AUdIoCoUrSeS
Joined: 31 Oct 2002
Posts: 2014
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| Week 8 |
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1. What is Mastering?
2. Why is mastering necessary?
3. What is Post Production?
4. Comment on “preparing your tapes”.
5. Comment on “stereo bass”.
6. Why is mono compatibility such an issue?
7. What is meant by the term “start ID”?
8. What are the three types of Disc Cutting?
9. What information should be written on your master tapes?
10. What is meant by multi-band compression?
11. Explain the term dynamic range.
12. What is the formula for dynamic range?
13. What is meant by SNR?
14. Describe gain riding.
15. Comment on this article:
http://www.digido.com/index/pmodule_id=11/pmdmode=fullscreen/pageadder_page_id=93/
Pay particular attention to what you feel about the subject. Essentially it is about where YOU stand on the subject within the big picture. For example are you joining the race or are you sitting on the fence? What would you do given the reins to a potential top ten album?
16. What is meant by normalling?
17. Explain DC offset
18. How can the target audience affect mastering decisions?
19. What happens to the audio signal when a aural enhancer is applied?
20. What does relative loudness mean?
21. What does r.m.s. mean?
22. What is meant by 'entertainment quality'?
23. What happens if you leave excessive, short transients in the music?
24. What is The K-System?
25. What are The Equal Loudness Contours?
26. What is MetaData?
27. Explain the term Headroom.
28. Explain the term Crest factor.
29. What skills and abilities must a Mastering Engineer possess?
30. What does the term “Masking” mean?
31. Explain the Hass Effect.
32. Why is an acceleration limiter necessary in a vinyl cutting lathe?
33. Explain, as separate paragraphs of up to 100 words, the two causes of mistracking of a vinyl record.
34. Why is the bass on a vinyl record mixed into mono?
35. For maximum sound quality, what is the suggested duration of a single side of a vinyl record?
36. What is a 'production master'?
37. On a CD, what should the peak level be, at some point in the recording, in dBFS?
38. What is the maximum recommended duration of a CD?
39. Why is it possible for two recordings to differ in subjective loudness even if they peak at the same level?
40. List three methods of increasing subjective loudness.
41. Briefly explain the function of a multi-band compressor
_________________
It's all in the ears. - Learn the concepts not the software.
Audio Courses is a way into the music business for you
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Tue Apr 25, 2006 4:32 am |
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electrosushi
Tape Op
Joined: 31 Oct 2006
Posts: 21
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1. What is Mastering?
It is the process of producing a final mix into a data storage device, typically a CD. This Master copy will be the sample from where any copy will be made.
2. Why is mastering necessary?
By the mastering depends the mix that the listeners to that record will hear, the mastering of a song there are several things that can be adjusted before transfering everyhing over ½” reel, stereo width, adjust volumes, compression and ambience.
3. What is Post Production?
If the Mastering applies to a all record, the post production is the mixing of 1 song.
4. Comment on “preparing your tapes”.
When approaching the mastering phase of a project it is essential to prepare the tapes by first labeling them, always have a copy as backup, it is also important that with each tape it is specified the tracks orders, mixing notes and tracks time duration.
5. Comment on “stereo bass”.
Bass is normally recorded in mono, in the process of mixing and mastering the bass is split in a double mono track to avoid contrast in the dynamic range of the 12 channels
6. Why is mono compatibility such an issue?
Any channel or instrument which has been recorded in mono results into being recorded on only 1 track rather than 2, like in the case of a bass, this track will have to be doubled in order to be heard on both channels.
7. What is meant by the term “start ID”?
The start ID is the position which can be set on DAT from where the desired track will start.
8. What are the three types of Disc Cutting?
a) DMM Direct Metal Mastering: the master disc is cut on a copper-coated disc.
b) Dynaflex: the master disc is pressed on lighter weight discs, 125g/m² rather than 180g/m²
c) Lathe-cutting: a lathe cuts microgrooves onto a clear polycarbonated disc.
9. What information should be written on your master tapes?
Name of the mastering engineer, tracks listing, tracks duration and notes about each track, Start IDs when possible.
10. What is meant by multi-band compression?
A multi band compressor splits an audio signal in 2 or more bands and operates on each of this bands with different settings , the advantage is that when a loud signal on a specific band triggers the compression mechanism, this compression won't affect other bands which would not need any compression at that stage.
11. Explain the term dynamic range.
It can be described as the ratio of the loudest possible signal to the quietest and it can be applied to a microphone as well as a loudspeaker.
12. What is the formula for dynamic range?
Dynamic Range=Loudest signal (dB)-Quietest Signal (dB)
13. What is meant by SNR?
Signal-to-Noise-Ratio is the difference between the quietest signal (noise) and an arbitrary value on the channel, that's why it needs to be measured with a selection of different signals.
14. Describe gain riding.
It means manually adjusting the gain in an effort to decrease the dynamic range.
15. Comment on this article:
http://www.digido.com/bob-katz/level-practices-part-1-.html
Pay particular attention to what you feel about the subject. Essentially it is about where YOU stand on the subject within the big picture. For example are you joining the race or are you sitting on the fence? What would you do given the reins to a potential top ten album?
I felt that this article, for myself, is an eye-opener, I understand that the music industry is in a bit of chaos when referring to the loudness race, the choice of equipment, style, ideas makes the uniforming process a good challenge.
I picture myself as a inexperienced audiophile, probably one of those referred in the article as the new computer based musicians with no clue in regard to the actual music standards. Luckily, this represents a new evolution of the music industry and throughout articles like this and experience in the field I think there will be a very marked 2 classes of productions, those who will advance their experiences until they reach the "standard" and those who will remain in the home-production panorama, which is how ever expanding a lot in these days. I really hope I will have the opportunity to develop my knowledge within "the race".
