AUdIoCoUrSeS
Joined: 31 Oct 2002
Posts: 2014
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| Week 8 - Mastering |
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The mastering studio, the mastering process, mastering for: CD, vinyl, cassette, multimedia, other formats and applications.
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Practical
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You are to download the week8.zip and digitally re-master the Fleetwood mac track.
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Target Audience: Internet radio
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File type: mp3
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Bandwidth:128 stereo, 64 mono
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Uploaded ready for next Live Workshop.
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Resources:
http://www.digido.com/index/pmodule_id=11/pmdmode=fullscreen/pageadder_page_id=93/
http://webbd.nls.net:8080/~mastering/guests
http://www.soundrecordingtechnology.co.uk/Services/Mastering/mastering.htm
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Questions:
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.
_________________
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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Mon Oct 20, 2003 2:15 pm |
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mommi
Joined: 21 Apr 2003
Posts: 47
Location: Tallinn, Estonia |
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Hi guys,
Here are my answers for RT Week 8 Mastering. Looking forward to improve my weak spots by the kind help of yours. Just have to send it out now to stay in the schedule.
Take care,
mommi
http://arts.ucsc.edu/ems/music/tech_background/TE-06.1/teces_06.1.html
http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handbook
http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/~jos/mdft/Dynamic_Range.html
http://www.audiocourses.com/article10.html
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1995_articles/feb95/exciters.html
http://www.proaudiorx.com
http://www.maxdisk.com/master.htm
1. What is Mastering?
Mastering is the last creative process in the album producing chain. It operates with the mixed down stereo track (output from the mixing stage), to give it any final polish through EQ, compression, limiting and noise reduction tools. The mastered track is sent to be manufactured.
2. Why is mastering necessary?
To ensure the best possible quality that can be got out from the mix, so that, once manufactured, it will sound good on the target environment.
To ensure consistency between different tracks in terms of tonal balance and levels, and that the gaps between the tracks are ?just right?.
3. What is Post Production?
Another term for mastering.
4. Comment on ?preparing your tapes?.
Preparing the tapes for mastering includes adequate labeling and documentation (what is where, also what you are concerned about), putting leaders at the beginning and at the end of the tape, putting leaders between songs except for recordings of live performance. Analogue tapes should be equipped with test tones.
From the processing side, the tapes should contain the best mix (or, better yet, alternative mixes), any post-mix processing (compressing, EQ, noise reduction, normalizing etc) should be avoided since this is the mastering engineer's job.
5. Comment on ?stereo bass?.
Low frequencies have the largest amplitudes on vinyl disk. Using too much stereo on basses can make the cutting stylus to loose contact with the desk and the groove will disappear. Also, low frequency waves are less directional than the higher ones and so the perceived stereo effect is not so great at basses anyway.
6. Why is mono compatibility such an issue?
Because a lot of radio receivers are mono. Phase differences that may not be very apparent in stereo have detrimental effect when the two channels are summed together in mono.
7. What is meant by the term ?start ID??
Start ID is a marker (number) representing the start of a track on tape. You can quickly locate the necessary track by winding to the corresponding start ID.
8. What are the three types of Disc Cutting?
Did not find any exhaustive description of them, besides the lacquer master. It is getting late, I give up. If somebody has a good link to post, I will follow it.
Lacquer Master
. An aluminium disk with a lacquer coating, processed by a technique named electroplating.
Quote:
the signal is transferred through a console into a machine called a disc cutting lathe. The lathe cuts a spiral onto a lacquer-coated aluminum disc called a "lacquer master". One master is cut for each side of your release. Then, the lacquer master is cleaned, silvered and then plated with nickel to make a part called a "father." The father is used to make another part, called a "mother" from which a stamper is drawn. Two stampers are mounted in a record press to compression-mold a finished record.
An Acetate
Direct To Metal
, copper blank used.
9. What information should be written on your master tapes?
Album title
Song titles, their corresponding start IDs and durations
10. What is meant by multi-band compression?
Multi-band compression means applying different compression to different frequency bands.
11. Explain the term dynamic range.
Dynamic range of a sound or a signal is the ratio of the loudest part of it to the quietest one, measured in decibels.
The dynamic range of a piece of equipment is the ratio of the loudest undistorted signal that the equipment can handle to its internal noise (noise floor). On digital systems the noise is largely the quantization noise, which becomes less with more bits used. So increasing the bit depth increases the dynamic range of a digital system.
