What Do You Want To Know About Mastering

[brandondrury]

Mastering is an often misunderstood subject. In fact, I don't think I REALLY knew what it was until I took a trip down to Independent Mastering in Nashville.

This week I'll be interviewing Eric Conn (from Independent Mastering). His mastering credits are a Who's Who of country, rock, and pretty much everything else too. (I still want to know why he never mastered a Van Halen album...har har).

So what do you want to know about mastering?

Post your questions here. The best questions will get asked.

I'm going to limit the interview to 10 questions so ask wisely.

[bubba]

I gotz to know. Is it OK to "kiss" 0db here and there, or even, shall I dare ask it: +.1 or .2 once or twice? I have done it going from 32 float to 16-44.1 and I couldn't hear it. Supposed to leave a .2 cushion?

Bubba

[brandondrury]

I can answer this more or less.

Is it OK to "kiss" 0db here and there

The first time I met Eric Conn (at the Wagener Workshop), someone asked him this question. Some magazines have said that you should set your L2 or limit for a max peak of -.1dB. Eric said "He doesn't care. He goes to 0".

Is it OK to "kiss" 0db here and there, or even, shall I dare ask it: +.1 or .2 once or twice? I have done it going from 32 float to 16-44.1 and I couldn't hear it.

What were you listening on? For whatever reason, it is fairly well known that recording software has extra headroom built in so that when a person thinks they are clipping, they are not always clipping.

The way I understand it, every D/A converter in every cd player ever made handles this a little bit differently.

I ask, "Why risk it?". While I have no use for abusing the L2, it's certainly not going to hurt anything to reduce the possible clipping transients by .2dB.

Brandon

[Jroye82]

Ask him where babies come from.

[brandondrury]

How about......"Does the modern trend of mega loud mastering have any correlation to RIAA profits going down?"

Brandon

[.tom]

yeah, ask him if there's anyone in the a/r dept that nose anything beyond money.... okay, ask him if there's evidence in mixes he sees, that anyone's really using katz' k-system? ..does this guy master in both digi/analogue formats?

[Midiman]

Hi Brandon! Ask him is it possible to do a good job of mastering using software and a little bit of forum help like this one from people who can pretty much walk you through some of the steps? With all the technology that is available, seems like you ought to be able to master a decent CD in a home studio or Independant Studio like mines...hehehe!

Midiman!!!

[Charlie_M]

Well... as a beginner to recording I only have a simple question:

What would this guy say is the main objective of mastering?

I've read in books that the objectives are to achieve a certain sonic continuity to a record (i.e., decide the order of songs, adjust overall levels, adjust eq on the mixed stereo pair for "sonic continuity" of tracks that may have been recorded under different conditions and may have different kinds of production and his different kinds of sounds, etc...). But it would be nice to hear what a person who does that for a living has to say about what his obectives are when he sits down to master, and is it more or less the same objective each time or does the actual goal change depending on the band, genre, etc... ?

Charlie

[bubba]

Hi Brandon:
This is another mastering question. I know some guys that swear by the HAR-Bal EQ System. What does our engineer think of it and does it get widespread use by mastering engineers? I believe in the premise behind the system. I don't know if I trust the technology. Is the technology for real?

Peace: bubba

[Charlie_M]

I Might be too late here but how about an open ended qustion like: What are your thouhts about plugins vs outboard gear for mastering? Are there specific elements that are more important to have outboard than others?

That may give you a long answer but it might be an informative exchange. Hope I'm not too late with that.