All these pictures of rooms, their arrangements and treatments. Rooms within a room. Has a single mastering engineer even considered mastering without the room?
Yes, take your perfect speakers outside and put them on the ground - preferably on the edge of a cliff. Master your recording in the environment our ears actually evolved to operate in - completely open space and a "floor"; dirt, grass, snow. Then playback across different confined spaces / speakers - see if the mix still stands up to as many combinations as possible.
If you took a quartet of actual musicians and put them in your room (where your speakers were) would they not simply sound like they were in your room? Oh, I get it - you want to make your room disappear and sound like wherever it was the musicians originally played. Sheesh - I wonder how you'd do that?
Rainy/windy/cold/ambient noise? So too bad - wait for a better day. So simple a concept, I bet it's never even been tried to the finish of some mastering session -
No, headphones arent quite the same thing.
Yes, take your perfect speakers outside and put them on the ground - preferably on the edge of a cliff. Master your recording in the environment our ears actually evolved to operate in - completely open space and a "floor"; dirt, grass, snow. Then playback across different confined spaces / speakers - see if the mix still stands up to as many combinations as possible.
If you took a quartet of actual musicians and put them in your room (where your speakers were) would they not simply sound like they were in your room? Oh, I get it - you want to make your room disappear and sound like wherever it was the musicians originally played. Sheesh - I wonder how you'd do that?
Rainy/windy/cold/ambient noise? So too bad - wait for a better day. So simple a concept, I bet it's never even been tried to the finish of some mastering session -
No, headphones arent quite the same thing.
But Camplo don't you think this is what happen yet?
I mean B.Katz is a very good commercial for company but this isn't one way.
For example the M6000 was developed with him and Massenburg involved too.
I mean B.Katz is a very good commercial for company but this isn't one way.
For example the M6000 was developed with him and Massenburg involved too.
That is not the point JJ. No one will tell you that recorded signal is same as the musician playing in front of you. This is a fantasy only audiophile dream of. All serious engineers knows this is all an illusion.
The point of ME is to make quality assessment and order the tracks and eventually apply some treatments to make source nicer or complying to the technical constraints you have to deal with.
I agree. Did we clarify that your position is that Loudspeakers have nothing else to offer the Master Engineer than it already has?
Either lets pretend it didn't and reinvent the process right here....or maybe the DIY side has been shunned or naive of the outcome? This video is from 2015? its 2020... this is all we get? It can't get any better? There's still a camp of people who will purposely go the abstract route and create beautiful art regardless of the rules. I get that.
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If they happen to be not as perfect as expected you can then easily dispose them ! 😉 Fun aside: Yes it pays off to at least listen once to one's own stereo outside. Getting the room out of the equation is a great improvement (apart from the SPL losses).
Sometimes they add their footprint of bad taste to excellent recordings. But sometimes the customer is equally guilty. I remember a famous mastering engineer saying that you "shouldn't make it as good as possible but as good as the customer wants".
Regards
Charles
Its done all the time, if the reverb isn't captured within the recording, it is simulated.
I don't know...I do know that viewing the signal in a very dry and a lesser dry environment can be desired. It is about looking at the signal from all angles...
Did you just tell me in so many ways to jump off a cliff lol!!
I like your thinking, at least someone found their way out side of the room...I mean box...Open baffle got rid of the box....they haven't figure out if they get rid of the room, they can simulate whatever room...you can simulate rooms with characteristics unachievable in the real world via physics or funding....You don't have to use headphones to remove the room do you?
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Has anyone ever tried physical units of active room acoustic treatments? Could that ever be a thing?
I am imagining something that looks like a speaker, that is used to augment the acoustics of the room. Active cancellation?
What if you create a dead room, and created virtual environments using surround monitoring and IR's, for Mastering.
What if you create a dead room, and created virtual environments using surround monitoring and IR's, for Mastering.
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my high school teacher taught the difference in word forms, one's an adjective the other is a noun so if you what to use an adjective where you should use a noun have at 'er bub!
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What rule says that I should have used a noun? Did you teacher tell you that lol? A particular word can be a noun and adjective....
ad·jec·tive
/ˈajəktiv/
- a word or phrase naming an attribute
Attribute is a noun and a verb lol
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Now, is this the loudspeaker designer in me, or the Mastering engineer? - Either Field could of wanted or inspired this...the interconnection persist!
The difference is that their car has to be tuned to their driving style, and tracks they will be racing.
I thought we were discussing the production of the perfect speaker that is generally applicable.
You seem to be suggesting building a best speaker for a single mastering engineer.
Which will definitely not be the best speaker for another mastering engineer and his setup.
We seem to be discussing different things.
Honestly, if a mastering engineer has to give input to the speaker build, it's by definition not the perfect speaker.
The perfect speaker has perfect measured response.
In a perfect world, you build the perfect speaker by science, *then* you build the room and setup around that.
If you're going to let the mastering engineer have a say in the speaker build, then either the measurements are wrong, or the mastering engineer is going for a non transparent sound.
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- Thats not the loudspeakers job...thats the Mastering engineers job, loudspeakers system designers have been covering for the Mastering engineers! The loudspeakers job is to be able to "do it all"
Once again, easily relevant to both fields. I'm just not the expert in either...an outfit like Meyer on the other hand. We have enough collective intelligence here to do more.
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Yes. And to do it all, the loudspeaker has to be transparent. That means, it MEASURES FLAT.
That's why the mastering engineer should stay out of the loudspeaker design.
First create the perfect flat speaker by measurements, and *then* the mastering engineer can add his own sound using his own tools.
You don't want the mastering engineer to "add more bass" to a loudspeaker design that measured flat, you want to build the speaker flat and then have the mastering engineer use his palette of tools to alter the sound anyway he sees fit - IN THE SOUND CHAIN THAT LEADS UP TO THE FLAT MEASURING SPEAKER.
If the mastering engineer adds bass to the speaker design he uses for mastering, anyone who doesn't have that speaker will hear LESS bass.
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loudspeaker design maybe isn't the right word? The concepts above, are they not among the category of Loudspeaker systems?
Pygmy you said you've been a mastering engineer for 20 years? What type of Mastering engineer would even make that choice! Loudspeaker designer and mastering engineer alike....want neutral speakers. This is what we are looking at.
Pygmy you said you've been a mastering engineer for 20 years? What type of Mastering engineer would even make that choice! Loudspeaker designer and mastering engineer alike....want neutral speakers. This is what we are looking at.
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