12. What is the formula for dynamic range?
Dynamic range = 20 log (max magnitude / min magnitude)
or
Dynamic range = max level in dB ? min level in dB
On digital systems, the dynamic range is approximately proportional to the bit resolution:
Dynamic range = 6 x bits (approximately)
All results in dB.
13. What is meant by SNR?
Signal-to-noise ratio is the ratio of the magnitude of the useful signal to that of the noise floor. The higher it is, the less noise will be introduced by the system. Since the noise floor is more or less constant in a system, passing a low level signal through it makes SNR low. For maximum SNR, one should always try to fully exploit the system's dynamic range.
When describing the equipment's capabilities in terms of SNR, the nominal operating level of a signal is usually taken as the reference.
14. Describe gain riding.
Gain riding means manually moving the faders so that the system could manage with the wide dynamic range of the music. When the signal in a track goes too high, you bring it down by lowering the fader. When it turns back to where it was, you raise the fader.
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?
I definitely agree with the author in that the louder doesn't necessarily mean the better. And when the loudness is achieved by compromising other qualities, I clearly stand (not sit!) on the fence. Music has several means to express itself. Dynamics is only one of these. Eliminate it and you arrive at noise, more or less so.
Were I in the position of producing a hit album, things might look a bit different at first glance since who wouldn't like his work to have a commercial success. But hey, is it all so much dependent on the loudness? We can all educate the listeners a bit, can't we? Yes I think I would still choose the music side. Good musicians have spent years to be able to produce BOTH loud AND soft sounds. Why work against each other then?
16. What is meant by normalling?
Normalizing means making the signal peak as high as possible. This actually means amplification and has the potential benefits of increasing the signal-to-noise ratio. The drawbacks are that normalization is just one more calculation and as such adds an amount of quantization error to the signal.
17. Explain DC offset
Poorly calibrated A/D converters or poorly implemented DSP processes can add a DC offset to the signal, which results in the centerline of the waveform at rest being being shifted away from zero. Excessive DC offset reduces dynamic range in the direction of the offset. This is because the signal will clip prematurely in that direction.
18. How can the target audience affect mastering decisions?
When albums mastered in some specific way sell better than the others, the target audience expresses it's preferences in such a way. This affects mastering decisions commercially.
Also, the target audience relates directly to the music style. It is hard to expect the classic listeners to dream about louder records (more compressing).
19. What happens to the audio signal when a aural enhancer is applied?
New high frequency components (harmonics), derived from the signal content, are added. These are musically related to the original. This has the effect of reinforcing and emphasizing transient details without significantly increasing the signal level.
20. What does relative loudness mean?
Relative loudness has to do with the perceived loudness of tracks on an album. Different songs may (and do) be perceived as having different loudness, albeit they peak at the same levels. On the recording and mixing stages, gain is adjusted so as to get maximum SNR, ie the levels are as high as they can be without distortion. On the other hand, while peaking at the same level, ballads tend to sound louder than rock tracks. So the ballad's relative loudness is higher, and it's level needs to be adjusted so that the songs fit nicely together and don't force the listeners to turn the volume knob after each song.
Relative loudness adjustments are necessary to produce professional-sounding CDs.
21. What does r.m.s. mean?
RMS or Root Mean Square is a sort of average. This can be calculated by adding together the squares of the individual values under consideration, dividing it by the number of values and then taking the square root of it. In the world of audio and other AC signals or voltage, it is common to indicate the magnitudes (voltage or current) in the RMS form, as opposed to peak values. In case of a sine wave, it's RMS value is approximately 0.707 times of it's amplitude.
22. What is meant by 'entertainment quality'?
No idea really. Probably something not quite up to professional standards, but acceptable in certain circumstances for 'entertainment purposes' 
23. What happens if you leave excessive, short transients in the music?
I guess these transients make the dynamic range of the material very wide. Since most of the material will sit at considerably lower levels than the transients, the relative loudness of the track would be lower than it could.
On vinyl cutting process, excessive amplitudes could produce ghost sounds on the neighboring grooves.
