Moderators Travis In Austin Posted January 10, 2018 Moderators Share Posted January 10, 2018 2 hours ago, Chris A said: How's yours, Travis? I remember you talking about issues a few years ago vis-à-vis going to the doc. Has it stabilized?. I know from my mother's experiences that have opened my eyes to what's in store for most all of us--assuming we're selected to live that long. Hearing loss can change your life...or at least make it less stressing. I try to protect my hearing nowadays even more than I used to when my Jubs arrived 10 years ago. It's been a good 10 years... Terrible above 12K, but the ringing is gone. Between flying, rock concerts and hunting, all without protection, it's gone forever. The reference standard to do work such as mixing and mastering is either 80(I forget) or 85 (AES) db because this is the level that humans have the best frequency response. I prefer the lower of those two for careful listening. I don't think I could do 85db for very long. I wear earplugs at most concerts (rock, opera, symphonic). I worry about the earbud generations, I think they are all at way above 85 db for extended periods of time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Combover Mastering Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 So.. The 2 pie digital releases will be available this week on iTunes etc. I'm excited for these guys! About to start ep number four as well! I'll post when they're ready. we are also going to release the first two albums digitally! Later we we are talking about doing an all analog and releasing to vinyl and cassette only release with no computers involved. That one will be called 5 and would have to be ordered like the olden days. Matt Whatley Combover Mastering Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Travis In Austin Posted January 10, 2018 Moderators Share Posted January 10, 2018 5 hours ago, Chris A said: I don't believe that it's the mastering guys that are the issue when it comes to prolonging Loudness War practices over time. Perhaps it's the "music producers"? Maybe it's just corporate culture. There are these people that are the ones that want "a particular sound". It's just that I almost always don't prefer that kind of sound. The sound of dynamic range--like was used everywhere before 1991--is something that I like a lot more. I actually like "sound reproduction" over "sound creation"...for most music. I think that almost all mastering guys would use much less limiting and compression if their customers (which isn't actually the consumers) would buy it. I'm not alone in my dislike of Loudness War practices, I believe: http://dynamicrangeday.co.uk/ Chris The is no question that with some producers/artists/record companies they wanted it louder and louder, to a point where it was just out of hand in some circles. Bob Katz's book on mastering (universally considered to be the Bible in that industry) has a chapter devoted to the Loudness War. He wrote that book in 1999 and it was published in 2000. The industry stats say, I don't know if this is true or not, say that the peak of the War was in 2005 and that there has been a decline since then. I have no idea who would track this. I don't think going strictly by DR number from the database is necessarily going to get someone the best recording on a particular system. EQ is a matter of personal preference, and why it is used at every stage in the recording chain, from beginning to end. The singers preference on the microphone, how far from mike, and on and on and on until it ends up on media or a file of some sort. Check that, if you have a Cello Palette (a real one, not the plug in) it gets EQ by the listener, or now, with great software, you can EQ it how you want it in a file. End user EQ has always been and will always be. From a conductor moving musicians back and forth, left and right, to the technology we have now. Heck, even Joel's dad was into EQ Some artists care about their end produce, some have no idea or can't afford to care, and some don't care at all. For example, nothing that got released by Led Zeppelin, including the very recent remasters was released without Sir James Page's direct involvement and approval. But he is the rare example of an artist knowing about production, recording, microphone placement, etc. It is pretty easy to tell if an artist has involvement in how their music is recorded and what the end result sounds like. If they are listed as a "Producer" on the album it is them. It is all their fault. When they were remixing some Bruce Springsteen and then remastering those mixes Clearmountain did the remixes. Bob Ludwig did the remastering. On 5 lps they were mastered specifically for CD for the first time. Which means . . . some poor guy in the 80s was handed some sort of tape, from somewhere, and told to "get these on CD as quick as possible." On Nebraska, he would not allow remixing, and when Bob told him he thought he could add a little to it during the analog to digital process he politely said "no, it is what it is." So the question is, if someone monkey's around with EQ on Nebraska, knowing that it is the way that Bruce intended it, in its rough and raw form, is he still listening to Bruce Springsteen? Or is it a Springsteen "remix?" