Victory Road
Offline
Gosford, Australia
SuperBustySamuraiMonkey wrote:
BR1GHT PR1MATE wrote:

this is going to sound douchy, but what people are talking about 99.999% of the time when they say "mastering" is... just mixing.

mixing. dont be afraid of the word.

Probably what you mean by mixing is equalization and panning, not even mixing. It makes me a sad panda.

since when was eq and panning not part of the mixing process?

SketchMan3
Offline
NC in the US of America

Come on, you guys. I posted links:

SketchMan3 wrote:

And now, so there is no more confusion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_mastering#Process
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_mixi … ded_music)

Victory Road
Offline
Gosford, Australia

i'm not confused about anything

SuperBustySamuraiMonkey
Offline
Madriz, Supain
Victory Road wrote:
SuperBustySamuraiMonkey wrote:

Probably what you mean by mixing is equalization and panning, not even mixing. It makes me a sad panda.

since when was eq and panning not part of the mixing process?

As a latin language native speaker, since never: Mixing things up is a transitive verb that puts different stuff into a consolidated final one. Paning is not that. In my language.

I was playing devils advocate, dont mind me

XD

Victory Road
Offline
Gosford, Australia

oh ho, you need some head and shoulders for those hairs you're splitting! tongue

basspuddle
Offline
washington

i like to record each channel separately and then pan them slightly (not more than 15%) to help each individual part stick out slightly.

eq'ing is for the pros. i'm not a pro.

my.Explosion
Offline
Finland
basspuddle wrote:

eq'ing is for the pros. i'm not a pro.

It's also for people who have super expensive headphones that have a very neutral sound. Can't really EQ that efficiently if your headphones are too weak or too bassy. :[

Invisible Robot Hands
Offline
Playboy Man-Baby
ForaBrokenEarth wrote:
Invisible Robot Hands wrote:

Some sorts of tracks generally just seem to do better raw, too. Crazy noisy chipthrash shit, etc.

It depends on your audience as well. The harsher your production the less likely it is to appeal to more casual listeners, but people more involved with chip will be more likely to give it a chance.

I've personally found that harsh sounding chip stuff gets two types of response from the casual or unfamiliar chiptune listeners. For a lot of people, the aggressiveness actually just draws them in as much as the "omgz gmaeboi" factor does, while it obviously also scares people away.

Last edited by Invisible Robot Hands (Jun 3, 2013 11:33 pm)

SketchMan3
Offline
NC in the US of America

I say go ahead and play around with EQ sometimes. Experimenting is a good way to learn. You don't have to necessarily save your results, but it's fun to see what you can get out of it.

That being said, I tried it once (just boosting the bass a little) but it didn't really work out the way I wanted, so the only post-editing I do to my stuff now is normalize and fade-out if it's one of those loopy type dealios.

Victory Road wrote:

i'm not confused about anything

It was for the people who are confused, of course. smile

spacetownsavior
Offline
San Diego, CA

quick two cents: mixing/mastering should be as much a part of the creative process as songwriting. it's not something you just slap on a track at the end of composing -- it's a process that helps dictate the song's sound just as much as the composing process.

also, the mixing/mastering dichotomy is a bit confusing because the terms were coined back when performing music on a computer wasn't as much of a thing as it was today, so they referred to two different processes that lost their meaning as software became popular and managed to combine the two. as far as I know, mixing = combining separate audio channels into one and making sure that said combination isn't too loud/soft in any of the channels, whereas mastering = preparing the final mix for distribution with post-processing done to the whole shebang. it gets confusing when computer music becomes a thing because mixing happens much earlier in the creative process, whereas with live performance mixing usually occurs after the song has been laid down.

Cooshinator
Offline
ohio gozaimasu

I honestly think gameboys sound pretty bad without some eq/reverb

sugar sk*-*lls
Offline
nashville,tn

It also depends on your expected release style. Someone with the right equipment and knowledge for mastering can improve the sound of your music by smoothing out specific frequencies that are distracting.The key is to know what medium you want to master for: tape, vinyl, or digital formats have different considerations. The overall sound can be changed dramatically too, so it's important to communicate with whoever masters the tracks. I've never regretted having something mastered for release, but have regretted not having it mastered. Plus that extra step goes a long way to giving a collection of music for release a bit of tangibility. I wouldn't advise mastering yourself unless you have the time to mess up a bunch. Mastering is an art unto itself.

Downstate
Offline
shanghai

personally i only got my songs mastered to make them coherent with one another.
Most of the nit-picking was done in the final mix on my stuff.
Then i let someone that konws what they're doing master that shit. But you shouldnt expect to send a shitty mix to a mastering engineer and have it come back sounding amazing.
i see mastering as something that just gives all the songs on a record some sort of unity, volume wise, dynamics wise etc. i dont regret paying to get drip taper mastered at all. i dont think id ever release something again that wasnt mastered. But im not doing any gameboy shizzle thesedays.
Hell the gameboy ep i put out was just raw as fuck. i didnt even record it split channels. just worked some bro step magik in izotope. For myself though, the reason i enjoyed making a lsdj ep was for that exact reason. That it was just gonna sound like how it sounds straight out of the tin.
But i definately appreciate a mixed and mastered record. Peer - dances sounds wicked, as do C-trips stuff, Monodeer, J Arthur Keenes etc. There is a big difference in my eyes between 'sounding low-fi / low-bit' and 'sounding like utter shit'.

basspuddle
Offline
washington
my.Explosion wrote:

It's also for people who have super expensive headphones that have a very neutral sound. Can't really EQ that efficiently if your headphones are too weak or too bassy. :[

yeah, i know what you mean. my headphones are pretty accurate except for the low-end, it's kind of weak.

Wizwars
Offline
Los Angeles, CA
theghostservant wrote:

Wizwars' "Welcome to Thrash City" was recorded, mixed, and mastered in a studio. I think I remember him saying those tracks were "compressed as shit" or something to that effect.
even chipthrash can use some TLC from a professional sound duder.

I believe on the notes for that album I say it was recorded and mixed at "Analog Wizards Recording Studios in Norwalk, CA"...that was my bedroom, not an actual studio, haha...and I did all of the production on it, originally Kool Skull's ex-roommate Chad (indie rock people might know him as Emperor X) was going to record it on tape at their apartment (aka Datamoshpit Recording Studios) and mix / master it there but there wasn't time before he went on tour...

Anyway my production was basically, recording the tracks raw from my GBC into cubase, and I made a preset in the amp simulator Amplitube of all things, mainly because I like pedal compression and EQ...so yeah, EQ'd and brickwalled it with the Amplitube preset, and then added another Compression setting from Cubase, along with additional EQ. The thing was to get it as loud and in your face as possible.

I personally think chipthrash with no production sounds like absolute fucking shit. When you're recording directly from a GBC, it totally lacks balls. You gotta give it balls. I mean it doesn't even have to be post production, recording through a mixer or something can do the trick. I'm sucking my own cock here but I personally think the overcompressed sound I use for all my chipthrash stuff is pretty much the perfect Chipthrash production, very in your face and harsh. I also used it when I produced one of Kool Skull's live albums - http://koolskull.bandcamp.com/album/lyy … aye-lounge

For the record if any harsh motherfuckrs agree and want me to produce their albums, hit me up.

Jotie
Offline

GBC just doesn't have any bass.
I don't want to do any post production, because I don't want the recorded albums to sound different from live sound.
Would GBC bass mods do the trick, or would they still be too silent overall?