to this forum might be interested in where the information is coming from so they can read the rest of the book.

Call it courtesy if you wish, it's not what I would have done to someone trying to help another on a public forum when they were sincerely trying to offer as much info as possible in their own words FIRST. I would have either questioned it or pm'd the person instead of how you went about it. "This was lifted" page number supplied, chapter...it was easy to see what you were trying to do. Please don't attempt to insult my intelligence. You've made your point. I'll keep to myself from here on out, thanks.

Originally Posted by Bigduggieface

No probs, DD. We all know you're working to provide good information, not to intentionally plagarize for your own benefit.

One good thing came out of this for me, however. I own a copy of Katz's book, but its a first edition that I've had for several years. It's rather outdated in some respects.

Thanks to venue's sleuthing, he has shown me that there exists a second edition of the book. I'll need to get my hands on it.

Thanks for all of your opinions, guys!

Cool, thanks Dug. Honest, I was just trying to help and was grapsing for straws. Everything you say makes perfect sense to me really...I just seem to have better results with the lower level stuff.

As for the book, I actually wasn't too fond of it in quite a few aspects. Though it is informative in many ways, most of the ways are so in depth it can sometimes lose a person really and goes a bit astray. Not in the sense that I don't understand what's being discussed, but to the point of "wait a minute...I either make the right calls and know what to listen for or I don't" know what I mean? I'm one of those guys that considers a good book something that says "ok, you need to do this, that this and this first. From there you do this, that this and this" and so on. I don't dig the super intailed stuff that takes me out of my groove...but that's just me.

It's like listening to an intelligent speaker trying to be impressive with big words...it gets monotone, and turns me off. Take a book like Mixing Engineers Handbook and it's a totally different animal that kept my interest from cover to cover. It goes a bit in depth but it also gives you the methods of some of the best engineers in the world and they walk you through stuff one segment at a time.

And, what really made some of this stuff less important is when I compared my own stuff to what Bob did. In no way am I saying I'm as good as him or anything, but my point is my limited experience compared to his, yielded similar results in which I liked mine better in ways and also felt "hmm they both sound good, I could use either of these". I don't have the gear he has or the years of experience, but if the goods get delivered and everything sounds and looks as it should, it makes all those other things in the book that seem to go astray, somewhat moot to me. If that makes any sense?

I'm not theoretically schooled or proficient in anything really. From drums, guitar, bass, piano, singing, engineering, producing, mastering....I just know what sounds and feels good to me and experiment until I get what I'm looking for and have been working this way since I got my first Fostex 4-track when I was in 9th grade I believe.

Years later, I wake up at 42 and pretty much look at the whole field like one would look at religion. You take what you want from it that makes sense to you, you ignore the stuff that doesn't. Anyway, always a blast discussing things with you. Good luck with everything.

[Bigduggieface]

Originally Posted by Danny Danzi

As for the book, (Katz' "Mastering Audio - The Art And the Science") I actually wasn't too fond of it in quite a few aspects. Though it is informative in many ways, most of the ways are so in depth it can sometimes lose a person really and goes a bit astray.... Take a book like Mixing Engineers Handbook and it's a totally different animal that kept my interest from cover to cover. It goes a bit in depth but it also gives you the methods of some of the best engineers in the world and they walk you through stuff one segment at a time.

I own Katz' book as well as "The Mixing Engineer's Handbook" that you mention, as well as "The Mastering Engineer's Handbook".

I'd agree completely that Katz's book is a very dry textbook-style read, but it can be useful to look up detailed specifics if you need to. It took me a long time to get through. It is a polemic from Katz's point of view. He's very well trained and experienced and he's no dummy, but mixing and mastering is more than just science. It is also an art.

We should never make the mistake of taking an authority's opinion as being an absolute. Especially in the area of music production.

[newkid]

Originally Posted by Bigduggieface

So much for not belaboring my point.

What you say above is correct, newkid. But the issue of 0dBFS pertains more to multitracking than for mastering. Like a good boy, of course I always leave plenty of headroom when tracking, especially at 24 bit depth.

But this thread is about submitting a final 2-track mix for mastering. I question the validity of dogmatically submitting a mix at -12dB in every situation. Here's why:

Say I submit an UNcompressed mix at 24 bit that peaks at -0.2dBFS. This fixed 24 bit mantissa has a dynamic range of around 144dB. Sure, that's a lot. Too much, perhaps. But I'm sure we would all agree that by submitting a hot mix, we have the potential of utilizing the entire 144dB. There's nothing wrong with that. Especially if it's say a classical recording (not so much for a metal song). With me so far?

If we submit this hot clip to a mastering engineer with a 24-bit floating-point digital workstation, it is virtually impossible to clip. The floating point calculations add an additional 144dB of headroom above this. If the engineer does any boosting anywhere in the chain which clips the outputs, he would simply pull down the master bus. Thus, when he exports the project to a final PCM audio file, it will not clip.

This scenario is only true if the engineer is using a floating-point system. If the system is fixed-point, then yes, I would completely agree to leave some additional headroom for processing.

If the mastering engineer is using ANALOG processing gear and the hot mix clips the input of his hardware, he can simply pull down the outputs of the mix a dB or two until the hardware is comfortable. No problems.

Having said all that, I would certainly agree that in most situations, this massive amount of dynamic range is unnecessary. We can't hear the noise floor or even quantization errors most of the time.

I'm not arguing with anything anybody has said here so far. My point is that, as I've said before, if the engineer is utilizing a floating point system, headroom is virtually a non-issue. It is therefore largely unnecessary to leave -12dB above your mix.

Will anyone hear a difference if you leave extra headroom? It's doubtful. I'm just trying to shine some light on this pedantic issue.

I think my points are valid and true, even if, in the final product, it is largely inaudible. Sorry to over-analyze.

No problema. You can't overanalyse but lack of analysis (GOOD analysis) causes many problems.

Of course you should do it the way the Mastering engineer wants it.

Lacking specific direction, I would leave headroom.

Are all meters perfect and calibrated correctly? Could anybody bumping up as near DBFS as they can be sure they are not clipping?

With rock bands it doesn't matter, most of them like the distorted sound from the amps, and they like loud which usually adds some more distortion somewhere if only the speakers rubbing on the cabinet.

For acoustic , classical, or something less raucus , and anything aimed at HI fidelity not Hi loudness, caution with headroom would be the norm, imho.

[willjrockstar]

I thought that was a pretty bogus move on venues part. It was clear that he was tryin to be- little Dan.

Danny has always gone well beyond what i expect for an answer to questions.

He is obviously extremely courteous to everyone and i dig having a REAL PRO around , so could we not chase him off?

[awaken1]

I concur .. In the real world, where the information came from and how it was shared is irrevelent. The fact that he was willing to share it to help people out is what really matters..Thanx DD!