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Travis In Austin Posted January 10, 2018 Moderators Share Posted January 10, 2018 36 minutes ago, Combover Mastering said: So.. The 2 pie digital releases will be available this week on iTunes etc. I'm excited for these guys! About to start ep number four as well! I'll post when they're ready. we are also going to release the first two albums digitally! Later we we are talking about doing an all analog and releasing to vinyl and cassette only release with no computers involved. That one will be called 5 and would have to be ordered like the olden days. Matt Whatley Combover Mastering Put me down for the vinyl. Ask them to consider Hi Rez for the first two lps. Travis 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Travis In Austin Posted January 10, 2018 Moderators Share Posted January 10, 2018 This is Clearmountain's mixing studio today. Notice his studio monitors. Also notice what he has got to help with the mix when he needs it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Travis In Austin Posted January 10, 2018 Moderators Share Posted January 10, 2018 Who knows what this is? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Combover Mastering Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 10 hours ago, dwilawyer said: Who knows what this is? Can't tell but the console looks like a Trident Series80 B. The monitors look like Cornwalls in the pic but maybe Heresy's. Hard to determine the size. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CECAA850 Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 1 hour ago, Combover Mastering said: The monitors look like Cornwalls in the pic but maybe Heresy's. Hard to determine the size. Too dark to see. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
babadono Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 Copied image and it says something about a "recording truck" But who's and where don't know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Travis In Austin Posted January 10, 2018 Moderators Share Posted January 10, 2018 16 minutes ago, Combover Mastering said: Can't tell but the console looks like a Trident Series80 B. The monitors look like Cornwalls in the pic. Winner, winner chicken dinner. That is the Elliot Mazer's mobile studio, His Master's Wheels. It was used to record many, many live albums, including Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young Live 1974. It has also been used to mix many studio recorded LP's. The bus is still used and is now Neil Young's and is located on Broken Arrow. It has two Ampex MM 1000 16 track decks, and, as you stated had two Klipsch Cornwall speakers for "near-field" monitors. The board is a Neve 8016 with a 10/2 sidecar. Outboard compressors were 1176s. It also used to have a Sony boombox which Mazer like to use for what he termed "small-speaker reality." "Klipsch studio monitors, the choice of recording professionals the world over." Travis 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Travis In Austin Posted March 6, 2018 Moderators Share Posted March 6, 2018 Article on EQ in live sound, and the benefits of training your ears to EQ. https://tapeop.com/interviews/117/learning-frequencies/ I believe @Chris A has talked about how his evolution progressed forward the more time he was able to work with frequencies and compare before and after. This is encouraged in this article and explains the benefits in the studio. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark1101 Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 I ALWAYS been a proponent of the 31 band ANALOG graphic EQ. Love them, use them daily. I also have taken a lot of heat for using them over the years. Awesome tool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 I see a lot of "one note bass" resonances in older albums in the 70-120 Hz band, particularly by noted be-bop musicians (Coltrane, Davis, Modern Jazz Quartet, etc.). These are easily dialed back into balance with other bass frequencies using an equalizer--like that discussed in the article, or once-and-for-all via demastering using an audio editor, then saving the demastered tracks for playback. Some of these droning bass frequencies are difficult to pick out strictly by ear, but when you glance at a spectrogram in Audacity, it's immediately obvious what needs to occur. This is also true of other frequencies above the bass band. Recently, I acquired several more Coltrane albums on CD and found that no demastering was required at all based on their cumulative spectrum and spectrogram plots. There is one album that is a notable exception...Blue Train by Blue Note records. Coltrane only made one album for Blue Note, and the demastering curve for the tracks on that album is shown below..which will probably tell you at least part of the reason why he didn't record with them again: Once this demastering curve is applied to the album's tracks, the whole listening experience transforms into something that captivates my attention--leading to what I call the "short album syndrome"...the album is over before I'm ready for it to be over. Note that the other later Coltrane albums done by Atlantic, et al. are also a pleasure to listen to--without demastering at all. Perhaps Coltrane knew what actually sounded good and what didn't...perhaps it was other factors that over-ruled making more albums with Blue Note...but my ears easily tell me why Blue Train isn't more popular than it is (but it's actually my favorite Coltrane album to be honest...once demastered). Learning the frequencies by ear has been a big part of speeding up the demastering process and homing in on the problem areas (I usually can demaster an entire album now in less time than it takes to play the album in its entirety). It's also a big deal when dialing-in the setup and also for correcting recording EQ issues in real time. I wouldn't be without the capability to fix the EQ of any recording that's been altered by the record company or the mastering folks. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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