[Walter Harley]

I am having problems with home mastering.

Now, if I care about something I mixed I'll take it to a real mastering guy
to have it mastered. (Actually, if I care about something I mixed, I'll
have somebody else mix it, and *then* I'll take it to a real mastering guy,
because I'm basically an SR guy and I know my limits.)

But I record some casual projects at home, like demos of new songs by my
band; it's more important that these be cheap and fast than that they be pro
quality. Nonetheless, I want them to be somewhat comparable in overall
loudness to commercial recordings, so that I can put them on my iPod or burn
them to a CD and listen to them side by side. By "commercial recordings" I
do not mean the latest Metallica, but at least I'd like to get my average
power up to -16dB or so, which is 3 to 4dB hotter than it comes off the
board (normalized to 0dB).

I mix in analog. I've been sending the stereo mix through a Presonus
Firebox, to a laptop running Audacity on Windows XP. I also have a copy of
SoundForge 6.0, which is 5 or 6 years old I guess.

I'm happy with the sound of my mixes, I just want them closer in loudness to
commercial stuff. But when I try to boost volume using the "WaveHammer"
maximizer on SoundForge, I'm getting clicks in the audio, that I don't hear
in the original. So that solution isn't working.

Can anyone suggest a good solution? Some possibilities I've thought of:

- change settings on WaveHammer; but so far I haven't found anything that
works and sounds good

- use the old hardware TC Finalizer that I have lying around; but doing
this in hardware will be a pain

- upgrade SoundForge; but before I spend that kind of money I'd like to
know that it will actually work

- use something else entirely; but what?

- learn to get my mixes good enough that they don't need any compression;
hah

- give up and settle for relatively low volume, but dynamic, recordings


I'd welcome any helpful suggestions, either for new approaches or for
debugging the current approach. Thanks!

[Mike Rivers]

Walter Harley wrote:
I am having problems with home mastering.

That's because you're trying to do your mastering at home. While not
exactly the same, think about taking out your own appendix.

I record some casual projects at home, like demos of new songs by my
band; it's more important that these be cheap and fast than that they be pro
quality. Nonetheless, I want them to be somewhat comparable in overall
loudness to commercial recordings, so that I can put them on my iPod or burn
them to a CD and listen to them side by side.

Doesn't your iPod or CD player have a volume control?

By "side-by-side" do you mean listening to your recordings next to the
latest Metallica recording, or next to each other?

I'm happy with the sound of my mixes, I just want them closer in loudness to
commercial stuff. But when I try to boost volume using the "WaveHammer"
maximizer on SoundForge, I'm getting clicks in the audio, that I don't hear
in the original. So that solution isn't working.

What's the peak level before you apply WaveHammer? If you have full
scale peaks in your mix, they could be clipping when you "hammer" them.
Try reducing the level of the track, then apply WaveHammer until it
starts sounding crappy, then increase the level so that peaks are closer
to full scale. There are a few settings in WaveHammer that you can
experiment with. Take a day to play with one song and see what the
settings actually do.

- use the old hardware TC Finalizer that I have lying around; but doing
this in hardware will be a pain

Surely not too large a pain. Give it a try. The Finalizer is pretty
good. Do you have Bob Katz' article (I think it was on the t.c. web
site) on using the Finalizer effectively? The latest version of Sound
Forge includes some Izotope Mastering plug-ins but I haven't played with
them yet because I don't usually care about that stuff. But there's no
program that will replace a human analysis of the dynamics, what needs
to be preserved, and what can be squashed.

- give up and settle for relatively low volume, but dynamic, recordings

If you like the mix and the sound, leave it alone. As long as it doesn't
have to compete for a program director's attention, it'll serve its
purpose.



--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)

[[email protected]]

On Dec 22, 1:52*am, "Walter Harley"
wrote:
I am having problems with home mastering.

Now, if I care about something I mixed I'll take it to a real mastering guy
to have it mastered. *(Actually, if I care about something I mixed, I'll
have somebody else mix it, and *then* I'll take it to a real mastering guy,
because I'm basically an SR guy and I know my limits.)

But I record some casual projects at home, like demos of new songs by my
band; it's more important that these be cheap and fast than that they be pro
quality. *Nonetheless, I want them to be somewhat comparable in overall
loudness to commercial recordings, so that I can put them on my iPod or burn
them to a CD and listen to them side by side. *By "commercial recordings" I
do not mean the latest Metallica, but at least I'd like to get my average
power up to -16dB or so, which is 3 to 4dB hotter than it comes off the
board (normalized to 0dB).

