Kara-Moon Forum

Normally I would use Ardour and JAMin with the JACK audio connection kit and the LADSPA effects plugins to master an album, but for this album it seems more appropriate to use Audacity - because it can work on all three major operating systems. Audacity requires more listening skills than a professional mastering application, but the results can be equally successful, and the method I describe here will work well with any sound card and monitor speakers/headphones. Yes, even a laptop with "earbuds" :o.
(I'm using Audacity version 1.3.4, but only using features that are available in their current stable release - 1.2.6.)

http://ardour.org/
http://jamin.sourceforge.net/en/about.html
http://jackaudio.org/
http://www.ladspa.org/
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

First, select one or two professionally mastered recordings that sound the way you want your song/album to sound. For "Respect", I chose Chris Rea's "The Road to Hell" and "Your Warm and Tender Love" as my sonic models, and imported each of them into Audacity as a stereo track. This is known as a reference recording, and allows us to master our song to professional standards without expensive monitoring equipment and a lot of fancy software.(Some folks may consider this a breach of copyright law, but I'm just "borrowing" the recordings for their production values, not actually copying them.)
Now we can see the amplitude form as well as conveniently listen to the recording, and compare it to our song as we adjust our amplitude, compression, and tonal qualities. When our song looks and sounds like this reference recording - mission accomplished.

Edit: Below the original waveform, you'll see the mastered waveform, still with my reference recordings on the first two stereo tracks.

Ah, sound & vision. Very sneakly :D

I can see I'll have to keep a close watch on your sir!

This will be VERY interesting  :-
Thanks for doing this Oren, again we will learn something important  8)

k

Thanks Oren..very cool of you,man.    :-

8)

Wyatt

Hmmm....

....very sneakly :D, very interesting, and very cool... We may just be on to something here. (thanks, guys) :;

Cool ! I must take mental note about the importance of using a reference song.
...and thanks for taking care of mastering duties

Cheers

As an Adobe Audition user, I am also looking forward to comparing
spectral views of frequency and phase to a reference track as well.

8)

Wyatt

You're welcome, L.R.
The idea of a "reference recording" is not original to me, but it is one of most valuable tools in my "kit"  ;D

Wyatt,

Those spectral views must come in handy for fine-tuning your mix/master. If your most recent productions are any indication, they're a useful tool, indeed... ;D 8)

Oren.

To use spectral views, somebody has to explain how to interprete those... I don't know a thing about those  ;D

Oren, you've taken on a BIG job here  ;D


k

Here is a picture below of a spectral display of frequencies.

The horizontal axis still represents time in minutes, (or beats if you would rather), but the vertical axis represents frequencies instead of amplitude as in a normal waveform.

The lowest freqs are at the bottom and get higher as you go upwards.

Amplitude in this case is represented by color. Yellow is the brightest/loudest and the least loud is represented by the duller blueish purple.

One specific use for this is:

When I am looking for a particular sonic artifact for instance, I look for a visual pattern in the correct freq range that has the same visual rhythm as the offending bit. Then I select just that part in only it's own freq range and copy it to a new file all by itself.

Then I listen to it to make sure it is what I want to remove, and go back and keep trying to make an accurate capture if necessary.

Once I am sure I have the offending part isolated, I can simply delete the selection in spectral view, or use the isolated file as a noise signature if I want to remove it and any other of it from the entire track.

There is also a spectral pan view and a spectral phase view as well.

I hope that makes it a little clearer.

8)

Wyatt

Hey Wyatt. That's some kit you got there.

I dub thee: Sir Ubergeek of the month ;D

Doing it this way is kind of the long way around, but I have done a lot of audio restoration work
and I don't EQ very well, so for me it is the path of least resistance.   ;)

8)

Wyatt

A surgical work  8)

When it comes to creative work I'm a great believer in the idea that the correct way to do it is...











Whatever works for you :D

Original "Some Kind of Blue"...

Mastered "Some Kind of Blue"

First class job Oren..

..diggin' the before and after here..

..shows off your work well.

