I'm offering professional audio engineering for the next hour. I'm a full time, freelance and house engineer

I'm offering professional audio engineering for the next hour. I'm a full time, freelance and house engineer.
I don't want to listen to any mixes or reveal who I work with. Ask anything else!

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how do you separate guitar, bass, and drums in a mix? I know you use eq but do you have any specific tips?

lol

lol

What RMS is state of the art for mastering? Something like -14 db?
Will you master my tracks?

If things are recorded well, I try and limit the amount of subtractive EQ I use and create separation using compression and short reverbs or delays.


Try working on your compression techniques. Slow compression attack = upfront briefly. So I usually use slower attacks on drums and faster attacks on bass, being careful to not kill the low end energy. Guitars can be anywhere in between. This will probably get you better separation at this time than changing your approach to EQing. Good luck!

will abbreviated words make me look more professional on the internet?
Also, is judging or segregating things by appearance/being fake still a thing? I consider moving to USA (Deez nuts)

I don't think there's a specific RMS that's state of the art. I believe it's more important to try and get a similar RMS to whatever it is you're referencing your master tracks with i.e. Drake's at -9RMS, or Ellie Goulding is at -6, so try and match those if you're making a rap or pop track. I think anything much below -14 RMS could start falling into the realm of being less competitive though, since most tracks seem to be closer to at least -12.

>2016
>compression

get this hothead outta here
you can get way better results by using other techniques

do tell

>I'm a full time, freelance and house engineer.

Jej you say that like it's an actual complex thing that you do, you're basically saying "i read a couple of manuals and watched the youtube videos and now I charge by the hour". Audio engineering isn't rocket science and anyone can learn how to do competent job mixing their own tracks in a couple of days if they stop being fucking lazy

Don't spread such filth. Compression is one of the most transparent ways to create separation

Aint got time nigga

>tfw you eq major releases for private purposes and after that you still can hear attack/release artifacts you know from your amateur works

Best way to increase RMS is Normalization, right?

If that were true, the 1000's of kids from trade schools would all be as good as mixedbyali and Andy Wallace. The "competent" mixes you're talking about are always shit
I'm in the extreme minority of full time, major label studio lockout engineers.

How the hell do people get this sound? Is it just a shitty tape deck?

youtube.com/watch?v=i5W8HlAOeg0

The best way to increase RMS is to have it professionally mastered. EQ into a buss compressor on your master stereo out to make it as loud as possible without distorting it. Maybe at a bit of saturation. Then normalize or limit it to 0

Sounds like it's definitely hitting tape. Most of the his are rolled off so it has the super rounded top end

>extreme minority

Holy kek get over yourself I hit a tree and 3 "professional engineers" fall down. I've been in or around this business all my life and everyone loves to think their job is way more important than everyone else's. Not until I learned how actual mixes are done did I learn how full of shit everyone is. Especially in electronic fucking music, easiest job in the world.

Keep telling yourself that, buddy. If you've actually been in your business then you would know that actually talented qualified engineers are rare as fuck. There's an epidemic of shitty people graduating from trade schools, no doubt.

Tell me something about this track: soundcloud.com/pomobeats/so-fine

How does audio engineering require lots of talent or qualification? It doesn't even have a proper academic establishment. It's just a tiny part in the large scale of music production.
You're basically just twitching some settings in audio software (programming such audio software could actually be really considered as something that requires talent and qualification).

audio engineering would technically encompass any part if the whole architecture. instruments, amps, mic distance, input variables, post production and so on. not OP but you take a ludicrously limited view on what audio engineering entails, in sum it requires a certain vision, sensitivity, and awareness in executing that vision. an art in itself, if you go with the premise anything could always sound "better"

All the best engineers apprentice and learn the best techniques, tricks and secrets that have been developed over the last 60 years. That's why the same engineers and studios consistently put out the best sounding material, even when the productions are vastly different.

I spend most of my time getting great tones using quality, vintage gear before going to the computer. Since I know how to use that gear properly instead of selecting a preset on Izotope Ozone, I can run circle around the "professionals" you talk about.

here

just so you know you're talking to 2 or 3 different people

>That's why the same engineers and studios consistently put out the best sounding material, even when the productions are vastly different.

How deluded are you? Yes you could argue this is all about "perfecting the craft" like a true artist. Or you could maybe also argue that the fact that "the same engineers and studios always put out the best sound" has a lot to do with them being major studios and engineers, like you said, and thus having a disproportionate amount of money for much better equipment, as compared to independent producers, to go around pushing buttons with. Your shit is obviously going to sound much better if you're working at say, Westlake or The Village, than producing jams with your 100 dollar equipment, you fucking retard, it's not quantifiable by "talent". I do respect your job and see its importance, but every single engineer I've ever met tells me exactly the same shit you're telling me now, thinking it will impress me but it just comes off as arrogant and annoying to everyone who actually know at least the bare minimum of the glossary of terms you're using.

