Jon D's 2 audio clips for our esteemed perusal
- From: "Chickenhead" <kuNOrtSPAMshapTHANKiro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:26:06 -0800
Hi Jon:
This is in response to a thread that Jon started on December 18 titled "2 audio clips for your esteemed perusal" I finally got around to playing with the unprocessed mp3 a little. I was curious how different it would sound if I took a whack at "mastering" it.
It would have sounded better if I'd had the actual .wav to work with rather than having to decode and re-encode the .mp3. Someday, or maybe next time .. . .
Here it is http://www.blacklabmusic.com/rmmgj/JohnDMoonlightChickenheadMix.mp3
If anyone needs it, here's the link to Jon's original "master" posted for our esteemed perusal ;-)
http://tinyurl.com/moonlightinvermont
So now we can A/B them.
It's not really a fair comparison: Because I had to do an extra mp3 decode and re-encode there's going to be a lot of fidelity loss.
Nonetheless, just for grins, I took your unprocessed (but converted) .mp3 of Moonlight you posted, dumped it into Reaper - thereby decoding it back into ..wav - and played with it a little. Then I exported and re-encoded to .mp3 to post it.
I just wanted to see how it was on your (Jon's) end. I had some of the same issues, which was getting the volume and fatness up without overcompressing the brushwork. Now that I've worked with and listened to the (nearly) unprocessed recording a little, I'm quite impressed with the mastering you (Jon) did.
I figure it's always good to get another set of ears on something. Plus, I'm not sure how my mixes are coming out, so I could use some critique myself. I have dips and holes at various frequencies in my hearing, and my home studio has resonances at certain frequencies -- It's not a properly tuned and dampened room. So, folks, lemme' have it . . . That'll help me figure out what some of my tendencies are.
"JonD" <delaney.jon@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:a3f6fd3b-fc8a-4df4-a9c7-8994b47eed2e@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Dec 20, 1:50 am, "Chickenhead"
<kuNOrtSPAMshapTHANK...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Jon:
Just listened to Moonlight. One of my all time fave tunes. Loved your
playing on it!
Sounds pretty good for a one mic deal.
I always have a little trouble with compression/limiting on brushwork, as it
tends to take out some of the subtlety and make it sound harsh. I'm
thinking that to get really excellent recordings from one mic or one stereo
mic, you need a super good room and very careful placement. I've never been
that happy with what I can do with that situation, since the mic's distance
can make things sound thin and distant, but compression and limiting can
introduce artifacts. My personal preference for this mix (Moonlight) would
be some adjustment and lessening of the compression to bring back some of
the dynamics of the brushwork and de-harsh the snare a little.
It's a little crispy in the high end, and something's causing a little phase
shifting on the double-bass -- It could be simply room sound or reverb being
intensified by compression, limiting, and/our loudness maximizing. It's
possible too that using both the limiting/compression in Ozone along with
Loudness Maximizer and other similar compression plug-in could be additively
increasing the compression artifacts.
Still I think the mixing/mastering sounds very good given the limitations of
one mic recording. What mic, device(s), settings, and signal chain, did you
use on the original tracking?
I'd love to hear the original, maybe normalized, before you did the
mastering, just for comparison purposes.
Again, your playing, actually everyone's playing, sounds wonderful. I have
nothing but praise for the performance and musicianship. My comments are
only directed towards the audio, and only for the purpose of providing the
feedback you asked for; I was specifically listening for things I'd want to
change in the audio in order to provide you with some useful feedback
instead of just unadulterated praise.
I've been slowly learning the hard way to use d less processing on my mixes
and masters -- With all the great tools available, it's very difficult not
to use them. I have terrible tendencies to overuse processing, especially
limiting and compression plug-ins. Also, my ear gets immune to it very
quickly and likes the amplitude increase, so I don't realize how much better
it sounds without it.
I also use a similar EQ cloning deal with the EQ for mastering: I use
Voxengo's Curve EQ and somewhat conform the master EQ curve to other
recordings. I have a few curves that I've saved that tend to work very
well. For example, I've got a curve I lifted from Sade's "Smooth Operator"
that tends to get at least partially applied to a lot of my stuff.
"JonD" <delaney....@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:603b2e3f-8d6c-48a1-b4ef-e0d89d79858e@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Hi,
> I was using these one mic stereo recordings I made back in March at a
> casual session to work on my mastering chops in Reaper, and throught I
> might post a couple. It was a pretty relaxed session, just playing a
> few tunes.
> Playing wise, it's not too awful. The things I really worry over
> listening back to these things are my time, and clarity of phrasing
> (sentence structure, I guess). At the time I was working on
> deliberately pulling the time around a bit - push and pull - and I
> think that sort of shows on Moonlight in Vermont. I like some of the
> phrasing on that too. I'd never played it at that tempo before.
> Not quite sure why I'm putting the rhythm changes up...it's flawed for
> sure but sort of fun, and short. I like hearing myself think a few
> times about playing that Metheny 5th's lick before it actually comes
> out in full. I think it's funny, but maybe it's not your kind of
> joke...
> Audio wise, I used Izotope Ozone with Reaper. There's some eq
> (graphically matched to "I hear a Rhapsody" from Jim Hall Live - cool
> feature!), compression/expansion on the low freq, reverb, stereo
> enhancement in the upper bands, and loudness maximizer. Took about 15
> mins.
> Still not so good with the audio processing game, but I'm starting to
> understand which things do what. Also not helping is the fact that I
> converted it from mp3 to edit, and then back again to upload...not
> ideal perhaps... Comments on playing or audio processing most
> welcome.
> Anyway, hope someone enjoys the tunes - and happy holidays to
> everyone!
>http://tinyurl.com/moonlightinvermont
>http://tinyurl.com/anthropology1
> Jon
Hey Kurt,
Thanks heaps for the detailed reply. I didn't have much time to
think about mic placement at the time, so yeah, it is an attempt to
make the best out of a less than ideal situation (also, both files
have been converted to mp3, then back to edit, and then again to
mp3). It was recorded to wav file on my Iriver 340 (with Rockbx
firmware installed) through a little battery powered sony mic. The
Iriver is great for casual recording, as it's the only mp3 player I've
seen that'll do 44100Hz uncompressed wav files from an external mic
(with rockbox installed). An hour takes up a gigabyte or more (I
think), but there's plenty of room. Anyway, here's the original (I
cut it down a little to save space). Let me know what you think.
http://tinyurl.com/moonlightinvermont2
Thanks also to everone who listened and commented. I do appreciate
it.
Jon
.
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