Grooves right along and then @ 2:50 it blossoms.

Gotta love the way you handled the harp in the mix..

..and of course your legendary guitar.  Beautiful!

8)

Wyatt

This IS a great job !
Now you have to explain how you did it  ;D
I want
- Screen shots
- Fx used and how
- ....

 ;D (just joking)

k

The feeling I get is of added depth and clarity. Nice work!

Oh... That's a relief! After listening over and over, it starts to feel like you screwed up... :D.... :-... :;

Good idea  :)

The effects are arranged in the order they were applied.  The settings I used to approximate the tonal and dynamic qualities of my reference recordings are pictured in each screenshot.
(the last effect is a "fast look-ahead limiter", although no title appears on the screenshot)

Cool, LADSPA magic  ;D 8)

k

Hey Oren,

Do I have this right then, that you determine these EQ settings by looking at the reference waveform?

BTW..I have heard it said a lot of times that you should have a reference track to listen to.

Your approach of looking at the waveform is a new insight for me and I think it's going to make a big difference.

Thanks a lot for sharing this.    :;

8)

Wyatt

With Audacity, the EQ settings are determined by ear, because there is no frequency waveform available, like you have in "Audition". The waveform we see in Audacity is amplitude.

Loading the reference tracks into Audacity along with the track being mastered allows me to quickly and conveniently listen back and forth for comparison, while tweaking the EQ.

Yes, a combination of looking at the waveform and listening to your monitors yields the most accurate results. I think the ear should be the final judge, however.

Thanks for prompting me to clarify.... ;)

 :o Cool !
Keep up the good work  ;D

Cheers

..and thank you for lending such a helping hand.

8)

Wyatt

I find looking at an audacity waveform is very revealing. You see the dynamics very clearly, whether you are at or past the clipping threshold, and how balanced the overall level is left-right.

awesome mr fisher! i'm gonna pick up on that :)

 ;D

All 18 songs are mastered to 16/44.1 wave format, The compositions this year are excellent - every one of them. :-

Now it is just a matter of applying a little more mastering compression in preparation for rendering to Ogg Vorbis and MP3. I'll use the LAME variable-bit-rate(VBR) MP3 codec for this year's album, because they have done some significant upgrades to the VBR performance in the last 18 months, and it sounds good.

Working with these productions is a distinct pleasure... O0

 ;D
Great to have you back on the case, young man.
It's going to be a superb project.   8)

 ;)
James

You're both doing a great job on this project  8)

k

We are waiting with impatience
Kuguar

;D :D

 :;

Cool  8) Thanks !

Yep !  ;D

 :-

James has kindly offered to listen to the 36 compressed audio files to check for sound quality and silly glitches. He's at it now... O0

Good man!

That kind of listening is damn hard work :o

Thanks you guys..

..you put massive amounts of work into this.

We appreciate you.

8)

Wyatt

Thanks, Wyatt and Will... ;D

Moon has offered three songs from his 2008 collection, one called "Circles", one called "Chilled Sun", and one in collaboration with Wyatt called "The Last Whale Song". That puts the song count up to twenty-one.
                              __________________________________________________________________

After spending some time with compressed audio formats on the web, it looks like some players are going to have difficulty with variable bit-rate MP3 files (most notably, Windows Media Player :o), so we will go with 192 Kbit/sec MP3. The file size will be larger than I had planned, but audio quality will still be good. With the larger file size in mind, we can go with Ogg Vorbis compression level 6, rather than level 5, with a corresponding improvement in fidelity.

Comments regarding bit-rate and file size?

The compositions this year are so good, I feel this extra care is warranted... O0

Sounds like you nailed it Oren. I would never have thought of checking stuff could handle variable bit rate :o
Oh well, I guess that means there's a fair few people can't play some of the stuff on my website - shame ;)

You have summed it up quite nicely.

Admirable solution.

8)

Wyatt

Having had the pleasure of previewing all the original tracks in both formats for 'quality control' I am certain that whatever you decide will work eminently, Oren.
You are working wonders, my man.  ;D
 ;)
James

Kuguar