Stereo, mono, binaural or surround-sound ?

I've worked with this episode's guest in all these formats and more over the many years we've been working together - but which does he prefer, and why ?

Richard Durrant describes himself as an "Indie Classical" musician, which I think is a pretty good summary - but doesn't really take into account the fact that he also toured with Sky, worked as an accomplished session musician for many years and has released albums in a brilliantly eclectic variety of other genres and styles over the years.

In this conversation we talk about:

• Why Richard records in an "acoustic igloo" (and what that is)
• Mic techniques for guitar and dealing with "wolf notes" on stringed instruments
• Real spaces versus digital reverb
• Touring (and performing) with a bicycle
• Performing Bach's cello suites on Banjo and Ukulele - how and why

Links

Richard's Website www.richarddurrant.com

Richard's music on Bandcamp

Instagram @richarddurrantguitar

The Pollinator Cafe @thepollinatorcafe

Cycling Music

Richard's Guitars: The Bog Oak Guitar

'Stem mastering' has provoked a ton of debate recently, with people claiming it crosses the line between mixing and mastering, interferes with the artist's intent, and isn't even really mastering at all !

But if that's true, why would Abbey Road, one of the biggest mastering studios in the world, offer a dedicated stem mastering service ?!

In this episode I talk to Oli Morgan, who specialises in stem mastering and mixing in mastering in Dolby Atmos at Abbey Road, about all these questions and more. We talk about:

• How he got started in mastering (and what that has in common with me)
• His perspective on stem mastering – when and how it can be helpful
• How (and why) stem mastering is a key element for working in Immersive Audio and Dolby Atmos
• What we can learn about dynamics from working in Dolby Atmos
• Why the 'pressure sound' may not be all about heavy limiting
• How we might be able to have our cake and eat it in the quest to balance loudness and dynamics

Links

Oli Morgan – Mastering Engineer

Stem mastering & Dolby Atmos @ Abbey Road

Nick Watson @ Fluid Mastering

TMS #75 – Stem mastering - or is it ?

'Pax Aeterna' – Tom Donald, The Monks of Pluscarden Abbey on Apple Music

'No Reason' – The Chemical Brothers on Apple Music

Dynamic Range Day

The term “legend” gets thrown all the time in audio production circles, but my guest this episode really deserves it. 

I’m sure you already know this but Ken Scott has worked with the Beatles, David Bowie, Elton John and Supertramp amongst so many others, so I was delighted when he agreed to join me for this episode !

There were so many things we could have talked about it was hard to know where to start, but here are just a few of the topics we covered:

• Why Abbey Road trained their engineers in mastering before they were ever allowed to engineer a recording session
• The value of mentors - and being thrown in at the deep end
• Mixing in sections (instead of using automation)
• When limited resources are a Good Thing
• Re-mixing Ziggy Stardust in Dolby Atmos (with added drum samples…!)
• …and how the new mix translates to stereo

Links

Ken’s book Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust

Ziggy Stardust in Dolby Atmos - Trident Studios playback and discussion

TMS #81 - Atmos mastering with Emre Ramazanoglu and Mike Hillier

Sound on Sound: Ziggy Stardust in Atmos

Ziggy in Atmos on Blu-Ray

EpiK DrumS - A Ken Scott Collection for BFD3

Interview with Ken on RecordProduction.com

We’ve been using “soft clipping" in mastering for over 20 years at this point, but it suddenly feels as if it’s all anyone is talking about ! New plugins, new suggestions about how to use it, and wild new claims about how amazing it sounds.

Except it doesn’t.

At least – not all the time, and not for all material.

In this episode Joe Caithness and I dig deep into the details and talk about:

• What clipping is, and what it isn’t
• The crucial differences between hard and soft clipping
• What makes a great clipping plugin (and why comparing them is a nightmare)
• Some of our favourite clipping plugins and how we use them
• The kinds of material that work best with clipping, and what type to use
• The golden rule to follow if you want to experiment with clipping yourself

Links

Joe Caithness Mastering

Must-watch: You don’t understand saturation

Pre and post-emphasis EQ

TMS #79 - Dan Worrall on non-linear processing

TMS #64 - Aliasing - is it digital audio’s Achilles Heel ?

DDMF Plugin Doctor

Plugins

TC Electronics Brickwall HD

Newfangled Saturate

Schwabe Gold Clip

Leapwing LimitOne

SIR Standard Clip

Kazrog KClip

MeterPlugs Perception AB

The Billboard Top 50 global singles from the first half of 2024 have an average loudness of -8.3 LUFS

So that’s how loud we should be making our masters, right ?

Well…

It certainly might seem that way, but in reality it’s a bit more complicated than that. This is only one of the interesting results that Ian Stewart presented in his latest blog post for iZoTope, and in this episode I asked him back on to really dig into some of the details and nuance.

Plus I also wanted to talk to him about the amazing plug-in that got invented during the last episode he was on ! (Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it )

During the show we talk about:

• What that -8 LUFS average result REALLY means, and how much attention you should pay to it
• Who the most successful artist in the Top 50 is, and the loudness statistics of their music
• The problem with the title iZotope chose for the post
• All the other results, trends and biases in the data
• Basslane Pro, the plug-in Ian worked with Tone Projects to develop, why it’s unique - and how The Mastering Show helped it happen !

