Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Comments
@Tarekith - all of your advice is spot on !!!
(...and I've mixed well over 500 albums)
Listen to the man ! - its the best info you guys can learn
Firstly those links are great news, now music that is brickwalled to within an inch of its life will actually be played back at a lower volume (comparatively), so you get no advantage and all the disadvantages of extreme limiting, brilliant!
But secondly this also does seem to make the K system more viable for mastering, since masters that comply to it will be more dynamic but comparatively quieter, but will simply be played louder to match -16 LUFS. It's a win all around.
Which formats does anyone master from and master to? .wav ?
any lossless will do, most common (depending on OS) either .wav or aiff
convenience matters a lot, say co-working with folks or send it to someone else etc
after all it's the same digital content
Thank you @Telefunky
I guessed those were the best formats as they were much bigger files! Needed confirmation.
I imagine SoundCloud and YouTube etc. then convert it for their purposes once uploaded.
YT probably leaves you some choice for encoding, but SC is in fact a specific version of mp3 at 128 kbit and THEY do the encoding in any case.
But you can upload a lossless version, which may be downloaded if that is enabled.
If streamed online, it's always in that 128 kbit mp3 mode.
Just in case: 'download enabled' may link your tracks to a lot of filesharing servers worldwide... you may appreciate that or not.
The SC encoder definitely smoothes out 'sharpness' in your tracks, kind of acoustic gaussian blur in image processing.
It's worth trying out as the results can be great, no need for that subtle 'vintage warmer' or fake tube stuff
Thanks again @Telefunky for some vital technical advice
It's this final hurdle where you can fall if done wrong, I think! The last master I sent to SoundCloud, I definitely heard a slight degradation on the version they streamed.
An interview from Steve Wilson regarding mastering -
https://www.digitaltrends.com/features/interview-steven-wilson-on-high-res-hand-cannot-erase/
"The simple answer is I don’t have any of my work mastered. It goes straight from my mixes — flat transfers onto the disc. And that applies to the mixes I do for the Yes reissues, the XTC reissues, the Jethro Tull reissues, and of course my own work too."
I wouldn't send a 'real' master to SC, but a slightly more 'biting' version and definitely not one at full loudness with 0dBfs.
Depends on content, acoustic stuff seems safe in the -0.5 dB range, but walls of sound may require even -1 to -2dB to avoid artifacts.
The 'smoothing effect' mentioned earlier was more meant for single tracks, like a remote processor. Imho it goes a bit farther than the 'standard' mp3 encoder.
(but I don't know much detail about specific encoders, this was an observation with an almost unpleasantly cutting microphone recording, that came quite nice in streaming)
gearslutz has a mastering forum and years and years of old threads with good info for anyone who wanted to get some diverse perspectives on the subject. Lot of good stuff if you poke around
Sure, there's certainly a bit more similarities between the two now. FWIW, Bob Katz is one of the driving forces behind the AES recommendation of mastering to -16 LUFS/ -1TP, so he's invested a lot of time in both standards.
@DefRobot I get sent files for mastering in all formats, but generally I prefer uncompressed wav or aif, and receive audio files at 24bit/44.1 or 24/48. Sometimes higher or lower, but that's the usual. Most of my masters are still delivered as 16/44.1 wav files, but of course any Mastering Engineer will be able to get you a different format if you ask.
Soundcloud does terrible things to audio, their MP3 conversion is one of the worst I've ever heard. Other than the social media aspects, I don't know why anyone would want to release their music there as the primary outlet. If you must use it, as mention be sure to upload an uncompressed file with roughly 1dB of headroom. Transcoding via Soundcloud just makes the issues even worse.
Thanks again for advice, it's vital for a newbie like me! I just uploaded an uncompressed .wav master to Soundcloud and it peaked at 3db!
Can't hear too many issues on playback so far...
Also, yes, the Gearslutz forum has some good stuff. I've had a trawl through there.
How were you measuring it peaking?
On the mix I sent to AudioShare, the master fader of Final Touch was peaking at 3db.