24. What is The K-System?
K-System is a metering and monitoring standard. It uses 0dB as a reference point which determines the monitor gain ? monitor gain is adjusted so there is 83 dB SPL at 0 dB. On the dBFS scale, the 0 dB point is either 20, 14 or 12 dB below clipping, depending on the K-System scale in use. The choice is between three scales, K-20, K-14 and K-12. The higher the number, the greater the headroom, given you keep your average levels at 0 dB. What scale to use depends on the music and target environment. K-20 has a good dynamic range, suitable for symphonic and/or audiophile quality music. K-14 is suited for production intended for home listening, and the K-12 fits for productions for broadcast. The meter has a bar representing the average level and a moving line or dot above that representing the most recent highest instantaneous peak level.
25. What are The Equal Loudness Contours?
The Equal Loudness Contours, also known as the Fletcher-Munson diagram, describe how the perceived loudness depends on frequency and SPL. It plots frequency on the horizontal axis, SPL on the vertical axis, and several contours each representing some loudness level. It can be seen for example, that the curves turn upwards both at basses and at upper frequencies, indicating that for the same perceived loudness, there must be higher SPL in these regions. We also can see that at higher SPLs, this behavior becomes less evident in the bass region.
26. What is MetaData?
Metadata is ?data within data?. This is control data embedded into digital audio streams like Dolby Digital and MPEG.
27. Explain the term Headroom.
Headroom is a level difference between the system's maximum non-distorted level and the signal's average level. Headroom is necessary to provide room for occasional high-level transients or other peaks of the program material. Different music styles require different amounts of headroom, depending on their dynamic range.
28. Explain the term Crest factor.
Crest factor is the peak-to-rms ratio of an AC signal. In an audio context this means the level difference of the highest peaks and the average level of the music. This has direct relationship to the necessary headroom ? tracks with greater crest factor need more headroom.
29. What skills and abilities must a Mastering Engineer possess?
a) a good ear in terms of frequencies and frequency ranges
b) experience in wide variety of music genres
c) objectivity
d) patience
e) skill to find the most important parts of the music
f) a clear understanding of technical and psychoacoustical principles behind audio production
30. What does the term ?Masking? mean?
Masking means the effect one sound has on another by making it harder or impossible to hear. The level of masking can be represented as the threshold shift in dB necessary for a masked sound to become audible in the presence of a masking sound.
31. Explain the Haas Effect.
The Haas Effect or Precedence Effect deals with how the ear perceives sounds arriving slightly delayed with respect to each other. The truth is that for short delays (under ca 35 ms), the two sounds are indistinguishable, the earlier sound effectively masking the later one. When the same sound arrives to the two ears at different times, the time delay is translated into the sense of direction. Because of the Haas Effect, what we know as reverberation doesn't interfere with our sense of direction. |
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Wed Oct 22, 2003 8:38 am |
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AUdIoCoUrSeS
Joined: 31 Oct 2002
Posts: 2014
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| Crest of a Wave |
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quote:
Looking forward to improve my weak spots by the kind help of yours. Just have to send it out now to stay in the schedule.
Great idea Mommi and it is certainly useful to encourage more interaction in the forums with your peers.
quote:
From the processing side, the tapes should contain the best mix (or, better yet, alternative mixes), any post-mix processing (compressing, EQ, noise reduction, normalizing etc) should be avoided since this is the mastering engineer's job.
Yes, and this could be termed “post production”.
quote:
6. Why is mono compatibility such an issue?
Because a lot of radio receivers are mono. Phase differences that may not be very apparent in stereo have detrimental effect when the two channels are summed together in mono.
Yes, and also many TV sets are still mono.
quote:
8. What are the three types of Disc Cutting?
Did not find any exhaustive description of them, besides the lacquer master. It is getting late, I give up. If somebody has a good link to post, I will follow it.
Yes mommi remind me, I have a document you can download.
quote:
9. What information should be written on your master tapes?
Album title
Song titles, their corresponding start IDs and durations
And the tones that you mentioned previously would be notated also, along with the type of E.Q. curve used, such as NAB etc.
quote:
10. What is meant by multi-band compression?
Multi-band compression means applying different compression to different frequency bands.
Yes, though I would have liked some more expansion on the topic here.
quote:
On digital systems, the dynamic range is approximately proportional to the bit resolution:
Dynamic range = 6 x bits (approximately)
All results in dB.