Links

Mastering trends in 2024: What you should be doing (Or not… ?!)

TMS #25 - Stereo: width, depth and image - how to measure, monitor and master them

TMS #76 - Is stereo bass a problem on vinyl ?

Ian Stewart - Flotown Mastering

Basslane Pro

Michelangelo EQ

Loudness Penalty Studio

People are always asking me about mastering for vinyl, and I’m happy to try and help based on the experience I have. I don’t actually cut vinyl myself though, so that advice is always limited and second-hand. 

So for this episode I decided to talk to a genuine expert on the topic - Scott Hull from Masterdisk - and really get into the details. Scott’s knowledge and experience of cutting vinyl is enormous, as you’ll hear, and I took full advantage of that in this episode ! Some of the things we talked about include:

• The 4 stages of vinyl production, and why each is important
• How making assumptions about vinyl mastering can backfire
• Why choosing which plant is going to press the records is crucial
• The crucial role of the lathe - and it’s setup
• The myth of duration on vinyl - why “20 minutes per side” isn’t a hard and fast rule
• Why less limiting allows you to cut louder on vinyl
• What is the magic of vinyl ?

Links

Scott Hull @ Masterdisk

Making Vinyl @ Masterdisk: Podcast and YouTube

TMS #76 - Is stereo bass a problem on vinyl ?

What Artists Get Wrong With Their Vinyl Releases: A Conversation with Scott Hull

I’m always arguing for balanced dynamics rather than loudness for it’s own sake, but some people have a different opinion - high loudness is important, and even beneficial.

Nick Di Lorenzo is one of them - he says that loudness is important regularly on his YouTube channel. So in this episode I invited him on to explore that idea in more detail, and really get into the nuances of the topic. Do you need to be mastering loud ? Topics include:

• The practicalities of loudness
• What makes things sound loud anyway ?
• Record labels versus loudness
• Why loudness IS important
• Why LUFS don’t matter, and
• The difference between loudness and LUFS

Links

Our previous mastering discussion on Nick’s channel

TMS #31 - What IS loudness ?

Higher LUFS - do they REALLY always sound louder ? (Includes the examples Nick mentions)

It's not how loud you make it, it's how you make it loud

So: How loud ? The simple solution to optimizing playback volume online - and everywhere else

You can't go a day without someone telling you how loud your music should be, these days.

"Everything has to be -8 LUFS"

"EDM has to be -6 LUFS or louder"

"-11 is the perfect balance"

"Just master everything to -14"

...but they can't all be right !

In fact, none of them are, and even more importantly, they may not even be talking about the same thing. And the differences are really important. So in this episode I try explain really clearly and concisely:

• The 3 different types of LUFS
• The difference between them
• Why it’s crucial to know which type you’re talking about
• Why mastering to integrated targets makes no sense
• When -14 LUFS isn’t loud enough – and why ?
• Why it’s not about ‘how loud’, it’s about how you make it loud
• Why integrated LUFS values are the result, not the goal of mastering 

Links

TMS #67 - Minus 14 LUFS, or not ?

TMS #52 – DON’T aim for LUFS targets online

TMS #44 - Loudness Units 101

The Loudness Penalty website

It’s virtually impossible that you haven’t heard music of some kind mixed by Alan Meyerson by this point - he’s one of the most prolific and successful film score mixers in the business.

And luckily for us, he’s also super-generous and open about the information he shares, including his perspectives on mixing and ‘mastering’ music for the movies. So in this episode we dig deep into all the details, including topics like:

• Is there really such a thing as ‘mastering’ for film ?
• What needs to be delivered, and what is the process ?
• How loud does it need to be - are there any standards ?
• When does Alan deliver mixes in Atmos, and why ?
• How he uses the centre channel and surround channels
• Why you might want to use saturation or pitch-shifting (!) in a movie score mix

Links

Film score mixing with Alan Meyerson

Mixing with synths in Pirates of the Caribbean 

Alan’s videos on Mix With The Masters

TMS #81 - Dolby Atmos Mastering

Wholegrain Quartet DynPEQ

Everyone is talking about inter-sample peaks and True Peak limiters - or in fact it’s more accurate to say they’re arguing about whether ISPs are audible or not, and whether True Peak limiters sound bad !

In this episode I’m joined by Alexey Lukin, iZotope’s “godfather of RX”, to talk in detail about exactly what ISPs are and why they’re so confusing - including:

• How are inter-sample peaks measured, and why do you see different results with different meters ?
• What are DSP overshoot peaks, and how are they different ?
• What does over-sampling have to do with all this, and why is it important ?
• Do True Peak limiters really sound bad, and how should we test them ?
• Why will they NOT prevent lossy decoder clipping, sometimes ? And
• What the hell are we supposed to do about all this ?!? 

Links

iZotope RX

SRC Comparisons https://src.infinitewave.ca/

Ian’s videos about ISPs & True Peak limiting:

Inter-sample peaks (ISPs) - are they REALLY inaudible ?

True Peak Limiters - do they REALLY sound worse?

TMS #64 - Aliasing - is it digital audio’s Achilles Heel ?

True Peak limiting filters https://www.izotope.com/tech/aes_loudness