I mix in analog. *I've been sending the stereo mix through a Presonus
Firebox, to a laptop running Audacity on Windows XP. *I also have a copy of
SoundForge 6.0, which is 5 or 6 years old I guess.

I'm happy with the sound of my mixes, I just want them closer in loudness to
commercial stuff. *But when I try to boost volume using the "WaveHammer"
maximizer on SoundForge, I'm getting clicks in the audio, that I don't hear
in the original. *So that solution isn't working.

Can anyone suggest a good solution? *Some possibilities I've thought of:

*- change settings on WaveHammer; but so far I haven't found anything that
works and sounds good

*- use the old hardware TC Finalizer that I have lying around; but doing
this in hardware will be a pain

*- upgrade SoundForge; but before I spend that kind of money I'd like to
know that it will actually work

*- use something else entirely; but what?

*- learn to get my mixes good enough that they don't need any compression;
hah

*- give up and settle for relatively low volume, but dynamic, recordings

I'd welcome any helpful suggestions, either for new approaches or for
debugging the current approach. *Thanks!

you shouldn't need a lot of compression to get to -16 dBFS average...

if you are having trouble getting to -16dBFS then something might be
wrong with your set-up.. some material can achieve -16 dB averge
without any compression.

Are you compressing the final mix or the individual tracks? Snare may
need a bit more comp.

Mark

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 22:52:46 -0800, "Walter Harley"
wrote:

I'm happy with the sound of my mixes, I just want them closer in loudness to
commercial stuff. But when I try to boost volume using the "WaveHammer"
maximizer on SoundForge, I'm getting clicks in the audio, that I don't hear
in the original. So that solution isn't working.

I've just looked at the page on WaveHammer in the SF manual. There
seem to be some of potential pitfalls.

Are you setting Output Gain manually as well as turning on Auto Gain
Compensation? This seems a recipe for clipping.

Have you chosen RMS or Peak mode? RMS seems rather risky.

When making a Preview run through the song (you ARE doing a preview I
hope?) are the meters switched to Input or Output? The default
setting is Input, which doesn't seem very useful. Perhaps you'll be
surprised how hard the output's hitting the buffers if you switch to
it.

[Bobby Owsinski[_3_]]

In article ,
"Walter Harley" wrote:

I am having problems with home mastering.

Now, if I care about something I mixed I'll take it to a real mastering guy
to have it mastered. (Actually, if I care about something I mixed, I'll
have somebody else mix it, and *then* I'll take it to a real mastering guy,
because I'm basically an SR guy and I know my limits.)

But I record some casual projects at home, like demos of new songs by my
band; it's more important that these be cheap and fast than that they be pro
quality. Nonetheless, I want them to be somewhat comparable in overall
loudness to commercial recordings, so that I can put them on my iPod or burn
them to a CD and listen to them side by side. By "commercial recordings" I
do not mean the latest Metallica, but at least I'd like to get my average
power up to -16dB or so, which is 3 to 4dB hotter than it comes off the
board (normalized to 0dB).

I mix in analog. I've been sending the stereo mix through a Presonus
Firebox, to a laptop running Audacity on Windows XP. I also have a copy of
SoundForge 6.0, which is 5 or 6 years old I guess.

I'm happy with the sound of my mixes, I just want them closer in loudness to
commercial stuff. But when I try to boost volume using the "WaveHammer"
maximizer on SoundForge, I'm getting clicks in the audio, that I don't hear
in the original. So that solution isn't working.

Can anyone suggest a good solution? Some possibilities I've thought of:

- change settings on WaveHammer; but so far I haven't found anything that
works and sounds good

- use the old hardware TC Finalizer that I have lying around; but doing
this in hardware will be a pain

- upgrade SoundForge; but before I spend that kind of money I'd like to
know that it will actually work

- use something else entirely; but what?

- learn to get my mixes good enough that they don't need any compression;
hah

- give up and settle for relatively low volume, but dynamic, recordings


I'd welcome any helpful suggestions, either for new approaches or for
debugging the current approach. Thanks!

If you just want level, most pro mastering guys use a compressor fed
into a brick wall limiter. The compressor is used to increase the
level. Set it to 2;1 or so with a little compression (a db or two), but
goose the make-up gain. Set your brick wall limiter to a max ceiling of
-.1 or -.2 FS with limiting only on the peaks. Instant level!

This does get dangerous in that too much compression and/or limiting
will give you a lifeless square wave of a song (aka hypercompression),
but if you want level, this is the way to do it.