With a potential top-tenner I would try to shape it the best I could to obtain the best values in terms of meters, I would probably stick to a K-14 production, now that I know what it is.
16. What is meant by normalling?
It's process possible on a computer's DAW which analyses the give region to find out all the peaks above 0 dB and level them down to 0.
17. Explain DC offset
It is process aimed to reduce low frequency noises caused by electrical interferences.
18. How can the target audience affect mastering decisions?
Typically each target audience has some preferences in regards to the hotness of the record, a metal record would please a metal fan if this is more compressed and "louder" while a pop an audio book would be on much lower meters.
19. What happens to the audio signal when a aural enhancer is applied?
It enhance the presence by expanding some selected frequencies and generating the harmonics.
20. What does relative loudness mean?
It is the loudness of a sound perceived in the air by a human ear. It is measured in dB.
21. What does r.m.s. mean?
Root means square, it defines the raw heating power of an amplifier, rather than its peak out.
22. What is meant by 'entertainment quality'?
???
23. What happens if you leave excessive, short transients in the music?
I the slew rate of the amplifier is not quick to follow the transients there will be loss of signal, even though this would be quiet odd in a modern amplifier.
24. What is The K-System?
It is a suggestion to divide the music production suggested by Bob Katz, by separating the radio/speech production (K-12), the main pop production (K-14) and the SACDs and Audio DVDs (K-20), the system suggests to use some fixed value in terms of dB for the masters.
25. What are The Equal Loudness Contours?
The ears cannot hear every sound, the ELC isa measure of sound in dB, on a sound spectrum table, for which the listener can actually distinguish a sound
26. What is MetaData?
The Meta data, is a data about the data. All the information regarding the identification of file can be considered as such, through this metadata, the K-Sysytem would read its parameters and apply them correctly.
27. Explain the term Headroom.
The Headroom is the difference between the the quietest and the loudest level of a track.
28. Explain the term Crest factor.
The crest factor is the is given by the peak amplitude of a wave form divided the RMS, it is represented by the peaks that a track has.
29. What skills and abilities must a Mastering Engineer possess?
Definitely a good ear, different sets of audio monitors, a knowledge of each type of music (what needs to be highlighted and what not), an acoustically treated room, preferably not the same room where the mix is done.
30. What does the term “Masking” mean?
Masking happens when the the perception of one sound is affected by the presence of another sound.
31. Explain the Hass Effect.
It refers to a phenomenon which happens in our ears: whenever you a loud sound, the ears suppress the following sounds for about 40 ms.
32. Why is an acceleration limiter necessary in a vinyl cutting lathe?
The reason of limiting the speed is to avoid distortion on the vinyl.
33. Explain, as separate paragraphs of up to 100 words, the two causes of mistracking of a vinyl record.
The first cause of mistracking would be the wear of disc, if a disc has been played many times, its grooves are deteriorated and the passage of needle marks every-time the groove making it more more unstable.
Another cause is due to the the physical characteristics of a stereo vinyl, its V shape carries independently the 2 channels, one on each wall, in extreme circumstances, the features of a disc create that the the surface of the groove becomes very thin and in that case the needle would lose its track.
34. Why is the bass on a vinyl record mixed into mono?
This is a convenience adopted because in the case of a stereo bass would make the stylus "wiggle" too much.
35. For maximum sound quality, what is the suggested duration of a single side of a vinyl record?
A 45 RPM disc would last about 30 minutes, something less
36. What is a 'production master'?
It is the final copy of a record which will be used for copying it
37. On a CD, what should the peak level be, at some point in the recording, in dBFS?
0 dBFS would be the maximum the the peaks on the CD would reach.
38. What is the maximum recommended duration of a CD?
The common use says 74 minutes.
39. Why is it possible for two recordings to differ in subjective loudness even if they peak at the same level?
Two recordings each may peak at 0 dBFS, yet one might sound very much louder, subjectively, than the other. This is because the human ear does not interpret loudness according to peaks, but by the average level of the signal.
40. List three methods of increasing subjective loudness.
- Compression
- Clipping
- Multi-band compression
41. Briefly explain the function of a multi-band compressor
It is a compressor which can operate on different band independently by each other.
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Mon Apr 30, 2007 7:12 pm |
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AUdIoCoUrSeS
Joined: 31 Oct 2002
Posts: 2014
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Hi there.
I have put some feedback here, there are some areas you need to work on a bit and tidy up. Reasonably good in other areas, I know you've been busy..
13. What is meant by SNR?
Signal-to-Noise-Ratio is the difference between the quietest signal (noise) and an arbitrary value on the channel, that's why it needs to be measured with a selection of different signals.
Need a bit more detail on each of these.
16. What is meant by normalling?
It's process possible on a computer's DAW which analyses the give region to find out all the peaks above 0 dB and level them down to 0.
Be careful with yiour terms here, you mention 0 twice, how is that possible?
17. Explain DC offset
It is process aimed to reduce low frequency noises caused by electrical interferences.
Are you sure?
22. What is meant by 'entertainment quality'?
???
Think about this in the context of multi-media.
25. What are The Equal Loudness Contours?
The ears cannot hear every sound, the ELC isa measure of sound in dB, on a sound spectrum table, for which the listener can actually distinguish a sound
This is a vital concept to understand, please provide some more detials.
27. Explain the term Headroom.
The Headroom is the difference between the the quietest and the loudest level of a track.
Not really, needs more research.
_________________
It's all in the ears. - Learn the concepts not the software.
Audio Courses is a way into the music business for you
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Tue May 01, 2007 9:11 am |
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