South Lyon, Michigan, USA
FAQ and Info Requests
StoreTags: N00b
Author: Mesothelioma on September 29 2007
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People who enjoyed reading this: bla, energygiant, celibacyclub, Roshi, EsromCole, yghartsyrt, daswesen, mechp
--> I was looking through the information on that recent blog by mechp and was wondering if I could request some more information added to it by you more experienced peoples. I'm putting this here cause I know some of the info I'm looking for used to be in the forum and has been lost. I searched up and down for it. I guess I'll just make a quick list.

-Descriptions and comparisons of mastering plugins for both mac and windows.

-Convolution... yeah, I'm lost.

-And I see comments like this a lot : Perhaps a long decay on the bass kick that drops down into the 50 to 20 hz range would be nice. However, I have no idea how to do stuff like this. I recently started messing around with operator as far as trying to make some drum samples out of it but that's about it.

Yeah I'm young in this electronic world and obviously clueless. Sorry for being so needy.
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Comments


link
in a google search^ em411's own john mccaig aka jdg shows up first! wow. but yeah jdg knows a lot about mastering softwares and techniques.

some good(free) mix/mastering plugins ive found useful:

w1 limiter: link a clone of a waves plugin (expensive pro grade plugin makers), useful for clipping some peaks (signals over 0bd) or even smooshing a bit.

nyquist eq: link a parametric eq with 5 eq curve colors or bands. you can use these together to carve out only the frequencies you want, leaving other frequencies for other things, or to boost in some areas to give emphasis to freqs you want to come through. i especially like this plugin for equalization because it uses the frequency as a whole unit, if something is boosted in one area, the rest of the freqs are decreased a bit.

multiband compressors are also important mastering tools, i use the one that comes with my host.. so i dont know of any good thing to try.. there are several free and expensive ones out there.

meso, what sequencer are u using? there might be good mastering tools built in.

convolution: essentially really simple. it's just multiplying two waveforms by another and adding the resulting waveforms. The resulting waveform has characteristics of both waveforms that

for example, say wave 1 is four samples: a1, a2, a3, a4.

and wave 2 has two samples: b1, b2.

to convolve you multiply and get two waveforms:

a1*b1, a2*b1, a3*b1, a4*b1

a1*b2, a2*b2, a3*b2, a4*b2

and add these values in series, offsetting the second wave by one sample:

a1b1, a2b1+a1b2, a3b1+a2b2, a4b1+a3b2,a4b2

Often the second wave is an impulse response (teeny sample like a gunshot) that is recorded in reverberant conditions. Convolving by this impulse response results in imposing the reverb of that place on the first sample.

Hope that helps.

I'm using live and I do use the native tools but I'm really in need of a better compressor. Also, I miss my Sonitus reverb I had on Sonar. I'm not just asking about freeware either.

That does help a little Roshi. Thanks a lot for the quick responses guys.


link makes really good eq & compressor
jdg wrote up a big compression guide: link

man i feel like a jdg salesman today.

i should be getting some sort of kickback.

Haha. Yeah I've actually read through it a few times. Extremely helpful, I have it stored now. This blog was more concerned with the actual software rather than the use of. I've been staring at the waves page all day... this could get me in trouble with my bank statement.

if you like some analog sounding eqs and comrpessors for not that much money have a look at the blue tubes bundles. or try the wavearts bundle for some more clean sounding stuff.
and hell yeah that sonalksis stuff is a hell of of a plugin. amazing.

and don't get that wves-stuff. it's way overpriced.

for a non-free all in 1 mastering/mixing solution i may suggest isotope ozone link it has all the basic "machines" (compressor, eq, stereo expander, reverb, etc etc) built into one slick, modern looking interface and does the job very well enhancing your audio tracks. perhaps a bit cpu expensive but if you chain those deviceses separetly is not low on the cpu eiter. and the pdf's (manul, dithering, mastering) are great too.

uh and that "bass kik decay" sounds like a pitch envelope. sampler has that and operator as well i think somewhere

I added this to the FAQ/Links blog in case others were wondering the same thing!

p.s. this blog is super helpful to me as well, thanks!

Meso, maybe you should get a drum synthesizer instead of trying to synthesize drums with a keyboard-synth? I use microtonic, and it could do that with little or no effort.
Convolution:
The way you are hearing convolution used is probably in reference to reverb plugins. Convolution reverbs work in a very interesting and physical way. Engineers record a test tone in various environments. Then they subtract that tone from the results, ending up with whats called an "impulse"- basically a portrait of the reverb/echo in a room. Convolution reverbs use these impulse files and attempt to apply that recorded impulse's reverb profile to the sounds you give them.
I've heard some horrible, horrible software convolution reverbs, so don't consider it to be necessarily the best way to get reverb. I still prefer a good plate or a synthesized roomverb.
But ask anybody, i'm a chronic over-user of reverbs, lol.

Mastering Plugs:
You might do well, if you're going to master yourself, to just use a preset from something like Izotope Ozone. It's awfully hard to do though, because you're mastering on the same monitors in the same room you recorded typically. I'd only recommend you do this at first slowly, and have a friend handy to bounce things off of. A friend who is also into engineering, not just some dude at work. But it's really not magic, you should aim for having to do as little as possible when you master. Level the volume levels, make sure you've listened in your car and on a stereo, etc. and you should be fine. If you make a great record, somebody will pay for it to be professionally mastered. Also, try and master in an editor, so you can at least take a glance at the levels and see any kind of massive issues your mixes have.


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