Preparing Audio Files For Mastering

[PeeBs]

Audio Mastering: Preparing Audio Files For Mastering

If you have made the decision to send your tapes or files out to a professional mastering service then there are some really basic concepts to stick to here regarding mastering. Above all get into your head the concept that the recording studio is for recording and mixing and the Mastering Studio is for Mastering, if you start polishing your stereo mix before the mastering stage you are wasting your money and limiting the mastering engineers options

1. Create the best mix possible without any mastering compression, at all, in your studio, be it home studio or a commercial one. You may come across some engineers who will try to sneak some mastering compression on before it leaves their studio but do your best to discourage that, it's in your interest to leave ALL the mastering processes to the service you are about to pay good money for. If the studio engineer does not realise you are going to pay for a third party service he/she may try to master it for you, so you must explain it's not needed.

A general list of things to avoid doing before the pro service is:

a) heads and tails of the tracks, i.e. don't do any cleaning up of starts and ends.
b) normalising (yuck)
c) de-noising
d) limiting
d) stereo compression, obviously you may compress the individual tracks during mix-down etc.
e) stereo e.q.
f) anything else to the final stereo mix (or 5.1 stems)

2. Talk with the mastering service and you may even provide them samples of some tunes you feel you want your music to sound similar to. Hopefully you'll be able to pop aloing to the studio itself and be there when they master.

3. Mastering engineers love to have logs. Logs means that you have a record of the full song title, addreviated filename on the media and the order you wish to have your album played in. You may also want to include your notes about particular bits of the individual songs as guidlines for the engineer. (first word in chorus 2 needs raising etc). Don't worry about putting the songs in any order in the studio by shuffling them around or creating copies, the logs are fine. Create two copies and keep one for yourself for safety. If you are recording into DAT lave a good length of tape free at the start, a minute is fine, then ID your first track.

4. When creating your mixdown keep the overal level way down to a suggested level of - 3 dBFS.

5. Label your shit, this means actually writing "Session Tape" on the media, this is vital, also include your name and phone number on it.

6. Formats you can send (to any serious mastering house) are:

a) analogue tape - tailed out, this means you take the reel off the machine after it's played through, this is to avoid "print through", which can manifest a "pre-echo", generally ugly stuff. Include information about the tape speed and record level used for 0VU, stereo or mono source, noise reduciton used (if any) the E.Q the machine uses such as NAB or IEC. Often tones can be included to allow the mastering engineer to align his machine with the one that the material was recorded onto.
b) digital tape - simple rule here is to NOT sample convert anything, leave that to the mastering house, who should have nice expensive convertors.
c) CD-ROM - rules are: leave silence before the track starts to avoid glitches, use either AIFF or WAV formats ONLY. Record all the files at the same sample rate if possible, log them if they differ. Use sensible file names that have a relationship with the song. Use high quality CD-ROMs, Record at the lowest speed on your burner, just go to the pub while it burns. Above all check the thing works in your friends PC also.

7. Remember you get what you pay for generally.

[pHz]

(moved from off topic to everything else)

slainte rob

[PeeBs]

Thanks!
[quote="pHz"](moved from off topic to everything else)
slainte rob[/quote]

[vtx]

Great stuff PeeBs,,,,thanx..
It's hard to get info I can understand from our engineer,,it's always the math this the math that,,which is great for other engineers,,but ,,one blurb I did get about eq's and that is their 1% add and 99% take away,,for tracks ,,before reaching for any eq try panning things hard left or right then listen again.
I've been doin that on my multi-tracks before mastering with alot more success....

[Igor 4000]

Does this advice apply to all genres of music? Or do some styles require different preparation?

[shamann]

Record at the lowest speed on your burner

Thanks for the great info.

A question does recodrding at the lowest speed really make a difference? I read a tutorial a few years ago on getsigned.com that suggested the same thing.

I once did a few experiments with my own, older cdr, and found that 1x actually sounded worse than 4x. I always chalked it up to the way the buffers were written by the drivers.

Cheers,
Steve

[pHz]

Record at the lowest speed on your burner

Thanks for the great info.
A question does recodrding at the lowest speed really make a difference? I read a tutorial a few years ago on getsigned.com that suggested the same thing.
I once did a few experiments with my own, older cdr, and found that 1x actually sounded worse than 4x. I always chalked it up to the way the buffers were written by the drivers.
Cheers,
Steve

this is contradictory to some stuff i read a while back - burning at the slowest speed (particularly 1x) is apparently bad for your CDRs - too much heat on any given point or somesuch weakening the coating ...

... AFAIK about 4x is the optimal burning speed

(i would guess that the quality of your medium is more crucial than burn speed though ??? )

slainte rob

[shamann]

(i would guess that the quality of your medium is more crucial than burn speed though ??? )

I could see that. I've used Mitsui for years for audio stuff and been quite happy with it, and generic disks for data.

What are the best CD-R media these days?

[DevonB]

5. Label your shit, this means actually writing "Session Tape" on the media, this is vital, also include your name and phone number on it.

Just to expand on this - Always write in felt tip pen on the label. Using ball-point pen or graphite pencil can leave residue on the label that can get into the machine and do 'bad things'. This more applied to something that uses paper labels, such as DAT tapes. Writing in pen or pencil on a CDR obviously is not going to be good for the media.

Devon

[pHz]

i always use imation ...

... they used to have a pretty good rep - dont know whether thats STILL true though

slainte rob

[kilroy]

What really rubs my rhubarb is when I get stuff that is poorly noted and labeled, or not clearly and intelligently noted and labeled. Another beef is the lack of any alternate mixes whatsoever.

If the vox is a little too under or on top then you are pretty much screwed...you have to send back for another mix. Some engineers get offended by that. Yes you can piddle away and maybe get things a little more in shape, but if you have the forethought to include some "alt mixes" then you have the best solution right at hand.

You don't need to get too carried away, but a few alt mixes can save the session for you. This goes for any mix elements, guitars, drums, whatever. Mostly though, it's issues with vocal balances. Lot's of times vocals come in too hot and it's difficult to get good instrument mass. I realize everyone wants to hear those carefully penned lyrics, but...

Also, do not write on any CDR with alchohol based permanent marker. And please, please...if you are digital, do not send in an audio CD when you have access to the original data wave files, whether it's .WAV or .AIFF., and in the highest resolution available. Most burners will do (or should do) a decent job of burning a data CD, but for CD audio alot of them are all over the map in terms of quality. Use archival or medical grade CDR media, regardless. The dye layer is (supposed to be) more consistant in quality and thickness. Even then, the overall consistancy level regarding CDRs in general is sometimes appalling. I will typically burn three or so for the same master and listen to them all, then pick the one that sounds best...this is after they have "set" for a day, at least. We toss alot of optical media. Exabyte is still a better storage media for a digital master, sadly.

And finally...lots of notes and labeling...neat, organized and clearly written...with some alt mixes puleeeze and thankyou. Without question, the quickest way to a mastering engineer's heart.