Mastering Blog

Level 42 “Love meeting love”

Hi people!

Again this is from the live 81 Gillingham tape.

Taken a slightly different approach with this. I found there was a huge difference between left and right eq, either from the recording itself or the transfer to digital. This was creating an empty centre, so I’ve done some work to balance it up(apart from the tape drift, it even seems to hold together in mono).

I’ve also used quite an aggressive compressor model to tame the kick and snare. Take a listen to the source file and check how far in front(louder) they are. It’s difficult because of the mid covering effect, but still audible.

Do take a close listen to the hard nature of the source. I can change the shape of the tone, but not the essence of the sample(which is all digitized sound is).

Love meeting love remaster 23-03-2010

As usual, I may tweak this again at a later date.

Thanks for stopping by

Tone

Level 42, the rare “Morning silence”

Hi people

I worked on this track for a while over christmas, and although it still needs a tweak or 2, I’m quite happy with the improvement. For those who don’t know…..this is one of the rarest Level 42 songs. “Morning silence” Written by Mike Lindup, only featured in a few live shows during the 80’s. Luckily it was captured in this recording, as I don’t think another version exists.

For any new visitors, the technical details are this:

Damaged cassette from 1981.

Large mid range eq lift on aux send to cassette, Forcing large amounts of tape saturation into and around the offending freq area. I’ve had to try, to match the shape of that boost, by using many smaller cuts. As well as using the standard ‘boost the nice bits’ technique.

Source has large Boost around 107hz

Constant eq changes by the engineer

Remember, this is never going to be a perfect finish, just more listenable.

Have a listen

Morning silence source


Morning silence remaster


Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to Check back for updates or new tracks etc. Part 2 of my multiband compression tutorial is imminent.

Tone

“Wings of love” Level 42

Hi

You can probably tell by now, I’m not working these tracks in the right order. Trying my best to avoid the early ones, where the engineer was setting up .

Gone back a couple of songs now for this one. A few minor changes from the “Almost there” settings. The eq moves for every track, so that needed tweaking, plus the release times for all the dynamics tools. You may also notice a difference in both sound and level from “Almost there”. I don’t usually go much on so called vintage compressor models etc, it normally means “buy this, and it will make everything sound fantastic for you”, which they rarely do.

But I did put one in-line just before the final limiter. The last thing this material needs is too much definition, so blurring the edges slightly with the vintage model had the effect I wanted. Listen to how it’s softened the highs of the hi hat and cymbals etc. I’m not pretending its transparent compression, it’s actually pretty obvious, but it works.

The Audio


Wings of love-Cassette source


Wings of love-remaster

Well, thanks for stopping by people, and keep checking back, as I’m going to be doing the whole gig eventually (even the scary earlier tracks). Also, there is a big mastering techniques article on it’s way.

Have a great weekend!

Tone

P.S As usual, I’ll end up tweaking this a little. I just noticed a couple of freq’s creep in.

Level 42 “Almost there” Live in Gillingham 1981

Hi people!

I’ve recently had a couple of messages from level 42 fans, asking if I’ve completed the remaster of the whole gig. Here are some reasons why I haven’t:

1:Been too busy

2:It takes aaaaages. I’m not kidding!. This is a live recording, with loads of eq changes required(on top of the general sound fix)

3:It’s painful!. Even after pushing the tonal balance into something slightly better, the notches required to make it more listenable, start to mess with your ears  after working on it for a while.

Anyway, I have done another track. Actually the final song of the gig “Almost there”, in quite a raw/unfinished form, and with some unique lyrics on the night . If you haven’t read the whole story of how this recording found it’s way to me, read here

Notes:

Damage to the mid/upper mid range, mostly noticeable in the hi hats and cymbals. This is from eq boosts in that area, pushing the signal into the tape and creating massive amounts of saturation. No real fix for this, only to make it less obvious.

Spike from bass amp at 107hz. Cause unknown. This makes for a slightly thin bass sound, even using some tricks.

Keep in mind….despite what people may think…we can’t work miracles, but I damn well tried!

The audio

Thanks for stopping by

Tone

P.S:Re tweaked using slight multiband compression to keep it in place better. I had already used expansion to put some life back into it, but the whole thing stays pretty solid now. I’ll still re tweak some of the eq when my ears have repaired. Really difficult material with all the engineers changes.

Story of the blues

Here’s the story…..

