Techno Production

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rktic
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Re: Techno Production

Post by rktic »

Don't we all know the kind of mood that puts you out on that limb? Been there, done that...

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Techno Production

Post by Lost to the Void »

Splat.

I did say you couldn't fly by flapping your arms.
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Re: Techno Production

Post by Aurongroove »

Planar wrote:It's difficult to take your sudden engineering wisdom seriously when you were in a thread a day or so ago saying you were ignorant about using reverb correctly and wanted some tips.
Planar for God's sake, I'm trying my absolute best here.
I'm not trying to trick people or insult people or inflate my ego, or "seem mysterious".
This sudden wisdom was me sitting down attempting to organize philosophically what my issues are in a way that might explain the significance behind them to people that I am disrespecting IN THEIR OWN FIELD, against negative reinforcement that is making me physically ill with stress, knowing that what I'm doing is making me look like an idiot, and insane, whilst completely failing (it seems) to explain understandable reasons for it yet still not backing down from holding those reasons.

Why would I do this? why would anyone do this? I must either be clinically insane to be so stubborn whilst being so "wrong", or there must be something.

Why would I be helpful and honest and try my best to the members tracks forum, and then throw my reputation in the bin on a losing game this hopeless?

would you give me the smallest, shortest branch of trust and admit it is slightly more logical for anyone to assume that I am just trying to explain something that is being misunderstood, but it's something that I find more important then things as inconsequential as my ego or my reputation on a forum?
I'm Hilarious


Some professional mastering engineers use multi-band compressors.

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Stace
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Re: Techno Production

Post by Stace »

Can someone please explain the last 5 pages to me?

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Re: Techno Production

Post by Aurongroove »

Just run.
save yourself.
I'm Hilarious


Some professional mastering engineers use multi-band compressors.

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Stace
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Re: Techno Production

Post by Stace »

:lol: I was getting that vibe.

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TechnoVicious
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Re: Techno Production

Post by TechnoVicious »

terly wrote:I feel like with a decent mix and 1-2 db of compression/limiting, someone should be able to get their final product 90% of the way there. I do this with my tracks and I'm able to play them out in sets without any major issues. If the mix is bad, mastering won't be able to fix it, and if the mix is good, it's possible to make it playable without too much effort. Good mastering will make music sound its best, but for the purposes of previewing/demoing or even playing in a set, it's not necessary to have music mastered.
...LOL.

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Re: Techno Production

Post by Mattias »

Aurongroove wrote: would you give me the smallest, shortest branch of trust and admit it is slightly more logical for anyone to assume that I am just trying to explain something that is being misunderstood
I give you 10/10 in trying to explain something (multi-band compression) being misunderstood. It's just that you got it backwards. Multiband compression is presented like the cure all remedy and a major necessity in mastering situations. That is the what the misunderstanding is about here.

Perhaps you assume that myself or Steve don't know how to use Multi-band compression? The beautiful thing is that once you understand it and can utilize it is when you realize there are better things to use in nearly all situations.

This thread is contaminated. I feel sorry for the OP really.
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Re: Techno Production

Post by Planar »

Aurongroove wrote:
Planar wrote:It's difficult to take your sudden engineering wisdom seriously when you were in a thread a day or so ago saying you were ignorant about using reverb correctly and wanted some tips.
Planar for God's sake, I'm trying my absolute best here.
I'm not trying to trick people or insult people or inflate my ego, or "seem mysterious".
This sudden wisdom was me sitting down attempting to organize philosophically what my issues are in a way that might explain the significance behind them to people that I am disrespecting IN THEIR OWN FIELD, against negative reinforcement that is making me physically ill with stress, knowing that what I'm doing is making me look like an idiot, and insane, whilst completely failing (it seems) to explain understandable reasons for it yet still not backing down from holding those reasons.

Why would I do this? why would anyone do this? I must either be clinically insane to be so stubborn whilst being so "wrong", or there must be something.

Why would I be helpful and honest and try my best to the members tracks forum, and then throw my reputation in the bin on a losing game this hopeless?

would you give me the smallest, shortest branch of trust and admit it is slightly more logical for anyone to assume that I am just trying to explain something that is being misunderstood, but it's something that I find more important then things as inconsequential as my ego or my reputation on a forum?

