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Q) I've tried to make my mix as much in
your face as possible. It sounds great, but after I hear the finished
CD, the volume level sounds lower than other CDs. It still sounds good,
but I have to turn it up to match store-bought products I compare it
to. Any ideas what might be the problem? -Pete
A) This issue is encountered by artists quite often. You
go and buy all that cool gear so you can record as much as you like,
and then your CD comes back 6 dB softer than the commercial products.
Yikes! Since you want your CD to sound as competitive as possible, it's
important to know why there's a difference.
Commercial CDs have often been (1) produced by people who know how to
arrange the music so that there is space for things to show through
easily (2) mixed by highly experienced engineers who know how to
illuminate the key elements (3) and mastered by experts who know how to
fashion the tonal spectrum and hopefully still have some dynamics left
over. We're cutting CDs as hot as they can go without distortion in
many cases, and it takes more than just a Finalizer to know how to do
this effectively.
Key: Loudness levels on CDs
are greatly dependent on how the full range of frequencies -
low/mid/high - are interacting with each other as the volume is brought
up. Bringing up the volume really means bringing down the peak
information and bringing the whole thing UP. In digital, there is
no secret "bonus" area where you can get more level. Once you try
to exceed the digital "ceiling" all that happens is you get "overs"
(those pesky red lights) and the signal squares off and sounds
harsh. You've probably seen those red lights and thought "I don't
hear any distortion." but the first peaks to light up are smaller ones
from higher frequencies in many cases and they're not as easy to pick
out at first. After a while, however, the fatigue starts to set
in. Sometimes people don't know why they don't tend to listen as
long to a distorted recording, but it can happen.
There are actually several different kinds
of "level" (volume). When we master a project, we listen to the
over-all level of the band, the vocalist level, the apparent level
(amount of presence), the song-to-song level based on musicality, peak
levels, and finally the level compared to other CDs. All of these
factors play into the making of a commercially competitive CD, and the
adjustments are quite varied.
Why are CDs hotter now? It goes back
to the days of vinyl. When we mastered to vinyl, there was an inherent
surface noise that was masked when the music was cut hotter. Louder
records not only had better signal-to-noise ratios, but they also
slammed out bigger when the disc jockeys played them! They sounded more
exciting over the air, and all the record companies sought out the
innovative mastering engineers who were cool enough to push the volume
and improve the sound at the same time. Thus mastering came out of the
closet and became a high-profile art, instead of a back-room mystery.
Time
travel back to the present and those same wizard CD mastering guys are
being asked by the record companies to "cut it as hot as you can - pump
it up - I want it to be hotter than the other albums..." etc. It's the
principle of a louder record is more exciting and it makes others sound
not-as-good. Never mind that all that cool dynamic range on CDs that
makes music sound natural and open (without any hiss or rumble) is now
tossed out the window in favor of loudness. Maybe that's appropriate
for some music, and there are enhancement factors to this approach that
really do work.
Trap: Bringing up the RMS
(over-all) level (and hard-limiting the peaks) takes out the *punch*
inherent in natural dynamics, even though it's... um... louder. Huh?
What do you mean... take out the punch? Punch (like when the kick drum
hits you in the chest) comes from a wider speaker excursion... how far the cone of the speaker actually
moves back and forth, thereby pushing the air, or thrusting the
air, if you will. The greater the peak, the wider (back to front) the
excursion, the deeper the volume of air that is moved. You feel it. The
excursion of the speaker is in direct proportion to the excursion of
the recorded waveform.
When we have to go to great lengths to limit the peaks so that we don't
create digital clipping on the CD, we actually have to pull down those
peaks. Imagine Mount Everest smoothly sawed off about 2/3rds the way
up. That's how the waveform looks. Now imagine climbing up a sawed off
Mt. Everest... you actually don't have to climb up as far. Sonically,
the speaker doesn't have to move as far either when the waveform is
flattened. You can push the whole waveform up higher (more volume) but
the impact contains more sustain
to it than before - the sound is somewhat changed (particularly in kick
drums and bass). And it can become less distinctive, open,
detailed, subtle, musical, natural etc. "In your face" may be
completely appropriate and beneficial to the end result. The impact of
a loud CD is still impact, it's just a different kind of impact from one
that's softer overall but with greater dynamics.
The dilemma for a non-major-label project: It can
be a dilemma to push the level or keep the dynamics. I think there's a
happy medium, or a least a place where musically it makes sense to put
the levels and retain the natural musical appeal. The ultra-hot
commercial CDs have the advantage of top of the line everything in
their sound. This is one of the benefits of Separation
Mastering - you have more flexibility to optimize more elements in
the sound without compromising other elements.
What can you do about it in the meantime?
Make your mixes magic -- and keep 2-3 dB of headroom (24 bit recordings
especially don't need every bit used in order to sound good). Don't try
to make your mix as loud as new commercial CDs - that's the mastering
engineer's job! If you over-compress your stereo mix you could be
losing some punch. Hire an mastering engineer with at least 20 years of
full-time experience to get the level and keep it sounding musical.
Key: When you mix,
use a monitor controller
with instant front-panel level-matching capabilities.
This make it easy to level the playing field when you A-B your mixes -
then you're making tone and balance comparisons instead of a sheer
volume contest. When you can easily A-B your mixes with commercial
productions, you can listen to the good qualities of other artists and
eliminate the guesswork when you're fine-tuning your sound.