Back in about 95 I was working in construction, we had a guy from Newcastle working for us at the time, and I discovered he was a guitarist. So, we arrange a recording day at my studio (just a bedroom at that time). Turns out he was a pretty good player, so we recorded this track “Story of the blues”. Here’s some techie info:

Fostex R8 8 track 1/4 inch tape multitrack

Seck 24/8/2 mixer

Patrick Eggle guitar, Marshall jmp1 valve pre amp into jcm900 2×12 combo

AKG c3000 mic

DBX 266a compressor (with settings that looked nice on the dials)

Alesis midiverb

Boss dr660 drum machine (looking back, a very good sounding unit)

The worst pair of speakers ever mixed on

I’ve admitted before, that until I started mastering, I couldn’t use a compressor to save my life, you will hear evidence of that in this recording. There was also no eq sculpting used (but listen how the tape went easy with me). It’s also a great lesson in why you shouldn’t use a gate while tracking vocals

If nothing else, this recording shows exactly how forgiving tape was. If I did this recording exactly the same with digital, it would take one hell of a job to push it into shape in mastering.

I don’t pretend it’s any good, but about the only thing I managed to find from my recording history (too many moves and splitups). This came from minidisc, and I’ve given it a quick master. The mix was a bass heavy monster.

Thanks for stopping by

Tone

The Hamsters-Electric hamsterland remaster

Hi people, Just a quick one

Back in the late 90’s I was still in construction. I remember going to work one Saturday morning just outside Croydon. One of the guys we had working with us had brought a cassette player in, to ease the monotony. Now….this was my mostly metal phase, Metallica, Maiden, Megadeth etc, but this guy put some real ass kickin blues on, and with me being a guitarist, I was hooked!.

I actually went to see this band play quite locally, and they could seriously make it happen live!. Out of all the recordings of theirs I did manage to find over the years, none of them seemed to have the amazing, and probably fresh spark that the 1990 recording had. Even though many were much better recorded. It’s a shame the cassette to mp3 version I found on the net is well saturated, as it doesn’t quite highlight the fantastic playing and skill behind the recording.

The only thing I could do was make it easier on the ear. The worst thing being the massive sub area under 70hz, which is still apparent in my master, but listen to the space I’ve managed to put between the instruments. They have some kind of definition now. I’ll actually add to this post giving some details for how I went about it, as well as making the whole album available somehow.

I’ve temporarily removed my master, I’d made a mistake with the sub end (crossover too low on the multiband, which added more unwanted low energy). Will re tweak and put back on here.

Fagen's "countermoon"

Hi, thanks for stopping by

So, whats the story behind this one? . i’ve mentioned a few times, that Donald Fagens”the nightfly” is one of my favourite albums, material/production and mastering. its very slightly bass light around 80-120 (ish), but the sub detail, and indeed the whole thing is so beautiful i dont really notice. anyway….i wrongly presumed it was his only solo album, until my lass surprised me with “kamakiriad” on my 40th birthday. considering it was recorded about 10 years later, i expected something at least as good as nightfly.

unfortunately, fagen decided to overlook the previously fantastic Gary Katz and go with a different producer, his Steely Dan guitarist Walter Becker, a superb writer and player. i can actually see what fagen was trying to do with this album. the whole essence of the writing , and the story behind it Read Here did beg a slightly different finish. its just a shame it went slightly wide of the mark.

so what are my issues with the finish of this album??

I dont care for meters too much, they have a limited use, but the peak analysis pic shows some of whats going on. the 60hz area actually gets a bit more violent, but i was in a rush, so didnt run it long enough to show up….DOH!  . but that peak at 98 is the serious offender. its not actually the whole track creating it, its a 2db overshoot in the bass guitar at 98 and 135ish(i think, come on…its 2 days back i did this   )   . anyway, its making the whole thing sound like bass karaoke, creating a separation between the bass and the rest of the instruments etc, and stealing all the nice low end from everything and creating harsh upper mids. add to this the fact the under 60 is very inconsistant and boisterous its a bit of a frankenstein’s monster.

so, having put the album on a few times, loving the songs and playing, but craving a smoother finish i decided to do my own remaster of it. “remastering an album from a great name like Fagen Tone??!!!” , yeah!. luckily, this album is very pre loudness war, “countermoon” only averages -21 db rms, so there is enough room for me to work.

how spikey is this!!!

as you can see, there are some severe spikes in the waveform, mainly coming from the snare (the non limited attack through the compressor). i should have drawn these out in the editor, but its a long process, and the multiband comp dealt with them pretty well. but i may well go back over it when i have a bit more time.

The Audio

Here are the before and after tracks. there has been a slight trade off with vocal level, as they were strongly relying on overshoots at between 1-4k , but still clearly audible, and considering the smooth/clear overall finish, a much more listenable song…..  exactly what i intended. i havent brought the RMS volume  up by much, this kind of material can lose its feel very easily, for the sake of a few db.

