Mastering: Mixes that "travel" or transport well

[blue4u]

This is an excellent article so I thought to share it with you all. Here's a sample....

"Differences among speakers exist over their entire range: Lows, mids, and highs. So, over the years, mastering engineers have recognized that the only want to deal with this madness is to create a recording with the flattest, most "average" response possible. That way, it will sound only a little bit "wrong" over every system, rather than okay on some systems and way wrong on others. (The exception is that of the audiophile with the really flat system - who after putting the requisite time, expense, and effort into assembling a great system, should be entitled to the best possible sound.)

It's difficult to create a truly average midrange response, because that's just one of the places where speakers exhibit significant differences. (An aside: I always get a kick out of speaker reviewers who breathlessly exclaim that a particular speaker "revealed things I'd never heard before in my favorite recordings!" This isn't surprising, because any speaker will reveal things you've never heard before, as it's basically EQing the recording differently.)

High frequencies are a different matter. The energy in real music tends to drop off fairly rapidly above 5kHz, so really, what we want is a "sensation" of brightness. You're not going to get the huge peaks caused by notes piling on one another, because there just isn't that much energy up there. A little bit of a boost in the "air" range above 10kHz will do wonders for making a mix transportable, as the tweeters open up a bit more. As a bonus, most playback systems have a treble control that can be trimmed or boosted according to the listener's preferences, based on their acoustics and how shot their hearing is from going to too many concerts without hearing protection."

more... http://www.musiciansfriend.com/document?doc_id=104319&src=3NL8KU&ZYXSEM=0&Prime=Bass

[Rotund]

Nice article and comments. I like stuff like this. Thanks for sharing.

[yabanada]

aams has a great mastering software package. can be automatic or as invloved as much as you want. www.curioza.com

I have no affiliation with this product besides being an extremely pleased customer/user.

[Stymie]

The best way I've found to get a somewhat nuetral and lively mix is to listen to it on multiple devices and then mix for average results. I have a set of Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphones which give a pretty decent flat respose from what I can tell. I then listen to it on my Logitech computer speaker system which isn't too bad. After that I listen to it from my IPod on a boombox unit and finally play it in my car.

Flat sound is something I suppose a computer can achieve which may not transport well. It's a subjective thing in my opinion, though a lot of new rock groups have a generic mix which I'm assuming software if producing based on pre-defined variables.

I agree with the original quote about the value of slightly boosted highs over the 10k range. A little goes a long ways in adding dynamics to the mix.

[cwight]

aams has a great mastering software package. can be automatic or as invloved as much as you want. www.curioza.com

I have no affiliation with this product besides being an extremely pleased customer/user.

Thanks Yaba, that looks great, good price as well. They have a new customer...

[yabanada]

It was easy to use and I get fantastic results. tear it up!

[gatorjj]

There was a similar looking program floating around a couple years ago, called Har-Bal. Anybody know if that's still around?

[atalwar]

There you go : http://www.har-bal.com/

However i have heard lots of praise about this matching voxengo eq: http://www.voxengo.com/product/curveeq/

Never got nuff time to play with the demos though, would really like your thoughts between these ones..

~Amit

[Stymie]

aams has a great mastering software package. can be automatic or as invloved as much as you want. www.curioza.com

I have no affiliation with this product besides being an extremely pleased customer/user.

I bought the software and like it so far. I just haven't figured out how to use anything but the auto feature. I see that they have a forum. I might have to look there for some walk-thrus.

You'll be able to hear what auto master sounds like on my RR14 entry tomorrow.