You suggested I should try mastering, the art of trying to improve the sound of a track by listening to it and determining if any form of processing can enhance the subjective experience.
Perhaps I was too modest when I said tweaking, said tweaking involves Mid Side EQ, linear phase corrections, FIR filters, VST Plugins and ambience manipulation all in the aim of trying to get a better sound. No ability or experience with sound manipulation has made me design a better speaker, I have been able to manipulate a speaker to sound better which I think is what you are ultimately getting at.
The design of the speaker requires different skills and experiences, the arrogance came from ascribing those skills to mastering engineers just because. They may have them, they may not. They certainly don't need them to be very successful at their day job.
You can effect change on a speaker by manipulating the impulse response but there are factors in speakers and other audio replay devices that cannot be fixed or replicated that way. You can get closer for certain and in some cases close enough.
- Sorry bud, thats not it...thats not Mastering...but don't feel bad...the majority of mix engineers are confused too lol
- Half the battle is knowing....I said that Mastering engineers could turn into Loudspeaker engineers and Loudspeaker engineers could turn into Mastering Engineers with efficacy... how many times can I say it.
True, a common and relevant knowledge among Mastering Engineers and Loudspeaker engineers, with no coincidence since they both have a common goal, signal manipulation. I've been arguing how much they are related this whole time, glad you see the light.
- Prove it...
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your making assertions based on a personal viewpoint so i would be inclined to think that the burden of proof should be on you.
This is exactly how I feel about 99% of everything you have written so far in this thread.
I can't think of anything that will help to further the discussion given the above.
I don't think there is a relation.. the point is for the mastering engineer to make a mix sound good on as much popular gear as possible. Having one set of 'perfect' speakers doesn't help this
Hence the use of auratones, apple earbuds etc as tools in the process
Hence the use of auratones, apple earbuds etc as tools in the process
Agreed ! But knowing how to use a tool doesn't necessarily enabling oneself to develop and construct it. But a professional user can be of help to a developer. In this point I agree partly to the original thread subject (that deviated from a fruitful working together of astering engineer and developer to making a mastering engineer a speaker developer).
Regards
Charles
-it's a wasted thread thinking most designs for monitoring have any real positive or negative effect vs. another non-monitor design. (..and I'm assuming both designs are good.)
The worst part of it is that the recording industry sits in front of a large reflective work surface, with reflections that are FAR closer to the listener than the loudspeakers themselves.
Honestly, if you are in the industry (..being paid for your work: a "professional") - then just spend some of that earnings on a Smyth Realiser and use it.
Alternatively, use a virtual console for your mixing (..particularly if it's multi-channel). No desk, just you in a chair with a split keyboard on the arms and a mouse. Visuals projected on the "front" wall behind the speakers or using some VR headset with some minor added padding on the front to absorb freq.s above 1.5 kHz.
The worst part of it is that the recording industry sits in front of a large reflective work surface, with reflections that are FAR closer to the listener than the loudspeakers themselves.
Honestly, if you are in the industry (..being paid for your work: a "professional") - then just spend some of that earnings on a Smyth Realiser and use it.
Alternatively, use a virtual console for your mixing (..particularly if it's multi-channel). No desk, just you in a chair with a split keyboard on the arms and a mouse. Visuals projected on the "front" wall behind the speakers or using some VR headset with some minor added padding on the front to absorb freq.s above 1.5 kHz.
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How is this even a response to what I said?
I said that building a good speaker doesn't depend on the listener. A good speaker is still a good speaker even if the listener is deaf.
The qualifications of a good speaker are known and have been known for a long time.
Mastering engineers learn about the scientific side of audio, not on the scientific side of speaker development. These two are NOT the same.
The techniques and science mastering engineers learn can overlap with speaker building, but the part that overlaps is microsized compared to the stuff that *doesn't* overlap.
You seem to think that someone who is a master at photographing perfect smiles would be a good dentist as well.