I'm going to help you here, Aurongroove, because you've dug yourself in so deep I don't think you really know what this argument is about any more and you do put a great deal of effort into members tracks. This whole farce started because of this post:
Aurongroove wrote:No.
You are wrong.
You've either developed an elitist misconception, or you're on some sort of crusade about what multiband compression is for, but passing whatever-it-is off as "well, this is what all the GOOD engineers do" is extremely irresponsible.

First off, I've never even seen the inside of Ozone. I don't know anything about the programme or what it offers, so don't pin me to it, thanks very much.

Secondly, multiband compression is primarily a mastering effect.
If you won't take my word for it, then do some research.

Saying you don't use multiband compression during the mastering stage, is like saying, "you may only treat the entire wav form with compression, or none at all, and doing anything else, is bad"
At the very least it is extremely common, to bybass frequency regions when treating others, i.e., when you want certain regions to be left alone, or when you want the compressors threshold not to be triggered outside of the region you wish to dynamically adjust. Especially when considering how differently one treats treble and bass.
I know an engineer that literally splits the track he processes in half; bass and treble, and treats both separately, sure, it's not what 'I' would do, but he's a professional mastering engineer and he earns his living doing this and people love the results.


Programmes like L3, the Fabfilter series, C6, are LITERALLY Multiband dynamics for the mastering stage.
And they're just ones that are readily available from Waves and such.
Let's focus on this bit:
Aurongroove wrote:You've either developed an elitist misconception, or you're on some sort of crusade about what multiband compression is for, but passing whatever-it-is off as "well, this is what all the GOOD engineers do" is extremely irresponsible.
Steve never said it's never used, he actually said this:
Lost to the Void wrote:Very few engineers use Multiband compressors, or few good ones, very often.
A Multiband compressor could be considered non essential in a standard mastering rack. Handy for very occasional problems where the mix can't be fixed... In the mix.
Now, first of all, is this mini-crusade you're on worth all this stress you're causing yourself based on a perfectly reasonable statement which, given all we know about Mr Voidloss (and Mattias for that), comes from a lot of professional experience?

Secondly, you seem to be avoiding the perfectly logical answer to your "multiple basses" question. Do you not agree with the process you were presented with? Do you think MB Comp is a better solution if the ability to change the mix is available?

You can disagree, but you can also acknowledge that others options are valid as well. Being completely entrenched in a position is doing you no favours whatsoever. That goes both ways, but to be honest, as someone who read through a lot of this to learn something, you haven't presented your points very well and I figure most others are reading it the same way as well.


Now to the real elephant in the room. Where the fuck did Dr. Nay go? I bet the fucker isn't even a real doctor...

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Re: Techno Production

Post by Mattias »

TechnoVicious wrote:
terly wrote:I feel like with a decent mix and 1-2 db of compression/limiting, someone should be able to get their final product 90% of the way there. I do this with my tracks and I'm able to play them out in sets without any major issues. If the mix is bad, mastering won't be able to fix it, and if the mix is good, it's possible to make it playable without too much effort. Good mastering will make music sound its best, but for the purposes of previewing/demoing or even playing in a set, it's not necessary to have music mastered.
...LOL.
? That's pretty good advice from Terly there. Did I miss something?
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Senko
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Re: Techno Production

Post by Senko »

Yeah I'm sorta sitting here scratching my head at that too.

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Re: Techno Production

Post by Lost to the Void »

Mattias wrote:
Aurongroove wrote: Lots of random crap
I'm amazed how you STILL are missing the points of all this. Now you're trying to crawl out of it by saying all that random crap that doesn't bring anything to the table and point out how you never could respect me or Steve because of what we said here? You're a joke. You simply need to deal with your major perception issue.

It was you who said MB compression was required and that YOU couldn't see any other tool doing a better job at solving issues. It was YOU who pointed out that me and Steve were flat out wrong because we said it's RARE that mastering engineers are using MB compression and that it's a destructive tool that you need to be careful with. All we did was telling you how it actually works in MOST cases.

Further more if you've spend just a little time reading things through this forum in general then you would come across that you're precious "nothing's set in stone with what tools you use" is something that both me and Steve been pushing a lot.

How can you be so naive?

You're coming across as an asshole who wants to have the last say, even if you're wrong in everything to be honest man.

I'm not even gonna bother with you anymore, you can live in your happy bubble where you're the knowledgeable fella that pretends that knows your shit. Sad dude, very sad.
This basically.