6.02 dB x bits is the exact number.
quote:
16. What is meant by normalling?
Normalizing means making the signal peak as high as possible. This actually means amplification and has the potential benefits of increasing the signal-to-noise ratio. The drawbacks are that normalization is just one more calculation and as such adds an amount of quantization error to the signal.
Be careful here, as it certainly does not increase the SNR, as all levels are amplified equally. So if you normalise a –3dB peak signal to 0dB, the noise will also have +3 of gain added.
quote:
19. What happens to the audio signal when a aural enhancer is applied?
New high frequency components (harmonics), derived from the signal content, are added. These are musically related to the original. This has the effect of reinforcing and emphasizing transient details without significantly increasing the signal level.
Good stuff!
quote:
22. What is meant by 'entertainment quality'?
No idea really. Probably something not quite up to professional standards, but acceptable in certain circumstances for 'entertainment purposes'
That’s pretty much it, OK for broadcasting and TV, internet etc, but not for Hi-Fi.
Well done Mommi, some good stuff there!
_________________
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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Wed Oct 22, 2003 1:45 pm |
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AUdIoCoUrSeS
Joined: 31 Oct 2002
Posts: 2014
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| Remember to always think twice! |
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quote:
"Remember to always think twice!"
Don't think twice..... ohhh
lol
_________________
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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Wed Oct 22, 2003 4:46 pm |
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Albow
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 27
Location: Spain |
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1. What is Mastering?
Mastering is applying the finishing touches necessary to ensure that a
recording is professional enough to be released as a marketable product.
2. Why is mastering necessary?
One reason is that there are no discernible technical flaws in the
recording. Another, in the case of an album, is that there is a
consistency of volume throughout all of the tracks so that the listener
does not have to adjust the volume per track. Furthermore, it is necessary
so that the recording does not suffer by comparison with other recordings
in the market place.
3. What is Post Production?
Post-production forms the preliminary steps for mastering. This could be
the preparation of tapes, cataloging all the information about each track
and detailing all the measures that have been taken on the track in
production. The track(s) are then ready for mastering.
4. Comment on ?preparing your tapes?.
Preparing tapes is to ensure that each tape is available in a desired
order, with information on the specs of the track(s). This will include
the dates of recording, the title, how many takes where used, how the track
has been modified in terms of its format, EQ and noise reduction. It will
also specify the type of tape, what storage and compression has been added
if any.
5. Comment on ?stereo bass?.
This regards cutting a vinyl copy of a track. With stereo bass, the
producer has to be careful that the low bass does not feature too
prominently in the mix as it will require the stylus to move up and down
and this may imply too much movement for the stylus to make. To stop this
the bass can be placed centrally in the mix so that it does not dictate the
grooves imprinted onto vinyl.
6. Why is mono compatibility such an issue?
Some radio stations choose to broadcast in mono. If a purely stereo
recording were played in mono, then the sound would suffer and could cause
phase problems.
7. What is meant by the term ?start ID??
The start ID marks where a track begins and ends on a tape. On a DAT drive
this can be specified in tape data blocks, so the exact beginning and the
end of each track can be tracked with certainty.
8. What are the three types of Disc Cutting?
Lacquer Master
Consists of an aluminium disc with a lacquer coating. It is bigger than
the disk it goes on to form. For example a 12" vinyl disk will have been
preceeded by a 14" Lacquer Master. It is the master disk and should not be
played or touched as grooves are easily damaged. As it is a very sensitive
process it should not be subjected to heat or sun lest the surface be
damaged. This would have a detrimental effect on the recording itself.
Once the grooves are set in lacquer it is then commonplace to put the media
in the fridge.
Acetate
An acetate works on the same basis as Lacquer, but it is the same size as
the eventual disc. This way you can take it home and play it to make sure
you are happy with it before comitting it to metal and then onto vinyl. As
the acetate can be kept and used it is also useful for comparing to the
final product to make sure it has been pressed correctly. However, repeat
playings are not advised as the acetate as it gets damaged with each play.
It is designed for test purposes as opposed to playing purposes.
Direct to Metal
In this case a blanks copper disc is used to record directly onto. It is
the same size as the Lacquer Master, but does not have the lacquer cover
and much of the series of steps needed to manufacture the Lacquer Master
are not necessary. The noise level of the media when played as blank is
preferable, and the treble end is handled better. As the grooves engraved
onto the disk are more shallow than vinyl it may not handle bass-heavy
recordings well.