Being good at sound design doesn't imply being good at developing speakers - knowing the settings on your compressor doesn't give you a degree in analog electronics, or DSP chip design implications, or the implications of different types of materials that can be used for the conus.
Why do you keep pretending that mastering engineers would somehow know everything about anything, from speaker building to room treatment?
Why do you think that pro studios *hire* companies to design and treat the studio instead of having their inhouse mastering engineer do it?
You bring me a mastering engineer and within 2 minutes I'll come up with 10 relevant questions they won't be able to answer, be it about speaker filter design, DSP chip implementation considerations, research and results about diffusers, you name it.
You seem to have been misinformed by someone that the term "mastering engineer" means "person who knows absolutely everything in about 30 different disciplines".
You don't seem to understand that it's really simple what a speaker should do. It should perfectly reproduce the input without adding or subtracting to/from it.
HOW you build a speaker to do that though - that's not trivial, and unless the mastering engineer happens to share our speaker design hobby, that's not something you learn in your mastering course or in your years sitting behind your desk mixing and mastering.
Yes, you know that you need good speakers. But being a mastering engineer doesn't make you a speaker designer, just like being a horse racing jockey doesn't make you a veterinarian/
There's a big difference between what you think they *should* know, and what they know.
Do you think that if we pick a random mastering engineer from the internet, he would be able to design a 3-way analog crossover from scratch from the top of his head?
I don't think so - I'd wager most mastering engineers have never even built a speaker kit designed by someone else, let alone put in the *years* it takes to learn the intricacies of decent loudspeaker design.
No, you're not.
If we want to test if the speaker is working correctly, we have perfect setups to test the speaker in anechoic rooms, or Floyd Toole's Spin-o-rama.
THAT'S where you test the speaker quality.
If it's then not working for you as a mastering engineer, then it's your room, your setup, or your skills.
Testing speaker quality by just throwing it in a room with a mixing engineer instead of doing the proper scientific measurements in the proper measuring environments is absolutely dumb.
You seem to have a completely ***-backwards mentality thinking that it's you, the mastering engineers, who started the "it needs to sound transparent" thing.
Do you have any clue that Hugh Brittain in 1936-1937 already listed the "common imperfections" of electroacoustic systems that were in the way of reaching maximum transparency?
- Amplitude/frequency response
- Harmonic distortion
- spurious noises and intermodulation distortion
- frequency shift
- dynamic range compression
- transient distortion
- phase distortion
- group delay
- electroacoustic efficiency
- power handling capacity
- constancy of performance
Brittain constructed this list only 13 years after the invention of the moving coil loudspeaker. This speaker building pioneer didn't need a "mastering engineer" to tell him speakers needed to be transparent, neither does any other speaker builder.
Why? Because the importance of transparency is *implied* by the whole *function* of the speaker - *accurately reproducing an audio signal", no speaker builder ever needed a "mastering engineer" to understand that.
I'm getting a bit tired of this pompous "Hey man I know about mastering so therefore I'm a master speaker builder!" nonsense. That's just as dumb as saying that we should from now on let speaker builders interfere with mastering because they know what a capacitor does in a RLC circuit.
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I do not think this is true, the better gear you have in the production the better it will sound also at/to the end user, regardless of the end user gear.
I hate that mediocrisy has become the new norm
mastering engineers can be "inglorious bastards" sometimes and in their quest to make it palatable or fit/work across multiple formats their signal manipulations ruin a good studio mix...you don't need "perfect" speakers to do that they only need to be a known quantity.
- Yes it does. having one set of perfect speakers does help the process, which is why you'll see some variant of it, in every mastering studio.
That requires revealing its flaws, which is why mastering engineer first line tool is the the "perfect" monitor.
Every post about what a mastering engineer does or needs has been very vague or misleading.......all by NON MASTERING ENGINEERS? Hence the circle of confusion?
- thats true, but you the perfect speakers give you accurate quantity when you want/or need it....As I said before, when simulating another environment or listening source...you need the perfect speaker still, these are Mastering Engineer tools as well.
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Almost as bad as speaker builder being told how to build speakers by a "mastering engineer" who doesn't know about building speakers!
