Talk:Mastering (audio)

Bass punch, kick drum, bass drum, frequencies, waveform

Add pictures. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.238.233.138 (talk • contribs) .

The other loudness war is on FM radio!

The other loudness war is happening in FM broadcasting. There are dedicated FM processors that would be of little use for CD production. See for example http://www.omniaaudio.com. Therefore, I do not think that merging loudness war into audio mastering would be appropriate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.238.233.138 (talk • contribs) .

Jeffason's comments:

You gotta be kidding. Who created the movement to merge the two. They are totally different. PLEASE REMOVE THIS REQUEST TO MERGE THE TWO. It is blasphemy! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jeffason (talk • contribs) .

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070524113354/http://mixonline.com:80/recording/mastering/audio_issues_modern_mastering/ to http://mixonline.com/recording/mastering/audio_issues_modern_mastering/
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070827154625/http://www.digido.com:80/bob-katz/mixing-tips-and-tricks.html to http://www.digido.com/bob-katz/mixing-tips-and-tricks.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120906061506/http://cdmusicmastering.com:80/how-much-headroom-for-mastering.html to http://cdmusicmastering.com/how-much-headroom-for-mastering.html

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https://web.archive.org/web/20120906061506/http://cdmusicmastering.com:80/how-much-headroom-for-mastering.html isn't working but http://cdmusicmastering.com/how-much-headroom-for-mastering.html is. I have removed the bad archive. ~Kvng (talk) 19:01, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

headroom

User:Kvng, one of the sources says:

This .wav file peaks at 0db but is fine because there are no distorted flat spots in the wave. The high hats are hitting at 0db and everything else drops down, leaving good dynamic range. I can work with this.

So I don't think my edits qualify neither as POV, or as original research. Uwsi (talk) 19:19, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

The specific statement is cited to Bob Katz,[1] and is a reasonable representation of the issue. Of course, headroom is more complex than what Katz asserts, as John Rogers explains. Zero dBFS can indeed be workable if the waveform just barely kisses the ceiling, and at the same time, −10 dBFS does not guarantee a distortion-free recording—it could be the case that someone distorted and clipped the signal in the recording process, then gained it down in a later step.

We should either tell the reader more detail, or trim the numbers away and just say that headroom is essential. Binksternet (talk) 22:47, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't think the current text is a good representation of the situation, I definitely think a better explanation is needed, for example there's no mentioning of 16 or 24 bits audio, and while a -3, -10dBFS headroom is a usual recommendation, it does not paint the whole picture. Feel free to propose a paragraph, as you are not happy with the changes I made. Uwsi (talk) 00:38, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

The paragraph is documenting recommended levels. Katz suggests 3-10. John Rogers claims 3-6 is the norm. I trust Katz and also lets go with the superset. It is unlikely a 0 dBFS signal will be undistorted. You may be thinking of 0 dBTP. Or maybe you and this source don't understand how signal reconstruction works. ~Kvng (talk) 15:07, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

The 0dBFS could come from a DAW that was configured to normalize its output, the digital signal will not be distorted, but there's a high chance the signal will get distorted once it's converted to an analog signal. Uwsi (talk) 17:47, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

And thus the recommendations for providing mastering engineers with a recording with more headroom. ~Kvng (talk) 14:23, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Kvng, I think mentioning 24-bits is a pretty important qualification, mixing to 16-bits and leaving 10dBFS of headroom leaves you with pretty much 14bits of data, which is... bad. Uwsi (talk) 19:35, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

14 bits is 84 dB of dynamic range which is the difference between the threshold of hearing and hearing damage. Nothing clearly bad about this. Mastering engineers fight the tendency for levels to be pushed in mixing. It is a misconception that lower levels will somehow sound bad when aligned properly by the mastering engineer. ~Kvng (talk) 22:53, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

That sounds like original research, I think Katz is pretty clear here: "In 24-bit recording you can make a perfectly good mix that peaks between -3 and -10 dBFS with no loss of quality" and "Always mix to 24 bit files". Uwsi (talk) 00:08, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

I had a look at what Katz says in Mastering Audio (Chapter 16) and he gives an example of an acceptable 16-bit recording at -3 dBFS. His -10 dBFS example appears to be for a 24-bit recording. So we're both right depending on which end of the range we're talking about. ~Kvng (talk) 14:57, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Merge

We have articles on Mastering engineers and the field of mastering, but the same page for Audio engineer and Audio engineering. The scopes of these articles are nigh identical, and there is little to gain by keeping them separate. This article is a lot better so most of the content will be from here, but to match audio engineer the title for a merged page should be mastering engineer Mach61 00:50, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Pinging @NicolausPrime@BrigaderG@Slatersteven from previous AfD discussion Mach61 00:58, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

meant @BrigadierG Mach61 01:00, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good. Slatersteven (talk) 08:44, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Support merge. Popcornfud (talk) 10:13, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Support merge. NicolausPrime (talk) 13:34, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Oppose merge. I do think there is currently an unncessary contentfork, but I think we should look at separating out the profession (history, awards, rising role in music culture) from the activity (technology, transition from analogue). BrigadierG (talk) 22:52, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

@BrigadierG I disagree that everything worth including couldn't fit on to one article. There are some professions that definitely should have separate articles from their fields (e.g. Police/Police officer) but imo "mastering engineer" is too specialized to be one of them. The field is barely a century old, and it's more heavily linked to the available technology it rechquires than most. A combined article's "history" will have much more to say about advances in gear than advances in pay-scale. Mach61 17:25, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

It seems like I am in the minority here so I am happy to bend to consensus if it remains, but I think the activity is a much more comprehensive article topic than the profession. To put it in a word, I think the action is prior to the profession. If discussing the history of mastering, there was a time when mastering was not a sufficiently developed or broad activity so as to be its own job. In that frame, mastering engineers are a subset of the big blob of mastering (the activity) in thingspace. I can't imagine a world where a job is notable but the activity you do in the job is not. BrigadierG (talk) 21:34, 24 April 2024 (UTC)