9. What information should be written on your master tapes?
Name of artist, songwriting credits, contact details, date of recording
Album title Song titles song duration media format technical specs - file
types, size, speed of sampling rates
10. What is meant by multi-band compression?
Multi-band compression takes a number of frequencies in the mix and offers
the possiblility of compressing them all singularly.
11. Explain the term dynamic range.
Dynamic range is, for the instument, the range of volume that it can make
from the quietest to the loudest volume. With regards to recording
equipment, it concerns the range between frequencies that the instrument
can record.
12. What is the formula for dynamic range?
Range in decibels = bits x 6.11
13. What is meant by SNR?
Signal to noise ratio. This refers to the ratio of the noise generated by
the media or recording process in proportion to the pure signal.
14. Describe gain riding.
Gain riding is adjusting the gain during a recording process to make sure
it is at a level that peaks in the signal do not overload and distort the
final recorded sound.
15. Comment on this article:
http://www.digido.com/index/pmodule_id=11/pmdmode=fullscreen/pageadder_page_
id=9
3/
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?
It is hard to disagree with the sentiment of the article - that the idea
that louder is better is not helping to make better quality recordings. I
imagine that this
practice is typical of a philistine music industry that has calculated that
a louder performance from instruments with certain musical characteristics
gives a record a better impact on sales. However, I have to wonder how
widespread the practice is of turning up volumes to levels of questionable
taste. If, for example, "In Your Eyes" by Kylie is subjected to this
treatment, then I fail to see it as a bad thing when comparing the
production sound to a track on the list such as Low Spark of High Heeled
Boys, the sound quality of which I have always thought of as poor. I feel
that the writer's failure to cite any of the records that are guilty of the
alleged crime puts the whole idea into doubt. In summary, it is the effect
of the sound and the quality of the sound that is the most important
consideration, and I would be wary of taking a protectionist stance against
raising volume levels if a song simply benefits from the treatment. As
producer of my top ten album, I would try all volume levels and choose the
one that had the most appropriate effect for my own ears, I would like the
sound to be the best it can be. That should be its selling point.
16. What is meant by normalling?
Normalling, or normalisation, is to ensure that over the output of the
entire collection of tracks in a recording, the levels of each track are
kept at a consistent level, unifying the levels of the recording as a
whole.
17. Explain DC offset
DC offset can cause pops and clicks in the recording. DC is a constant
voltage through the signal and can cause issues by having incorrect zero
crossing. This can be filtered out with software.
18. How can the target audience affect mastering decisions?
The producer and artist will make their mastering decisions based on their
target audience. A pop act will most likely turn everything up as loud as
possible so that it has an impact when played on the radio. They may also
choose slick production, so that the recording has modern, professional
appeal. Some artists may deliberately steer away from this approach in
order to offer something organic and free of pretension. The obsession for
producing low-fi records would support this. A classical recording would
be made trying to keep in as much of the dynamic range possible, so that
the subtle variations of volume are not lost.
19. What happens to the audio signal when a aural enhancer is applied?
An aural enhancer distorts the harmonics of the audio signal to either give
an extra depth or warmth to it, or to add brightness or a hollowness to the
sound. These are the two directions that the aural enhancer offers.
20. What does relative loudness mean?
Relative loudness is measuring sound by decibels. A higher relative
loudness will give a higher reading in decibels. Whether a sound is
supposed to be loud or not would vary between individuals, but as a
standard measurement between volumes, we have relative loudness to
distinguish between changes in volume.
21. What does r.m.s. mean?
Root mean squared. This is the average audio signal voltage or AC voltage
that an amplifier will emit. AC voltmeters are calibrated to measure RMS
output.
22. What is meant by 'entertainment quality'?
This refers to a recording of sufficient production quality that it can be
broadcast publicly. It has no bearing on the artistic quality of the
production, but that it is technically proficiently produced, and is free
enough of technical flaws to be broadcast.
23. What happens if you leave excessive, short transients in the music?
A pre-echo effect is heard when mastering.
24. What is The K-System?
The K System is used as a meter to monitor relative loudness. There are 3
scales which sets the K system meter so that it is suitable for different
genres of sound.