Maybe thats why I have an advantage on the topic, I can do both?
I started building loudspeakers (loudspeaker cookbook) when I was 12, I'm 37....I started learning to mix/master about 11 years ago...
So I am an expert on neither, and I put more effort into learning mixing and mastering than I did building loudspeakers. I can tell you one is more challenging than the other...One I can copy some one else design and the other I cannot even attempt without a large skill set of the tools and a talented ear. Where the two meet is at the cutting edge...
That is exactly my struggle here....I am not exactly qualified to debate all of you on this. It would take the "big wigs" to sit down together and have an exchange. So its like "trust meeee" and you guy are like "ooook internet random guy....no"
Aren't any of you slightly offset by your lack of knowledge of what mastering?
I started building loudspeakers (loudspeaker cookbook) when I was 12, I'm 37....I started learning to mix/master about 11 years ago...
So I am an expert on neither, and I put more effort into learning mixing and mastering than I did building loudspeakers. I can tell you one is more challenging than the other...One I can copy some one else design and the other I cannot even attempt without a large skill set of the tools and a talented ear. Where the two meet is at the cutting edge...
That is exactly my struggle here....I am not exactly qualified to debate all of you on this. It would take the "big wigs" to sit down together and have an exchange. So its like "trust meeee" and you guy are like "ooook internet random guy....no"
Aren't any of you slightly offset by your lack of knowledge of what mastering?
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Ah yeah, the bad old days ... when they still used beta video recorders to record digital. No wonder the hifi industry went to sh*t for over 20 years.
Maybe that's why *I* have an advantage, I've been mastering for about 20 years itb and otb, I know my way around SSL's, AND I've built and designed speakers.
I know my way around analog studios as well as DAW studios.
I really don't see how mastering helps designing perfect speakers, it's not like being a mastering engineer changes anything about the requirements of the perfect speaker.
The speaker needs to accurately reproduce the input signal without adding or subtracting. That's a scientific project, not a project of individual taste like mastering is - if mastering wasn't, every mastering engineer would master exactly the same.
We can objectively measure the speaker results in an anechoic room andToole's Spin-o-rama.
There is no objective measurement for mastered audio.
So - the speakers need to be built and measured. Once the speakers measure perfect, hand them over to the master engineer.
If the master engineer then says it's not good, it's either his room, his setup or his skills.
Why give a mastering engineer input in speaker *design* where lots of choices need to be made that they don't know anything about?
Really, I don't think a lot of mastering engineers now much about capacitors, or specific DSP implementation implications, or the differences in cone materials.
Why should they have their say in that if they simply lack the required knowledge?
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Thptptptp. The movie industry can't even get background music levels consistent from one scene to the next. Let's face it, the public don't deserve better either.
Well, you are talking about Dat? It's been maybe 18 years since the last i've seen used.
Have you ever heard a Sony 3324 or 3348? Those are 'old' technology still sounding good today, as was tape...
I don't get the 'newer is better'...but we now have DSD capability available for 90€ for your home system ( but do we have access to recording of this quality done natively?).
The issue is lurking somewhere else in my view: isn't it ironic to have the widest dynamic range media in history with the lower dynamic range contents ever?
From where does it come? Who is the first the egg or the chicken?
There is...People are mastering using pink noise for example. more ideas and techniques will come. Also how in the hell could we even possibly claim to have software that will master your material for you thats direct proof that there is objectionable measurement, there.
- I agree
- I do, I don't feel like I tried that hard, a mastering engineer would know about capacitors resistors, inductors, transistors, through the study and building of compressors and limiters...all that stuff...my first thought is if you don't know about this stuff, what kind of Mastering Engineer are you really...how many people come through DIYAudio and build speakers but don't know the formula for KA?
You asked the perfect question and your experience should be able to provide some type of answer....
I'm not sure yet, but you should have an answer....I can help you find the answer to this question since you have not asked yourself...
How can mastering be made easier by the loudspeaker?.....
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