Original Countermoon source

My remaster Temporarily removed this, as I had made a mistake with the sub on the multiband compression. Will re tweak and replace.

Thanks for reading people

Tone

Level 42 "Sandstorm"

Hi

For anyone reading for the first time, go check my other level 42 posts, where i explain where the source cassette came from for the gig etc.

Next track on the cassette (remember those?) is “sandstorm”. The engineer seems to have got his act together at this stage. As far as automated eq goes, I’ve only had to ride slightly at 7.5k . I also spent a while going over every freq and Q, but this time closing my eyes finding the sweetspots. I don’t pretend to know exactly what goes on in eq work, I can only trust my ears. I find, if I’m looking at the screen while setting a Q width, I’ll try to avoid using low (wide) numbers. We’re told “0.7 is closest to human hearing”, but in mastering that seems to bear no significance (please write a comment if you can expand on some theory).

So anyway….some of them down low came out at 0.55 . and i previously had them at 0.65 for instance. The low freq area of the curve is very influential on the total sound. Mistakes higher up may lose slight clarity, but mess them up down low and it goes to crap. I had also clipped freq’s higher up, which made the already nasty sounding hats and cymbals sound even worse.   I had set the multiband comp ratios slightly high and thresholds slightly low(tiny amounts), so correcting these items made a big difference. I’m sure there have been a couple of people through here with analytical hearing who noticed on the previous songs. Anyway, those mistakes wont be made again.

I keep getting a visual of how the multiband comp affects the curve. while adjusting any of the settings, its like I see  the waveform, and while the setting is wrong, I see it slightly offset, not continuous, then as I hit the sweetspot it joins up and that’s where the clarity is, one continuous curve through all 5 of the mb comps bands.  As I’ve said before, I don’t see multiband compression as a creative tool, it’s to fix the curve. Start trying to get fancy with one of the freq bands and you create a confusing sound. I’m not 100% sure how far you can push things before the average joe can hear it, but I don’t (more like can’t)do things in mastering that I don’t like myself. I’ll no doubt change my mind before starving to death .

The Audio

The mastered version does sound slightly pushed in areas, but this is from the in house compression at the gig and how hard the signal is hitting the tape. It’s mainly audible in the snare. I doubt you will notice this in the source, as there are so many covering issues.

My master I re tweaked this 13/09/09

Tone

Mastering Level42 Live 81

Background

Back in 81 in gillingham, my father goes to a gig with his friend who was sound engineer in a small live music venue. turns out its level 42. the story goes, mark king needs a reverb unit as his isn’t working. so dad nips off home and brings one back….and a cassette deck . so he asks mr king if he can record the gig in return. the answer was obviously yes.

fast forward to late 90’s. i’m going through the old mans tape collection in search of something and chance upon  the level gig. so i load it into the pc (glorified calcualtor   ), which was really a new thing for me at that time. make a couple of wrong changes (probably boost the 100hz and 4k   ) write it onto some very early cdr (phillips model…still got it somewhere) and send it to the fan club. they’re pretty excited at this, as it contained a song never recorded,  “morning silence”.

Then in 2009, after playing around for quite some time at learning mastering, i get to the stage where i’m pretty good at the restoration thing.

THE SOURCE FILE

check out this source file taken from the cassette   DOWNLOAD

The hardest thing about working on this material, is the huge tonal imbalance. its actually painful due to some of the massive spikes in it. made some notes below:

large imbalance which gives the impression there i no bass in the source, you will hear in my master that its not the case

damaged frequency areas, due to hitting the tape hard and sufferring too much saturation

a massive spike at 132hz coming from marks bass cab. probably a reflection. this isnt instantly obvious in the source, as the mid lift is covering everything.for those of you reading this who know….the ear is a bit cruel really. one freq area only has to be  slightly loud and other stuff disappears. so with material like this, you cant really tell exactly what problems are contained. they rear their ugly heads as you remove the louder issues.

broken, and very spikey freq’s especially in the hi hats etc. this can still be slightly heard in my master, the best that could be done was round them off and keep them low. you cant just totally remove freq’s at will. holes in the curve sound unnatural.

WORKED VERSION

There maybe a couple of people here who have heard some of my “outputs” before. and yeh…this has been going on for quite some time. but now being able to hit perfect freq and Q for every cut or boost(some 40 odd for this project), i can now put clarity back in, to a standard i never realised possible. especially from myself

Ok. this is the temp master. there are still a couple of tweaks i’d like to do. but i want to come back on it with fresh ears in a week or so. so far i have only used standard fixing tools (eq, multiband and wideband compression, width adjustment & limiting). when i come back to it i may add some dynamic eq.

DOWNLOAD

thanks for reading and listening

Tone