K20 is for a wide dynamic range - theatrical or classical productions and
Pop with big-budget grandiose production and surround sound.
K14 is used to monitor medium-compressed hi-fi productions such as generic
rock, pop and folk music.
K12 will be used for productions to be broadcast.
25. What are The Equal Loudness Contours?
Also known as the Fletcher-Munson curves, these contours provide a
graphical representation for the frequencies to which the human ear is most
sensitive. This way playback levels that are too high or too low for
optimal reception can be changed as they will show up in the graphic as an
unablanced frequency image.
26. What is MetaData?
Metadata provides data about the data set itself. This will include data
about the content of the data and its condition, who produced it, where and
when it was produced and what means were used to do so.
27. Explain the term Headroom.
The headroom is the amount that the signal can be driven from a nominal
line level before causing distortion. With the knowledge of the headroom
available the engineer or producer can plan which parts of the performance
s/he would like to peak near the headroom to give certain points or
sections more impact. If the headroom is known then the master engineer
can raise levels with no danger of taking it too far.
28. Explain the term Crest factor.
This is the ratio of the peak of the signal frequency in relation to the
average or RMS. The crest factor will increase the more higher frequencies
there are in a given period.
29. What skills and abilities must a Mastering Engineer possess?
A good ear for a)clarity and volume in sound b)the kind of production sound
that is required for from the particular music style being mastered. S/he
must
understand how to modify the whole sound as required without sacrificing
individual sounds. S/he must also know how to read such things as headroom
readings etc. to know the limitations of the music to be mastered and not to
overstep boundaries of taste for each genre.
30. What does the term ?Masking? mean?
Masking is where one sound frequency may be all or partially hidden by
another heard at the same time.
31. Explain the Hass Effect.
The Haas effect explains how two sounds, if delayed slightly can cause the
sound to seem to be coming from another direction. If a sound is emitted
with up to a 25ms delay, the sound will appear to be coming from the
direction of the ear which heard the first signal. If there is no delay it
will appear to be central, and it delayed at greater intervals, the delay
will be picked up by the ear. |
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Thu Oct 23, 2003 6:41 am |
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Albow
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 27
Location: Spain |
Hey guys, sorry about the weird spacing 
I don't know how that is happening!!  |
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Thu Oct 23, 2003 6:43 am |
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AUdIoCoUrSeS
Joined: 31 Oct 2002
Posts: 2014
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| Spaces |
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quote:
Mastering is applying the finishing touches necessary to ensure that a recording is professional enough to be released as a marketable product.
Yeah I guess so, but you could define what you mean by “professional”.
quote:
Some radio stations choose to broadcast in mono. If a purely stereo
recording were played in mono, then the sound would suffer and could cause phase problems.
Be careful, not all stereo files will have phase issues, just some. This is a classic example of not telling the examiner enough about what you know on the subject. A little confusing.
quote:
Signal to noise ratio. This refers to the ratio of the noise generated by the media or recording process in proportion to the pure signal.
Bit confusing again, Albow, “pure” signal?
quote:
I would like the sound to be the best it can be. That should be its selling point.
Can’t argue with that.
quote:
Normalling, or normalisation, is to ensure that over the output of the entire collection of tracks in a recording, the levels of each track are
kept at a consistent level, unifying the levels of the recording as a
whole.
Which is not good. – is it?
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The obsession for producing low-fi records would support this.
Obsession? Not sure I’m following, though of course reverse-snobbery to production is actually also a fashion.
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Root mean squared. This is the average audio signal voltage or AC voltage that an amplifier will emit. AC voltmeters are calibrated to measure RMS output.
Yeah but stick a bit of maths in there with it.
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Masking is where one sound frequency may be all or partially hidden by another heard at the same time.
Or before or after in time, pre and post masking.
Well done Albow, no worries about the spacing, I quite liked it.
Cheers
_________________
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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Thu Oct 23, 2003 1:45 pm |
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mommi
Joined: 21 Apr 2003
Posts: 47
Location: Tallinn, Estonia |
| Opening the practical's zip |
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Anone opened the week8.zip? I've tried to open it both at home and at work, with no success  . I don't use Windows on my computers, but zip archives have not presented a problem so far. Ideas anyone?
mommi |
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Thu Oct 23, 2003 6:03 pm |
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Goto page 1, 2 Next
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(u know the lyrics?)
