KVR Audio

HanafiH · Post by **HanafiH** » Sat May 04, 2013 3:42 pm

OK here's my entry: it goes back to the desk. There's a massive sub at around 26s that's almost impossible to correct without slamming the bass proper or spending hours and 'king hours dicking with a spectral editor. Back to the mix matey.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Sat May 04, 2013 6:28 pm

HanafiH wrote:OK here's my entry: it goes back to the desk. There's a massive sub at around 26s that's almost impossible to correct without slamming the bass proper or spending hours and 'king hours dicking with a spectral editor. Back to the mix matey.

The sub burst at around 26.5s took roughly 15 seconds to fix so I'm not sure what you are on about.. a modern daw like Reaper lets you insert plugins on edited clips so I just separated the boom, added an EQ targeted exactly at the correct frequency and slightly adjusted the level.

Are you sure your monitors/room aren't exaggerating the sub's energy levels? Sure, it's fairly loud and should perhaps have been a bit lower down in level to be more tasteful but it definitely is not a big problem of any kind.

IMHO the mix of quite a high quality and doesn't need much corrections. It all basically comes down to taste and I'd guess the person who does the least processing while still giving it a "mastered" feel will have a winner.

Cheers!
bManic

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Sat May 04, 2013 8:13 pm

I've done my version on my laptop at home using AKG K701 headphones. Tried to stick to the very basics but I couldn't manage 5 plugins as already 2 made up my Mid/Side encoding (Voxengo MSED).

I tried to listen to the actual music and enhance the musicality and impact of the phrases so I separated verse from chorus and made sure the chorus has a rather larger impact and density than the verse. Contrary to others here I've actually made the stereo image a tiny bit tighter as I felt it was a bit all over the place and instead tried to bring up the main vocal in the mix.

I've also "glued" the mix quite a bit with some clever trickery.

Anyways, total amount of plugins was 8.. basically SPL Vitalizer mk2 (mostly for the stereo width thing which I love.. set to a few pixels above "off") -> AOM Tranquilizer EQ -> Tonebooster FlX (doing some slow mid range de-expansion and controlling the kick drum and very highs (from 14kHz upwards) -> Mid/Side encoding -> Native Instruments Solid Bus Compressor set to unlinked mode and custom sidechain where I've cut the lows and highs, leaving mainly the mids (this works in direct sync with the toneboosters mid de-expansion, but in the opposite direction) -> Mid/Side decoding -> Tranquilizer final post chain EQ for further tonal balancing and mid vocals separation -> Barricade, almost default settings.

Here are the results in both FLAC and mp3 format:

FLAC

Mp3

I tried matching the overall volume to Compyfox instructions. Might be a bit hotter in the chorus but it should be around the same mark. It's very low volume for a pop mix like this though. Could easily have pushed it several dB more without any real harm (might have needed some further processing and trickery but still.. this is far from "commercial" volume levels of today).

Total time including FLAC and mp3 rendering, about 30 minutes.

EDIT: The alternative master, using less plugins.

FLAC alternative master

MP3 alternative master

Original unprocessed mix

Cheers!
bManic

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Sat May 04, 2013 8:21 pm

Self-Critique:

I think I might have had the wrong attack setting on the SSL bus compressor.. my master is a bit too "splashy". I think it was set at 3ms when it could easily have done the same thing with less compression and 0.3ms attack.. or even 1ms.

Oh well.. other than that I think I got the tonality and the "sugary radio hit/pop-song" thing nailed. Then again, working on headphones is a massive risk as I might very well have killed the whole thing but on these headphones it sounds great!

Cheers!
bManic

HanafiH · Post by **HanafiH** » Sat May 04, 2013 9:02 pm

bmanic wrote: The sub burst at around 26.5s took roughly 15 seconds to fix so I'm not sure what you are on about.. a modern daw like Reaper lets you insert plugins on edited clips so I just separated the boom, added an EQ targeted exactly at the correct frequency and slightly adjusted the level.

bManic

The criterion of the challenge is to use three plugs only.

Cheers!

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Sat May 04, 2013 9:06 pm

3 to 5.. but yeah, you could also automate the EQ.

HanafiH · Post by **HanafiH** » Sat May 04, 2013 9:16 pm

bmanic wrote:3 to 5.. but yeah, you could also automate the EQ.

Not without slipping into the ambient bass around the sub. And mastering is supposed to to be polish not first aid. Whatever caused the sub, probably something slipping through a mic somewhere, should have been cut out in the desk, where fixing it would be trivial, not brain salad surgery, which fixing it in the master is. I stick by original claim that the only way to transparently fix this flaw is the use of a spectral EQ - probably offline.

It's a fix in the mix call.