Matty and me usually come at production problems from quite different angles, and present quite different solutions a lot of the time. To call me against experimentation is pretty Naive really. Whilst I don`t consider myself a musical genius by any means, experimentation and constant movement and progression in music has always been my drive, and I think surfing my back catalog demonstrates I deviate from convention a fair amount, whether for good or ill.

Mastering is a process that is about standardisation in a way. It`s the final check that ensures music will translate as universally as possible, that is, it will sound good on as many different systems as possible.
On an individual level, it means an album will have a colour, or a journey of colour, or dynamic, that makes sense, so you aren`t reaching for the tone controls on your listening device, or the volume control, to make changes as each tune on the album is completely contextually unmatched.

These processes of standardisation come with certain rules (EBU R128 being a good example of a honest to goodness rule, nay a legal imperative in US broadcasting) and processes to meet those rules.
Mastering is not the time to say "fuck all the rules", fuck all the rules should already have happened (although some rules will still need to have been applied). Because if you were, for example, to master the audio of a TV series destined for HBO using a "fuck all the rules" philosophy, and not conform to before mentioned EBU R128, well, not only would you lose your job, the studio would have to go to great expense to then get another engineer to do the job properly.
The same goes for mastering for vinyl... Sure you can fuck all the rules, but when your distorted overcooked top end causes the cutting head to overheat and ruin the grooves leading to a really shitty borked up record, or your low end be so utterly out of proportion and phase that the record has to be cut uber quiet, then you have again, not done your job properly.

In electronic music, in most music, when the mixing engineers are doing their jobs properly, the work is generally a process of EQ, 1 or 2 single band compressors, limiting.... That`s it pretty much it. And that is why the most common, essential, tools at the centre of a mastering engineers rack are EQ(s), a couple of compressors, and a limiter.
We do have all sorts of bells and whistles and zing-kapow tools at our disposal these days.
Mid-side everything
Multiband everything
Intelligent noise removal
Intelligent filters
Ultra ultra fast compressors
they are great additional tools for very specific problems, but for day to day work they are non-essential.
It is great to have to access to this stuff, and it means, providing the situations aren`t extreme, that we can tackle more unusual problems from a number of angles. However they come with problems, a lot of badly trained (or not trained at all) engineers think these tools are necessary and make a point of using them, or just use them really badly. This is generally the did 2 years at SAE and I`m a mastering engineer now type guys, who just lack the experience to make informed decisions.
Sometimes an engineers job is literally to say "yep, this is perfect", take it to level, top and tail and the job is done.
Sometimes it is to say "no, not ready". And it here where these "but I have the toolz" guys would force themselves on to the work jamming in every crow bar and nail and shred of gaffer tape they can to plaster over the gaping cracks, because they think they have to. In fact a studio was mentioned amongst a list of "mastering" engineers earlier in the place that I would place in this category. Terrible work, their masters are flat and lifeless beatport techno, they even list foam sound treatment in their studio gear with some kind of pride (foam...really?) and use nearfields and really cheap shitty hifi for mastering.. Proper pretend, been at it for a year "mastering". There is a lot of that out there, and it is reducing the process away from being something where the key part of the word is MASTERing.

Mastering is a subtle "art".

It takes years to get it, and it seems to me, and from what I have learned from guys who really are at the top of the game, the more you are experienced, the less work you need to do. It becomes more and more nuanced. When you start, you think it has to be noticeable, but as you really start learning "do no harm" you realise that the art is working stealthily, like a Ninja. Where even though you might have done super clever things to take that B+ mix to an A master, the client might not even notice it at all.

So in that respect I understand where Aaronchickensandwhich is coming from. He bowled in thinking he knew it, and had it down. Basically regurgitated a bunch of disinfo, declared it as biblical, and then backpeddled at high speed when reality was pointed out to be contradictory, unfortunately the backpeddling accelerated into full blown cycling backwards off a cliff and continuing to peddle on the way down.

I get the initial throwing of the toys out of the pram, but all the stuff after that has been, well, weird and a bit embarrassing.

Just stop digging dude, you have hit bedrock now, climb out, dust all the shit and mud off, and carry on, we are all cunts here.
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Re: Techno Production

Post by Lost to the Void »

Mattias wrote:
TechnoVicious wrote:
terly wrote:I feel like with a decent mix and 1-2 db of compression/limiting, someone should be able to get their final product 90% of the way there. I do this with my tracks and I'm able to play them out in sets without any major issues. If the mix is bad, mastering won't be able to fix it, and if the mix is good, it's possible to make it playable without too much effort. Good mastering will make music sound its best, but for the purposes of previewing/demoing or even playing in a set, it's not necessary to have music mastered.
...LOL.
? That's pretty good advice from Terly there. Did I miss something?
YEah I¬m a bit puzzled.

