Recording - October 2014 - 51

Let's move onto some practical questions. What are some of the common
mix mistakes that people are doing
now that drive you nuts?
Like sonic atrocities? I find, if there's any
one constant problem, it's not understanding the concept of level and balance.
Mixing is inside-out listening; you're taking
all the individual pieces and creating the
whole. Your two main tools, before anything else, are level and balance. Where
does something sit across the mix? Is it
here, is it there, and how loud is it in relation to everything else? Then maybe you
add a little EQ to make something pop, but
that's all secondary.
Mastering is listening from the outside.
Anything I do affects the whole mix.
Mastering is the completion of the process
of mixing. They are not two wholly separate
things; to my way of thinking, they are two
separate functions of the same thing. I think
in most cases, if I'm getting problems with
the mix, it's because they haven't understood that mastering is the final part of mixing and it doesn't need to sound "like a finished record" before it comes in here. In fact
it shouldn't, because if you push it right up
to the edge of the line, there's nothing left.
So do you have a level that you recommend? Should a final mix leave at least
6 dB of headroom, 12 dB, or even 18 dB?
Stay away from the last bit of your digital converter and that's usually 6 dB.
Basically, if you've got 6 dB of clear headroom in your mixes, you're in good

where you don't have to ask the person sitting
on the couch behind you if they like what they
hear-you can feel it.
To wrap this up, I wonder if you could
address the budding mastering engineers out there with Stephen Marsh's
top three dos or don'ts.
Yes! Two dos and a don't...
First, understand your monitoring, and
I don't just mean what your speakers
sound like. Understand what they sound
like in the environment in which you're listening to them. Listen to music that you
like the sound of, and listen a lot! Then listen to other stuff, too. Because music in a
certain genre is going to have a certain
type of character, and it's not necessarily
going to reveal flaws in a speaker system
until you've listened to a lot of stuff.
Second, if you're going to buy gear,
start with what feeds your ears and then
work your way back. When you do that,
you find out that the last thing you wind up
buying is plug-ins or processing hardware!
After monitors, focus on converters next.
Then focus on the processing. Every piece
of equipment, every plug-in, is going to
have its strengths and weaknesses. The
magic of mastering is finding just the right
pieces that do what you want to do, finding exactly what they do best, and only
using them for that. Make sure everything
in your room works flawlessly together, so
you're not thinking about what limitations
you've got, you're thinking about what
possibilities you have.

"Mixing is inside-out listening;
you're taking individual pieces and
making a whole. Mastering is listening
from the outside; anything I do
affects the whole mix."
shape. If I need to adjust the output levels,
I can adjust the output levels. I don't necessarily need any headroom; that's kind of
a fallacy, but I think it's a fallacy that
remains in place for a good reason. If you
stay away from that top bit of your converter when you're capturing it, generally
you're going to be a lot safer and have a
much cleaner sound.

Third, don't do too much! Understand
that a lot of the best-mastered albums, that
are revered, have one band of EQ on each
song. Listen to what a song needs and what
it doesn't need, and only do the bare minimum that it needs to really make it sing.
Oh, and when all else fails, try stuff! Don't
be afraid to try stuff, that's how we learn!
Listen for the goosebumps and then stop!

Do you prefer your sessions attended
or unattended?
I'll work happily either way. For unattended, I will generally spend a little more time on
those projects because I don't have anybody
in the room to read. I will say that the time that
I stop is when I get goosebumps! For attended, there's something with creative human
beings in the same room together... anybody
that's been in a studio that's felt that magic
before, understands it. It's like a certain point

Final Note: In a strange confluence of
events, Stephen is the second mastering
engineer in this month's issue who also
recently had a child. Congratulations to
Stephen and his wife Katie on the birth of
Leo, who has already been spotted assisting his dad in the studio, presumably in
the goosebump department.
Learn more about Stephen at his website, marshmastering.com.
RECORDING October 2014

http://www.royerlabs.com http://www.royerlabs.com http://www.marshmastering.com

Recording - October 2014

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