BiigNiick:I like:- overall kind of smooth and warm tone, - no boxiness featured in the mix,- deessing, very nice one!I don't like:- low end, just a touch too much or too much rounding (woolly) or both, transients lost their impact a bit,- verse to chorus transition lost impact,- a bit too much perceived highs on verses (perceived because the master is not the brightest, but there's likely a too deep dip in mid/hi-mid region making highs more pronounced), thus tambourine sounds quite unnatural that way - instruments sound too thin a bit (they lost some body)- vocals lost their body too, they're now a little too thin (compare them to the mix esp. on choruses),- solo instrument sections lost their snappyness a bit (again I suppose a little to much mids were cut).
Hermetech:I like:- the way you preserved the mix tone, especially vocals body and power, master sounds just bigger!- microdynamicsI don't like:- just a touch too boxy (maybe just -0.5dB in 500Hz or so region would likely be it)- wider image (M/S in action ?) than mix's one (already too wide imho due to vocs existent all over the place)
Art, thanks for all the great feedback! Lots of things on your don't like list were also on my don't like list too. Almost all of them were byproducts of fixing other things in the mix and were the lesser of two evils. the 's'-es on the vocals were one of the biggest struggles. although i think they were smoothed out well in my master, the casualties of that effort were the solo instrument snappiness (could have bypassed the deesser there maybe?) and the unnatural sounding tambourine. similar things with the smoothness and loosing impact/transients/body etc... lots of that can be personal preference. i think the window of acceptability is wide for most masters. in a perfect world i could fix everything! ;-P
Thanks for listening and commenting Art! Will have another play and see if a little dip in the lower mids helps things. Yes, I did increase the stereo width with M/S volume (I think it was -0.6 in the M channel), I thought it sounded OK so left it like that, but I can hear what you mean about it being too wide.
Great feedback Art.Appreciated the walk through and complete insight.
Nick, the 'don't like' list maybe just looks like there's lots of things in there, however I think that all of them were the outcome of more or less single decision. I am not sure if it's deesser thing, because it impacts rather high freqs, I would rather bet on mixture of tape and those -2dB @ 950Hz and -2 @ 3.7kHz cuts where the rest of the Wump pack have put more attention (I think that 950 is the important region for these vocals and 3.7k is in presence/snap area). I can see you also set 2s release on compression so it might be possible that compressors were in permanent GR state (btw. I noticed that some gear, even the most known/used one, is usually doing some GR (or modify signal envelope in some way) even if it's not indicated on VUs or display).We have just different taste and that's good. It could be pretty boring if everybody would response to the same flavor only.I am pretty sure many listeners would choose your master for the warm tone or tape sound even if some dynamics were impacted.My approach was different, as I am quite sensitive to acoustic instruments sound (and this was actually an acoustic piece) I focused on instruments tone and some strong points of the mix (like strong female voc, transitions, etc). I'm also moving toward less fixing but more focusing on good elements.To add more comment, personally I would not choose tape for this project. Tape affects signal envelope, on choruses attacks were already almost completely lost in original mix. Tambourine is pretty demanding for recording (I am always full of big respect to those who mastered acoustics instruments recording, it's and art on and of itself!) and playback equipment as it can have very short but strong attack (depending on instrument usage and artists playing style of course). Unfortunately such an attack was already tamed in the mix, so any smoothing (like that one from tape) actually brings more sustain/decay (and HF) part of tambourine sound and cause its further definition deterioration (well sometimes it is intended to place instrument somewhere in the back). Bringing HF content up could be also very tricky in this mix, not only because of 's'-es. If you focus on some mid/hi-mid ringing (existent in the mix) you might hear processing in action (like from compression on parts that triggered it) that was rendered to the file during mixdown and can be easily exposed more. I haven't reported it in my dislikes list as I wanted to stay away from obvious (and likely unfixable) mix issues in my opinion.In this mix tambourine was also mixed to be a little behind vocals. When one brings more HF he/she actually puts this instrument more in front (up to the point it may even sound distracting from the performance), changing the mix balance. There're also phase issues that add their own to the picture. So, any HF boosts bring such issues to the table, but in different increments. And that's why I did not play much with HF (well, at the expense of exposing other issues too- and it was actually good observation from you).Anyway, this was a difficult mix (but great performance). Lots of compromises to choose and/or to make, every single one has its own best context.
BiigNick: I have to get my hands on some cool Portico at some point. Thanks for the feedback..
Thanks, Art. I like your ideas and approach. Thinking about a mix and focusing on the strong points rather than focusing on what needs fixed (especially if unfixable) can be a more successful approach.
Nick, I think that 'successful' is pretty subjective . Tape smoothness is definitely in wow factors departement, it's great to quickly impress listeners. However there are some with pretty damn good sound memory and it's hard to cheat them and their sound image. It really depends who is actually encountered, who pays more attention to overall picture, who to details, and who to both matters. As usual- every case is different.
Btw. Just quick thought on Wump v2 for the future- listener type of participants, not doing mastering, but critically listening only . No settings, no approaches, no engaging, no bias, just pure impressions on listening. What do you think ?