--
Bobby Owsinski
bobbyowsinski.com - surroundassociates.com
Visit my blog at bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com

[Geoff]

Walter Harley wrote:
I mix in analog. I've been sending the stereo mix through a Presonus
Firebox, to a laptop running Audacity on Windows XP. I also have a
copy of SoundForge 6.0, which is 5 or 6 years old I guess.



Are your clicks when you are attempting the WaveHammer 'mastering', or are
they when you record into Sound Forge ? I vaguely remember that WaveHammer
once needed to be registered separately (years ago) and would click if
unregistered. But I might be having a false flashback.

geoff

[Walter Harley]

"Walter Harley" wrote in message
news
I am having problems with home mastering.

Thanks to everyone who responded. I'll respond to my own message rather than
arbitrarily pick another or start lots of mini-threads.

Yes, home mastering is like home dentistry. But you wouldn't go to the
doctor if you skinned your knee, right? Everyone should know some basic
first aid. I'm just trying to make demos for the band to get a sense of the
songs, before going into a real studio.

By "side by side" I meant I want to flip back and forth between my recording
and a commercial one (more like George Jones than Metallica, though), to get
a sense of how our music compares. Also, I need to give the demos to the
bandleader, who'll probably give them to his friends to listen to. It needs
to be in the same ballpark as the other stuff they're playing.

Re WaveHammer - I accept and assume that it is a POS. It's the only
purpose-made volume optimizer I seem to have right now. I'd love to find
something better, priced appropriately for my purpose. No point spending
big money on a tool that I don't have the skills, ears, or listening
environment to use, though. I don't need a hit record, I just don't want
audible pops.

Anyway, on some closer listening this evening I might have gotten some
clues.

Here are some 3-second snippets. Here's the original:

http://www.cafewalter.com/sound/uncomp.wav

And here's what it sounds like after running it through WaveHammer set to
"limit at 6dB and maximize" (there are very few spikes over -6dB in the
original):

http://www.cafewalter.com/sound/comp.wav

I hear a prominent 'click' in the right channel at 1.78s. In the original I
hear a little something but it's subtle, like maybe a guitar pick noise.

But, here's the same compressed track, with volume reduced 6dB to match the
original:

http://www.cafewalter.com/sound/comp-6.wav

And I don't really hear it on that one. Even if I turn up the volume.

So now I'm wondering if it's an artifact of the digital part of my playback
chain, e.g., the sound card on the machine I'm running SoundForge on.

Does anyone else hear the click, on any of these recordings?

(Please tolerate the playing - on this particular track the bandleader
played all the parts himself, to teach them to the rest of the band. It was
just a recording I had handy.)

Thanks much!

[Mike Rivers]

Walter Harley wrote:

Yes, home mastering is like home dentistry. But you wouldn't go to the
doctor if you skinned your knee, right? Everyone should know some basic
first aid. I'm just trying to make demos for the band to get a sense of the
songs, before going into a real studio.

You can (and should) do this by listening to your own songs, not
comparing them side-by-side with songs that you like. But that's more
about playing and songwriting. Since you'll be going into a "real"
studio for recording, it's someone else's job to make the "surface
quality" match up with the competition. You just need a good song to
start with.

By "side by side" I meant I want to flip back and forth between my recording
and a commercial one (more like George Jones than Metallica, though), to get
a sense of how our music compares.

Consider lowering the volume of your George Jones records to match that
of your home recordings. That will make side-by-side comparison, if you
insist, less jarring. Everyone knows that we always think the louder one
sounds better.

Also, I need to give the demos to the
bandleader, who'll probably give them to his friends to listen to. It needs
to be in the same ballpark as the other stuff they're playing.

Needs? Why? The band only needs to listen to one song to learn it. If
the leader has some ideas about how to arrange it differently, he'll
have to expreess those in his own terms to the band. Or do you want him
to say to the band "Listen to this George Jones record and play it like
George rather than Walter."?

Re WaveHammer - I accept and assume that it is a POS.

Actually, it's pretty effective if you don't overdo it, and avoid the
RMS mode. It seems like a good idea in principle, but they must not have
figured out what it should really do in that mode. I've never found any
settings that didn't sound awful in the RMS mode, but the Peak mode can
be a decent first step, which may be all you need for your purposes.
There are a lot of things about Sound Forge that suggest to me that it
was developed by people who either never worked in a recording studio or
decided to throw away much of what they learned and apply their own
methods and ideas. But I think that about most DAW programs, so don't
mind me.

So now I'm wondering if it's an artifact of the digital part of my playback
chain, e.g., the sound card on the machine I'm running SoundForge on.

