Soundblade Mastering
Ailene Goldhirsh
soundBlade LE is designed to make DDPs (CD) as well as generate full resolution master files that are then used in another audio file-conversion app to make MP3, AAC and other file formats for electronic music delivery. soundBlade LE assumes you have already processed your files (EQ, Comp, Limiter) to master level. soundBlade LE is also great for restoring mono or stereo files using optional NoNOISE options like Manual DeClick or Broadband DeNoise. What sB LE can not do is use plug-ins.
soundBlade is the professional digital audio mastering software benchmark. Proven with millions of commercial tracks for both CD and electronic music delivery such as iTunes, nothing sounds like soundBlade. In fact, it's like no other digital audio workstation (DAW). soundBlade's unique workflow is optimzed for the purpose of mastering, restoring and editing audio. soundBlade systems are used by the world's top mastering engineers everyday. They rely on soundBlade to produce fantastic masters. So should you.
In soundBlade, mixes have more depth, detail and a greater sense of presence than what you're used to hearing from any other DAW. That's because all soundBlade systems are based on the Sonic Studio Engine (SSE), our highly optimzed digital audio processing technology that eliminates barriers to great sound. And, that sonic improvement is embeded into your CDs, DDP or exported files.
One of the best Recording Studio Software you will find for your Mac. All soundBlade systems are based on the renowned Sonic Studio Engine (SSE) that has been used to create millions of grammy winning, smash hit commercial releases worldwide since 1992. soundBlade SE builds on Sonic's mastering legacy with a refined workflow and advanced real-time processing that has set the standard for professional engineers, record producers and major music companies for decades.
Anim pariatur cliche reprehenderit, enim eiusmod high life accusamus terry richardson ad squid. 3 wolf moon officia aute, non cupidatat skateboard dolor brunch. Food truck quinoa nesciunt laborum eiusmod. Brunch 3 wolf moon tempor, sunt aliqua put a bird on it squid single-origin coffee nulla assumenda shoreditch et. Nihil anim keffiyeh helvetica, craft beer labore wes anderson cred nesciunt sapiente ea proident. Ad vegan excepteur butcher vice lomo. Leggings occaecat craft beer farm-to-table, raw denim aesthetic synth nesciunt you probably haven't heard of them accusamus labore sustainable VHS.
Yesterday afternoon a friend and I made our way through 5:00 rush-hour traffic to attend a listening session arranged by David Glasser, at his Airshow mastering facility in the foothills outside of Boulder Colorado. Airshow used to be located in the city of Boulder, but last year David decided to build a brand new mastering room from scratch on his property, ten minutes outside of town.
After each A/B session listeners made comments. Most heard some differences between the MQA and original tracks, but in every case those differences were small and with some tracks over half the commenters felt the MQA track offered some improvements over the original masters in terms of listening ease and harmonic balance.
My takeaway from this listening session was that at its worst MQA is at least on a par with the original master. And in a less than ideal listening position the subtle differences between MQA and an original master were obscured to the point that I am not at all surprised that some audio journalists have not heard any improvements or differences between MQA and non-MQA files during group listening sessions conducted at shows using commercial recordings.
I grew up in Northern California. I played in bands, I worked in record stores and I also worked for the Avalon Ballroom, doing tickets and posters during that time. I had a friend who was working in a studio, and also a couple guys who were working out of the studio in San Mateo: David Rubinson, who's a big producer, and Fred Catero, who's a great engineer. They put on a series of seminars, where they just kind of told war stories, and talked about the process of doing it--not so much showing you how to do it. That got me real interested, so I just kept recording, working on stuff. I had done some recordings at a little studio at home, as part of my college education [laughs], the easy classes. And when I came back down here, I got a job at the same studio in San Mateo.
I was living in the same area here, so I knew all the guys. In fact, I'd gone to high school with Neil's wife, among other things, so we were old friends. They wanted to do some recording here on the ranch, and they needed one more guy as an assistant of sorts, so they called me up and said, "Would you like to do it?" And I said, "Well, of course." So I came down. That was the Shocking Pinks record.
I have a studio in Neil's old remote truck that I rebuilt about 15 years ago. It's strictly for doing tape restoration and analog-to-digital transfers. So it's all wired with the best cable. We paid a lot attention to the electrical system and the grounding, and power conditioning. It's really just to get it as simply and cleanly as possible from analog to digital.
We run Pro Tools as a safety. Occasionally there'll be a fix or something done in Pro Tools that we'll fly back into the analog. But primarily we run the Pro Tools so that we have a safety without having to run a second analog multitrack, which we used to do. We also can set up our rough mixes from it, so we don't have to play the tapes over and over and over again.
It's just very musical sounding, and it's real warm. It sounds great. The EQs, while they're very limited EQs because they were designed way back when, still sound great. Occasionally we may have to add an EQ in or something to do some corrective work, but by and large--and it's a lot of fun, just having those big, rotary knobs.
I use the Neve compressor [33609] and EQs [1073, 1081]. I think the Fairchild is real cool. And the Precision Multiband Compressor, I'm a big fan of that. Particularly in mastering, there are a lot of times when you just need to boost a frequency or suck out a frequency, but you can't afford to suck it out all the time, you know? So I really like the dynamic compressor, particularly with things that have been mixed at home. [Laughs.] They come in, and they don't exactly sound necessarily well balanced, tonally.
Veteran mastering engineer Herb Powers, Jr., a winner of numerous Grammy Awards and innumerable Platinum- and Gold-certified albums, trusts Metric Halo SpectraFoo sound analysis software, a Metric Halo ULN-2 A/D/A interface along with Metric Halo plug-ins to make it all happen.
His list of clients includes Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Nelly, Missy Elliott, Lauryn Hill, Salt-N-Pepa, Run DMC, Afrika Bambaataa, Outkast, Toni Braxton, Babyface, Puff Daddy, Jennifer Lopez, Pink, and countless others.
As a professional who has spent nearly four decades making music sound fantastic, Powers laments the industry shift towards compressed audio formats and its growing tolerance of clipping and distortion in the pursuit of volume. Nevertheless, he holds out hope that bandwidth will eventually allow consumers to enjoy the full fidelity of his work as he hears it in his studio.
Universal Audio asked producer Mike Winger and myself to come up with a band that we thought could showcase the power of the UAD-2, as well as the sound of their preamps. We put our heads together, and Mike suggested the band Cannons and Clouds. He had been working with them, and we thought that cutting them live in Broken Radio would be a great way to do that. We wanted a band that was up and coming, that we thought would appeal to a lot of people, and would be a good test case for the UAD-2 and the 710 preamps.
Yes. What you ultimately hear is two sets of vocals from each person. There's such consistency there from take to take that it's not readily obvious. The next day, we had even less time. We had to have the thing mixed by three o'clock, and have it over to mastering after that. There was no AutoTune on the vocals; there was no cutting and pasting of performances. We relied on the performances of the band, so you'll hear the tension and the fluctuation of the tempo a bit. I love that. I love the realism of that. It feels good to me; it doesn't feel like it's cut through a grid.
c80f0f1006