You can’t master on headphones, right ? Well, let’s see…
This year’s Dynamic Range Day Award-winner broke all the streaming records in it’s first week, debuted at Number 1 in the Billboard chart and... it was mastered on headphones.
In this episode we talk to Glenn Schick, the engineer who mastered KOD by J Cole about his decision to become a “mobile” mastering engineer, including:
Dynamic Range Day Award Winner 2018
Glenn Schick Mastering
JH Audio
Chord Electronics
Perception
Audeze
Other Dynamic Range Day winners:
TMS #11 - Matt Colton
TMS #32 - Bob Ludwig
As well as running our own show, we’re huge fans of other podcasts too, and in this show we take a little time to wander off-topic and recommend some of our favourite audio-related shows. We each choose four podcasts, and suggest great episodes of each to get started with. If you listen to all the episodes we recommend, you’ll get to hear hours of useful, interesting and amusing content, including things like:
- and much much more.
Seriously, it’s a great list !
Twenty Thousand Hertz - Foley and The Wilhelm Scream
Working Class Audio - Andrew Scheps and Mark Kilborn
Recording Studio Rockstars - Mike Senior
Six Figure Home Studio - How To Get More Online Reviews For Your Studio
Tonebenders - Stories of Audio Glory and Imposter Syndrome
The Adam Buxton Podcast - Brian Eno plus cool related links
Beards, Cats, and Indie Game Audio and TMS #27 Mastering audio for games
Joe Gilder (Home Studio Corner) - Failure and Ask Joe
Plus:
iZoTope New Audio Podcast - Harry Shearer
(Sadly since recording the show I've realised that iZotope have decided to pull the plug on their podcast, but there are still some interesting episodes to dig into.)
Geoff Manchester's Vodcast
Our guest in this episode is Katie Tavini, who shares the inspiring story of how she got into mastering. It’s something we’re asked all the time, and Katie is a great example of one way to start in the industry, in a time when internships and junior positions are becoming less and less accessible. She also talks about the great network of engineers she’s discovered through Red Bull’s Normal Not Novelty initiative.
Other topics include:
Katie’s site
Katie in AudioMedia: Supporting other members of the pro audio community
Normal Not Novelty
Women’s Audio Mission
SoundGirls.org
TMS #37 - Does Gear Matter ?
It’s a question we get asked regularly, and our answer may surprise you. To answer the question, we put together a “shopping list” for the ultimate DAW, and then discuss which of the applications is the best fit, and why.
Topics include:
Wavelab
Reaper
Sonoris DDP Creator
HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master
TMS #28 – Remastering & Restoration
Sample rate converter comparisons
Good example: iZotope 64 bit
Bad example: JUCE 2.0.13
Ian Shepherd/Meterplugs Perception Plugin
Another chance for us to catch up with some of the questions you’ve been asking us. In this episode we talk about:
Multiband compression – the mastering engineer’s secret weapon ?
Ian’s Home Mastering EQ Course
Many of you will already know Jonathan from iZotope's excellent educational videos on mastering - he's also an experienced producer and recording engineer, head engineer at M-Works mastering, a lecturer at Berklee and has written a book on mastering. In this interview we talk about many different aspects of his career, including:
* The delights (and perils) of analogue tape
* Re-mastering David Bowie
* Digital mastering tools - and the risk of over-using them
* Humans versus machines in mastering (again) and
* Getting the best of both worlds
How to load a pancake on a reel
Loudness war myths - do some genres NEED to be crushed ?
You Are Not So Smart podcast - Connections
LUFS… WTF ?!?
(And why aiming for -14 isn’t the right answer for online loudness)
We talk about loudness all the time on this show, but how do you actually measure it ? How big is a “loudness unit”, and why are there three different kinds ? What does LUFS stand for, anyway ? How do you loudness match two files using LUFS measurements, and what free software can you use to get started ?
In this show we answer all these questions and more - plus Ian explains the simple technique he uses to optimise loudness for all the online streaming platforms, and why it isn’t about aiming for -14 LUFS.
If you find the show helpful, please share it with your friends, and leave us a rating and review : http://www.themasteringshow.com/review
The modern remaster of Stairway to Heaven starts @ -24 LUFS (short-term) and reaches as high as -8 LUFS by the end. The integrated loudness is -14 LUFS
Whereas Back In Black starts @ -12 LUFS (short-term) and reaches -6 LUFS within the first chorus. The integrated loudness is -9 LUFS
These measurements both apply to recent re-mastered versions - the original releases will have been at lower levels. But even so, when I set the playback level of 'Stairway to Heaven' by ear, 'Back In Black' needs to be turned down by 2dB to sound right. Whereas if we were setting loudness by integrated LUFS value, we’d have to turn ‘Back in Black’ down by 5 dB to get it to -14 LUFS ! This would sound much too quiet in comparison to “Stairway to Heaven", in musical terms.
Matching the short-term loudness at the loudest point however, suggests… 2 dB.
QED !
TMS #6 - Loudness: What, Why and How
Measure integrated loudness for free on Mac: r128x-gui (Scroll down to the “Binaries” section to download)
SWS extension for Reaper, including loudness measurement
iZotope RX (Use Window > Waveform Statistics)
How loud ? The simple solution to optimizing playback volume online – and everywhere else
Klanghelm VUMT VU Meter plugin
Something a bit different to celebrate the festive season this week - we invited a group of cool audio guests to join us on the show, and asked each of them to bring a “gift” to fill an imaginary "Christmas Stocking” for you. So, you get a pile of cool, interesting and funny little info-treats to keep you amused in the run-up to Christmas - or, just to amuse you, if you don’t celebrate it !
There are SO many great bits & pieces in this show, there’s sure to be something for everyone, we hope.
If you enjoy it, please leave us a rating and review : http://www.themasteringshow.com/review
Can robots really master our music ? Kenny Gioia set up poll on Facebook to see, asking people to choose between six different masters of the same song - three by humans (John Longley, an anonymous engineer from Sterling Sound and Steven Slate) and three by machines (LANDR, Aria and iZoTope Ozone).
The great thing is, the test was blind, and loudness matched - so no-one knew which master they were listening to, and loudness didn’t influence the way the masters sounded.
And the results of the poll were fascinating. In this show Kenny reveals which master was which, and we discuss the results - including:
Kenny’s Groove 3 Gurus
Download the files
See the poll
Ian’s LANDR test
Graham’s shootout - Ian v. LANDR v. a limiter
Ian’s Perception Plugin
Startup Podcast - Driverless cars
This is huge. There’s a problem with loudness normalization, and TIDAL asked Eelco Grimm to find a solution for them. What he found in his research was unexpected and exciting.
Eelco has been involved with loudness measurement and the LUFS standard from the very beginning, and in this show we also talk a little about his story and how it involves:
STOP PRESS
Since recording the show we've heard that TIDAL have implemented all the changes we discuss in the show by default, in all new installs of their iOS and Android apps, with desktop to follow. For more information, click here.
Eelco Grimm
Grimm Audio
Eelco’s loudness research for TIDAL
Loudness units - LUFS
How loud, online ?
