Music and Industry News

The Prodigy – Invaders Must Die

Last week The Prodigy made the title track of their forthcoming new album, 'Invaders Must Die', available to download free from their website, www.theprodigy.com

The song was available to download from 7:30pm November 26 for one week. I hope you all got your hands on this one as it is a little gem and if this is anything to go by the album is looking like it could be a bit special.

Talking about albums A total of 4,499,589 albums were sold last week - a highly creditable 3.85% above same week 2007 sales of 4,332,590.

The Killers – Day & Age

The Killers’ Day & Age makes an emphatic debut atop the artist album chart, with first week sales of 200,299. 
It’s only the fourth artist album to sell more than 200,000 copies in a week this year, trailing first week sales of 302,074 for Coldplay’s Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends, 220,879 for The Kings Of Leon’s Only By The Night and 200,866 for Oasis’ Dig Out Your Soul.

Guns N’ Roses – Chinese Democracy

It was way too much for Guns N’ Roses, whose first album of new material for 15 years, Chinese Democracy, sold 119,331 copies to debut at number two, Take That and Britney Spears both releasing albums of a Circus nature…

Both albums of the same (ish) name to be released on the same day interesting...

Take That – The Circus

With Take That’s new album looking likely to score the number one spot in the UK charts this Sunday

Britney Spears - Circus

Britney Spears’ new album, Circus, should secure a top three placing...

What’s all this got to do with mastering well Albums are making a reasurragance aand the trend for Brickwall Limiting seems to be losing ground for more dynamic recordings this will be prevalent on the batch of new albums that are out there and coming through over the next few months check out Guns N' Roses compared to Metallica’s Death Magnetic.

We at Chocolate Factory have always believed in a good balance with our ears falling favourably for more dynamic recordings this is a very good sign of things to come…..

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For more Information and Mastering Services check out:
The Chocolate Factory - Mastering Studio, CD Mastering, Mixdowns and Audio Restoration

 

Justice Fake Gig Shocker

Justice Fake Gig Shocker

Everyone seems to be talking about THAT photo of Justice at The Warehouse Project in Manchester, with a midi controller unplugged. Rumour and the web being what they are people are crying fake!

Justice performing live at The Warehouse Project with an unplugged midi controller

But it would seem that the now infamous picture has been taken out of context, a photo from later in the gig shows the controller plugged in and functioning (well at least the LCD screen is lit up).

Photos from later on at the same gig

While I wasn’t at the gig, it seems the most likely explanation is that the lead to the midi controller wasn’t plugged in before the start of the gig or had been knocked loose and it took a few moments
for them to realise and plug it back in.

From the state of them in the photos I can’t help wondering if the whole incident might have been avoided with a shave and waiting till after the gig for that cheeky Jack n Jill…

- Copyright 2008, Luke Pepper, All Rights Reserved.
No part of this document shall be reproduced without prior consent from the copyright owner.

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For more Information and Mastering Services check out:
The Chocolate Factory - Mastering Studio, CD Mastering, Mixdowns and Audio Restoration

Music Production Techniques and Tips - CD Mastering - Part 3 of 3

CD Mastering and Mastering for Digital Release - Part 3 of 3

Part 3 – Preparing a mix for mastering


Check your final mix
Once you’ve prepared your final mix and have it as a stereo WAV orAIFF open it up in an audio editing package such as WaveLab or one of the many others available and have a good look at the waveform.

If your mix looks like Image 1, you are in trouble; this mix has been smashed - check out what happens to the waveform in Image 2.

Image 1 - A brick-wall limited mix

Looking at Image 2 You can see the top of the waveform has been chopped off; this is a sure sign that there are big problems with this mixdown.

Image 2 – Zoomed in view of brick-wall limited mix

Now compare the above with the examples below:

If you look at Image 3 you will notice the dynamic range in the mix as opposed to Image 1

Image 3 – An Example of how a mix should look like

Here the waveform has been zoomed right in on the loudest point I could find. You see the waveform is in good shape, none of the nasty flat tops as seen in image 2.

Image 4 – The same file as Image 3 Zoomed In

Image 5 – The same file as Figure 3 Zoomed right in

How to deliver mix files to the mastering house
Details of how you should deliver your files to the mastering house:

• WAV or AIFF
  

• No Limiting on the Master Channel
  

• No compression or only light compression on the master channel
  

• No peaks above 0db
  

• 24bit/32bit Float files are preferred but 16 bit is fine
  

• A sample rate upwards of 44.1 kHz
  

If you are after a particular sound then by all means supply an additional file with your master compression/limiting on as a guide. The mastering engineer can hear the style or effect you are going for and adjust accordingly.

Also if you are after masters with a particular sound or style you’ve heard elsewhere then giving the mastering engineer example of other tracks with that sound can really help to get exactly what you want with the minimum amount of fuss and hassle.

- Copyright 2008, Luke Pepper, All Rights Reserved.
No part of this document shall be reproduced without prior consent from the copyright owner.