The key word is GOOD mix. And terly is entirely right (though I would say the average is 80-85% if we are to use percentages).
With a good mix, a couple of db of comp (done properly) and a db of limiting will easily make a mix workable to test in the club, use in a mix etc
It might not have quite the impact if professional masters but that is mainly down to the fact that beatport techno and the "mastering" that goes on a lot of it, has pushed the competitive final levels of techno up to stupid levels.
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Re: Techno Production

Post by tsaro »

But then....why would Izotope put a multiband comperssor AND a reverb in their mastering software....? Surely they know a thing or two about the mastering business, they've been at it for a long time, making lots of $$ in the process. And not to mention all the endorsement blurbs from the best engineers in the world (even grammy winners apparently), reputable people like that wouldn't about such things, would they?

I think I also remember reading somewhere that you can even use multiband compression to replace eq, which to me sounds like you could chuck out a lot of other processors to massively streamline your setup.

Don't worry Auron, in time everyone will realise the power of the multiband compressor and join the dark side. Just give it some time :D
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Re: Techno Production

Post by Lost to the Void »

I am hoping that someday Izotope will add a bit crusher, grain delay and extremely wide vintage chorus to their mastering package, because these things are sorely needed in mastering too.
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Re: Techno Production

Post by SixOfOne »

Planar wrote: Now to the real elephant in the room. Where the fuck did Dr. Nay go? I bet the fucker isn't even a real doctor...
:lol: :lol:
Of all the shit in this thread this cracked me up the most. The original post actually seems like some silly 1st year college assignment. The doc got his answer in the first reply and fucked off, completely unaware of the shit storm that was to ensue.

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Re: Techno Production

Post by Mattias »

vo0doo wrote:But then....why would Izotope put a multiband comperssor AND a reverb in their mastering software....? Surely they know a thing or two about the mastering business, they've been at it for a long time, making lots of $$ in the process. And not to mention all the endorsement blurbs from the best engineers in the world (even grammy winners apparently), reputable people like that wouldn't about such things, would they?

I think I also remember reading somewhere that you can even use multiband compression to replace eq, which to me sounds like you could chuck out a lot of other processors to massively streamline your setup.

Don't worry Auron, in time everyone will realise the power of the multiband compressor and join the dark side. Just give it some time :D
It's a classic question. Short answer is that Ozone is a spectacle. Very few who works with mastering uses Izotope Ozone as it is. Only the limiter section is what is generally preferable. When it comes to Izotope and mastering engineers it's often their SRC that is getting praise and usage (I use it). They managed to buy in some names to market the software though.

The reverb part was dropped by the way. I think they mentioned that it was included previously due to people used it as tracking software (Alloy took over now).

The MB comp part is there in case it's needed. Not to fill the role of being constantly used. Some engineers like to use single band action for de-essing or what not.

Proper mastering software comes from companies like DMG Audio / TDR / PSP / Brainworx / Weiss etc
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Re: Techno Production

Post by Stace »

Does it come with an arp too?

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Re: Techno Production

Post by Lost to the Void »

Izotope did actually remove the reverb module, to be fair, in like version 5 or something. After the mastering community turned it in to a meme and it started to lose Ozone credibility.
I think the feature was originally added purely out of bad initial consultation with the industry.

These days, apparently, they have much more sensible tools in the package, although they still throw in buzzwords. TAPE VINTAGE VINTAGE VINTAGE....

The problem with that software does come from the user, it has all the bells and whistles that a seriously stocked mastering room might have, but it doesn`t really offer any context for it, so noobs and ill informed give equal weighting to the importance of it and use every single module on each project.
I`ve seen some insane conversations in blind leading the blind land on some places including facebook when it comes to finalising mixes.
And the most common argument is "but why would they put it in the software then?".
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Re: Techno Production

Post by Mattias »

Lost to the Void wrote:"but why would they put it in the software then?".
I love that one. To which one can respond in a high pitched voice "but why does my limiter have a function where I can boost the signal by +50dB? It must mean it should be used like that"

or

"There's a hi-shelving filter on my EQ, must mean I have to use it"
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