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Topic: Mastering?

TheHade
VoivodFan
Member # 109

posted December 18, 2002 06:13

Unofrtunately, my theoretical knowledge on music is pretty weak. I know what "recording an album" is and I can imagine what "mixing an album" is. But what does "mastering an album" mean? What are the guys doing in NY now (or are they done already?)? What is it that has to be done after the mix? Any why for heaven's sake does it take more than two additional months to finally release the album?! I just cannot (and don't want to, either) wait any longer!!! Maybe your explanations can ease my mind a little...

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h
VoivodFan
Member # 8

posted December 18, 2002 06:36

Mastering is the final stage where any sound level adjustments are made. Basically it's the process of putting the album into it's final running order and checking levels / balance / equalization and shit like that. It can make a LOT of difference to how the finished thing sounds. A bad mastering plant can take all the weight out of the sound. A good one will make it sound like planets are being shifted! There's a lot more involved than you'd think. If a good mix was done, it usually only takes a day or two. As for why we have to wait another couple of months, that's a long story! Most of it has to do with all the people involved. The record companies have to syncronize their releases with every disributor they use, all of which are run independantly in the different countries. And all of which have other releases already scheduled and can only handle a certain amount of work at any given time. Then there's artwork, promotion, press and shit like that. And, if you're unlucky, you have to deal with businessmen who are fucking retards and can't even wipe their own arse without booking an appointment for next thursday..... But that's another story entirely!

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K
VoivodFan
Member # 6

posted December 18, 2002 08:07

The actual Printing of the Covers and the CD Duplication and Packaging take time as well.
But i'm sure you know that already. lol!

Wouldnt it be cool to run the Heidleberg Press that prints those Multiverse covers?
I would like to either do that, or run the Press that prints Hustler Magazine!
That would be a cool job!
I keep trying to convince my boss that we should print Porno Magazines instead of Buisness Letterheads and crap.
Then my idea to convert the back of the shop into a Nude Modeling Studio didnt go over too well either.

What was the Topic here again?
Oh yeah...Mastering or something.

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Emlyn K Helicopter
VoivodFan
Member # 44

posted December 18, 2002 08:23

If you've seen that Metallica video diary of when they recorded the Black album, the last part has Lars in the Mastering Suite bothering the engineer. Funny, really, you can imagine Lars saying 'I want it to sound as artificial as my hairpiece! Shove some more bottom end in! And some top! We gotta get radio play!'

I believe it took only two days to master the Black album, I may be wrong, but like h said, it had been mixed properly anyway.

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pppaaaüüülll
VoivodFan
Member # 13

posted December 18, 2002 09:53

Hi King Kula;

i work as an engineer building machines and guess what, we also do work for Heidelberg. So in short terms we engineer some pieces of Heidelberg machinery.

Ain't it a smaal world.

Paul

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TheHade
VoivodFan
Member # 109

posted December 19, 2002 03:36

First of all, thanx a lot for your replies! But this is still a little hard for me to understand. I always thought the sound of an album is defined by mixing it. Maybe I should buy some old CD and compare it to its remastered equivalent.
By the way, is the mastering of "The Multiverse" done by now? And why are there no updates anymore at Chophouse anymore? Just because this is the site of a studio and the recording itself is over?! (I really got used to this flow of information...)
I also didn't know there were such differences in sound between LP- and CD-editions of the same album. Are / were different master tapes made for each format or are these differences due to the medium itself (a CD is read differently by its player than an LP, the signals are processed differently, ...)?
Since I know VOIVOD (or Coroner for that matter) only from the radio and rediscovered them on CD I have no idea how they sound on LP (I don't have a record player, either.). How would you describe the differences? What don't you like specifically about the sound of their CDs?
King Kula: how do you know the booklets will be printed on a Heidelberg Press? Is this the only brand in the industry or something like that?
Emlyn: No, I haven't watched that Metallica-video (or any other except for "One") since I honestly NEVER understood what was supposed to be so great or even interesting about them and their music. The only cool thing for me was Jason's posing and the way he shaved his hair at the sides about 10 years ago. As a kid I loved AC/DC and a few bands from the GDR where I grew up. The next step were already VOIVOD, Holy Moses, Coroner, Napalm Death, S.O.D., Carnivore, Pestilence, Ministry, Suffocation and the likes. I don't know if that makes me ignorant or something.
Thrash on!

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Emlyn K Helicopter
VoivodFan
Member # 44

posted December 19, 2002 05:00

"I don't know if that makes me ignorant or something."

It certainly doesn't, mate! But check out 'Ride the Lightning' and 'Master Of Puppets' and you'll see why most of us here love Metallica, even though the Metallica we love has nothing to do with anything they've done or stood for since about 1990. Well, for me anyway.

In a nutshell, Remastering is supposed to make an album clearer, punchier and brighter. The trade-off is that it can make it harsh and cold. Take AC/DC: Highway to Hell & Back in Black sound superb on CD but I prefer the vinyl, they seem to have more warmth and character which suits the band better.