I didn't listen to your examples, but this could indeed be a problem.
Burn a CD of the song and listen to it in your car while driving 60 MPH
or navigating in traffic.




--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:22:58 -0800, "Walter Harley"
wrote:

Re WaveHammer - I accept and assume that it is a POS. It's the only
purpose-made volume optimizer I seem to have right now. I'd love to find
something better, priced appropriately for my purpose. No point spending
big money on a tool that I don't have the skills, ears, or listening
environment to use, though. I don't need a hit record, I just don't want
audible pops.

Anyway, on some closer listening this evening I might have gotten some
clues.

Here are some 3-second snippets.


I'm not hearing any clicks and the waveform of all your samples looks
clean.

But, listening to your compressed snippets, I don't think either of
them improve the sound. Words that sprang to mind were "harsh" and
"tubby".

I'd go back to the multitrack and compress at least the drums
separately.

I wouldn't say WaveHammer is a POS. It's a tool, and all tools can do
damage. Your preferred setting doesn't actually use the compressor at
all. Try playing with the manual settings, all the time keeping a
very careful eye on the output metering.

[Powell]

"Bobby Owsinski" wrote

I'd welcome any helpful suggestions, either for new approaches
or for debugging the current approach. Thanks!

If you just want level, most pro mastering guys use a compressor
fed into a brick wall limiter. The compressor is used to increase
the level. Set it to 2;1 or so with a little compression (a db or two),
but goose the make-up gain. Set your brick wall limiter to a max
ceiling of -.1 or -.2 FS with limiting only on the peaks. Instant level!

This does get dangerous in that too much compression and/or
limiting will give you a lifeless square wave of a song (aka
hypercompression), but if you want level, this is the way to do it.

I agree with your methodology. Your book The Mixing
Engineer's Handbook has been one of my go-to
reference books since 2006. Kudos.

[Ben Bradley[_2_]]

On Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:22:58 -0800, "Walter Harley"
wrote:

...

So now I'm wondering if it's an artifact of the digital part of my playback
chain, e.g., the sound card on the machine I'm running SoundForge on.

Does anyone else hear the click, on any of these recordings?

I don't hear hear any click, but even in the short clip I do hear
where the compressed/limited version is a bit 'grittier'.
Just to prove to yourself it's your playback system, burn a CD-R
with all three versions, and check if you can hear the problem on
various CD players/systems (a DVD player in a 'home theater', a cheap
portable CD player with cheap headphones, in your car, etc.)
What soundcard are you using? Is it a standard 'consumer' computer
soundcard? It looks like this 'click' is definitely in your playback
system.


(Please tolerate the playing - on this particular track the bandleader
played all the parts himself, to teach them to the rest of the band. It was
just a recording I had handy.)

Thanks much!

[Geoff]

Walter Harley wrote:

Re WaveHammer - I accept and assume that it is a POS. It's the only
purpose-made volume optimizer I seem to have right now. I'd love to
find something better, priced appropriately for my purpose. No point
spending big money on a tool that I don't have the skills, ears, or
listening environment to use, though. I don't need a hit record, I
just don't want audible pops.

Why do you say that - WaveHammer is excellent.

geoff

[Geoff]

geoff wrote:
Walter Harley wrote:

Re WaveHammer - I accept and assume that it is a POS. It's the only
purpose-made volume optimizer I seem to have right now. I'd love to
find something better, priced appropriately for my purpose. No point
spending big money on a tool that I don't have the skills, ears, or
listening environment to use, though. I don't need a hit record, I
just don't want audible pops.

Why do you say that - WaveHammer is excellent.

geoff

Oh yeah - did you check out my suggestion re 'registration' ? IIRC early
versions of WaveHammer needed seaparate registration, and clicked if beyond
DEMO period.

geoff

[Walter Harley]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
...

Also, I need to give the demos to the bandleader, who'll probably give
them to his friends to listen to. It needs to be in the same ballpark as
the other stuff they're playing.

Needs? Why? The band only needs to listen to one song to learn it. If the
leader has some ideas about how to arrange it differently, he'll have to
expreess those in his own terms to the band. Or do you want him to say to
the band "Listen to this George Jones record and play it like George
rather than Walter."?

There are multiple goals; sorry if I was unclear. For the band to learn
songs, uncompressed is actually preferable, and comparison to other material
is irrelevant. For the bandleader to show off works in progress to his
friends, it's nice if we can boost the loudness some.


I didn't listen to your examples, but this could indeed be a problem. Burn
a CD of the song and listen to it in your car while driving 60 MPH or
navigating in traffic.

