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Author Topic: Saving Mastering Sessions -noob alert  (Read 1888 times)

lsimy

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Saving Mastering Sessions -noob alert
« on: June 09, 2004, 12:29:10 PM »

Total noob here. I've been desiring to get an editing/mastering suite underway here in VA for a long time now. I've been editing audio for DC theaters over the last few years as well.

I'm all for a nice analog front-end to a DAW (Wavelab at the present). My question is two-fold:

1) If you have an analog front end, how will you be able to "save" sessions in case you must revisit them in the future ?? Perhaps there is no way around that unless you are entirely in the box. I also appreciate being able to rip from CD mixes and then go from there, versus out from a CD player into analog gear, then into the DAW. Any suggestions here ??

2) Being that a $5K to $10K eq is not in the cards just yet, can anyone recommend a nice stereo eq to get started with and that would be worth keeping ??

Many thanks for the help.
-Vinnie
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Vinnie @ Little Simy
Alexandria, VA

MASSIVE Mastering

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Re: Saving Mastering Sessions -noob alert
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2004, 01:44:26 PM »

You should probably be posting this in the mastering forum, but I digress...

Anyway, it all depends on "how serious" you want to get.  Alesis has a parametric that's cheap - A pair of Speck ASC's will run you less that $1,000.  That's a good route.  

There are a lot of reasonably inexpensive "vintage" units with a nice flavor to them out there also - Orban, Ashly, etc.

As far as saving sessions, we do it the same way it's been done from day one.  With a pencil and a diagram of the unit's face.  

Whatever you choose, make sure that you don't skimp on two things - Converters & monitoring.  You can have the greatest gear available, and it's all worthless if you can't hear it accurately.  
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John Scrip
Massive Mastering - Chicago (Schaumburg / Hoffman Est.), IL - USA

jfrigo

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Re: Saving Mastering Sessions -noob alert
« Reply #2 on: June 09, 2004, 03:15:14 PM »

lsimy wrote on Wed, 09 June 2004 09:29


1) If you have an analog front end, how will you be able to "save" sessions in case you must revisit them in the future ?? Perhaps there is no way around that unless you are entirely in the box. I also appreciate being able to rip from CD mixes and then go from there, versus out from a CD player into analog gear, then into the DAW. Any suggestions here ??

2) Being that a $5K to $10K eq is not in the cards just yet, can anyone recommend a nice stereo eq to get started with and that would be worth keeping ??


Second question first: you said under $5k, but didn't say how far under. If you can afford around $3K you can get a Millennia NSEQ-2 and that's a unit you won't have to replace later. Less than that and your best bet is to look for a used piece, but most things under $3k, though reasonable starters, you'll want to eventually move up from.

As for saving your work, take good notes. It's not much different from doing a mix recall in a studio with a console. Even rooms with fully resettable digital consoles have outboard gear that you need to take detailed notes about.

As for using digital sources, you'll need a good DAC to feed your analog chain (whether from CD or DAW etc.) in addition to another good DAC to monitor. I wouldn't trust the stock DACs in the typical gear to feed your chain. That becomes the weak link and you can't get back what's lost. The importance of conversion and monitoring has already been mentioned above, but I'll just reiterate it to make sure everybody was paying attention...

Also, remember that processing is only one part of mastering. There's a lot of important, though some would say boring, detail work that goes into it. Some people hang out a shingle that says "mastering" because they think it's an easy way to make a buck with their DAW without actually realizing what's involved. That helps neither the clients nor the aspiring engineer. At my website on the "tech talk" page there is some info about the unglamorous details of mastering in the 5th tech talk if you are interested.
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Re: Saving Mastering Sessions -noob alert
« Reply #3 on: June 09, 2004, 03:21:37 PM »

For a non recalling console, the digital camera is my friend!
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john1192

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Re: Saving Mastering Sessions -noob alert
« Reply #4 on: June 13, 2004, 02:06:47 PM »

how does the Avalon 2955 EQ stack up in the mastering sense ?

john
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