I could be wrong again here, is there a way of measuring my .wav file?
Just read through this whole thing in one go, and lots of really great advice in here....One thing I haven't noticed anyone suggest, apologies if you have and I missed it.
Start your mix in mono...this will make it harder for you to EQ as everything is on top of each other in the center of the mix...get your EQ's and compression done, then start panning.....
If you do this you will get better separation in frequencies between instruments....this will also ensure that your mix will work well on mono listening environments as well.......even better use mono when building your arrangement to help avoid the overlapping frequencies in the first place.
When making changes to anything, make sure you have the before and after levels the same and do A/B comparisons throughout. Higher volume will sound better to you...meaning you cannot properly assess if your change is effective or not. If your EQ reduces that tracks output then raise its level or compression to compensate.
There are plugins in the desktop world to do this, so far I haven't seen an equivalent on iOS.
I know it's on a PC, but Adobe Audition pretty handy in measuring a WAV file. Also, you can use iZotopes Ozone 7 pro vst to Master your WAV file(or UAD/Waves vst if you want)..... It's a shame Adobe never brought this software over to iOS. As it's a DAW also.
Thanks, I always wondered about mixing, mastering, and where K metering fits in. I look forward to checking your other links.
I found some pink noise generators in the App Store, but you happen to know of any with IAA?
I already have Auria with some PSP and Fabfilters. Maybe I already have one and don't know it ?
Thanks @studs1966
I live purely in the iOS domain. I gave up on PCs after my last laptop died years ago.
I revisited my mastering after forcing myself to watch multiple YouTube mastering videos yesterday.
I saw where the meter should be bouncing around at and how to set the limiter, so touch wood, I've made a better job and learnt a fair bit.
I'll be much the wiser producing my new song
Your welcome @DefRobot . I've had to go the other way to Master( I have had a few record labels wanting a few of my House tracks now, which is nice. But I've had to learn to Master also, now........ Also, where i was going to put them on our beloved Audio Bus S.O.T.M here, i have had to take them off Sound-cloud, because I'm under/signed a contract with them.) I've had glitch problems with Final Touch until Apple updated the IOS firmware. Final Touch is much better now. It's the nearest thing to iZotope Ozone VST. The A&R man(One of the labels) from ''Trax Records'', asked me to keep all the WAV file at -6, with no compression, & No Limiter at all. Also, had to send the WAV file via ''weTransfer'' & not Drop-box. ''weTransfer'' does not compress the file at all. With ''71rec'' label(one of the other labels), they wanted to use Drop-box. It was a right fucking pain the Arse, when i was Mastering the track. So i sent the track via ''weTansfer'' to there email address, & 'Boom!''.... it was excepted... All signed & finished with......... But the way i found was to go to -10 in the mix, the -6 at the Master level, then you can play around with Final Touch/iZotope, ect, to make it louder. This will give you plenty of Headroom. But on the Kick, make it Mono, when creating your track. It will help in the mix.
sidenote: Dropbox doesn't compress file transfers in any way. A .wav remains a .wav.
If someone saves the browser preview instead, he or she isn't qualified for the job
Model 15 makes a fine pink noise if you have it. Just choose the noise and filter template preset and change it to pink. There is also an app called "white noise" with all kinds of noise and natural sounds but you have to pay a few bucks for background audio. Free to try though
Why not buy RedShrike? It's IAA an AU and it has white, pink, blue, pitched, glitched and digital as choices in its noise generator. Blue noise!
@db909 Cool, i happen to already have model 15. Thanks for the suggestion @Moderndaycompiler.
Regarding recording levels when working ITB: It's known with 32 float you can't clip the individual channel, but since there is no noise, will recording at lows levels and then normalizing work just the same?
And also when working ITB with digital recordings during mixdown, do the FX require headroom? Or does it depend on whether said app has an input control? I tend to normalize my recordings to only -3db for allowing headroom for further processing, but honestly I'm not sure if it's necessary when working with ITB digital sounds.