Well, it's all subjective at the end of the day and I'm pissing in the wind here.

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schroeder
VoivodFan
Member # 5

posted December 19, 2002 06:17

Vinyl usually sounds "warmer" because you get a truer "sound wave" from the stylus , wereas a digital sound squares off the the wave and you loose a bit of the real sound and feel of what is being played. This is how it was explained to be years ago. If you compare a smooth flowing 'sound wave' to a binary digital information of sound you should get the idea. Maybe it's not that way anymore, but it made sense to me when it was explained. Although you also have to deal with the possible pops and clicks from a diamond stylus as it travels through the grooves of the vinyl whereas the laser on a cd player is only reading binary information thet tells it what sounds to produce.

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h
VoivodFan
Member # 8

posted December 19, 2002 07:03

It's basically the difference between digital and analogue sound. I did a course on this last year and if you've got a spare few hours we could natter about it over a pint, but I'd recommend you researching it yourself if you really wanna find out more. There's so many things that can make the difference to the sound of a record, not just the mix or the master or cd or vinyl. There's also shit like how an amplifier is mic-ed up, where the mic is in proximity to the sound source, what type of mic is used, what kind of recording desk is used, who the engineer is, whether or not he had coffee that morning!

. But basically the mix is where you sort out the individual levels of each instrument, and the mastering is where you sort out the level of the whole sound before it is pressed to disc. The whole vinyl / cd or analogue / digital argument has been raging for years and is really down to personal preference (along with FACT that analogue contains more sound frequencies and the FACT that human hearing doesn't respond to any frequencies that are missing on the digital sound, so I'm told

). My personal preference will always be analogue & vinyl. Even though I have a digital studio set up, but that's only because I can't afford analogue!
Anyway, I'm rambling on now. Time for a pub lunch, methinks.

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Helldriver
VoivodFan
Member # 46

posted December 19, 2002 09:32

"I don't know if that makes me ignorant or something."

Ignorance is in every human people, you can only try to reduce it. (in other words we are all ignorant except Shroeder in the music field...)
Anyway Emlyn K Helicopter is right, try to listen to the first 3 album of Metallica and you'll discover if they were great or not.
For what concern the difference between the analog and digital sound I like to add some other consideration (Shroeder an H are right):
The Analog (vinyl) is more fidel to the real sound but there are much probality to have external noises caused by the dust that lies between the tracks or by the head itself, instead the digital (CD) have an almost perfect reproduction but is a part of the real sound (because of the cutted frequences and the approximation of the analog/digital conversion).
But the real question is what are you able to appreciate with your stereo device.
For example if you listen to music with your 40W pc speakers (low quality) you wont find any differencies between MP3,CD or whatever, if you have a low-middle or middle-high quality stereo youll' probably find that the CD sound better than the vinyl and finally if you have a hi-fi stereo you'll probably appreciate the vinyl because your speakers could reproduce all the frequencies and the noise due by the head is dramatically reduced (with high quality vinyl player-$$$).
Some purist of the sound says that people don't listen to the sound only with ears but with all the body, so it's important that the stereo's speakers could reproduce all the frequencies of the original sound.
But the future of the sound will speak the digital language...
In fact I read an article where some great company (like sony, don't remember exactly...) planned to do the super audio cd, a super CD (I guess a kind of DVD) that could record sounds at a higher frequency rate than the standard of the audio cd (44 Khz stereo) and could store much more frequencies than the cd and maybe than the vinyl so it could reproduce a high fidelity sound experience.
Ehm sorry maybe I was a bit boring...

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TheHade
VoivodFan
Member # 109

posted December 19, 2002 10:30

Hey, it's good to read you all again!

Emlyn: of course I know "Ride The Lightning"
and "Master Of Puppets" (I even still have them on tape!) but Metallica's music has a strange effect on me: at first I like it, but after listening to it for a couple of times this changes and the music starts to sound worse and worse to me. By then I really cannot stand it anymore and it bores me to death. I feel the same way about music by Sepultura, Kreator, and Sodom, e.g. But recently I found out that I like Anthrax when I'm a little drunk. My girl friend always says I'm a musical autist who can only enjoy (or even bear) a very small bandwidth of music, i.e. I love Metal but most Metal bands just make me wanna puke...

Maybe I should have a psychologist write a paper about this because it refutes the concept of "mere exposure"!

Or is there really a fundamental difference between the bands and music I love and the ones I despise?!
Thanx for enlightening me a little about the digital vs. analog controversy. I now think that I have a problem grasping the concept of mastering because I only have a cheap stereo (but semi-good headphones!), no record player and usually know only one version of an album so I just don't have a comparison. But since I like music the way I know it and cannot afford anything else this is maybe just as well!

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TheHade
VoivodFan
Member # 109

posted December 20, 2002 09:08

OK, of enough of that Techno-talk!

I won't be able to be exploited my these multinational corporations (anybody still remember this Napalm Death-track?) inventing one new format after the other because I won't have enough Euro-Pesos to pay for all these toy-gadgets!

Also, I have a family to support.

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