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SoulEye
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Joined: 31 Jan 2004
Location: Helsingborg, Sweden!
PostPosted: Thu Nov 03 2005 14:56    
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I sent away a multitrack version of my Embrace song.
Original: http://souleye.madtracker.net/souleye%20-%20embrace.mp3 to analogue acoustics to see what they/he would come up with. The entire song was not processed/sent to me, but he returned this sample to me: http://souleye.madtracker.net/souleye_-_embrace_short_-_mastered.mp3

Also he pointed out that:

"This is what your music would sound like when processed by my system. If you like what you hear and would like to get your other songs process I would be more than happy to offer you a group discount and do This song for free.
[...]
This is just a quick example I can make adjustments as necessary. I can also send you wav file but not for the free service.
This is just quick a example for you to get a feel of what we do. you might hear an excess of high freq.we dont not do any detail work for the free service. I can provide you with several different version of your song." [snip]

So... I noticed one or two changes, but really, not much was changed for the better in my opinion. Perhaps it was levelled out a bit ("LOUDNESS"), and a little sharper in the high frequencies, but well... I guess other tracks are more suited for his kind of mastering than a newschool demostyle chiptune. In fact, the more I listen to his edit, I get more and more annoyed with the high frequencies that somehow makes the audio sound like it's suffocating me. Thumbs down on this particular remix.

In conclusion, unless I make other kinds of tunes, I probably will not use their service.


http://www.souleye.se

Last edited by SoulEye on Thu Nov 03 2005 17:00; edited 2 times in total
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Inge
Man-At-Arms


Joined: 04 May 2003
Location: Nieuw Lekkerland @ Holland
PostPosted: Thu Nov 03 2005 16:52    
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Brrrr! This is horrible! The low has disappeared, there's clipping, the balance between frequencies is gone, and the sound is synthetic and blurry. Boh boh!


Care for a game of Monopoly?
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Sunbuster
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Joined: 05 May 2003
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Thu Nov 03 2005 19:05    
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Sounds like they did a pop mastering. Too much compression and emphasizing the mids. The snare dissapeared completely imo. But compared to the original it does sound a bit more open at times. But you're right, the master starts to hurt my ears after a while, not at all fun to listen to compared to the original.

I think the biggest mistake they've made was trying to push the volume too high and thus compressing too much when the track needed to be more dynamic instead.
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Comatose
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Joined: 29 Apr 2004
PostPosted: Fri Nov 04 2005 05:33    
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Whatever the f*&k they did it sounds atrocious, totally killed the melodical lead that I loved so much.
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Inge
Man-At-Arms


Joined: 04 May 2003
Location: Nieuw Lekkerland @ Holland
PostPosted: Fri Nov 04 2005 08:54    
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Probably Atlantis will love this mastered version. Looking forward to his reaction Smile


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Atlantis
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Joined: 11 Feb 2005
Location: Hamilton, New Zealand
PostPosted: Fri Nov 04 2005 09:22    
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I have a feeling there are a lot of people in the industry who have no idea what they're doing. Especially when it comes to 'digital' music, it requires a whole different approach than your average pop/rock material. Personally, I wouldn't dare touch any acoustically recorded material such as a rock band, as I have no experience in this genre whatsoever, and wouldn't even know where to start, as seemed evident here.

Having grown up in the tracking scene (I was a former TiS, HomeMusic and CTG Artist), I know the ins and outs of the music spawned from this era, including most of today's EDM tracks created using sequencers and VSTi's/VST's (ultimately why this is my target market, and why others should stay away from it Wink).

I personally wouldn't do any free masters either and just rushing through the procedure to offer a quick example, as I believe this looks very unprofessional. I work to the death (OK, not quite literally Wink) to give the music (and you) what it needs, which then shouldn't leave much room for improvement when you do receive your sample.

Anyway, my take on their master is that, yes, it's definitely overcompressed, and the midrange is FAR too over-represented. The reason for it sounding so "synthetic and blurry", as Inge said, is due to their "advanced analogue technique" - well, there's analogue equipment for you for anyone who always thought hardware was better than software. Wink

The treble is a step closer to a correct tonal balance however, and it's good to see they actually took the time to do this. I wouldn't say it's too bad, but I definitely think it's been carried out the wrong way. And, yeah, too much excitement...which starts to sound like it's suffocating you, as SoulEye put it.




Atlantis [Atlantean Records]

multiband professor/eq professor/Nur-Ab-Sal
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SoulEye
Beta-Tester


Joined: 31 Jan 2004
Location: Helsingborg, Sweden!
PostPosted: Sat Nov 05 2005 19:35    
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And today I got back a version from trilliumsound. Check it:

http://souleye.madtracker.net/souleye_-_embrace_trillium-master.mp3

What's your verdict, Atlantis?


http://www.souleye.se
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Atlantis
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Joined: 11 Feb 2005
Location: Hamilton, New Zealand
PostPosted: Sat Nov 05 2005 20:44    
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SoulEye wrote:
And today I got back a version from trilliumsound. Check it:

http://souleye.madtracker.net/souleye_-_embrace_trillium-master.mp3

What's your verdict, Atlantis?

Hehe, you know I'm the best out there. Wink

Trillium Sound don't do any tonal balancing, so don't go there unless you only want half the job done. They also added too much treble, probably with too much harmonic excitement as well. Shame on you

Because they haven't corrected the tonal balance, the sound is far too honky in the mids. The dynamics aren't controlled too badly, though, but it could be so much better. Whistle




Atlantis [Atlantean Records]

multiband professor/eq professor/Nur-Ab-Sal
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Elijah
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Joined: 20 Jan 2004
Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada Eh?
PostPosted: Mon Nov 07 2005 15:00    
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Quote:
Hehe, you know I'm the best out there. Wink

Trillium Sound don't do any tonal balancing, so don't go there unless you only want half the job done. They also added too much treble, probably with too much harmonic excitement as well. Shame on you

Because they haven't corrected the tonal balance, the sound is far too honky in the mids. The dynamics aren't controlled too badly, though, but it could be so much better. Whistle


I think atlantis is just a hater...