75ips · Post by **75ips** » Sat May 04, 2013 9:25 pm

Gave it a go, hope y'all like it:

kvr_try_1.mp3

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Sun May 05, 2013 10:07 am

Sorry, but the sub-rumble can be tackled with one plugin only. In this case, I used the MDynamic EQ and automated it to turn on/off around the parts with the sub only.

So I literally used MDynamic as LC at 25Hz with 24dB/Oct (steep, I know, but it did take care of the rumble), and as dynamic lowshelf at 120Hz with the detection filter going up until 80Hz. The dynamic is reduced by about 5dB the two times the low sub frequency comes in.

I did not(!) go past the 3-5 plugin limit with my render.

Summary:
Taking care of that issue is still possible, HannafiH. Granted, very limited (yes, I would ask for another mix as well, though because of different reasons!), but it is possible considering what you got as source.

I even dialed in some lowend on purpose after the sub bass treatment.

So yeah... I've heard and worked with worse!

HanafiH · Post by **HanafiH** » Sun May 05, 2013 10:41 am

Compyfox wrote: Granted, very limited (yes, I would ask for another mix as well, though because of different reasons!), but it is possible considering what you got as source.

And I've heard and worked with worse!

I can hear both of them (it happens twice) in your mp3. Well I can't be arsed and I've left it in. Two plugs only: UAD Pultec Pro, UAD Fairchild. Best I can do with my monitoring.

http://www.filefactory.com/file/1mddyyrzr5zz/n/kvr_flac

44.1/16 FLAC

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Sun May 05, 2013 12:08 pm

Of course this is happening twice... the bassdrop part of the song! Granted, a useless part, but it is there.

Remember, the file was originally created to test compressors and how they respond. And to have a more "homogenic" composition, I only reduced it (the drops) dynamically rather than cutting it away completely.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Sun May 05, 2013 12:10 pm

The sub "rumble" is not random noise or a mistake. It's very obviously a drum/tone put there on purpose. It's clearly syncopated and makes sense, thus it's part of the track and shouldn't be removed, it could be tamed a little but I suspect that if you hear it at exaggerated volume levels it means you have room modes which exaggerate it's length and strength.

It happens precisely at 26.850s and again at 44s. Both times it is also in-tune with the song so the frequencies are easy to find.

A simple, sharp EQ (for instance Pro-Q, with Q set to 4.0 or tighter) a couple of dB's puts the sound nicely into the track where it belongs.

In my opinion it's a complete non-issue and I'm still of the opinion that the mix is pretty strong. I'd wager over 80% of the work I received for mastering (and songs I've heard here on KvR) are in much worse shape than this mix.

- bManic

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Sun May 05, 2013 12:11 pm

Compyfox wrote:Of course this is happening twice... the bassdrop part of the song! Granted, a useless part, but it is there.

Exactly.. and I don't think it's useless either. It makes sense to me.

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Sun May 05, 2013 12:47 pm

Just as extra bit:
Since ARC by IKM is part of my system, I already had that "almost flat" response on initial playback with this particular production.

Enhancing it even more on the high frequency content (example: parallel EQ or exciting) would result in massive ear fatigue, or even damaged ears completely. So I pretty much left it be (which to some might sound "muddy").

The only thing I tried to correct, were the guitars, the (IMO too prominent) high hat and having a bit more lowend emphasis on the beat in general.

In the end, Mastering is not only "correcting" things, it's also an artistic decision. You have to weight in the good versus the bad, and how to enhance/reduce that. In this particular case, I went for what it's available and tried to balance it out.

With the last mastering deal I did (the Jazz/Pop production, see my sig), I was in touch with the musicians/main engineer. But even then, I tried to fix the flaws first and only "slightly" enhance, rather than go haywire and cut away what I didn't like.

It's always a give and take. If the client says "this has to be there", then it has to be there. If you can out-argument him/her, good for you. But in the end, the performance is important. Not how "clean" it sounds on a friggin iPod!

Though... it should sound clean on pretty much all avalailable environments. So this was just an example of how not to do it.

Davias · Post by **Davias** » Sun May 05, 2013 1:27 pm

Exactly what I thought when I tried my first take.

For me the mix was almost perfect, except a low end too subtle for me, except the occasional burst that reproduced really terrible on my system, but my system is crap so... This is why I multi-band compress the basses to tame this burst and to give more power to the rest of the low end.

After that, I understand better what Ayin Zahev wanted to tell me by unbalanced

I've change the overall feeling of the record to my taste, what a sound engineer shouldn't normally do. Because it is simply not my style, I find this sound utterly boring and too sweet... So I tried to give it an electro/ultrapop feel or something, which results in oversaturation and tech-like pumping ^^ After that processing, the hi-hats were horrible, but I've just reached the 5 VST limit so I let them as is...

I will try another 'master' in a few days ^^

New Mastering Challenge - May 2013