Ha! Right now my car's embedded in snow, not gonna move for at least a
week. I suppose I could burn a CD and go listen there anyway. If nothing
else, it would be safe.

[Walter Harley]

"geoff" wrote in message
...
Re WaveHammer - I accept and assume that it is a POS.

Why do you say that - WaveHammer is excellent.

I assume it simply because it came for free with my audio software, it's six
years old which is an eternity in DAW years, and I've never heard of anyone
using it in a professional setting. I don't know it for a fact, it's just
my assumption.


Oh yeah - did you check out my suggestion re 'registration' ? IIRC early
versions of WaveHammer needed seaparate registration, and clicked if
beyond DEMO period.

I did; thanks. There's no indication that is the case with this version; at
least, there is nothing in the online help or the readme, and my copy of
SoundForge is licensed (which is why it's so old).

But from others' comments, it sounds like this is probably an issue with my
playback system, not with the processing. No one else who listened to the
files heard the click.


Thanks for your response!

[Walter Harley]

"Laurence Payne" wrote in message
...
But, listening to your compressed snippets, I don't think either of
them improve the sound. Words that sprang to mind were "harsh" and
"tubby".

I'd go back to the multitrack and compress at least the drums
separately.

The drum tracks are individually compressed, but perhaps they need to be
more so. I wasn't happy with the sound I got when I squashed them harder or
made the attack faster, but that is probably just my lack of skill.

I agree that the effect of the overall compression in this sample is ugly.
It was just to demonstrate the clicks! I did actually spend about an hour
making adjustments and listening, but I was getting clicking with everything
I tried so there was not much point in proceeding.

Happily, judging from everyone's comments it seems to be a playback issue,
so once I fix that, it will be worth spending some time to get good results
out of WaveHammer.


Thanks for your help!

[Walter Harley]

"Ben Bradley" wrote in message
...
What soundcard are you using? Is it a standard 'consumer' computer
soundcard? It looks like this 'click' is definitely in your playback
system.

Thanks, I really appreciate you (& others) taking the time to check this
out. Very helpful.

Yes, it's just a consumer soundcard. I don't do much of this sort of
post-processing work (as previously mentioned, I believe in hiring
professionals if it matters), just got back into it for this band project.
Come to think of it, I think last time I used this software it was on a
different computer. Guess it's time to put a decent interface on this
computer.

[Walter Harley]

"Walter Harley" wrote in message
...
Guess it's time to put a decent interface on this computer.

Follow-up: salvaged the M-Audio 2496 card from my old audio box and
installed it in this machine. No more clicks. Now I can focus on making
the music actually sound good :-)

Thanks again to all.

[[email protected]]

On Dec 22, 10:57*am, Bobby Owsinski wrote:

If you just want level, most pro mastering guys use a compressor fed
into a brick wall limiter. *The compressor is used to increase the
level. *Set it to 2;1 or so with a little compression (a db or two), but
goose the make-up gain. *Set your brick wall limiter to a max ceiling of
-.1 or -.2 FS with limiting only on the peaks. *Instant level!

This does get dangerous in that too much compression and/or limiting
will give you a lifeless square wave of a song (aka hypercompression),
but if you want level, this is the way to do it.


Yep. You'll have a hard time taking any single compressor/limiter and
trying to get it to approximate a CD where assorted compressors are
added at various stages. Any single track can be recorded with a
touch of one, have one put on it during the mix, have itself sent to a
stereo bus with another, and then be treated to, as Bobby says, a
compressor and then a limiter on the master. Some people will squeal
at the notion of tracking with compressors (and certain ones at that),
but if you're going for a certain sound and level instead of bit
peeping, that's how it's done. : )

I'm not saying it's the rule, but if you're trying to match a
commercial CD in level without getting that flatlined sound, it's an
important factor.

[Scott Dorsey]

wrote:
Yep. You'll have a hard time taking any single compressor/limiter and
trying to get it to approximate a CD where assorted compressors are
added at various stages. Any single track can be recorded with a
touch of one, have one put on it during the mix, have itself sent to a
stereo bus with another, and then be treated to, as Bobby says, a
compressor and then a limiter on the master. Some people will squeal
at the notion of tracking with compressors (and certain ones at that),
but if you're going for a certain sound and level instead of bit
peeping, that's how it's done. : )

It's not just compression being added during the tracking stage, it's also
the arrangement, of course. If you arrange things and equalize them so
the individual parts aren't stepping on one another, the overall effect
is a much louder sounding track.

I'm not saying it's the rule, but if you're trying to match a
commercial CD in level without getting that flatlined sound, it's an
important factor.

It is.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."