[rant]

this thread sounds more like one big lame advertisement than a discussion. all he's saying is "this is no good, so pay me because i wont show you i can do better without the ciznachi" (cash). <in my opinion, of course>

not like we would REALLY know what a good master sounds like... so all we can do is take his word for it.

personally i would never want to get into mastering because even right now a bad mix can distract me from a good song. Thats what i get for becoming a producer...

you know? [/rant]


- Elijah
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SoulEye
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Joined: 31 Jan 2004
Location: Helsingborg, Sweden!
PostPosted: Mon Nov 07 2005 15:26    
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Actually, we are waiting for his version of Van Uden's track. If that turns out to be, well, not all it's cranked up to be, I guess you may have a point. But if he is as skilled as I get the impression of, there's nothing wrong with using him instead of the other masteringdudes we've seen so far, should anybody need mastering for their tracks.


http://www.souleye.se
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Atlantis
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Joined: 11 Feb 2005
Location: Hamilton, New Zealand
PostPosted: Mon Nov 07 2005 18:18    
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Yeah, this topic is becoming a bit pointless. Sorry, it was never my intention to sell myself. I posted here to help out, but hearing the first example of what Trillium Sound did made me kind of mad to know they are in business.

Yes, being a hater is probably part of the reason too, but, like I said, I'm not here to advertise myself nor claim to be the best. My earlier "Hehe, you know I'm the best out there. Wink" remark was more of a joke.

About Franklin's track, I mastered this quite a while ago, so I'm not sure what's happened there. I sent a sample back to him but never heard from him since, nor here for that matter. I think it turned out well, but the vocal would have worked better having come down a little in the mix after all, which I later suggested.

Anyway, this topic should probably just be put to rest. As I said earlier too, I don't think it's fair for one engineer to judge another engineer's work, so I'll leave it to you decide. Smile




Atlantis [Atlantean Records]

multiband professor/eq professor/Nur-Ab-Sal
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Elijah
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Joined: 20 Jan 2004
Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada Eh?
PostPosted: Tue Nov 08 2005 02:56    
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Atlantis wrote:
Yeah, this topic is becoming a bit pointless. Sorry, it was never my intention to sell myself. I posted here to help out, but hearing the first example of what Trillium Sound did made me kind of mad to know they are in business.

Yes, being a hater is probably part of the reason too, but, like I said, I'm not here to advertise myself nor claim to be the best. My earlier "Hehe, you know I'm the best out there. Wink" remark was more of a joke.

About Franklin's track, I mastered this quite a while ago, so I'm not sure what's happened there. I sent a sample back to him but never heard from him since, nor here for that matter. I think it turned out well, but the vocal would have worked better having come down a little in the mix after all, which I later suggested.

Anyway, this topic should probably just be put to rest. As I said earlier too, I don't think it's fair for one engineer to judge another engineer's work, so I'll leave it to you decide. Smile


im sorry too, man
(it was first thing in the morning... that's why i put rant. it was more of one of those than actual intention.

same with me trying to judge another's song.

why dont you just send the links for the tune? (pre+post)


- Elijah
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xiphiuz
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Joined: 08 May 2003
PostPosted: Thu Nov 10 2005 08:11    
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Probably allready mentioned.

Loudness is what dumb people want, but radio stations allready do this... read this:


Broadcast processing is complex and sophisticated, and was tuned for the recordings produced using practices typical of the recording industry during almost all of its history. In this historical context, hypercompression is a short-term anomaly and does not coexist well with the competitive processing that most pop-music radio stations use. We therefore recommend that record companies provide broadcasters with radio mixes. These can have all of the equalization, slow compression, and other effects that producers and mastering engineers use artistically to achieve a desired sound. !!!! What these radio mixes should not have is fast digital limiting and clipping. Leave the short-term envelopes unsquashed. Let the broadcast processor do its work.

© Robert Orban and Frank Loti (omnia).
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Sunbuster
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Joined: 05 May 2003
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Thu Nov 10 2005 10:12    
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Yep, that's good advice. We (a group of audiostudents) did a small study a year ago, where we visited a couple of radio stations here in the Helsinki area. All apply compression and various other processing to the signal. The stations playing mostly pop music however did this at a larger/more agressive scale than stations playing classical and jazz. One of the station technicians basically admitted that the competition between stations (pop stations in particular) is to have the loudest sound in the market and that they basically crank up the compression as much as possible in order to achieve this. The conclusion of the study therefore was that record companies should provide two mixes (like xiphiuz said in his quote), one for radio broadcast and one for CD press. How many companies actually do this is another question.
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Elijah
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Joined: 20 Jan 2004
Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada Eh?
PostPosted: Fri Nov 11 2005 15:09    
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not only pop radio uses it. all stations use heavy compression in order to even out the different levels.

i just learned this by listening tho...

un fortunately, pop engineers still compress the shit out of it and thats why i cant listen to pop radio in close counters anymore.. too much high end due to the double limiting.

but still in my opinion.. being able to make a mix as close to 0 is best anyways, simply because of efficiency (not to mention when I'm listening on my mp3 player and i have to keep turning up and down) - i dont mean compressing the shit out of it, i really do hate the distortion, but a mix at 0db is fine if you can do it without all of it.


- Elijah
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