If available, use either a peak limiter (hardware or plug in) to see
what your mix sounds like with some hot-CD squashing. The mix will
change slightly, and that can be some of the effect that mastering will
have.
Step 1 - make a standard "we love the way this sounds" mix. Keep it.
Step 2 - make a peak-limited version, with let's say 3 to 6 dB of
limiting so you can increase the overall level. Adjust the mix so that
the stuff that gets squashed by the limiter can be increased to
compensate for the loss in dynamics. Keep it.
Step 3 - make a mix leaving your squash-mix adjustments in place but
take out the limiter. Yes, it will sound like the kick is too hot, or
maybe the snare is too hot, or something else. Regardless, if you liked
what you heard using the limiter and the adjustments, keep this mix
too.
Step 4 - make Separations - if you have the time, make them
both with and without the extra stereo limiter in the signal path.
For do-it-yourself mastering software seems to frustrate most people I
speak with. Use your best judgment, check your results on
several different consumer systems and see what works for you.
Gear vendors will tell you that the Finalizer will give
do-it-yourselfers the mastering touch, but trust me, the sonic
variations on a typical CD demand more than any all-in-one box can
give. Like say a particular word sticks out in the vocal, and it
doesn't hit the compressor enough for it to sound right. Manual level
correction or a different compressor (analog, for instance) can take
care of that, but a Finalizer won't have a clue. I had a Finalizer and
I liked it for de-essing, but multiband compression added harshness to
the mids or highs, and the limiter took away openness from the sound.
If you're not picky about the smoothness and openness of your sound,
the limiter will prevent digital overs, and the multiband compressor
will add pizzazz to a moderate sounding mix. But make sure you set the
attack and release settings just right for each song, because it makes
a difference.
I still say spend the money on going to an experienced mastering person
- once you see how your mixes are adjusted, you'll take home knowledge
that you'll keep forever and utilize every time you mix from then on.
An engineer with a musical background
will especially be able to reveal layers within the sound that truly
enhance the professional sound you can achieve.
Essential to know: Use caution if you send your unmastered final
mixes to a CD duplication plant that does not specialize in
mastering. Often their rates are not any better than the pro's
(once you add in the "extras") and they may or may not use a highly
experienced engineer. Also, they have to be careful how much they
alter your mixes, because if there are problems, it might cause you to
wonder about their replication services - which is what they do most.
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"I am truly amazed at the
imaging, separation, and detail that you were able to reveal. On a
couple of songs I could swear that you had access to the raw audio and
were able to remix the track!!! Thanks also for bringing a warmth and
depth to a fully digital recording that I was fairly sure was
impossible without starting from analog tape." -Tom Harter - Green Bay, WI
"Your effort, hard work
and dedication brought George [Duke's] album to the potential it
deserved - and in the process, made me look better. That is the mark of
a great mastering engineer. I look forward to continuing our
relationship in the future." -Erik
Zobler, Hollywood, California
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Q: We've been using the mastering features
found within the Roland VS units themselves... but we haven't been able
to get it to that "level" as hot as say the new Jamiroquai or a Puffy
CD but we'd like to come as close as possible. -AJ
Sigh. Take your project to a pro mastering house, along
with your Jamiroquai & Puffy CDs, and request that they "make it
sound like this." Then, it's simple. They either can or can't satisfy
your request.
Warning: I just evaluated a CD for a
platinum engineer who was dissatisfied with the mastering from a
*major* mastering house. The problem: It was cut so hot that there was
tons of clipping on it, and it completely changed the sound of the kick
drum making it dull, sustaining and punch-less. You have to decide if
you want
sheer RMS (overall) volume on your cd... or if you want it punchy and
then it's a fine line to make the whole frequency spectrum work for you.
It's my opinion that a punchy CD will motivate a club dj to pump up the
level, and it will hit harder than the CDs that are extremely loud but
compressed into a smooth, flat waveform. Most dj's can feel the energy
of the crowd and work the music... they don't just make a softer CD
wimp out next to the others, and it's not that hard for them to push
up those faders an extra 1/4 of an inch to equalize the volume level.
There's a couple places where CD level
counts. When people have "carousel" style players... say at a
party and your CD comes on next to everybody else's. You want it to be
competitive/compatible. Also when you present your project to a record
company to potentially get signed, you want it competitive/compatible.
However, most record companies won't turn you away if you CD has great
material and performances on it. They care about that more than they
care if they have to turn up their volume knob a 1/4 of an inch.
Generally, if they are *interested*, that's what they'll do anyway.
"0" on an analog VU meter has a +1 and +2 and +3 after it.... but
digital "zero-VU" is just all there is. Since the top isn't moving any
higher in the near future, it is only the management of the peaks and
RMS levels that determines how loud your CD will be. The question is
whether the trend will always be to make less
punchy - loud cds, or if people will ever give feedback to the
record companies/artists on this issue (and here's an article on ProRec.com that makes the same point).
© Copyright 1998 - 2008 John Vestman - VU image courtesy of Funk Logic
Date created: 7/15/99 • Last
modified: 3/25/06
There's more... beware of Hot CD Disease
Keys to getting a bigger sound on tape even before
mastering
Great sounding commercial CDs
evaluated
Visual example of
creative mastering techniques
Studio Monitor Madness
Studio Rates and Policies
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