Hi all,

I'm going to be putting together a small CD-R release in the next couple 
of months, and I need some advice on mastering.  It's a very low-budget 
project on a tiny local label, so I need to do the mastering myself. 
We'll be burning the CDs ourselves as well.

The music itself is all purely generated from Csound opcodes (poscil3 is 
usually the generator) and I use reverbsc.  None of the pieces use samples.

My first though is to start by rendering the pieces to 44.1K/16, since 
that's the "native" format does CDs.  (Normally I render to 96/24.)  But 
I am open to any and all advice from people who have already been down 
this road.

- Dave

--- Dave Seidel  wrote:
> My first though is to start by rendering the pieces to
> 44.1K/16, since 
> that's the "native" format does CDs.  (Normally I render to
> 96/24.)  But 
> I am open to any and all advice from people who have already
> been down 
> this road.

Greetings, Dave.  I've just completed my 4th album on Jamendo,
and I come from the opposite direction.  I started off in analog
mixing, then moved to digital, and now have embraced synth
sounds and microtonal music.

"Mastering" is a debatable term.  To many people, the process is
more or less like a religion.  Some folks think of mastering as
the following:

1. Rendering each of your (separate) tracks to maximum
resolution and clarity, then storing them on high resolution
media.

2. Mixing down all the separate tracks to one big, final track,
taking care to fill in the sonic space as best as possible (eg
equalization to bring out an instrument that otherwise would be
lost in the mix, or to reduce the 'mud')

3. Finally, the most debatable portion, to participate in the
"loudness war" and hypercompress then entire track so that the
peak amplitudes hover near the 0dBfs line the entire track.

(There's an excellent overview here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

as well as a sort of editorial here:

    http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/19656

from the standpoint of someone who has chosen not to play
along.)

For myself, I compress the loud parts of the song to be as
powerful and surging as they can be, but take care to leave
dynamic space, quiet times, as well.

Now, mastering with Csound, there is the option of just
rendering the entire track to the final stage and going on with
your business.  But then, how do you evaluate whether a tiny bit
of equalization in a minor instrument would make the entire
composition brighter, or whether a falloff on the bass response
on one instrument would allow the others to go higher without
clipping?

My guess is the following: render a few sections of your
composition as separate high resolution tracks, then play around
with them in a live mixer.  When you find a happy spot, write
down your settings, and hard code them into a second Csound
file, your "production model".  That way, if you have a problem
later, you can always go back to the original and either run
with it or start over.  Csound's on-board EQ's and mixing tools
are total science fiction superweapons compared to most
commercial offerings.  Plus, no noise, no cable hum, no
impedence mismatch.  You work with pure sound, and that's the
addictive part.

Good luck, and hope this helped a bit.

Thanks for the feedback, Bruce!

- Dave

Bruce H. McCosar wrote:
> --- Dave Seidel  wrote:
>> My first though is to start by rendering the pieces to
>> 44.1K/16, since 
>> that's the "native" format does CDs.  (Normally I render to
>> 96/24.)  But 
>> I am open to any and all advice from people who have already
>> been down 
>> this road.
> 
> Greetings, Dave.  I've just completed my 4th album on Jamendo,
> and I come from the opposite direction.  I started off in analog
> mixing, then moved to digital, and now have embraced synth
> sounds and microtonal music.
> 
> "Mastering" is a debatable term.  To many people, the process is
> more or less like a religion.  Some folks think of mastering as
> the following:
> 
> 1. Rendering each of your (separate) tracks to maximum
> resolution and clarity, then storing them on high resolution
> media.
> 
> 2. Mixing down all the separate tracks to one big, final track,
> taking care to fill in the sonic space as best as possible (eg
> equalization to bring out an instrument that otherwise would be
> lost in the mix, or to reduce the 'mud')
> 
> 3. Finally, the most debatable portion, to participate in the
> "loudness war" and hypercompress then entire track so that the
> peak amplitudes hover near the 0dBfs line the entire track.
> 
> (There's an excellent overview here:
> 
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
> 
> as well as a sort of editorial here:
> 
>     http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/19656
> 
> from the standpoint of someone who has chosen not to play
> along.)
> 
> For myself, I compress the loud parts of the song to be as
> powerful and surging as they can be, but take care to leave
> dynamic space, quiet times, as well.
> 
> Now, mastering with Csound, there is the option of just
> rendering the entire track to the final stage and going on with
> your business.  But then, how do you evaluate whether a tiny bit
> of equalization in a minor instrument would make the entire
> composition brighter, or whether a falloff on the bass response
> on one instrument would allow the others to go higher without
> clipping?
> 
> My guess is the following: render a few sections of your
> composition as separate high resolution tracks, then play around
> with them in a live mixer.  When you find a happy spot, write
> down your settings, and hard code them into a second Csound
> file, your "production model".  That way, if you have a problem
> later, you can always go back to the original and either run
> with it or start over.  Csound's on-board EQ's and mixing tools
> are total science fiction superweapons compared to most
> commercial offerings.  Plus, no noise, no cable hum, no
> impedence mismatch.  You work with pure sound, and that's the
> addictive part.
> 
> Good luck, and hope this helped a bit.
> 
> 
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"
> 
>