>put out the best sounding material
Dude, you're working with other peoples music. If the music is shit, tweeking some audio settings won't make it magically sound great.
Also the majority of people wouldnt even notice the subtle changes made during mastering. People play their music on shitty earphones, crappy computer boxes, with extreme bass EQ and so on

Yeah audio "engineer" sure needs to know what he does and needs experience and know his tools, but same goes for bricklayers, cooks, ...

How do you get rappers to be on time for their session? Getting to come in not stoned is pretty much impossible.

>but same goes for bricklayers, cooks, ...

Exactly, except cooks at least know their fucking place when speaking to a chef

I don't think anyone is trying to impress you, but it sounds like you've got a bone to pick for some reason. It sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about, sorry.

It's not about the gear, it's about how you use it. A bass will sound marginally better through a UA610 than it will through an apogee duet. Unless you really know what you're doing, really know how to make it sing. Know how to balance the transformers, know when there's too much or too little tube saturation. Now multiply that by 1000x different processes, for each drum, voice, room, etc. That's what separates what you think you're talking about from an actual, qualified professional.

My guitar tones rock because I learned from the guy who recorded Satrianis biggest hits, and my metal tones hit hard because I learned those from the Melvins. And I could get those in small closet with $400 in mic and a $600 interface.

pls share some MELVINS tricks/tips?

I allow rappers to smoke for their sessions, although sometimes I make them smoke in their cars. Chances are they rap when they're high, so you shouldn't change what they're used to. I require downpayments ahead of time. I lose a lot of gigs from rappers that way, but fuck 'em. I don't give them extra time for being late.

Not disagreeing with any of this. When I engineer I always play either a producer role or a secondary producer role. I always seem to contribute musical ideas on every session. It's not a sit back and hit record kind of deal.

Mastering sometimes seems like witchcraft. The changes can be so subtle, but they can be super impactful and important. Remember, a mastering engineer is only there to enhance and prepare already well done mixes for distribution.

Half stacks
HIGH GAIN
all dynamic microphones
At least 2 mics
Sum all mics to a single channel, and work with it like it was one mic.

Not him, but both a downward expander and a subharmonic exciter will give you definition on your tracks in some cases without compression. I find myself using expanders constantly without fail on bad mixes where someone got too liberal with compression plugins.

I'm not OP, but I do a fair bit of session work from my home. Also, not the guy you replied to.

Forgot to add:
Use the single, best sounding cone
HIGH GAIN
3-4 inches off the cone
Use different mics

Does applying normalizing reduce the quality of the file? Or is it lossless?
For example, if i normalize a file like 5 times (not that this makes sense, just to make my point clear), will the file afterwards have lost some of its original data?
I noticed that after applying normalization, the file size is exactly the same, what actually surprised me.
I have some old recordings where i applied normalization, however i need to normalize them again to package them together with some newer songs.

It's hard to say because normalization is specific to different software. If you are saving your file to a lossless file type, like an MP3 you will MOST LIKELY be losing quality with each new print of it. That's because of the MP3 encoding though.

>its not about my million dolar equipment, it's how I use my million dolar equipment

Owning a yacht doesn't mean you know how to sail

this

i remember pirating the most expensive software yeeeeears ago (I actually segregated the plugins by price and downloaded them) but it was in vain because I couldn't produce master and shit, it was just selecting presets and thats not the manga way.

Same goes to synths

of course it's an advantage but in the core you need to know what you're doing to get optimum results

suggestions for best bang for the buck plugins suite for recording live instruments?

That's a stupid analogy, a proper one would be more like trying to cross 1000 miles on a canoe and coming across rich faggots on yachts telling you you're not a real sailor all day

You can get pro-quality results easily with a mid-range interface, a couple high-end mic-pres, a few SM57s, and a good vocal mic as long as your instruments and amps are good shelf. Especially nowadays when a 800$ 500 series 1073 clone is better than the original due to increased functionality and consistency.

Not him btw

Theoretically this should be true, but I've never heard anything close to this from the dozens of people that I know that have this kind of setup

Or in your case, a guy yelling from the shore at someone sailing that's they don't know what they're doing

I think slate digital makes the best plugins for mixing, and you can use them during tracking also. You'll want to demo it first, just to make sure that you won't get you much latency. Check out the virtual mix rack, virtual buss compressor and virtual tape machine