Professional Documents
Culture Documents
MIXING &
MASTERING
KOSMAS LAPATAS
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THE AUTHOR
Kosmas Lapatas studied Classical and Modern Piano,
Harmony, Counterpoint, Fugue (Athens Conservatory),
Composition (MIT), Musicology (ACG), Music Technology
(GIT), Audio Engineering (RID) and Music Therapy (SHA).
He has performed as soloist and accompanist with various
orchestras and at various music halls, and he has taught at
prestigious colleges, conservatories, private schools and
institutions.
He is a member of the International Association of Piano
Teachers, the Greek Association of Primary Education
Teachers, the Greek Society for Music Education, the Music
Producers Guild, and the International Alliance of Composers.
His
Fellowships
include
institutions
such
as
the
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FOREWORD
MASTERING
ESSENTIALS,
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MIXING
EXPLAINED
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SPECTRAL COVERAGE
If you were asked to put hundreds of small colorful
marbles on the floor and were then instructed to
find the one with a little star, it would probably take
some time. What if you were tasked to find the only
red marble, when each had just one color? It is
similar with audio - when you listen to 10
instruments all covering a range of 100Hz - 1kHz,
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SPATIAL POSITIONING
Now imagine you are on a crowded bridge with
several street musicians. If the musicians are far
enough apart from each other, and you are fairly
central, you will be able to distinguish what each are
playing and where they are, even blindfolded. If
they are all in the same place however, you will
probably still be able to determine where they are,
but not who is who. This is because they are
generating similar echoes and the so-called direct
signal, which is the wave that comes directly from
the instrument into our ears without any
reflections, will also be similar. Let's look at it
physically.
Direct wave
When any of these musicians generates a sound,
audio waves will go in all directions from them. Our
brains are able to detect even tiny time differences
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Echoes
After receiving the direct wave your ears start to
pick up echoes. The sound has been spread in all
directions and reflected, so you may intercept
echoes from many things around you and also
echoes of the echoes etc. Each of these reflections
causes the sound to lose energy, until it eventually
fades out completely. The time this takes depends
largely on where you are. There will be few echoes
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Example
Now let's say you are stood next to a wall on your
right, and a musician is playing a few meters in front
of you and to the left. Your left ear will receive the
direct waves and then the echoes. There is nothing
on your left side, so your left ear will not gather
many reflections. Your right ear will start catching
many echoes from all the waves thrown into the
wall, reflected from the floor and ceiling etc. Your
brain can derive a lot from this information. The
direct wave arrives at the left ear first, so the sound
source is on the left. The many echoes on your right
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for
more
information
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on
using
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PRIORITIES
Remember our goal is - to tell the listener what to
hear, and where it is located. Now we have all tracks
prepared, we need to decide which of them we wish
to highlight and which should be placed in the
background. Try listening passively to some CD's
and see if you can get a 'feel' for the priority order
that was used. It may surprise you to discover how
quickly your brain can pick this up. Most
commercial recordings look like this:
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BASS
Bass can be very challenging for real time mixing
especially in areas of poor acoustics, because lowfrequency echoes are very hard to manage. This
restricts us to placing it in the center with very little
or no reverb at all. As a result, bass won't fulfill our
spatial positioning requirements because it won't
be placed anywhere (except for the ambience in the
recorded track itself). However, this is preferable to
crowding the bass spectrum. As a general rule, it's
usually a mistake to put reverb on low-frequency
tracks. If you really want some ambience, use a
master track overall reverb.
GUITARS,
PIANOS
&
BACKGROUND
INSTRUMENTS
According to our priority list these are classed as
background instruments, so they must appear as
such. Therefore don't be afraid to apply quite a lot
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BACKGROUND PERCUSSION
These instruments usually support the rhythm and
fill the space, but they typically don't have an
important musical meaning. It is common to pan
them slightly (to ensure they seem far away) and
give them some distant ambience.
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VOLUMES
Although many presume that this is the hardest
step, it is technically the simplest one. Your aim is to
support the order of instruments defined earlier.
The idea is, when you play the mix and let your
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SPECTRAL COVERAGE
In many cases you may find that you are not be able
to create a really clean mix without this step, simply
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MULTIPLE GUITARS
Guitarists are well known for being exhibitionists!
They often make such sonic chaos just to show they
can play, which unfortunately means one thing - if
multiple guitars collide, then the problem is often
with the guitarist.
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MASTERING
ESSENTIALS
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and
converters)
are
ESSENTIAL,
mastering
engineer
needs
the
highest
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LOUDNESS
Sequencing an album requires adjustment of the
levels of each tune. We've seen that the EAR judges
loudness by the AVERAGE, not peak levels of the
music. Normalization is the process of finding the
highest peak, and raising the gain until it reaches 0
dBFS. But do NOT use normalization to adjust the
relative loudness of tunes, or you will end up with
nonsense
WHY NOT LOUD
There is a scientific reason for not monitoring too
loudly. The louder you monitor, you can be fooled
into thinking music has more bass energy. Thus it is
extremely important to monitor at approximately
the same level as the ultimate listener to your
recording.
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terms
is RADIO ready.
Almost
no
special
benefits
from
the
digital
audio
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MASTERING
EXPLAINED
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content
describes
proportions
of
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MY
MASTERING
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MY PHILOSOPHY
The key to achieving a great sounding MASTER is to
start with a great sounding MIX. If you dont get the
mix right first, MASTERING will compensate for the
mixing issues. Distortion and over-compression for
example are difficult to deal with. Distortion is
broadband noise, so it cannot be removed with EQ.
HOW I WORK
I spend at least THREE HOURS per song. I pay close
attention to the structure, balance, movement and
tonality of the mix before I determine what the song
needs. My motto is LESS IS MORE. I only use
processing that I believe is ABSOLUTELY necessary.
My adjustments are SUBTLE, I try to BALANCE and
ENHANCE your mix, NOT alter the character,
emotion or sound of it. That is why I use musically
perceived LOUDNESS.
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LOUDNESS WAR
If you use high compression, limiting or brick-walls,
you always LOSE musicality, energy and dynamics.
However, if you want your mix to be as loud and
proud as it can be, I will do it for you. I understand
that the majority of people these days listen to
music through iPods, iPhones and cheap ear-buds.
That is why I always provide TWO mastering
versions.
ALBUMS
When mastering an ALBUM I pay close attention to
the GAIN levels of each song, in relation to each of
the other songs. TONALITY is important, too. Some
mixes may be brighter, some may be recorded in
different places, and some may be mixed by
different engineers. I try to make the whole release
sound COHESIVE. I spend at least ONE DAY
mastering your album.
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forget
to
mention
your
IDOL