_______________________________________________
For more Information and Mastering Services check out:
The Chocolate Factory - Mastering Studio, CD Mastering, Mixdowns and Audio Restoration

Music Production Techniques and Tips - CD Mastering - Part 2 of 3

CD Mastering and Mastering for Digital Release - Part 2 of 3

Part 2 – Tips for getting a great mix

Limiting, Compression, Effects and Outboard
With all the new technology out there and the advent of plug-ins there is a temptation to throw effects and outboard on everything these days. Going back only a few years ago, even the biggest studios only had a handful of compressor and reverb channels available, now you can literally have hundreds in a track (if so inclined).

But just because you can doesn’t necessarily mean you should. Usedwell and sparingly outboard and effects can be used to deadly effect, used badly and they cause muddiness, mush and cause the track to lose impact.

Limiting and Compression - What not to do
Limiting on the master channel should only really be used in the mastering stage to catch any rouge peaks here and there. Using it on the master channel when mixing is lazy and will affect the quality of the mix in a bad way, it also complicates and slows down the final mix down process.

If you are in the habit of limiting your mixes get out of the habit now – put down the limiter and walk away. You should adjust the channels and the over-all mix to keep everything below 0 db.

This is what happens when limiters are (ab)used on the master channel - note the flat clipped point on the peak:

Zoomed in image of brick-wall limited mix

If you must use compression on the master channel make sure it's really light and used to glue the mix together rather than make the over-all mix louder.

We are only talking about the master channel here, not the channels – compression when used well on the channels will make for a great mix.

Compression as with so many other things in production is best used lightly, if you can’t hear the compressor open and close and the channel is still sounding better with it on – you’ve got the right
setting.

When we get mixes that have been brick-wall limited or over-compressed it really limits what we can do in the mastering process. We can always add compression in the mastering stage but if the track is delivered with compression already on there we can’t take it away.

Should I use a multiband compressor?
If you are thinking about using multiband compression in the mix stage this points to a problem
in the mix that should be fixed in other ways, the mastering engineer can add multiband compression to a mix if it needs it.

Coming up:

• Part 3 - Preparing a mix for mastering
  
  
  
  

- Copyright 2008, Luke Pepper, All Rights Reserved.
No part of this document shall be reproduced without prior consent from the copyright owner.

_______________________________________________
For more Information and Mastering Services check out:
The Chocolate Factory - Mastering Studio, CD Mastering, Mixdowns and Audio Restoration

Music Production Techniques and Tips - CD Mastering - Part 1 of 3

CD Mastering and Mastering for Digital Release - Part 1 of 3

What is mastering?
Mastering is the final stage where any problems are detected and dealt with; this is why mastering in the same room as doing the mix is a bad idea.

Mastering studios have the highest spec equipment in the game, from the treatment of the room to the Digital to Analogue Converters and the Monitoring system – they are all going to be much higher end than all but the best recording studios.
Added to that you have another set of ears who are used to working on a lot of product in your genre as well as working in a different listening environment. A decent mastering house can sort problems in the mix as well as making the record louder, more dynamic and give your track that aural gold dust.

A good mastering engineer is your best friend, he’ll give you honest feedback, pointers where you could improve, correct your mistakes and help you progress in your career.

Mastering is about a lot more than just making the record louder, the louder you make the record in mastering the less dynamic range you will get. Check out: http://www.turnmeup.org/ for a great illustration of this. Also if you Google "death magnetic" you’ll get an idea of the backlash starting against ultra-loud mixes/masters.

Doing everything “in the box” isn't ideal, I’m not saying you can’t do good work mastering totally digitally but I’ve found to get lovely deep warm sounding masters you need some nice analogue equipment in the signal chain to add the magic.
When a track is made using purely digital equipment from start to finish the result tends to be too clean and too clinical. This is especially true today with more and more of the tracks we are being sent being written and mixed totally on computers.

What Mastering can do, what it can’t do
Mastering will make your tracks sound louder, brighter, more detailed and give it that polished sound so it’s ready for the radio or to be dropped at a club.

If you are working on an EP or Album project the mastering process will ensure all your tracks are at the same level and there is an overall uniform sound to the project.

Issues like a dull or muddy mix can be addressed with various weapons in our toolbox, but there is a limit to what can be achieved.

Gluing the mix together using compression is another aspect mastering can address, as long as the room is there to do it – i.e. the mix hasn’t already been compressed to death.

There are of course limits to what can be done; an instrument or vocal that is too loud or too low in the mix is out of the hands of the mastering engineer. If a mix is really out of the range of what could
be described as acceptable, improvements can be made but there is only so much that can be done.

The adage of garbage in – garbage out applies. The better the mixes are when they arrive at the Mastering Studio the better the results will be at the end of the process.

Coming up:

• Part 2 - Tips for getting a great mix
• Part 3 - Preparing a mix for mastering
  
  
  

- Copyright 2008, Luke Pepper, All Rights Reserved.
No part of this document shall be reproduced without prior consent from the copyright owner.

_______________________________________________
For more Information and Mastering Services check out:
The Chocolate Factory - Mastering Studio, CD Mastering, Mixdowns and Audio Restoration